Wolf's views on Homer. Wolf, however, pursued his studies | letter to the director, for which he was perhaps unjustly held in the university library, from which he borrowed with his old avidity, During 1779-1783 Wolf was a schoolmaster, first at Ilfeld, then at Osterode. His success as a teacher was striking, and he found time to publish an edition of the Symposium of Plato, which excited notice, and led to his promotion (1783) to a chair in the Prussian university of Halle. The moment was a critical one in the history of education. The literary impulse of the Renaissance was almost spent; scholarship had become dry and trivial. A new school, that of Locke and Rousseau, sought to make teaching more modern and more human, but at the sacrifice of mental discipline and scientific aim. Wolf was eager to throw himself into the contest on the side of antiquity. In Halle (1783-1807), by the force of his will and the enlightened aid of the ministers of Frederick the Great, he was able to carry out his long-cherished ideas and found the science of philology. Wolf defined philology broadly as "knowledge of human nature as exhibited in antiquity." The matter of such a science, he held, must be sought in the history and education of some highly cultivated nation, to be studied in written remains, works of art, and whatever else bears the stamp of national thought or skill. It has therefore to do with both history and language, but primarily as a science of interpretation, in which historical facts and linguistic facts take their place in an organic whole. Such was the ideal which Wolf had in his mind when he established the philological seminarium at Halle. Wolf's writings make little show in a library, and were always subordinate to his teaching. During his time at Halle he pub-music to Ibsen's Fest auf Solhaug, a few choral and instrumental lished his commentary on the Leptines of Demosthenes (1789)which suggested to his pupil, Aug. Boeckh, the Public Economy of Athens and a little later the celebrated Prolegomena to Homer (1795). This book, the work with which his name is chiefly associated, was thrown off in comparative haste to meet an immediate need. It has all the merits of a great piece of oral teaching-command of method, suggestiveness, breadth of view. The reader does not feel that he has to do with a theory, but with great ideas, which are left to bear fruit in his mind (see HOMER). The publication led to an unpleasant polemic with Heyne, who absurdly accused him of reproducing what he had heard from him at Göttingen.

The Halle professorship ended tragically, and with it the happy and productive period of Wolf's life. He was swept away, and his university with him, by the deluge of the French invasion. A painful gloom oppressed his remaining years (1807-1824), which he spent at Berlin. He became so fractious and intolerant as to alienate some of his warmest friends. He gained a place in the department of education, through the exertions of W. von Humboldt. When this became unendurable, he once more took a professorship. But he no longer taught with his old success; and he wrote very little. His most finished work, the Darstellung der Alterthumswissenschaft, though published at Berlin (1807), belongs essentially to the Halle time. At length his health gave way. He was advised to try the south of France. He got as far as Marseilles, and, dying there on the 8th of August 1824, was laid in the classic soil of that ancient Hellenic city.

Mark Pattison wrote an admirable sketch of Wolf's life and work in the North British Review of June 1865, reproduced in his Essays (1889); see also J. E. Sandys, Hist. of Class. Schol. iii. (1908), pp. 51-60. Wolf's Kleine Schriften were edited by G. Bernhardy (Halle, 1869). Works not included are the Prolegomena, the Lellers to Heyne (Berlin, 1797), the commentary on the Leptines (Halle, 1789) and a translation of the Clouds of Aristophanes (Berlin, 1811). To these must be added the Vorlesungen on Ihad i-iv., taken from the notes of a pupil and edited by Usteri (Bern, 1830). (D. B. M.)

WOLF, HUGO (1860-1903), German composer, was born on the 13th of March 1860 at Windischgraz in Styria. His father, who was in the leather trade, was a keen musician. From him Hugo learned the rudiments of the piano and the violin. After an unhappy school life, in which he showed little aptitude for anything but music, he went in 1875 to the Conservatoire. He appears to have learned very little there, and was dismissed in 1877 because of a practical joke in the form of a threatening

responsible. From the age of seventeen he had to depend upon himself for his musical training. By giving lessons on the piano and with occasional small help from his father he managed to live for several years in Vienna, but it was a life of extreme hardship and privation, for which his delicate constitution and his proud, sensitive and nervous temperament were particularly ill-suited. In 1884 he became musical critic to the Salonblatt, a Viennese society paper, and contrived by his uncompromisingly trenchant and sarcastic style to win a notoriety which was not helpful to his future prospects. His ardent discipleship of Wagner was unfortunately linked with a bitter opposition to Brahms, for whose works he always retained an ineradicable dislike. The publication at the end of 1887 of twelve of his songs seems to have definitely decided the course of his genius, for about this time he retired from the Salonblall, and resolved to devote his whole energies to song-composition. The nine years which followed practically represent his life as a composer. They were marked by periods of feverish creative activity, alternating with periods of mental and physical exhaustion, during which he was sometimes unable even to bear the sound of music. By the end of 1891 he had composed the bulk of his works, on which his fame chiefly rests, 43 Mörike Lieder, 20 Eichendorff Lieder, 51 Goethe Lieder, 44 Lieder from Geibel and Heyse's Spanisches Liederspiel, and 22 from Heyse's Italienisches Liederbuch, a second part consisting of 24 songs being added in 1896. Besides these were 13 settings of lyrics by different authors, incidental works, an opera in four acts, Der Corregidor, successfully produced at Mannheim in June 1896, and finally settings of three sonnets by Michelangelo in March 1897. In September of this year the malady which had long threatened descended upon him; he was placed in an asylum, released in the following January, only to be immured again some months later by his own wish, after an attempt to drown himself in the Traunsee. Four painful years elapsed before his death on the 22nd of February 1903. Apart from his works and the tragedy of his last years there is little in Wolf's life to distinguish it from that of other struggling and unsuccessful musicians. His touchy and difficult temperament perpetually stood in the way of worldly success. What little he obtained was due to the persevering efforts of a small band of friends, critics and singers, to make his songs known, to the support of the Vienna Wagner-Verein, and to the formation in 1895 of the Hugo-Wolf-Verein in Berlin. No doubt it was also a good thing for his reputation that the firm of Schott undertook in 1891 the publication of his songs, but the financial result after five years amounted to 85 marks 35 pfennigs (about £4, 10s.). He lived in cheap lodgings till in 1896 the generosity of his friends provided him with a house of his own, which he enjoyed for one year.

Among the song composers who have adopted the modern standpoint, according to which accepted canons of beauty and of form must yield if they interfere with a closer or more vivid realization of dramatic or emotional expression, Wolf holds a place in which he has no rival, not because of the daring originality of his methods and the remarkable idiosyncrasies of his style, but because these are the direct outcome of rare poetical insight and imaginative power. He has that gift of vision which makes the difference between genius and talent. His frequent adoption of a type of song built upon a single phrase or leit-motiv in the accompaniment has led to the misleading statement that his work represents merely the transference of Wagnerian principles to song. In reality the forms of Wolf's songs vary as widely as those of the poems which he set. No less remarkable is the immense range of style at his command. But with Wolf methods of form and style are so inseparably linked with the poetical conceptions which they embody, that they can hardly be considered apart. His place among the greatest song-writers is due to the essential truth and originality of his creations, and to the vivid intensity with which he has presented them. These results depend not merely on musical gifts that are exceptional, but also upon a critical grasp of poetry of the highest order.

No other composer has exhibited so scrupulous a reverence for |
the poems which he set. To displace an accent was for him as
heinous an act of sacrilege as to misinterpret a conception or to
ignore an essential suggestion. Fineness of declamation has
never reached a higher point than in Wolf's songs. Emphasis
should also be laid upon the objective and dramatic attitude of
his mind. He preferred to make himself the mouthpiece of the
poetry rather than to use his art for purposes of self-revelation,
avoiding for his songs the works of those whom with healthy
scorn he termed the Ich-Poeten. Hence the men and women
characterized in his songs are living realities, forming a veritable
portrait gallery, of which the figures, though unmistakably the
work of a single hand, yet maintain their own separate identity.
These statements can be verified as well by a reference to the
simpler and more melodious of his songs, as to those which are
of extreme elaboration and difficulty. Among the former may
be named Das verlassene Mägdlein in der Frühe and Der Gärtner
(Mörike), Verschwiegene Liebe and Der Musikant (Eichendorff),
Anakreons Grab (Goethe), Alle gingen, Herz, zur Ruh' and Herz,
was fragst (Spanisches Liederspiel), Nos. 1 and 4 of the Italienisches
Liederbuch, and among the latter Aeolsharfe and Der Feuerreiter
(Mörike), Ganymed and Prometheus (Goethe). (W. A. J. F.)
WOLF, JOSEPH (1820-1899), Anglo-German artist, the son
of a German farmer, was born in 1820 at Münstermaifeld, on the
river Moselle, in the Rhine Province. In his boyhood he was an
assiduous student of bird and animal life, and showed a remark-
able capacity as a draughtsman of natural history subjects. His
powers were first recognized by Professor Schlegel of the Leiden
museum, who gave him employment as an illustrator. In 1848
he settled in London, where he remained till his death on the
20th of April 1899. He made many drawings for the Zoological
Society, and a very large number of illustrations for books on
natural history and on travel in various countries; but he also
won a considerable success as a painter.

See A. H. Palmer, The Life of Joseph Wolf (London, 1895).
WOLF (Canis lupus), the common English name for any wild
member of the typical section of the genus Canis (see CARNIVORA).
Excluding some varieties of domestic dogs, wolves are the largest
members of the genus, and have a wide geographical range,
extending over nearly the whole of Europe and Asia, and North
America from Greenland to Mexico, but are not found in South
America or Africa, where they are replaced by other members
of the family. They present great diversities of size, length
and thickness of fur, and coloration, although resembling each
other in all important structural characters. These differences
have given rise to a supposed multiplicity of species, expressed
by the names C. Lycaon (Central Europe), C. laniger and C. niger
(Tibet), the C. occidentalis, C. nubilus, C. mexicanus, &c., of
North America, and the great blackish-brown Alaskan C.
pambasileus, the largest of them all. But it is doubtful whether
these should be regarded as more than local varieties. In North
America there is a second distinct smaller species, called the
coyote or prairie-wolf (Canis latrans), and perhaps the Japanese
wolf (C. hodophylax) may be distinct, although, except for its
smaller size and shorter legs, it is scarcely distinguishable from
the common species. The wolf enters the N.W. corner of India,
but in the peninsula is replaced by the more jackal-like C. pallipes,
which is probably a member of the jackal group, and not a wolf
at all.

The ordinary colour of the wolf is yellowish or fulvous grey, but almost pure white and entirely black wolves are known. In northern countries the fur is longer and thicker, and the animal generally larger and more powerful than in the southern portion of its range. Its habits are similar everywhere and it is still, and has been from time immemorial, especially known to man in all the countries it inhabits as the devastator of sheep flocks. Wolves do not catch their prey by lying in ambush, or stealing up close and making a sudden spring, but by fairly running it down in open chase, which their speed and remarkable endurance enable them to do. Except during summer when the young families of cubs are being separately provided for by their parents, they assemble in troops or packs, often in relays, and by their

combined and persevering efforts are able to overpower and kil deer, antelopes and wounded animals of all sizes. It is singular that such closely allied species as the domestic dog and the Arctic fox are among the favourite prey of wolves, and, as is well known, children and even full-grown people are not infrequently the objects of their attack when pressed by hunger. Notwithstanding the proverbial ferocity of the wolf in a wild state, many instances are recorded of animals taken when quite young becoming tame and attached to the person who has brought them up, when they exhibit many of the ways of a dog. They can, however, rarely be trusted by strangers.

The history of the wolf in the British Isles, and its gradual extirpation, has been thoroughly investigated by Mr J. E. Harting in his work on Extinct British Animals, from which the following account is abridged. To judge by the osteological remains which the researches of geologists have brought to light, there was perhaps scarcely a county in England or Wales in which, at one time or another, wolves did not abound, while in Scotland and Ireland they must have been still more numerous. The fossil remains which have been discovered in Britain are not larger than, nor in any way to be distinguished from, the corresponding bones and teeth of European wolves of the present day. Wolf-hunting was a favourite pursuit of the ancient Britons as well as of the Anglo-Saxons. In Athelstan's reign these animals abounded to such an extent in Yorkshire that a retreat was built by one Acehorn, at Flixton, near Filey, wherein travellers might seek refuge if attacked by them. As is well known, great efforts were made by King Edgar to reduce the number of wolves in the country, but, notwithstanding the annual tribute of 300 skins paid to him during several years by the king of Wales, he was not altogether so successful as has been commonly imagined. In the reign of Henry III. wolves were sufficiently numerous in some parts of the country to induce the king to make grants of land to various individuals upon the express condition of their taking measures to destroy these animals wherever they could be found. In Edward II.'s time, the king's forest of the Peak, in Derbyshire, is especially mentioned as infested with wolves, and it was not until the reign of Henry VII. (1485-1509) that wolves appear to have become finally extinct in England. This, however, is rather a matter of inference from the cessation of all mention of them in local records than from any definite evidence of their extirpation. Their last retreat was probably in the desolate wolds of Yorkshire. In Scotland, as might be supposed from the nature of the country, the wolf maintained its hold for a much longer period. There is a well-known story of the last of the race being killed by Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel in 1680, but there is evidence of wolves having survived in Sutherlandshire and other parts into the following century (perhaps as late as 1743), though the date of their final extinction cannot be accurately fixed. In Ireland, in Cromwell's time, wolves were particularly troublesome, and said to be increas ing in numbers, so that special measures were taken for their destruction, such as the offering of large rewards for their heads, and the prohibition (in 1652) of the exportation of "wolf-dogs," the large dogs used for hunting the wolves. The active measures taken then and later reduced their numbers greatly, so that towards the end of the century they became scarce, but, as in the case of the sister island, the date of their final disappearance cannot now be ascertained. It has been placed, upon the evidence of somewhat doubtful traditions, as late as 1766.

able to clear themselves of these formidable and destructive animals,
It is owing to their position that the British Islands have been
for France, with no natural barriers to prevent their incursions from
the continent to the cast, is liable every winter to visits from numbers
of these animals.
(W. H. F.; R. L.")

WOLFDIETRICH, German hero of romance. The tale of Wolfdietrich is connected with the Merovingian princes, Theodoric and Theodebert, son and grandson of Clovis; but in the Middle High German poems of Ortnit and Wolfdietrich in the Heldenbuch (q.v.) Wolfdietrich is the son of Hugdietrich, emperor of Constantinople. Repudiated and exposed by his father, the child was spared by the wolves of the forest, and was educated by the faithful Berchtung of Meran. The account of his parents and their wooing, however, differs in various texts. After the emperor's death Wolfdietrich was driven from his inheritance by his brothers at the instigation of the traitor Sabene. Berchtung and his sixteen sons stood by Wolfdietrich. Six of these were slain and the other ten imprisoned. It was only after long exile in Lombardy at the court of King Ortnit that the hero returned to deliver the captives and regain his kingdom. Wolfdietrich's exile and return suggested a parallel with the history of Dietrich of Bern, with whom he was often actually identified; and the Mentors of the two heroes, Hildebrand and Berchtung, are cast in the same mould. Presently features of the

Wolfdietrich legend were transferred to the Dietrich cycle, and in | N. America as a brigadier-general in the Louisburg expedition the Anhang to the Heldenbuch it is stated in despite of all historical considerations that Wolfdietrich was the grandfather of the Veronese hero. Among the exploits of Wolfdietrich was the slaughter of the dragon which had slain Ortnit (q.v.). He thus took the place of Hardheri, one of the mythical Hartung brothers, the original hero of this feat. The myth attached itself to the family of Clovis, around which epic tradition rapidly gathered. Hugdietrich is generally considered to be the epic counterpart of Theodoric (Dietrich), eldest son of Clovis. The prefix was the barbarian equivalent of Frank,' and was employed to distinguish him from Theodoric the Goth. After his father's death he divided the kingdom with his brothers. Wolfdietrich represents his son Theodebert (d. 548), whose succession was disputed by his uncles, but was secured by the loyalty of the Frankish nobles. But father and son are merged by a process of epic fusion in Wolfdietrich. The rape of Sydrat, daughter of the heathen Walgunt of Salnecke, by Hugdietrich disguised as a woman, is typical of the tales of the wooing of heathen princesses made fashionable by the Crusades, and was probably extraneous to the original legend. It may, however, also be put on a semihistorical basis by adopting the suggestion of C. Voretzsch (Epische Studien I. Die Comp. des Huon von Bordeaux, Halle 1900), that Wolfdietrich is far more closely connected with Theodoric than Theodebert, and that Hugdietrich, therefore, stands for Clovis, the hero, in the Merovingian historians, of a well-known Brautfahrtsaga.

under Amherst and Boscawen. The landing was effected in the face of strenuous opposition, Wolfe leading the foremost troops. On the 27th of July the place surrendered after an obstinate defence; during the siege Wolfe had had charge of a most important section of the attack, and on his lines the fiercest fighting took place. Soon afterwards he returned to England to recruit his shattered health, but on learning that Pitt desired him to continue in America he at once offered to return. It was now that the famous expedition against Quebec was decided upon, Wolfe to be in command, with the local rank of major-general. In a brief holiday before his departure he met at Bath Miss Lowther, to whom he became engaged. Very shortly afterwards he sailed, and on the 1st of June 1759 the Quebec expedition sailed from Louisburg (see QUEBEC). After wearisome and disheartening failures, embittered by the pain of an internal disease, Wolfe crowned his work by the decisive victory on the Plains of Abraham (13th of September 1759) by which the French permanently lost Quebec. Twice wounded earlier in the fight, he had refused to leave the field, and a third bullet passing through his lungs inflicted a mortal injury. While he was lying in a swoon some one near him exclaimed, "They run; see how they run!" "Who run?" demanded Wolfe, as one roused from sleep. "The enemy," was the answer; "they give way everywhere." Wolfe rallied for a moment, gave a last order for cutting off the retreat, and murmuring, "Now God be praised, I will die in peace,' breathed his last. On the battle-ground a tall column bears the words, "Here died Wolfe victorious on the 13th of September 1759." In the governor's garden, in Quebec, there is also a monument to the memory of Wolfe and his gallant opponent Montcalm, who survived him only a few hours, with the inscripWOLFE, CHARLES (1791-1823), Irish poet, son of Theobald tion "Wolfe and Montcalm. Mortem virtus communem, famam Wolfe of Blackhall, Co. Kildare, was born on the 14th of | historia, monumentum posteritas dedit." In Westminster Abbey December 1791. He was educated at English schools and at a public memorial to Wolfe was unveiled on the 4th of October Trinity College, Dublin, where he matriculated in 1809 and 1773. graduated in 1814. He was ordained priest in 1817, and obtained the curacy of Ballyclog, Co. Tyrone, which he shortly exchanged for that of Donoughmore in the same county. He died at Cork on the 21st of February 1823 in his thirty-second year. Wolfe was well known as a poet in Trinity College circles. He is remembered, however, solely by his stirring stanzas on the "Burial of Sir John Moore," written in 1816 in the rooms of Samuel O'Sullivan, a college friend, and printed in the Newry Telegraph.

Ortnit and Wolfdistrich have been edited by Dr J. L. Edlen von Lindhausen (Tübingen, 1906). G. Sarrazin, in Zeitschr. für deutsche Phil. (1896), compared the legend of Wolfdietrich with the history of Gundovald, as given by Gregory of Tours in books vi. and vii. of his

Hist. Francorum.

See John Russell, Remains of the Rev. Charles Wolfe (2 vols., 1825: 4th ed., 1829), and a correspondence in Notes and Queries, 8th series, vol. viii. pp. 145, 178, 235, 253, 331 and 418.

WOLFE, JAMES (1727-1759), British general, the hero of Quebec, was born at Westerham in Kent on the 2nd of January 1727. At an early age he accompanied his father, Colonel (afterwards Lieutenant-General) Edward Wolfe, one of Marlborough's veterans, to the Carthagena expedition, and in 1741 his ardent desire for a military career was gratified by his appointment to an ensigncy. At the age of fifteen he proceeded with the 12th Foot (now Suffolk Regiment) to the Rhine Campaign, and at Dettingen he distinguished himself so much as acting adjutant that he was made lieutenant. In 1744 he received a company in Barrel's regiment (now the 4th King's Own). In the Scottish rising of the "Forty-five" he was employed as a brigade-major. He was present at Hawley's defeat at Falkirk, and at Culloden. With his old regiment, the 12th, Wolfe served in the Flanders campaigns of the duke of Cumberland, and at Val (Lauffeld) won by his valour the commendation of the duke. Promotion followed in 1749 to a majority, and in 1750 to the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 20th, with which he served in Scotland. Some years later he spent six months in Paris. When war broke out afresh in 1757 he served as a staff officer in the unfortunate Rochefort expedition, but his prospects were not affected by the failure, for had his advice been taken the result might well have been different. Next year he was sent to 1" Hugo Theodoricus iste dicitur, id est Francus, quia olim omnes Franci Hugones vocabantur.... "Annales Quedlinburg. (Pertz Script. iii. 420.)

See R. Wright, Life of Major-General James Wolfe (London, 1864); F. Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe (London, 1884); Twelve British Soldiers (London, 1899); General Wolfe's Instructions to Young Officers (1768-1780); Beckles Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe (1909); and A. G. Bradley, Wolfe (1895).

WOLFENBÜTTEL, a town of Germany, in the duchy of Brunswick, situated on both banks of the Oker, 7 m. S. of Brunswick on the railway to Harzburg. Pop. (1905) 19,083. Lessing was ducal librarian here, and the old library building, designed in 1723 in imitation of the Pantheon at Rome, contains a marble statue of him. The library, including 300,000 printed books and 10,000 MSS., was, however, transferred to a large and new Renaissance edifice in 1887. It is especially rich in Bibles, incunabula and books of the early Reformation period, and contains some fragments of the Gothic bible of Ulfilas. Opposite the old library is the palace, now occupied by a seminary. The ducal burial-vault is in the church of St Mary.

A castle is said to have been founded on the site of Wolfenbüttel by a margrave of Meissen about 1046. When this began in 1267 to be the residence of the early Brunswick or Wolfenbüttel line of counts, a town gradually grew up around it. In 1542 it was taken by the Saxons and Hessians, who, however, evacuated it five years later after the battle of Mühlberg. In the Thirty Years' War, in June 1641, the Swedes, under Wrangel and Königsmark, defeated the Austrians under the archduke Leopold at Wolfenbüttel. The town passed wholly into the possession of the Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel family in 1671, and for nearly one hundred years enjoyed the distinction of being the ducal capital. In 1754, however, Duke Charles transferred the ducal residence to Brunswick.

See Voges, Erzählungen aus der Geschichte der Stadt Wolfenbüttel (Wolfenbüttel, 1882); von Heinemann, Die herzogliche Bibliothek zu Wolfenbüttel (2nd ed., Wolfenbüttel, 1894). For the "Wolfenbüttel fragments" see LESSING and REIMARUS.

WOLFF, CASPAR FRIEDRICH (1733-1794), German anatomist and physiologist, justly reckoned the founder of modern embryology, was born in 1733 at Berlin, where he studied anatomy and physiology under the elder J. F. Meckel. He

graduated in medicine at Halle in 1759, his thesis being his famous | ness of insight, and the aridity of its neo-scholastic formalism, which Theoria generationis. After serving as a surgeon in the Seven Years' War, he wished to lecture on anatomy and physiology in Berlin, but being refused permission he accepted a call from the empress Catharine to become professor of those subjects at the academy of St Petersburg, and acted in this capacity until his death there in 1794.

He published several Journals of his expeditions, especially Travels and Adventures of Joseph Wolff (2 vols., London, 1860).

In the same year he was given the rectory of Linthwaite in | castle of the Wartburg. We know by his own statement that he Yorkshire. In 1843 he went to Bokhara to seek two British was a Bavarian, and came of a knightly race, counting his achieveofficers, Lieut.-Colonel C. Stoddart and Captain A. Conolly, ments with spear and shield far above his poetical gifts. The and narrowly escaped the death that had overtaken them; his Eschenbach from which he derived his name was most probNarrative of this mission went through seven editions between ably Ober-Eschenbach, not far from Pleinfeld and Nuremberg; 1845 and 1852. In 1845 he was presented to the vicarage of there is no doubt that this was the place of his burial, and so late Ile Brewers, Somerset, and was planning another great missionary as the 17th century his tomb was to be seen in the church of tour when he died on the 2nd of May 1862. Ober-Eschenbach, which was then the burial place of the Teutonic knights. Wolfram probably belonged to the small nobility, for he alludes to men of importance, such as the counts of Abenberg, and of Wertheim, as if he had been in their service. Certainly he was a poor man, for he makes frequent and jesting allusions to his poverty. Bartsch concludes that he was a younger son, and that while the family scat was at Eschenbach, Wolfram's home was the insignificant estate of Wildenburg (to which he alludes), now the village of Wehlenberg. Wolfram seems to have disdained all literary accomplishments, and in fact insists on his unlettered condition both in Parzival and in Willehalm. But this is somewhat perplexing, for these poems are beyond all doubt renderings of French originals. Were the poems read to him, and did he dictate his translation to a scribe? The date of Wolfram's death is uncertain. We know that he was alive in 1216, as in Willchalm he laments the death of the Landgrave Herrmann, which took place in that year, but how long he survived his friend and patron we do not know.

His son, SIR HENRY DRUMMOND WOLFF (1830-1908), was a well-known English diplomatist and Conservative politician, who started as a clerk in the foreign office and was created K.C.M.G. in 1862 for various services abroad. In 1874-1880 he sat in parliament for Christchurch, and in 1880-1885 for Portsmouth, being one of the group known as the "Fourth Party." In 1885 he went on a special mission to Constantinople in connexion with the Egyptian question, and as the result various awkward difficulties, hinging on the sultan's suzerainty, were got over. In 1888 he was sent as minister to Teheran, and from 1892 to 1900 was ambassador at Madrid. He died on the 11th of October 1908. Sir Henry was a notable raconteur, and he did good service to the Conservative party by helping to found the Primrose League. He was created G.C.M.G. in 1878 and G.C.B. in 1889.

WOLFRAMITE, or WOLFRAM, a mineral consisting of ironmanganese tungstate, (Fe, Mn)WO4. The name is of doubtful origin, but it has been assumed that it is derived from the German Wolf and Rahm (froth), corresponding with the spuma lupi of old writers, a term hardly appropriate, however, to the mineral in question. Wolframite crystallizes in the monoclinic system, with approximation to an orthorhombic type; and the crystals offer perfect pinacoidal cleavage. The colour of wolframite is generally dark brownish-black, the lustre metallic or adamantine, the hardness 5 to 5.5, and the specific gravity 7.1 to 7.5. Wolframite may be regarded as an isomorphous mixture, in variable ratio, of iron and manganese tungstates, sometimes with a small proportion of niobic and tantalic acids. It was in wolframite that the metal tungsten was first recognized in 1785 by two brothers, J. J. and F. d'Elhuyar. At the present time the mineral is used in the manufacture of tungsten-steel and in the preparation of certain tungstates.

Wolframite is commonly associated with tin-ores, as in many parts of Cornwall, Saxony and Bohemia. In consequence of the two minerals, cassiterite and wolframite, having nearly the same density, their separation becomes difficult by the ordinary processes of oredressing, but may be effected by means of magnetic separators, the wolframite being attracted by powerful magnets. A process introduced many years ago by R. Oxland consisted in roasting the mixed ore with carbonate of soda, when the wolfram was converted into sodium tungstate, which was easily removed as a soluble salt. Wolframite occurs at many localities in the United States, notably at Trumbull, Conn., where it has been mined, and at Monroe, Conn., where it accompanies bismuth ores. Other localities are in Mecklenburg county, N.C., and in the Mammoth mining district, Nevada. Wolframite has in some cases resulted from the alteration of scheelite (q.v.), though on the contrary pseudomorphs are known in which scheelite has taken the form of wolframite. By oxidation wolframite may become encrusted with tungstic ochre, or tungstite, sometimes known as wolframine, a name to be carefully distinguished from

wolframite.

As the relative proportions of iron and manganese vary in wolframite, the composition tends towards that of other minerals. Thus there is a manganous tungstate (MnWO.) known as hübnerite, a name given by E. N. Riotte, in 1865, in compliment to Adolph Hübner, a Saxon mineralogist. There is also a mineral which contains little more than ferrous tungstate (FeWO.), and is known as ferberite, having been named by A. Breithaupt in 1863 after Rudolph Ferber. The original hübnerite came from the Mammoth district, Nevada, and the ferberite from the Sierra Almagrera in Spain. It is possible that such minerals may represent the extreme terms in the series formed by the varieties of wolframite.

(F. W. R.*) WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH, the most important and individual poet of medieval Germany, flourished during the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century. He was one of the brilliant group of Minnesingers whom the Landgrave Herrmann of Thuringia gathered round him at the historic

Wolfram von Eschenbach lives in, and is revealed by, his work, which shows him to have been a man of remarkable force and personality. He has left two long epic poems, Parzival and Willehalm (the latter a translation of the French chanson de geste Aliscans), certain fragments, Titurel (apparently intended as an introduction to the Parzival), and a group of lyrical poems, Wächter-Lieder. These last derive their name from the fact that they record the feelings of lovers who, having passed the night in each other's company, are called to separate by the cry of the watchman, heralding the dawn. These Tage Lieder, or Wächter Lieder, are a feature of Old German folk-poetry, of which Wagner has preserved the tradition in the warning cry of Brangaene in the second act of Tristan. But the principal interest of Wolfram's work lies in his Parzival, immeasurably the finest and most spiritual rendering of the Perceval-Grail

story.

The problem of the source of the Parzival is the crux of medieval literary criticism (see PERCEVAL). These are the leading points. The poem is divided into sixteen books. From iii. to xii., inclusive, the story marches pari passu with the Perceval, of Chrétien de Troyes, at one moment agreeing almost literally with the French text, at the next introducing details quite unknown to it. Books i. and ii., unrepresented in Chrétien, relate the fortunes of the hero's father, and connect the story closely with the house of Anjou; the four concluding books agree with the commencement, and further connect the Grail story with that of the Swan Knight, for the first time identifying that hero with Parzival's son, a version followed by the later German romance of Lohengrin. At the conclusion Wolfram definitely blames Chrétien for having mistold the tale, while a certain Kiot, the Provençal (whom he has before named as his source), had told it aright from beginning to end. Other peculiarities of this version are the representation of the Grail itself as a stone, and of the inhabitants of the castle as an ordered knighthood, Templeisen; the numerous allusions to, and evident familiarity with, Oriental learning in its various branches; and above all, the connecting thread of ethical interpretation which runs through the whole poem: The Parzival is a soul-drama; the conflict between light and darkness, faith and doubt, is its theme, and the evolution of the hero's character is steadily and consistently worked out. The teaching is of a character strangely at variance with the other romances of the cycle. Instead of an asceticism, based upon a fundamentally low and degrading view of women, Wolfram upholds a sane and healthy morality; chastity, rather than celibacy, is his ideal, and a loyal observance of the marriage bond is in his eyes the highest virtue. Not retirement from the world, but fulfilment of duty in the world,