Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition | Page 9

with
the rank of corporal on the 8th of March 1822. He obtained a minor
post in the civil service under the liberal government, and on his
discharge determined to earn his living by writing for the stage. His

first piece, Á la vejez viruelas, was produced on the 14th of October
1824, and proved the writer to be the legitimate successor of the
younger Moratin. His industry was astonishing: between October 1824
and November 1828, he composed thirty-nine plays, six of them
original, the rest being translations or recasts of classic masterpieces. In
1831 he published a translation of Tibullus, and acquired by it an
unmerited reputation for scholarship which secured for him an
appointment as sub-librarian at the national library. But the theatre
claimed him for its own, and with the exception of Elena and a few
other pieces in the fashionable romantic vein, his plays were a long
series of successes. His only serious check occurred in 1840; the former
liberal had grown conservative with age, and in La Ponchada he
ridiculed the National Guard. He was dismissed from the national
library, and for a short time was so unpopular that he seriously thought
of emigrating to America; but the storm blew over, and within two
years Bretón de los Herreros had regained his supremacy on the stage.
He became secretary to the Spanish Academy, quarrelled with his
fellow-members, and died at Madrid on the 8th of November 1873. He
is the author of some three hundred and sixty original plays,
twenty-three of which are in prose. No Spanish dramatist of the
nineteenth century approaches him in comic power, in festive invention,
and in the humorous presentation of character, while his metrical
dexterity is unique. Marcela o a cual de los trés? (1831), Muérete; y
verás! (1837) and La Escuela del matrimonio (1852) still hold the stage,
and are likely to hold it so long as Spanish is spoken.
See Marqués de Molíns, Bretón de los Herreros, recuerdos de su vida y
de sus obras (Madrid, 1883); Obras de Bretón de Herreros (5 vols.,
Madrid, 1883); E. Piñeyro, El Romanticismo en España (Paris, 1904).
(J. F.-K.)
BRETSCHNEIDER, KARL GOTTLIEB (1776-1848), German scholar
and theologian, was born at Gersdorf in Saxony. In 1794 he entered the
university of Leipzig, where he studied theology for four years. After
some years of hesitation he resolved to be ordained, and in 1802 he
passed with great distinction the examination for candidatus theologiae,

and attracted the regard of F.V. Reinhard, author of the System der
christlichen Moral (1788-1815), then court-preacher at Dresden, who
became his warm friend and patron during the remainder of his life. In
1804-1806 Bretschneider was Privat-docent at the university of
Wittenberg, where he lectured on philosophy and theology. During this
time he wrote his work on the development of dogma, Systematische
Entwickelung aller in der Dogmatik vorkommenden Begriffe nach den
symbolischen Schriften der evangelisch-lutherischen und reformirten
Kirche (1805, 4th ed. 1841), which was followed by others, including
an edition of Ecclesiasticus with a Latin commentary. On the advance
of the French army under Napoleon into Prussia, he determined to
leave Wittenberg and abandon his university career. Through the good
offices of Reinhard, he became pastor of Schneeberg in Saxony (1807).
In 1808 he was promoted to the office of superintendent of the church
of Annaberg, in which capacity he had to decide, in accordance with
the canon law of Saxony, many matters belonging to the department of
ecclesiastical law. But the climate did not agree with him, and his
official duties interfered with his theological studies. With a view to a
change he took the degree of doctor of theology in Wittenberg in
August 1812. In 1816 he was appointed general superintendent at
Gotha, where he remained until his death in 1848. This was the great
period of his literary activity.
In 1820 was published his treatise on the gospel of St John, entitled
Probabilia de Evangelii el Epistolarum Joannis Apostoli indole et
origine, which attracted much attention. In it he collected with great
fulness and discussed with marked moderation the arguments against
Johannine authorship. This called forth a number of replies. To the
astonishment of every one, Bretschneider announced in the preface to
the second edition of his Dogmatik in 1822, that he had never doubted
the authenticity of the gospel, and had published his Probabilia only to
draw attention to the subject, and to call forth a more complete defence
of its genuineness. Bretschneider remarks in his autobiography that the
publication of this work had the effect of preventing his appointment as
successor to Karl C. Tittmann in Dresden, the minister Detlev von
Einsiedel (1773-1861) denouncing him as the "slanderer of John"
(Johannisschänder). His greatest contribution to the science of exegesis

was his Lexicon Manuale Graeco-Latinum in libros Novi