OXFORD, _July_, 1886.
The last sheet of this work had been ordered for Press, when the news
reached me of Professor Scherer’s sudden death. He had been ailing for
some time, but no one could persuade him to take any rest, and his
interest in this collection of extracts, to serve as a companion volume
to his History of German Literature, did not flag till almost the last
moment of his life. Thus a double sadness has been spread over this
book, first by the death of Dr. Lichtenstein, and now by the death of
his friend and teacher, Professor Scherer--both taken away from us in
the prime and in the full maturity of life, while I, whose life has
nearly reached its natural limit and whose power of doing useful work
is well-nigh exhausted, have been spared.
Wilhelm Scherer was by birth an Austrian, having been born at Schönborn
in Lower Austria on the 26th April, 1841. His first University
education too he received at Vienna, where he devoted himself chiefly
to the study of German philology and literature. Professor Franz
Pfeiffer, whose favourite pupil he became, gave a decided direction
to his studies, though Scherer proved the independence of his mind by
entering, as quite a young man, on a controversy with Franz Pfeiffer
on the question of the origin of the _Nibelungenlied_. He afterwards
continued his studies at Berlin, where he attended chiefly the lectures
of Bopp, Haupt, and Müllenhoff. In conjunction with Müllenhoff he began
to edit the _Denkmäler der Deutschen Poesie und Prosa aus dem achten
bis zwölften Jahrhundert_ (1864), and the _Alt-deutsche Sprachproben_.
In 1864 he became _Privat-docent_ at Vienna. His literary activity was
astounding, and such was the good opinion entertained of his writings
that, in 1868, when only 27 years of age, the Austrian Government
appointed him to succeed Franz Pfeiffer as Professor of German Language
and Literature in the University of Vienna. His success there was very
great, for though a thorough German professor and a most critical and
painstaking scholar, he knew how to appeal to wider human sympathies
and to attract large audiences both of young and old to his lectures.
Success, however, as usual, produced envy, and as Scherer was German
rather than Austrian in his political sympathies, his position at
Vienna, particularly after the great events of 1870 and 1871, became
more and more unpleasant. In order to avoid further conflicts with
his colleagues and the Government, he accepted, in 1872, the chair of
German Philology in the newly founded University of Strassburg, and
after five years of successful labour there, he was called to fill a
similar chair at Berlin.
What distinguishes Scherer as an historian of German literature is
his being a philologist first, and an historian afterwards. How well
he knew the growth of the German language in its successive phases he
proved by his work _Zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache_, published
in 1868. These philological studies formed the solid foundation on
which he erected afterwards the work by which his name will live
longest, the ‘History of German Literature’. This book passed in a
short time through three editions, and has become a truly national work
in Germany. He lived long enough to witness the recognition which the
English translation of his History received from the best scholars in
England and America, and he looked forward with a deep interest to the
publication of these ‘German Classics,’ with a hope that they would
render possible a careful and fruitful study of his History, not only
in England, but in Germany also.
He has done a good work. He has well earned his fame, and now--his rest.