Müller, JOHANNES VON

Müller, JOHANNES VON, historian of Switzerland, was born 3d January 1752, at Schaffhausen, studied at Göttingen under Heyne, Schlözer, and others, and in 1772 was appointed professor of Greek at Schaffhausen. Already he had commenced the investigation of Swiss chronicles and documents. From 1774 to 1780 he lived in Geneva, taught there, and wrote his Allgemeine Geschichte (3 vols. 1810), and published the first volume of his great work, Geschichte der Schweizer. Shortly afterwards he was given the professorship of History and a librarianship at Cassel, but resigned both posts in 1783. In 1786 he became librarian and councillor of state to the Elector of Mainz, and began the publication of his larger Geschichte der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft (5 vols. 1786-1808; improved ed. 1826). In support of the confederation of the German princes he wrote a Darstellung des Fürstenbundes (1787). In 1792, when Mainz was taken by the French, he went to Vienna, where the Emperor Leopold nominated him a member of the privy-council; but, a Protestant as a Roman Catholic court, he did not see much prospect of advancement, and in 1804 left Vienna for Berlin, where he was appointed historiographer of the Hohenzollern family, and wrote Ueber die Geschichte Friedrich's I., Ueber den Untergang der Freiheit der Alten Völker, and Versuch über die Zeitrechnungen der Vorwelt. Introduced to Napoleon after the battle of Jena, he was appointed by him (1807) secretary of state in the new kingdom of Westphalia; but died at Cassel, 29th May 1809. His Sämtliche Werke were published, 27 vols. Tübingen, 1800-17; new ed. 40 vols. Stuttgart, 1831-35. See Lives by Heeren (1820), Döring (1835), Monnard, in French (1839), and Thiersch (1881).