Museus,

Museus, JOHANN KARL AUGUST, a German writer, born on 29th March 1735, at Jena, where he studied theology. In 1763 he was appointed tutor to the pages at the ducal court of Weimar, and in 1770 became professor at the gymnasium. His first production in 1760 was a parody of Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison, a book at that time extravagantly admired in Germany. Eighteen years later he satirised Lavater in Physiognomische Reisen. But his literary fame rests upon his version of Volksmärchen der Deutschen, which professed to be a collection of popular tales noted down from the lips of old people; but such is not exactly the case: their chief note is an artificial naïveté. Nevertheless, they are tinctured with such a blending of satirical humour, quaint fancy, and graceful writing that they have become a classic of their kind. He continued to work the satirical vein in Freund Heins Erscheinungen in Holbeins Manier (1785), and began a course of tales, Straussfedern (1787), which he did not live to complete, dying at Weimar, 28th October 1787. See Life by M. Müller (1867) and Ad. Stern in Literatur-fragmente (1893).