Encyclopaedia Americana: a popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, brought down to the present time : including a copious collection of original articles in American biography : on the basis of the seventh edition of the German Conversations-Lexicon (Volume 4).

Date:: 1830-33

Credit: Encyclopaedia Americana: a popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, brought down to the present time : including a copious collection of original articles in American biography : on the basis of the seventh edition of the German Conversations-Lexicon (Volume 4). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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$CreI'sa ; the name of several celebrat- ed females of antiquity. 1. Daughter of Erectheus, who, before she was married to Xutiius, gave birtli to Ion, the fruit of an amour with Apollo. To her second husband she bore Achaeus. 2. The daugh- ter of Priam and Hecuba, wife to JEne- as, and mother of Ascanius. In the tu- mult of the conflagration of Troy, when ^neas fled with the images of his gods, with his father and son, he lost her, and, afl;er he had sought her a long time in vain, her spirit appeared to him, saying that the mother of the gods had taken her to her- self, because she was not willing that she should leave Phrygia. Creutz, Gustavus Philip, count of; a Swedisli ])oet and statesman, was born in Finland in 1726. He was a member of the learned and elegant circle, which surrounded the queen of Sweden, Louisa Ulrica, sister of Frederic the Great; and his Atis og Camilla, an erotic poem in five cantos, published at Stockholm (17G1), grew out of the meetings of tliis society. This poem and his Letter to Daphne are considered as masterpieces in Swedish poetry. lie ^vas appointed minister to Madrid, and, at a later period, to Paris, where he remained twenty years, and be- came particularly acquainted with Mar- montel and Gretry. April 3, 1783, he signed, with doctor Franklin, a treaty of amity betAveen the United States and Sweden. He was afterwards placed at the head of the department of foreign af- fairs in Stockhohn, but he could not en- dure the climate of his countiy, and died in 1785. His works and those of his friend Gyllenborg are published together, under the title Vitterhets Arbeten of Creutz og Gyllenborg, Stockholm, 1795. At a chap- ter of the Seraphim order, April 28, 1786, king Gustavus himself read the eulogy of Creutz. Creuzer, George Frederic (in his late publications called simply Frederic), pro- fessor at the university of Heidelberg, a philologist and antiquarian, born at Marburg, in Hesse, March 10, 1771, was devoted, from his earliest youth, to the an- cient classics. He studied at the usiver- sities of Marburg and Jena, and after- wards lived in and near Gicssen, occupied with the study of the Greek historians, and at the same time with teaching. About this time, he published his first literaiy production, Herodotus und Tliucydides ; Versuch einer nuheren Wiirdigung Hirer Historischm Grundsdtze (Essay toward determining the Historical Principles of Herodotus and Tliucydides), Leipsic, 1798 4 and 1803, which was received with ap- probation, as was also his subsequent pub- lication, De Xenophordt Historico (1799). In 1802, he was made professor of elo- quence in the univei-sity at Marburg, and, in 1804, professor of philologj-^ and an- cient history, at Heidelberg. His Diony- sus sive Commentationes Academicte de Rerum Bacchicarum Originibus (Heidel- bei-g, 1808) may be considered as the first specimen of his views on the connexion of the mythological traditions of the an- cient world. According to Creuzer, there existed, in the most ancient *imes of Greece, a body of Grecian poetry bcTOW- ed from the East. Homer, and more particularly Ilesiod, instead of being the authore of the religion, or even of the iny thologj', of their country, merely intro- duce us to a previously existing world of poetrjr, philosophy and thcolog}\ The most ancient Greek poetry contained the symbolical and even the Magian and allegorical ideas ; and though this poetry, which was introduced from the East, changed its forms at different times, it was never substantially lost among the Greeks. It Avas preserved in the hierar- chical institutions and mystei'ies, and was in later times an object for the investiga- tion of historians and philosophers ; but the traces which remain are 9nly suffi- cient to enable us to determine and de- scribe its most essential features. Accord- ing to Creuzer, this ancient wisdom was received firet from the Pelasgi, who were, if not altogether a nding tribe of priests, yet a tribe with ruling priests. But ex- clusive hierarchical institutions could not prosper upon the soil of Greece. The Pekusgi were expelled by the Hellenes. After the ancient races had become ex- tinct, the Hellenic spirit departed more and more from the spirit of the East. Families of priests had united into castes, and what remained of the old and relig- ious poetry was confined to the mysteries. In Homer and Hesiod there are evident traces of a misunderstandmg of the elder notions and traditions ; yet there are also evidences that they were not ignorant of the ancient theology. The first germ of the more profound theological doctrines can therefore be found only in a revela- tion from above, to which we must refer the religious belief of different nations, and we must conclude that similar sym- bols and allegories are founded upon sim- ilar primitive views. Creuzer developed these principles in his Symbolik vnd My- thologie der alien Vulker, hesonders der Qriechen (Leipsic and Dannstadt, 1819—$

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