Berger, John William

, brother to the preceding, was professor of eloquence at Wittemberg, aulic counsellor to the elector of Saxony, Augustus It. king of Poland, and died in 1751. He wrote several interesting dissertations, mostly on points of ancient history and literature, among which are, 1. “Dissert. Sex de Libanio,” Wittemberg, 1696, 1698, 4to. 2. “De antiqua poetarum sapientia” 1699, 4to. 3. “De Virgilio oratore,” 1705, 4to. 4. “Dissert, tres de Lino,” 1707, 4to. 5. “Disciplina Longini selecta,” 1712, 4to. 6. “De Mysteriis Cereris et Bacchi,” 1723, 4to. 7. “De Trajano non Optimo,” 1725, 4to. 8. “De Stephanophoris veterum,” 1725, 4to, &c. Saxius, who has given a much fuller list of his dissertations, praises him as a man of most extensive learning, and who had scarcely his equal in Germany. Yet from one of his works we should be inclined to doubt his taste. Among those enumerated by Saxius is one, “De naturali pulchritudine orationis,” 1719, in which he attempts to prove that Cæsar’s Commentaries (the pure, simple, and elegant style of which is more remote from the sublime than that | of any of the classical authors) contain the most complete exemplification of all Longinus’s rules relating to sublime writing. After his death was published “Conspectus Bibliothecae Bergerianae;” also “Libri Manuscript! et irnpressi, collati curn Manuscriptis ex Bibliotheca Jo. Gul. de Berger,” 1752, 8vo. Another brother, John Godfrey de Berger, was an eminent physician, and published, 1. “Physiologica medica,” Wittemberg, 1701, and often reprinted. 2. “De Thennis Carolmis commentatio,” ibid. 1709, 4to. He died October 3, 1736. ¹