Adalbert Friedrich Marcus (anonymous)
“News from Würzburg,” Zeitung für die elegante Welt (19 April 1804) [*]
(Würzburg, 9 April 1804) Now that the Easter break is coming to a close, large transports of students are arriving daily from all points. The corps of professors here, presently numbering almost fifty, is to be handsomely increased. Among others, the renowned Fuchs from Jena is expected to cover instruction in the arts of dismemberment, [1] and the famous Bouterweck from Göttingen in that of practical philosophy, and then several others as well.
The wise objective of employing so many professors is, among other things, allegedly also that students here might find absolutely everything they may wish and desire for their money. Just as all the living languages, fencing, dancing, and riding are taught, so also are contrasting systems and theories in principle, it appears, to be elucidated, doubtless resulting in an incomparable equilibrium that might prevent any disadvantageous difference for students and instead guide them to the desirable point of non-difference. [2]
What a gratifying sight for friends of scholarship and the arts to see on one pinnacle the famous Bouterweck with his popular philosophy, on the other Herr Wagner with his system of ideal philosophy, then Herr Döllinger with his physiology according Schelver’s Zeitschrift für organische Physik, and Herr von Hoven with his special therapy according to Selle, an admixture that will powerfully counter the dubious unity of scholarly disciplines. — The Julius Hospital, which suffers from so many entrenched maladies and especially lacks air, light, and space, is to be radically restored if at all possible.
To wit, first the fools are to be removed from this institution, all the more so because their numbers have reached such considerable proportions. Herr Thomann has for this reason departed for Munich to view the exemplary institution that Herr Haeberle has allegedly established there for a few crazy people. Word also has it that the author of the Franconian Staats- und Gelehrten-Zeitung, who, as is well known, is a physician himself, is to accept a position at the new insane asylum.
Ecclesiastical Rath Oberthür, who has just published the excellent scholarly piece Die Bayern in Franken und die Franken in Bayern [3] and on whom the prophetic spirit of the late Superintendent Ziehen with respect to foretelling the future seems to rest, is again to be engaged as a public teacher at the university here. [4]
Notes
[*] Anonymous, “Nachrichten aus Würzburg,” Zeitung für die elegante Welt (1804) 47 (Thursday, 19 April 1804), 374–75.
Therese Huber essentially imputes this article to Caroline’s hand, remarking in a letter to her daughter Therese on 10 May 1804 (Ludwig Geiger, Dichter und Frauen. Abhandlungen und Mitteilungen. Neue Sammlung [Berlin 1899], 107–8; dating according to Krisenjahre 3:65):
There is an article on Würzburg in the Zeitung für die elegante Welt, doubtless from the venomous quill of Frau Schelling. — See if you can get it, and whether you do not also find her tone of voice in it. The whole world is picked to pieces in it; Schelling alone not mentioned at all. Back.
[1] I.e., anatomy, perhaps also with a word play on Fuchs, “fox.” Back.
[2] “Difference” and “non-difference” are technical terms from Schelling’s philosophy at the time. Back.
[3] Die Bayern in Franken und die Franken in Bayern: Ein Parallelogramm (Nürnberg 1804), prompted, as the author says in the preface, by the acquisition of Franconia to Bavaria (p. v):
That the Bavarian acquisition of Franconia prompted this publication hardly need be mentioned, just as little as does the fact that events of this sort leave a profound and disturbing impression on any philosophical observer, and that amid the vehement movements the mind is flooded by disorganized and noisy considerations of past and future — comparisons between cause and effect — fear and hope — intimation and wish — private and civil interests — feelings of the present and inchoate fermenting elements. Back.
[4] The background of this article was as follows (see esp. Fuhrmans 3:85–87n1, 127–28n2):
Marcus did not reveal his identity of this article to the editor of the journal, Karl Spazier, remarking merely that Konrad Joseph Kilian could vouch for the veracity of its content. Count von Thürheim, incensed, resolved to establish the identity of the author. Although a reply was published in issue 66 (2 June 1804) denying that Bouterwek was to be appointed in any case and calling the anonymous author a coward, the editor of the journal declared that since Kilian was adduced as a witness to the article’s veracity, so also was he probably its author.
Kilian, never suspecting that his own superior at the Bamberg General Hospital was the author, in his own turn published a coarse declaration in the Fränkische Staats- und Gelehrten Zeitung (1804) 98 (19 June 1804), denying such authorship and castigating Spazier for implicating him as author. Moreover, suspecting an intrigue against him by two Würzburg residents, Kilian reproached them as scoundrels and remarked that he had asked the authorities to begin a “most thorough investigation of this slanderous incident.”
The Fränkische Staats- und Gelehrten Zeitung published a remark maintaining that it was for Kilian himself to prove he was not the author, since Spazier likely knew his handwriting, Kilian having been Spazier’s personal physician in Leipzig. Spazier responded in the Zeitung für die elegante Welt on 28 June (later also in the Fränkische Staats- und Gelehrten Zeitung) with a counter-declaration suggesting perhaps that he, Spazier, had been fooled by a forgery of Kilian’s handwriting, but that since Kilian had resorted to such impudent coarseness in his response, he, Spazier, would be passing along the entire matter to the Bavarian administration in Munich, specifically Maximilian von Montgelas.
Montgelas ordered a thorough investigation by the Bamberg courts, an investigation carried out in July–October (Count von Thürheim participated), until, likely in September, it became clear that Marcus himself was the author. Although the initial response in Munich was to dismiss Marcus, his personal appearance there in October managed to avoid such severe measures.
Marcus’s letters to Schelling on 15 June 1804 and 10 July 1804 (letter 383i) demonstrate that for months he never revealed to Schelling his authorship of the article, instead dropping modest remarks about who the author might be. The affair dragged on until the spring of 1805 and considerably poisoned the atmosphere around Schelling as well. Kilian published a self-justification in the Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (1804) 113 (10 October 1804) and the Halle Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (1804) 161 (6 October 1804), also indicating that the author would soon come forward. The official (court’s) announcement of Marcus’s authorship appeared in the Zeitung für die elegante Welt (1804) 138 (17 November 1804), and Marcus’s own — albeit qualified admission in the Fränkische Staats- und Gelehrten Zeitung (1804) 205 (22 December 1804):
Since the affair concerning the essay published in issue 47 of the Zeitung für die elegante Welt has . . . now been officially concluded, I feel obligated to my friends and the public to present an account. I was prevented from any earlier declaration by the unsolicited intrusion into the affair . . . of men to whom issuing a response was beneath my dignity.
He continues by saying that he sent the essay — for whose content, as he puts it, he was accountable only to his government — to Spazier anonymously with the addendum that Professor Kilian might vouch for its veracity. Hence it was not his, namely, Marcus’s, fault that the matter became irremediably confused, but rather Spazier’s for having declared Kilian the author without further inquiry. Marcus insists that since Kilian was adduced as a witness to the article’s veracity, he could then certainly not be its author. Moreover he, Marcus, could demonstrate that Kilian was indeed in agreement with those contents. Marcus also revealed that from the outset, he had emphasized to the authorities his own certainty that Kilian was not the author. Marcus remarked that he did not come forward earlier also because of Kilian’s coarse behavior in the matter, and emphasized as well that he had been acquitted of any punishable offense in any case.
The government was understandably annoyed by this declaration, since Marcus was essentially saying he was essentially innocent in the matter. His status with the government, and Schelling’s as well, suffered significantly from this affair. Kilian issued a counter-declaration in the Oberdeutsche allgemeine Litteraturzeitung (1805) 12 (5 February 1805), and even a pamphlet in the summer of 1805 (Meine Zurückberufung nach Franken und Wiederaufnahme daselbst durch Direktor Marcus im Bamberg [Munich 1805]), keeping the scandal a topic of conversation for well over an entire year, undermining Schelling’s status and reputation in Würzburg as well as in the opinion of Count von Thürheim. Back.
Translation © 2017 Doug Stott