ENGEL, JOHANN JAKOB (1741-1802), German author, was born at Parchim, in Mecklenburg, on the 11th of September 1741. He studied theology at Rostock and Bützow, and philosophy at Leipzig, where he took his doctor’s degree. In 1776 he was appointed professor of moral philosophy and belles-lettres in the Joachimstal gymnasium at Berlin, and a few years later he became tutor to the crown prince of Prussia, afterwards Frederick William III. The lessons which he gave his royal pupil in ethics and politics were published in 1798 under the title Fürstenspiegel, and are a favourable specimen of his powers as a popular philosophical writer. In 1787 he was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, and in the same year he became director of the royal theatre, an office he resigned in 1794. He died on the 28th of June 1802.
Besides numerous dramas, some of which had a considerable success, Engel wrote several valuable books on aesthetic subjects. His Anfangsgründe einer Theorie der Dichtungsarten (1783) showed fine taste and acute critical faculty if it lacked imagination and poetic insight. The same excellences and the same defects were apparent in his Ideen zu einer Mimik (1785), written in the form of letters. His most popular work was Der Philosoph für die Welt (1775), which consists chiefly of dialogues on men and morals, written from the utilitarian standpoint of the philosophy of the day. His last work, a romance entitled Herr Lorenz Stark (1795), achieved a great success, by virtue of the marked individuality of its characters and its appeal to middle-class sentiment.
Engel’s Sämtliche Schriften were published in 12 volumes at Berlin in 1801-1806; a new edition appeared at Frankfort in 1851. See K. Schröder, Johann Jakob Engel (Vortrag) (1897).
ENGELBERG, an Alpine village and valley in central Switzerland, much frequented by visitors in summer and to some extent in winter. It is 14 m. by electric railway from Stansstad, on the Lake of Lucerne, past Stans. The village (3343 ft.) is in a mountain basin, shut in on all sides by lofty mountains (the highest is the Titlis, 10,627 ft. in the south-east), so that it is often hot in summer. It communicates by the Surenen Pass (7563 ft.) with Wassen, on the St Gotthard railway, and by the Joch Pass (7267 ft.) past the favourite summer resort of the Engstlen Alp (6034 ft.), with Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland. The village has clustered round the great Benedictine monastery which gives its name to the valley, from the legend that its site was fixed by angels, so that the spot was named “Mons Angelorum.” The monastery was founded about 1120 and still survives, though the buildings date only from the early 18th century. Its library suffered much at the hands of the French in 1798. From 1462 onwards it was under the protectorate of Lucerne, Schwyz, Unterwalden and Uri. In 1798 the abbot lost all his temporal powers, and his domains were annexed to the Obwalden division of Unterwalden, but in 1803 were transferred to the Nidwalden division. However, in 1816, in consequence of the desperate resistance made by the Nidwalden men to the new Federal Pact of 1815, they were punished by the fresh transfer of the valley to Obwalden, part of which it still forms. As the pastures forming the upper portion of the Engelberg valley have for ages belonged to Uri, the actual valley itself is politically isolated between Uri and Nidwalden. The monastery is still directly dependent on the pope. In 1900 the valley had 1973 inhabitants, practically all German-speaking and Romanists.
(W. A. B. C.)
ENGELBRECHTSDATTER, DORTHE (1634-1716), Norwegian poet, was born at Bergen on the 16th of January 1634; her father, Engelbrecht Jörgensen, was originally rector of the high school in that city, and afterwards dean of the cathedral. In 1652 she married Ambrosius Hardenbech, a theological writer famous for his flowery funeral sermons, who succeeded her father at the cathedral in 1659. They had five sons and four daughters. In 1678 her first volume appeared, Sjaelens aandelige Sangoffer (“The Soul’s Spiritual Offering of Song”) published at Copenhagen. This volume of hymns and devotional pieces, very modestly brought out, had an unparalleled success. The fortunate poetess was invited to Denmark, and on her arrival at Copenhagen was presented at Court. She was also introduced to Thomas Kingo, the father of Danish poetry, and the two greeted one another with improvised couplets, which have been preserved, and of which the poetess’s reply is incomparably the neater. In 1683 her husband died, and before 1698 she had buried all her nine children. In the midst of her troubles appeared her second work, the Taareoffer (“Sacrifice of Tears”), which is a continuous religious poem in four books. This was combined with the Sangoffer, and no fewer than three editions of the united works were published before her death, and many after it. In 1698 she brought out a third volume of sacred verse, Et kristeligt Valet fra Verden (“A Christian Farewell to the World”), a very tame production. She died on the 19th of February 1716. The first verses of Dorthe Engelbrechtsdatter are the best; her Sangoffer was dedicated to Jesus, the Taareoffer to Queen Charlotte Amalia; this is significant of her changed position in the eyes of the world.
ENGELHARDT, JOHANN GEORG VEIT (1791-1855), German theologian, was born at Neustadt-on-the-Aisch on the 12th of November 1791, and was educated at Erlangen, where he afterwards taught in the gymnasium (1817), and became professor of theology in the university (1821). His two great works were a Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte in 4 vols. (1833-1834), and a Dogmengeschichte in 2 vols. (1839). He died at Erlangen on the 13th of September 1855.