The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Kirchhoff, Johann Wilhelm Adolf

KIRCHHOFF, Johann Wilhelm Adolf, a German philologist, born in Berlin, Jan. 6, 1826. He is a son of the historical painter Johann Jakob Kirchhoff. After teaching in a gymnasium, he became in 1865 a professor in the university of Berlin, and in 1867 succeeded Böckh as a director of the philological seminary. His works include editions of Plotinus (2 vols., Leipsic, 1854) and Euripides (2 vols., 1855, and 3 vols., 1867-'8), Die homerische Odyssee und ihre Entstehung (1859), and Die Composition der Odyssee (1869). He is a high authority on the old Italic languages and on palaeography. For the academy of sciences he edited part of the Corpus Inscriptionum Græcarum (1859), containing the Christian inscriptions, and Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum (1872 et seq.).