COTTA VON COTTENDORF (1764-1832), who was born at
Stuttgart on the 27th of April 1764, to restore the fortunes of the
firm. He attended the gymnasium of his native place, and was originally
intended to study theology. He, however, entered the university of
Tubingen as a student of mathematics and law, and after graduating spent
a considerable time in Paris, studying French and natural science, and
mixing with distinguished literary men. After practising as an advocate
in one of the higher courts, Cotta, in compliance with his father's
earnest desire, took over the publishing business at Tubingen. He began
in December 1787, and laboured incessantly to acquire familiarity with
all the details. The house connexions rapidly extended; and, in 1794,
the _Allgemeine Zeitung_, of which Schiller was to be editor, was
planned. Schiller was compelled to withdraw on account of his health;
but his friendship with Cotta deepened every year, and was a great
advantage to the poet and his family. Cotta awakened in Schiller so warm
an attachment that, as Heinrich Doring tells us in his life of Schiller
(1824), when a bookseller offered him a higher price than Cotta for the
copyright of _Wallenstein_, the poet firmly declined it, replying "Cotta
deals honestly with me, and I with him." In 1795 Schiller and Cotta
founded the _Horen_, a periodical very important to the student of
German literature. The poet intended, by means of this work, to infuse
higher ideas into the common lives of men, by giving them a nobler human
culture, and "to reunite the divided political world under the banner of
truth and beauty." The _Horen_ brought Goethe and Schiller into intimate
relations with each other and with Cotta; and Goethe, while regretting
that he had already promised _Wilhelm Meister_ to another publisher,
contributed the _Unterhaltung deutscher Ausgewanderten_, the _Roman
Elegies_ and a paper on Literary Sansculottism. Fichte sent essays from
the first, and the other brilliant German authors of the time were also
represented. In 1798 the _Allgemeine Zeitung_ appeared at Tubingen,
being edited first by Posselt and then by Huber. Soon the editorial
office of the newspaper was transferred to Stuttgart, in 1803 to Ulm,
and in 1810 to Augsburg; it is now in Munich. In 1799 Cotta entered on
his political career, being sent to Paris by the Wurttemberg estates as
their representative. Here he made friendships which proved very
advantageous for the _Allge