Dr. Bahrdt was, of course, obliged to leave the place. His friends, and Semler in particular, an eminent theological writer, who had formed a very favourable opinion of his uncommon talents, were assiduous in their endeavours to get an establishment for him. But his high opinion of himself, his temper, impetuous, precipitant, and overbearing, and a bitter satirical habit which he had freely indulged in his outset of life, made their endeavours very ineffectual.
At last he got a professorship at Erlangen, then at Erfurth, and in 1771, at Giessen. But in all these places he was no sooner settled than he got into disputes with his colleagues and with the established church, being a strenuous partizan of the innovations which were attempted to be made in the doctrines of christianity. In his anonymous publications, he did not trust to rational discussion alone, but had recourse to ridicule and personal anecdotes, and indulged in the most cutting sarcasms and gross scurrility. Being fond of convivial company, his income was insufficient for the craving demand, and as soon as he found that anecdote and slander always procured readers, he never ceased writing. He had wonderful readiness and activity, and spared neither friends nor foes in his anonymous performances. But this could not last, and his avowed theological writings were such as could not be suffered in a Professor of Divinity. The very students at Giessen were shocked with some of his liberties. After much wrangling in the church judicatories he was just going to be dismissed, when he got an invitation to Marschlins in Switzerland to superintend an academy. He went thither about the year 1776, and formed the seminary after the model of Basedow's Philanthropine, or academy, at Dessau, of which I have already given some account. It had acquired some celebrity, and the plan was peculiarly suited to Bahrdt's taste, because it left him at liberty to introduce any system of religious or irreligious opinions that he pleased. He resolved to avail himself of this liberty, and though a clergyman and Doctor of Theology, he would outstrip even Basedow, who had no ecclesiastical orders to restrain him. But he wanted the moderation, the prudence and