Johann Nikolai Madvig, a Danish philologist, born at Svanike, in the island of Bornholm, Aug. 7, 1804. He completed his education at the university of Copenhagen, where in 1829 he was appointed professor of the Latin language and literature. He has edited the works of Cicero, Lucretius, Juvenal, and Livy, and in 1829 wrote a pamphlet to prove that the work Be Orthographia of Apuleius, first published by Mai in 1823, was written by a literary impostor of the 15th century. Among his remaining contributions to philological literature are a " Glance at the Constitutions of Antiquity," " The Creation, Development, and Life of Language," " On the Fundamental Idea of Ancient Metres," a new "Latin Grammar for Schools" (translated by the Rev. G. Woods, 4th ed., Oxford, 1859), and Adversaria Critica ad Scriptores Grcecos et Latinos (vol. i., 1871). In 1848 he was made minister of public worship, and in 1852 general director of public instruction. In 1854 he was elected to the diet, of which he became a prominent member, advocating especially the interests of the university of Copenhagen, and a union of the Scandinavian nations.