Introduction

Biography

Claudius was the son of Mat­thi­as Clau­di­us, Lu­ther­an pas­tor at Rein­feld. An an­ces­tor, a Lu­ther­an pas­tor who died in 1586, had La­tin­ized his name, Claus Paul­sen, to Clau­di­us Pau­li, and his des­cen­dants adopt­ed Clau­di­us as their sur­name.

Matthias en­tered the Uni­ver­si­ty of Je­na in 1759 as a theo­lo­gy stu­dent, but be­ing in ill health, and find­ing lit­tle in­ter­est in his stu­dies, he turned in­stead to law and lang­uag­es.

After a short vi­sit to Co­pen­ha­gen, he joined the Ham­burg News Agen­cy (Ad­ress-Comp­toir­nach­rich­ten) in 1768.

Moving to Wandsbeck, near Ham­burg, he be­came in 1771 ed­it­or of the li­ter­ary por­tion of the Wands­becker Bo­te, and con­trib­ut­ed a num­ber of his po­ems to the Gött­ing­en Mu­sen-Al­ma­nach.

In 1776, he was ap­point­ed a Com­mis­sion­er of Ag­ri­cul­ture and Ma­nu­fac­tur­es in Hess­en-Darm­stadt; in 1777 ed­it­or of the of­fi­cial Hess­en-Darm­stadt news­pa­per; and in 1788 the Crown Prince of Den­mark made him au­di­tor of the Schles­wig-Hols­tein Bank at Al­to­na.