* FREILIGRATH, FERDINAND, a distinguished German poet, was born June 17, 1810, at Detmold, in the German principality of Lippe. His father was a teacher, and gave him his first instruction. He afterwards studied in the gymnasium of his native town. In 1825 he was placed in the counting-house of a merchant at Soest, in West phalia. From 1831 to 1836 he was employed in a banking-house at Amsterdam, and from 1837 to 1839 in a merchant's house at Barmen, in the Prussian Rhein-Provinz. His earliest poems were published in the journals of Westphalia, and in the Musen-Almanach ' for 1835. The firet collected edition of his poems was published at Stuttgardt in 1838, and the earliest poems included iu it have the date of 1826. Freiligrath's Gedichte ' consist of about two-thirds of original lyrical poems, and one-third of translations. The original poems are dis tributed by the poet into Day-Book-Leaves (` Tagebuchblitter '), Ballads and Romances, Terzines, Alexandrines, Mixed Poems, and Occasional Poems; the translations are from the French and English, the largest number of the latter being from Scott and Moore. The reception of his poems was so favourable that he resolved to relinquish his com mercial employments, and devote himself to poetical literature. He then lived mostly near the Rhine, and at Uukel became acquainted with his present wife, a native of Weimar, and then a governess with an English family. He married in 1841, and after his marriage removed to Darmstadt. In the year 1842 the King of Prussia granted him a yearly pension of 300 thalers (about 441.), after which he returned with his family to the Rhine, and lived about two years at St. Gear.
There had existed for some years in Germany, especially in the Prussian Rhine-Provinces, a large party very decidedly opposed to the government on account of the censorship of the press and other restrictive and arbitrary measures. Freiligrath had become attached to this party, and had written and shown to his associates several poems expressive of his political opinions and feelings. In opposition to the advice of some of the more prudent of his friends, he resolved to make a public profession of his political belief by the publication of these poems; and as be would thus place himself in direct oppo 1 sition to the government of the King of Prussia, he considered that he had no longer any claim on the royal bounty, and resigned his pension. In 1844 he published his volume of political poems under
the title of Ein Glaulbensbekenntniss ; Zeitgedichte,' &c. (' A Con fession of Faith; Poems of the Times,' &c.) The impression made by these poems was sudden and extensive ; within a few days the book was in circulation throughout the whole of Germany, and excited among the liberal. party the greatest enthusiasm. As might have been expected, the censorship ordered the book to be suppressed, and the government commenced a prosecution against the author. He therefore took the prudent course, and left Germany in the autumn of 1844; he resided in Belgium, in Switzerland, and lastly in London, where he resumed his original occupation of a clerk in a banking house. In 1895 ho published a translation into German of the Lyrical Poems of Victor Hugo, and in 1846 a volume of poems translated from recent English writers, Englische Gedichte aus Neucrer Zeit, nach Felicia Hemans, L. E. Landon, Robert Southey, Alfred Tennyson, Henry W. Longfellow, uud Anders,' 8vo, Stuttpirdt sod Tubingen. The preface is dated Zitrich, in the spriog of 1840. In this year ho also published the first of Biz political poems, to which he gave the French revolutionary title of 'VA Ira' In the early part of 1848, on the invitation of Mr. Longfellow, ho had arranged to go to the United States; tut the revolutiouery struggle of that year, which his political poems had doubtless contributed to produce, induced him to return to Germany. Ile stationed himself at Dusseldorf, became an active member of a political club there, and in consequent° of the reactionary measures of the government after the revolution had terminated, published a poem entitled 'Die Todten an die Licbendcn' (' The Dead to the Living '), the dead being the Insurrectionary leaders stela at the barricades In Berlin in March 1848. For the publication of this poem an action was brought against him by the government : ho was tried at the assize-court in Dusseldorf, by a jury of twelve sworn men, and was acquitted October 3, 1848.