FOLLEN, ADOLF LUDWIG, a German poet, brother of Charles Follen, born at Giessen, January 21, 1794; died at Bern, Switzerland, December 26, 1855. He was educated at Giessen, and subsequently became tutor in a noble family. In 1814 he entered the army as a volunteer, and served in the campaign against Napoleon. He then became editor of a newspaper at Elberfeld. In 1819 he became implicated in revolutionary movements, and was imprisoned at Berlin until 1821, when he was liberated, and took up his residence in Switzerland. He made excellent translations from Greek, Latin, and Italian, and wrote spirited German songs. A collection of his poems, Free Voices of Fresh Youth, appeared in 1819. In 1827 he put forth two volumes entitled Bildersaal Deutscher Dichtung.

Professor Karl Elze says of Follen that "his lyric poetry was particularly popular with students, whilst his translations from Homer, Tasso, and the Niebelungen earned the praises of scholars."

BLÜCHER'S BALL.

[Battle of the Katzbach, August, 1813.]

By the Katzbach, by the Katzbach, ha! there was a merry dance,

Wild and weird and whirling waltzes skipped ye through, ye knaves of France!

For there struck the bass-viol an old German master famed

Marshal Forward, Prince of Wallstadt, Gebhardt Blücher, named.

Up! the Blücher hath the ball-room lighted with the cannon's glare!

Spread yourselves, ye gay green carpets, that the dancing moistens there!

And his fiddle-bow at first he waxed with Goldberg and with Jauer;

Whew! he's drawn it now full length, his play a stormy morning shower!

Ha! the dance went briskly onward; tingling madness seized them all,

As when howling mighty tempests on the arms of windmills fall.

But the old man wants it cheery; wants a pleasant dancing chime;

And with gun-stocks clearly, loudly, beats the old Teutonic time.

Say, who, standing by the old man, strikes so hard the kettle-drum,

And with crashing strength of arm, down lets the thundering hammer come?

Gneisenau, the gallant champion : Allemania's envious foes

Smites the mighty pair, her living double-eagle, shivering blows.

And the old man scrapes the "Sweepout;" hapless Franks and hapless trulls!

Now what dancers leads the gray-beard? Ha! ha! ha! 'tis dead men's skulls !

But as ye too much were heated in the sultriness of hell,

Till ye sweated blood and brains, he made the Katzbach cool ye well.

From the Katzbach, while ye stiffen, hear the ancient proverb say,

"Wanton varlets, venal blockheads, must with clubs be

beat away!"

-Translation of C. C. FELTON.

FOLLEN, CHARLES, brother of Adolf Follen, a German-American clergyman and writer, born at Romrod, Hesse Darmstadt, September 4, 1795; died with one hundred and seventy-five fellow passengers at the burning of the steamer Lexington in Long Island Sound, January 13, 1840, while on his way to attend the dedication of a Unitarian church at East Lexington, Mass., to which he had been called as pastor. In 1813 he entered the University of Giessen, where with other young men he undertook to form a Burschenschaft which should embrace all students irrespective of the particular German territory whence they came. Soon after taking his degree, in 1818, as Doctor of Civil Law, his liberal sentiments and writings, and the part he took in the defence of popular rights, made him obnoxious to the government of his own province, and he went to Jena, where he became a lecturer in the University. His acquaintance with Sand, the assassin of Kotzebue, led to his arrest. He was taken to Weimar and Mannheim, examined, and acquitted; but was forbidden to lecture at Jena, and was at length forced to take refuge in Switzerland. In 1821 he became Professor of Law at Basel, but his liberal sentiments drew upon him the disfavor of the Holy Alliance. An order for his arrest had been issued; but he saved himself by flight to Paris,