KARL

FOLLEN (1795-1840)  , German poet and patriot, brother of A . L . Follen, was born at Romrod in Hesse-Darmstadt, on the 5th of September 1795 . He first studied theology at Giessen, but after the campaign of 1814, in which, like his brother August, he took part as a Hessian volunteer, began the study of jurisprudence, and in 1818 established himself as Privatdocent FONBLANQUE of civil law at Giessen . Owing to being suspected of political intrigues, he removed to Jena, and thence, after the assassination of Kotzebue, fled to France . Here again the political murder of the duc de Berry, on the 14th of January 182o, led to Follen being regarded as a suspect, and he accordingly took refuge in Switzerland, where he taught for a while at the cantonal school at Coire and at the university of Basel; but the Prussian authorities imperatively demanding his surrender, he sought in 1824 the hospitality of the United States of America . Here he became an instructor in German at Harvard in 1825, and in 183o obtained an appointment as professor of German language and literature there; but his anti-slavery agitation having given umbrage to the authorities, he forfeited his post in 1835, and was ordained Unitarian minister of a chapel at Lexington in Massachusetts in 1836 . He perished at sea on board a steamboat which was totally consumed by fire while on a voyage from New York to Boston, on the night of the 13th-14th of January 184o . Follen was the author of several celebrated patriotic songs written in the interests of liberty . The best is perhaps Horch (Jul, ihr Fiirsten I Du Volk, horch auf I of which Johannes Wit, called von Dorring (1800-1863), was long, though erroneously, considered the author . It was published in A . L .

Follen's collection of patriotic songs, Freie Stimmen f rischer Jugend . His wife Elisa

Lee (1787-186o), an American authoress of some reputation, published after his death his lectures and sermons, with a biography written by herself (5 vols., Boston, 1846) .