A popular German poet, born at Detmold; was engaged in commerce in his early years, but the success of a small collection of poems in 1838 induced him to adopt a literary career; subsequently his democratic principles, expressed in stirring verse, involved him in trouble, and in 1846 he became a refugee in London; he was permitted to return in 1848, and shortly afterwards was the successful defendant in a celebrated trial for the publication of his poem "The Dead to the Living," after which fresh prosecution drove him to London in 1851, where, till his return in 1868, he engaged in poetical work, translating Burns, Shakespeare, and other English poets (1810-1876).