DINGELSTEDT, FRANZ VON, German poet and novelist, was born at Halsdorf, in Hesse, June 30, 1814; died at Vienna, May 15, 1881. He became professor at Cassel in 1836, and in 1841 he was appointed librarian and royal counsellor at Stuttgart. In 1850 he became intendant of the Theatre Royal and counsellor of legation at Munich; and in 1859 he was removed to the same position at Weimar. In 1867 he removed to Vienna, being appointed director of the Court Opera there, which post he exchanged in 1871 for that of director of the Burg Theatre. He translated Shakespeare for the German stage; published a series of novels and a fine tragedy, and several sketches of travels. His collected works fill twelve volumes, of which several are collections of poems displaying great versatility and power. His Songs of a Cosmopolitan Watchman, issued in 1841, brought him into so great reputation among the living political poets of Germany that our own Longfellow said he "hoped the poet would not be lost in the politician." Other works of his were: The House of Barnevelt (1850), a tragedy; Night and Morning (1850), a collection of poems; The Amazons (1868). In 1870 he was made a baron by the Emperor of Austria.

Upon the appearance of Dingelstedt's early poems, while their author was an almost unknown

writer, Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, in an able and appreciative review, said: "The most pleasing quality of these poems is that genial simplicity of thought and expression, that openness and want of affectation, which at once endears the author to the reader. There is no false straining after effect, no meretricious artificiality of costume. The writer is evidently a man of high-minded, and generous, and, at the same time, kindly imagination. He has thought much, if not always correctly, and has felt more; and he gives us his thoughts and sentiments in a plain, unvarnished manner. Oh, if some of our own writers would but remember that the duty of writing intelligible English is even paramount to that of writing poetry! This principle Dingelstedt adheres to. He is not afraid of calling things by their right names, for fear they should sound prosaic; he is not always striving to give a poetical turn to his simplest thoughts, and he appears to think it better to be precise than mystical; and the consequence is, that combined with lightness and brilliancy of execution, a clear epigrammatic strength runs through all his argumentative and didactic poems. The images are distinct and forcible; the language is such as men and women, not mere poetasters, use, while it is completely free from tameness and vulgarity."

THE COSMOPOLITAN WATCHMAN.

The last faint twinkle now goes out
Up in the poet's attic;

The roisterers, in merry rout,

Speed home with steps erratic.

The roofs shower down the feathery snow,
The vane creaks on the steeple ;
The lanterns wag and glimmer low
In the storm o'er the hurrying people.

The houses all stand black and still,
The churches and inns are deserted;
A body may now wend along as he will,
With nought but his fancies diverted.

No squinting eye now looks this way,

No scandalous tongue is dissembling;
The heart that has slept the livelong day
May love and hope with trembling.

Dear Night! thou foe to each base end,
The good a blessing prove thee;—
They tell me thou art no man's friend;
But O sweet Night, I love thee.

-Translated for the London Athenæum.

THE FLOWERET'S KISS.

Tell me, Floweret, Tell me !
What was it that she said to thee,
The maiden sweet and fair?—
She gazed so long upon thy face
And whispered something there;

And then your blushing cup she kissed,
Before she turned to go ;—
Ah, many a secret of delight
Your cunning flowerets know!

Was it a little, lightsome kiss,
Of such as sisters pay?
Or was it a longer, warmer one,
For him that's far away?

The little floweret looked at me,
And slyly smiling said:
Art sure thou art the proper one
To whom it should be paid?

For know, there's love 'twixt girls and flowers,
As well as that that's sent.-
Well, this she said: The time has come!
And blushed, and away she went.

Now, were I not the proper one,
And should the message miss,
Yet would I gladly take the same,
The message and the kiss ;

So down I stooped with drunken joy,
Down to the floweret fair,

And snatched away the sugared kiss
Left by the maiden there.

-Translated for Tait's Magazine.

DIOGENES, LAERTIUS, the biographer of the Greek philosophers, supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte, in Cilicia, where he was born, and by others from the Roman family of the Laertii, lived, as near as can be determined just previous to 200 A.D.

Of his youth, education, and general circumstances of his life, very little is known. Even the period in which he wrote-probably during the reign of Septimius Severus (193–121)—is altogether a matter of conjecture, and his personal opinions are equally uncertain. Some good authorities. claim that he was a Christian, but from recent researches it is more probable that he was an Epicurean. He is known to have been the author of a biographical work giving an account of the lives and sayings of the Greek philosophers. While the best that can be said of this work is that it is an uncritical and unphilosophical compilation, yet its value, in so far as it gives us an insight into the private life of the Greek sages, is great. Montaigne stated succinctly the importance of this work when he said: "I wish that instead of one Laertius there had been a dozen." The beginning of the work classes the philosophers into the Ionic and Italic Schools, the former class beginning with the biography of Anaximander and ending with Clitomachus, Theophrastus, and