Kleist, Christian Ewald Von

, a German poet, was born at Zoeblin, in Pornerania, in 1715, and educated | partly at the Jesuits’ college in Upper Poland, and partly at the academy of Dantzic, and the university of Konigsberg. At the age of twenty-one he entered the Danish military service, and then into that of Prussia, where he had a commission in the regiment of prince Henry, which gave him an opportunity of forming an intimacy with all the great characters at Potsdam. He was particularly noticed by the king, and advanced in the army. Having obtained leave to take an active part in the campaign of 1759, he was killed at the battle of Kunnersdorff, in the fortyfourth year of his age. His principal work, as a poet, was entitled “Spring,” which was first published in 1749, and has been translated into several languages, and compared with our Thomson. He wrote idylls in the manner of Gesncr, in which he has not confined himself to the language of shepherds, but has introduced gardeners and fishermen. He was the author also of some moral treatises, which have not been published, and of a military romance entitled “Cissides,” printed in 1759, in which there are many animated descriptions of scenes of war. Kleist was a general scholar, and spoke with facility, the German, Latin, French, Polish, and Danish languages. ¹