The parents of the poet were Johann Friedrich Uhland, Secretary to the University of Tübingen, and Elizabeth (born) Hoser, daughter of one Hoser who held a similar office. He had a brother, Fritz, who died in his ninth year, and a sister, Luise, who married Meyer, the pastor of Pfullingen, near Reutlingen. His education conduced to bringing out the talent that was latent in him, as it was the custom of Kauffmann, the rector of the Tübingen school, to give free themes to be worked out in prose or verse, according to the inclinations of his scholars; and the young Uhland generally chose the latter, and was early distinguished in his choice. Even at school he was known as an enthusiastic student of German and Scandinavian antiquities. At the age of sixteen and seventeen he produced many compositions of merit, but only two, ‘Der Sterbender Held,’ and ‘Der Blinder König,’ found their way into that collection of his poems which was published in 1815. At this time he was hesitating between the professions of law and medicine. As a youth, though given to long walks alone in the beautiful neighbourhood of Tübingen, he was distinguished by his love of social manly exercises, particularly of skating. Two of his earliest poetical friends were Schröder, who was afterwards drowned in the Baltic, and Harpprecht, who fell in the Russian campaign of Napoleon. This is the friend who is alluded to in the exquisite poem of ‘Die Ueberfahrt’ as “brausend vor uns allen,” while the fatherly friend spoken of there is Uhland’s maternal uncle, Hoser, the pastor of Schmiden. He was also much influenced in his tastes by Haug of Stuttgard, and Gortz, Professor of Ancient Literature in Tübingen. Later he became acquainted with Justin Kerner, whose talent he placed above his own, Oehlenschläger the Danish poet, and Varnhagen von Ense the historian. Goethe he had seen once when a boy in 1797, and he records his impressions in the ‘Münstersage.’ In 1810 Uhland went to Paris, in order to work at the treasures of Romance literature contained in the Imperial Library. On his return he applied himself to practice as an advocate at Stuttgard, without remitting his poetic labours. His tragedy, ‘Herzog Ernst von Schwaben,’ which belongs to this period, elicited the warm admiration of Goethe. In 1819 he was elected a deputy of the Würtemberg States. In 1820 he married Emma Vischer, a daughter, by a former marriage, of a celebrated woman, Frau Emilie Pistorius, to whose memory Rückert dedicated a poem called ‘Rosen auf das Grab einer edlen Frau.’ In 1834 he was made Professor of German Literature at Tübingen. He distinguished himself as a political character in 1848, though without joining the extreme Liberal party, and on one occasion presented an address to the King of Würtemberg, praying for the restoration of the Constitution, the prayer of which was immediately granted, as most prayers of the kind were at that particular time, from prudential motives.