[1] Ferdinand August Otto Heinrich Graf von Loeben, the scion of an old, aristocratic, Protestant family, was born at Dresden, August 18, 1786. He received his first instruction from private tutors. For three years from 1804 on, he unsuccessfully, because unwillingly, studied law at the University of Wittenberg. In 1807 he entered, to his profound delight, the University of Heidelberg, where, in association with Arnim, Brentano, and Görres, he satisfied his longing for literature and art. Beginning with 1808 he lived alternately at Wien, Dresden, and Berlin and with Fouqué at Nennhausen. He took an active part in the campaign of 1813-14, marched to Paris, and returned after his company had been disbanded, to Dresden, where, in 1817, he married Johanna Victoria Gottliebe _geb._ von Bressler and established there his permanent abode. In 1822 he suffered a stroke of apoplexy from which he never recovered: even the magnetic treatment given him by Justinus Kerner proved of no avail. He died at Dresden, April 3, 1825. See _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, XIX, 40-45. The article is by Professor Muncker. Wilhelm Müller also wrote an article full of lavish praise of Loeben in _Neuer Nekrolog der Deutschen_, III, Jahrg. 1824, Ilmenau, 1827. [2] Meyer (6th ed.) does not mention Loeben even in the articles on Fouqué and Malsburg, two of Loeben's best friends; Brockhaus (Jubilee ed.) mentions him as one of Eichendorff's friends in the article on Eichendorff, but neither has an independent note on Loeben. Nor is he mentioned in such compendious works on the nineteenth century as those by Gottschall, R.M. Meyer (_Grundriss_ and _Geschichte_), and Fr. Kummer. Biese says (_Deutsche Literaturgeschichte_, II. 436) of him: "Auch ein so ausgesprochenes Talent, wie es Graf von Loeben war, entging nicht der Gefahr, die Romantik in ihre Karikatur zu verzerren." [3] Cf. _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, XIX, 42.