German historian and Shakespearian critic, born at Darmstadt; he was elected to the chair of History at Gottingen in 1836, an appointment which was cancelled the following year by his signing the protest against the abolition of the Hanoverian constitution; in 1844 he was appointed honorary professor at Heidelberg, and subsequently contributed greatly to the establishment of constitutional liberty in Germany by means of his writings and by founding the Deutsche Zeitung there; in 1848 he became a member of the National Assembly, but shortly afterwards withdrew, disgusted with the course things were taking; he now engaged in literary studies, the fruit of which appeared in his celebrated volumes of Shakespearian criticism (1805-1871).