Barthold Georg Niebuhr, a great German historian, was born at Copenhagen, August 27, 1776, and died at Bonn, January 2, 1831. His writings include: “Roman History,” “Lectures on the History of Rome,” “Lectures on Ancient History,” “Grecian Heroic History,” “Minor Historical and Philological Writings,” etc.
Who never ate his bread in sorrow,
Who never spent the darksome hours
Weeping, and watching for the morrow,—
He knows ye not, ye gloomy Powers.
“Wilhelm Meister,” Book ii, Chap, xiii,—Goethe.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, one of the greatest poets the world has ever known, was born at Frankfort on the Main, August 28, 1749, and died at Weimar, March 22, 1832. His most famous works are: “Sorrows of Young Werther,” “Erwin and Elmira,” “Stella,” “Prometheus,” “Iphigenia,” “Tasso,” “Wilhelm Meister,” and his greatest work, “Faust.” He also wrote: “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship,” “Fiction and Truth,” “Hermann and Dorothea,” “Elective Affinities,” “Wilhelm Meister’s Years of Travel,” etc.
Man should be ever better than he seems.
“The Song of Faith,”—Sir Aubrey De Vere.
Sir Aubrey De Vere, a famous Irish poet, was born August 28, 1788, and died in 1846. Among his works are: “Julian, the Apostate: A Dramatic Poem,” “The Duke of Mercia: an Historical Drama,” “The Song of Faith, Devout Exercises and Sonnets,” “Mary Tudor: an Historical Drama,” was published after his death in 1847.
The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable we have, and therefore should be secured, because they seldom return again.
—John Locke.
John Locke, an eminent English philosopher, was born at Wrington, near Bristol, August 29, 1632, and died at Oates (Essex), October 28, 1704. His philosophical writings include: “An Epistle on Tolerance,” “Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” “Two Treatises on Government,” etc. He also wrote: “Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study,” “Some Thoughts on Education,” “Elements of Natural Philosophy,” and many other works.