JOHANNES, the most remarkable poet of Denmark during the eighteenth century, was born November 18, 1743, at Copenhagen, where his father was a preacher and director of the Orphan Hospital. The elder Ewald was a man of considerable ability and learning, but was prevented by ill-health from personally educating his three sons, the second and most gifted of whom, the future poet, was sent to Sleswig. Here his master allowed him to gratify his own taste in the choice of books selected for perusal. The legends of the saints which he devoured inflamed his imagination, and tempted him to the study of the Ethiopic tongues, with a view to becoming the apostle of the African negroes. By his parents he was destined for the church; but the perusal of Tom Jones and Robinson Crusoe took such a strong hold of his mind, that at the age of thirteen he ran away from school, intending to find his way to Holland, and thence take ship for Batavia, where he hoped to find a desert island like that which had originally fixed his fancy. He was overtaken in his flight, however, and compelled for the present to abandon his project. Renouncing the ecclesiastical career, as affording no adequate field for his spirit of romantic enterprise, he longed to become a soldier; and the Seven Years' war raging at this time, he enlisted as a private in a Prussian regiment of hussars stationed at Hamburg. Being transferred against his will to an infantry regiment, he deserted to the Austrian service, and there distinguishing himself was offered promotion, which however, as necessitating him to abjure his Protestant faith, he declined. To the selection of a military career he was driven not only by inclination, but by a disappointment in love, which produced a powerful impression, and exercised a lasting influence on his mind. The object of his love, whom he has celebrated under the name of Arense, bestowed her hand upon another; and this disappointment, though it cast a deep gloom for a time over the life of Ewald, was probably useful as developing in him those powers of earnest feeling and genuine pathos which distinguish many of his compositions, especially his Death of Balder. After he had served for a while with the Austrians in Bohemia, and taken part in the defence of Dresden against the Prussians, his family purchased his discharge, and he returned to Copenhagen. His state of mind was not such as to permit him to renew his theological studies, and he accordingly sought relief for his wounded feelings in the pursuits of literature. He was at this time only twenty-two years of age, and does not appear to have had any idea himself of the genius latent within him. An occasion, however, soon occurred which developed it. Frederick V. of Denmark happened to die at the moment when young Ewald was sunk in the deepest gloom and despondency from his repeated disappointments. In commemoration of this event he composed a funeral dirge, which attracted general admiration, and tempted the author to devote his whole energies for the future to the career of literature. Encouraged by the Royal Academy of Copenhagen, and assisted by the advice of Klopstock, then residing there, he produced his Lykken's Temple (Temple of Fame), and shortly after his drama of Adam and Eve, both works which bear the imprint of true poetic genius, but are in many respects faulty and crude. Conscious now of his weakness as well as of his power, he began a careful study of the best poetical models, especially of Shakespeare, hitherto accessible to him only in Wieland's translation. As the first-fruits of these studies, he produced in 1770 his Rolf Krage, a tragedy taken from the ancient history of his country, and bearing strong traces of the author's recent perusal of Ossian, of whose poems he was a devoted admirer. Though this work was greatly admired, it did little towards ameliorating his condition in life, which was rendered doubly distressing by poverty and disease. He bore bravely up against his sufferings, however, and besides the many pieces de circonstance by which he sought to earn a livelihood, he was able in the course of a short time to publish his Harlequin Patriot, a sort of satire upon the would-be reformers of his time, replete with strong common sense, pungent sarcasm, and pleasant humour. In 1773 appeared his greatest work, The Death of Balder (Balders Død), the subject of which is taken from the mythology of the Edda. Nothing in the same vein had hitherto appeared in the Danish tongue that could stand comparison with the wonderful poetic beauty of this drama; yet its merits were so ill appreciated by his countrymen, that they allowed him to struggle on unaided against the poverty and disease that tormented his declining years. In remarkable contrast to Ewald's poetical works, stand his prose compositions, some of which, such as his Project Concerning Old Bachelors, exhibit great powers of comic humour and pleasant raillery, all the more noteworthy when we remember the circumstances under which they were produced. In this respect the case of Ewald presents a striking analogy to the early literary history of J. P. Richter in Germany; and the later career of our own Cowper; and the analogy between Ewald's case and Cowper's is still more curiously borne out by the fact, that each of these poets was cheered towards the latter end by the sympathy and solicitude of a female friend. The story of Mary Unwin is known wherever the English tongue is spoken; the equally noble and self-sacrificing devotion of Madame Skou, if not so widely known, deserves an equally warm tribute at our hands. Under the roof of this lady, who had latterly devoted all her care and time to his service, Ewald died, March 17, 1781, after a painful and distressing illness of nearly two years. The edition of his works which he was engaged in superintending at the time of death, was not finally completed till 1791. The second edition did not appear till 1814-16. A biography of the poet by Molbech was published at Copenhagen in 1830.