CHAPTER XII.

THE STUDENT'S EVENING PARTY, WITH ALL ITS CONVERSATIONS, STORIES, DISCUSSIONS, SONGS, AND CUSTOMS.

My spirit with pleasure now fain would I fill, And blithe little images gather at will: Understand--all poetic--I'm young but the while, And most actively study the humorous style. _Renommist of Zachariae_.

At the time from which we seek to borrow these pictures of student life, there lived in Heidelberg the young musician Hoffmann. He had taken refuge in Ruperto-Carolo from the petty intrigues of the theatrical world, in which occupying a place in the orchestra, he had moved long enough in a neighbouring greater city to become thoroughly weary of it. His creative spirit, his glowing fancy, a certain poetical style, marked him out and gave promise that he would one day enrich that noble art of music, into whose depths he strove enthusiastically to penetrate, with no ordinary performances. The means only had been wanting to ripen in him, taking, as he did, the most lively interest in every artistical and scientific pursuit, to the most beautiful developement, the rich abundance of his talents. How could it then be otherwise than that he should now find himself so happy in the midst of the congenial life and movement of that university city, and in the enjoyment of its natural beauties; that he should be transported to find so many points of agreement between himself and the student youth. He felt the truth of Goethe's words:--"This academical life, even if we cannot boast ourselves of having partaken of its peculiar diligence, yet affords incalculable advantages for every species of accomplishment, since we are perpetually surrounded by men who either possess knowledge, or seek it, so that in such an atmosphere, even while ourselves are unconscious of it, we draw actual nourishment."--_Wahrheit und Dichtung_.

The amiability of the young Hoffmann, and his social talents, soon gathered a circle of friends around him, and now they all came together to celebrate joyfully his birthday. His invitations, which he clad in various forms of doggerel rhyme, having been sent round, were received with gladness, since every one felt that he had never known ennui in the house of Madame H., No. 9, since Hoffmann had resided there.

The room itself was of so handsome a size; the platform which raised it in one part, gave it a peculiar aspect, and on this elevation he was accustomed to solace himself with his solitary music. It also afforded Hoffmann a particular pleasure to preserve all memorials of friendship and pleasant times carefully, and to decorate his room with them. Thus, therefore, many such things as masks, bouquets, ribands, and sketches made by himself and by his friends, tastefully adorned the room. In a word, the apartment was so agreeable, that every one speedily felt himself at home in it. The tea-table was ready set out, the pipes filled, and a cheerful fire flickered in the stove, round which the already arrived guests had grouped themselves, and heard with pleasure the dismal northeast wind whistle and roar without.

The reader has already been made acquainted with the student Freisleben, and with Eckhard likewise, under the name of the Friend. We shall therefore only remark, that they and the greater number of the other guests had appeared in their morning-gowns; we restrain ourselves from describing their exteriors farther, lest we should fall under the suspicion that we have in our eye actual and particular persons.

Freisleben was in his behaviour grave, and somewhat introverted, especially in large companies; but he became, amongst familiar friends, especially when he was upon favourite subjects, open and lively. His views of life were serious; and he was accustomed to conceal them diligently from the eyes of others, and if any sought to look into him a little more than was agreeable, he would sometimes set on and chatter a good deal of mystifying nonsense. What others had no conception of, either in him or concerning him, his familiar friends, however, knew right well, amongst whom was Hoffmann. They knew that under his quiet exterior, lay hidden a mind peculiarly alive to all that was good and beautiful; yea, that his outward coldness was at the greatest in the very moment that his spirit was the most deeply stirred. If he hated or loved any one, that knew he very ill to conceal. For the rest, he was tolerably firm in his principles, and knew how at the right time to act for himself and his friends; and his failing was only in the time of inactivity a too great weakness of resolve, and a certain romantic turn of thought, which in the company of amiable ladies brought his peace too easily into danger. He had pursued the study of medicine by no means with a onesided view.

His neighbour, the Herr von Kronen, a native of H----, was to a certain degree, his opposite; and yet the two agreed right well together. Kronen had something formal and reserved in his disposition, without being unfriendly. He carried himself with secure tact in all society, and his sagacity enabled him to see through every one, and treat them aright, without seeming for that purpose in the least to have altered his own behaviour. He was far from troubling himself about the approbation of others, and there were very few people of whose good opinion he was desirous. He was a searching inquirer, and permitted no impression to fix itself upon his mind till his understanding had examined it on all sides. He was cautious in his judgment, and was thoroughly candid towards every sufficiently intimate acquaintance. He had met with many bitter experiences in life, and was once cruelly deceived by a lady. Thence originated his dislike of all women, which, however, he gratified by making court to them all, and turning the most foolish of them into ridicule. On this head he came often into contention with Freisleben, who, on his side, ranked women very high, and had a great opinion of their general worth. His favourite study was history; and he had obvious talents for a good diplomatist.

On the contrary, Eckhard was a jurist, good, true, honest, and had a practical look. He was always joyous, and never averse to the enjoyments of life. He stood freely and firmly by his friends, especially when it came to a duel. His failing was an all too-great Pfalzish bluntness. He promised one day to become a right able man of business.

This was the company which had seated itself round the stove, and waited the arrival of the rest. They entertained themselves with scientific subjects, and had got down so deep into them, that they scarcely noticed how two new guests came rattling up the steps. With much bustle and noise appeared now the Jurist Enderlin, and the student of medicine Pittschaft, whom at first it was not very easy to recognise, so famously had he wrapped himself in coats, morning coats, cloaks, and fur cap, against the cold.

As to Enderlin, every one knew that he was a good, inconsiderate fellow, who was constantly merry even almost to dissipation; with a piercing voice and a Pomeranian gibberish of a dialect; was perpetually disputing, and only too ready to rush into a quarrel. His study, jurisprudence, occasioned him no sleepless nights.

Enderlin.--Good evening, gentlemen! I have the honour to present to you the great physician from Petersburg. I must beseech you to help me to free him from some of the ballast that he has loaded himself with, lest the disrespectful wind should so hurry his slow and reverend steps that he might have been taken for a locomotive engine.

Eckhard now assisted Enderlin to wind their friend out of his wrappers, as an onion is stripped peel after peel. Rind after rind was abstracted, till it was feared that nothing at all would be left. But the fear was vain, for what of Pittschaft finally was rolled out, it required no microscope to discover.

Pittschaft far exceeded his friend in good nature, and was accustomed often to become his joke. Yet he was one of the few, who, although they often become the object of much merriment and laughter, yet never sink in the liking and respect of their friends thereby. New schemes and plans were continually running through his head, and his especial pleasure was to reconcile again to each other, friends between whom any distance or misunderstanding had arisen. He treated all matters with great importance; had many especial friends; and decided upon things even when he knew very little about them, in the most learned manner. Wavering in his opinions, he followed willingly the counsel of his friends, and with as good will gave counsel to others, and that even without ever being asked. It often sorely troubled him that, though he had always the very best intentions, he seldom could bring to bear what he attempted, yet he soon comforted himself again, through the natural and acquired endowments and talents which he was conscious of possessing.

Hoffmann.--Where then have you left our Briton, who is seldom so dilatory when a cup of tea is in question?

Pittschaft.--He is so busy now studying the art of smoking that he is gone to a bookseller's to purchase a compendium upon it.

Eckhard.--How do you like our new protege, Mr. Traveller, then?

Pittschaft.--O, that is a regularly clever fellow. He seems so very desirous to strike up a friendship with me. We have already exchanged our views upon many weighty matters.

Hoffmann.--Without doubt thou hast been the only winner by the exchange, for the Englishman is a really amiable fellow. He takes a much more ready interest in every thing than his countrymen are wont to do; and he pleases us especially in this, that he knows how to value what is foreign; that he does not, as his countrymen commonly do, estimate the worth of a thing entirely by its resemblance, or dissimilarity to what is English. He has a sound judgment, and puts his questions in that manner, that one has a pleasure in answering them.

Von Kronen.--Yes, I wo'nt have the English inveighed against. They are an able people, of good kernel, and one must pardon them their singularities.

Hoffmann.--Only it is a pity that the taste for music is nearly lost to them. I have often been vexed with it. When they admire a musical performance, it generally happens that it is only because it is by some celebrated master.

Eckhard.--They must be excused in many cases, because they are so completely the slaves of ceremonial; but if they only come awhile amongst us, they soon can unlearn that, and become in society as free a people as they are already a political one.

Enderlin.--They are famous fellows these English, and box like the devil. Nothing would give me so much pleasure as to have a round with one of them for once. We would see, however, whether I could not upset him with my Pomerlandish head.

Freisleben.--I have made the acquaintance of many of the Britons, whose society afforded me a genuine pleasure. Their noble independence, the cool courage, the practical eye, their love of freedom, their straightforwardness, make them worthy of esteem, although one sometimes sees these shining qualities disfigured by egotism and indifference. Of the women, I will not speak. "On the Rhine, are the ladies very fine." "In Saxony also, the lovely maidens grow." That is all very good; but in England, I believe, were I there, I should fall in love at least once every day.

Von Kronen.--Ah! now we're off on the high road to sentimentality! It will not be long before he will give it you line and verse--"how man can only be ennobled by intercourse with most-to-be-adored woman." He will sing you "the joys of the beloved;" "the noble resolves, which out of an heart," etc. etc., and other such nonsense. No, these women are wicked creatures, that play with us, as Master Flea in Hoffmann says--as the cat with the mouse. But when thou hast learned to reverse that play, then art thou the true master. Recollect what Lichtenberg says,--The expressions--"to give a heart," "to give favour," are poetical expressions. Maidens don't give their hearts away, they sell them for money, or honour, or they exchange them for others, in which exchange they either have, or fancy they have, the advantage.

Freisleben.--He who honoureth not woman, and woman's mind to----

Von Kronen.--Phoh! cease all that. If thou dost not give over I shall run into the street that the wind may blow the stuff out of my ears. This is the consequence of thy associating so much of late with that Krusenstern, who makes such an everlasting sentimental face, like a goose that has had the feathers plucked out of its living body. They should stuff him with Indian corn, and hang him in the smoke, that they might grow him a good liver, with its appendage, a gall-bladder.

Freisleben.--Thou judgest to-day, contrary to thy wont, rashly upon my friend. Thy judgment is false and unjust; but that arises from thy knowing his history. The poor fellow is deeply to be pitied.

Pittschaft.--Freisleben, let us hear the story. We are all curious; and thou knowest it will remain amongst us friends.

Hoffmann.--See there! At length appears Mr. Traveller! Good evening. Take off your things. Seat yourself by the stove: here is a pipe, and here the Fidibus.

Mr. Traveller.--Best thanks! Ha, it is savagely cold without; but here, thank God, it is warm and comfortable. But I have disturbed the gentlemen!

Hoffmann.--Not at all. Freisleben is about to tell the story of an unfortunate student. I fancy you would take an interest in it too.

Mr. Traveller.--I am all ear.

STORY OF KRUSENSTERN AND AVENSLEBEN.

Freisleben.--Krusenstern, whose pale and wasted figure you now see passing silently about, was not always so. Once he was one of the handsomest students that the walls of Ruperto-Carolo ever enclosed. Every endowment that honours man, adorned him; that, even his envier must admit Nature had richly crowned him with her gifts; and the education he, sprung from one of the richest mercantile families of the city of N----, enjoyed, had brought those gifts to their highest perfection; but he had one shadow-side, and this was his choleric temperament; a failing sufficient to plunge him into ruin. Similar studies, similar sentiments united him in a strong bond of friendship with Von Avensleben, the only son of a house of ancient nobility. It was now in the year before his examination that he first saw and became acquainted with the sister of his friend; a most amiable lady, who then resided some time with her parents in the city of Heidelberg. His manly nature, free from all rudeness; his attractive demeanour, which a fine feeling of propriety pervaded; and his finished education, won him the heart of the damsel, and he testified to me that he had found in her that ideal which he had before continually sought in vain. I had the happiness to know the amiable family of the young lady, and recall with a melancholy joy the time which I spent amongst these good, and then so happy, people.

The widow Von Avensleben was as much distinguished for her high accomplishment as for her most unassuming disposition. She was well acquainted with the master works of German and foreign literature; and her knowledge of the world, and her nice tact, gave to her conversation a peculiar charm. She embraced her children in her innermost heart, her constant care was to smooth out every slightest trace of discord between them; and if she had a failing, it was her too great indulgence of them.

Amalia was the eldest daughter. She might be compared to one of those noble metals, which, because not vainly glittering on the surface, escape the eyes of ordinary men: but the noble ore conceals not its peculiar qualities from the knowing eye, which the more he observes, the more beautifully they discover themselves, and satisfy him that the pure metal requires no further refinement. In personal beauty inferior to her sister, the maiden had earlier advanced to a reflection upon herself and others, and her clear understanding enabled her to arrive at noble and free views of the true worth of outward things, and of her own mind. Thus she had early demonstrated that she was capable of the greatest sacrifices for her friends--for her friends, who were chosen after mature consideration, and in which choice womanly sagacity and fine feeling were her guides. Her youthful timidity gave place, as she first became conscious of her worth, to a noble assurance. She judged others with indulgence, but hesitated not to speak out what was an acknowledged truth, even when that truth was not flattering to another. Thus showed she herself constantly as a noble and true soul, which one must continue to love more and more.

The little Maria was not so circumspect as her sister. As a lovely butterfly, she fluttered from flower to flower, extracting from each the best honey. Her vivacity led her to embrace whatever was good and beautiful with heartiness; but exactly because every thing is not good and beautiful, was indispensable to her a change of the flowers from which she drew nourishment. She knew how to show herself friendly and full of kindness to all who felt themselves compelled to pay to her the tribute of her love-worthiness, without tyrannically abusing her magic wand. But, when she sometimes saw that the lovely and brilliant side of a thing had too much biassed her frequently too predominant feeling; when she found herself deceived in and discontented with what she had, in her too enthusiastic fancy, taken up, would she painfully lament over the dark side of life. Certainly, every one who had once seen the little elegant being, as she charmingly and sweetly moved in society; every one who had glanced on her fine and noble features, and into her speaking eyes, must have loved her; and when she, moreover, sung with the clear metal of her voice, one of the beautiful songs which my friend accompanied on the piano, every one was enchanted.

Thus were they happy people; and the rapidly approaching completion of his university life, his rare acquirements, and the protection of men high in the government, gave my friend the promise of a near and a yet happier future. Ah! who could have thought that the peace of this happy family should be so horribly destroyed; that this lovely bond should have been so cruelly rent asunder! An inconsiderate action of the young Von Avensleben converted this paradise into a hell.

He had accidentally received intelligence of a serenade which Krusenstern proposed to give to his loved one. This excited him to an ill-considered joke. As his friend glided near to the house with the nocturnal music, and standing near in the shade of another house, delighted himself with the imagination of the joy that his attention would give to Maria, Avensleben showed himself at the window, clad in a woman's night-dress, and threw a hand-kiss to Krusenstern. The wrath of Krusenstern at this foolish exposure of his lady to the ridicule of the musicians was furious, and a challenge to a duel with pistols was the consequence. No representations were able to bring him from this terrible resolve; and a journey which the family of Von Avensleben made, in order to spend a few days on a neighbouring estate of theirs, afforded the sundered friends an opportunity to compass their unhappy intention.

They drew in the early morning to the appointed place. Krusenstern with his seconds was first there--a spot well known to travellers by the name of the Engelswiese, or Angel's Meadow, lying up in the woods above the Neckar, on the opposite side to the city, and showing its pleasant green area belted in by the forest, to wanderers about the castle, though invisible to the valley below. He walked in silence to and fro, and gazed down upon the city, which lay gloriously illuminated by the morning sun. He could even distinguish the house where he had enjoyed the purest and deepest pleasures; he thought over the happy past; and anxious forebodings of a dark and perdition-blasted future rose up before him. The curtain was only too soon to be drawn aside, which his eyes were not yet permitted to penetrate. His antagonist appeared on the ground; the old resentment drove out every softer emotion; the seconds measured out the distance, the pistols were loaded, the word given--Von Krusenstern shot--but it became night before his eyes, as in the same moment he saw his antagonist spring on high, and then fall to the ground. He had received his death-wound.

Who shall describe the situation in which poor Krusenstern found himself!--who the misery of the friends of both! He was immovable to all persuasions to flight, and was committed by the magistrate to whom he had surrendered himself of his own accord, to the university prison until further inquiry.

The family of the fallen youth were immediately written to, to tell them, that, on account of some degree of indisposition, he would not be able immediately to follow them, as had been agreed, and a friend of the house undertook the sorrowful task of opening to them the dreadful intelligence. But the most terrible part was yet to come. Von Avensleben was highly beloved amongst the students, and it was resolved to attend his funeral with a torch-train; and that the wretched prisoner, who, during all this time had sate brooding in a stupor of grief without listening to any one, might not perceive it, they determined that the funeral should take place a day earlier than usual. I was with the unhappy man on this eventful evening, endeavouring to comfort him, and to withdraw his thoughts from the dark pictures of his imagination. The shutters of the little room were closed, but a tone of the dismal mourning music struck his ear as the funeral train passed by the end of the street, along the Hauptstrasse, or High Street, of the city. "My friend! they bear him to the grave!" cried he with a terrible voice, and rushed to the window. I endeavoured to hold him back, but he tore himself loose from my grasp with giant strength, and bursting open the shutters struck his head against the iron grating. There flared the sullen glow of the torches, and the tone of the trumpets quivered through my vitals. With ghostlike, terrible, and distorted countenance, he gazed after the melancholy train;--"I--I have murdered him! the good, the true friend! There! I see him with the bleeding wound, crying, 'Wo!' over me! Oh God! Oh God! thou has cast me off! Maria! Maria! what have I done to thee! Seize me, ye spirits of hell! Tear me away from the pure angel-form!" So he raved on, till, exhausted, he fell back into the chamber.

He passed the night in the most horrible delirium; and for many days it was not dared to leave him a moment alone, lest he should effect his desperate endeavours at self-destruction.

But if the train left horrors behind it, it met yet still greater as it approached the end of the city. The letter had reached the family of Von Avensleben, but the friend had missed the sisters in the darkness of the night, as they hastened back to town to attend their sick brother.

"Whom do they bury there?" asked the trembling Maria, as their carriage, passing in at the Mannheim gate, was detained by the mourning procession.

"The student who was shot in the duel," answered an old man, who did not know the young lady--"the Herr Von Avensleben."

The cry of horror and misery in the carriage, as it wheeling round again rolled away through the dark night, I attempt not to describe. Maria only too soon became aware of the whole terrible secret. She fell into a long and severe nervous fever, and only arose from her sick bed to die a more weary death from the sure poison of incurable sorrow. She had written to her former lover a most moving letter, which assured him of her pardon, and in which she exhorted him to listen to the consolations of religion.

The kind girl had not desired the return of the little admonitory tokens of happy days; she had also retained his gifts, memorials of a pure and beautiful love, which a dreadful fate had destroyed.

Krusenstern, who spent two years in prison, is now come back again, and--you have seen him.

All had listened in silence to the recital. Of some of them, the pipes were gone out,--others blew powerfully clouds of smoke around them.

"Poor Krusenstern!" said Eckhard. "I revoke all that I have said against him."

"A most sorrowful history," said the Englishman.

"And false notions about women is the cause of all," said Von Kronen. "The poor Krusenstern would never have gone so far if he had not regarded his love in too romantic a light. This mischief would never have happened if he had only read my favourite author, Lichtenberg, where he says,--'That the irresistible power of love can raise us, through its object, to the highest pitch of happiness, or plunge us down to the lowest gulf of misery, is poetical nonsense of young people, whose heads are yet only growing; which have no voices in the counsels of men; and for the most part are so constructed that they are never likely to have any.'"

"We must have no more such stories," said Hoffmann, "or the pleasures of the whole evening will be destroyed. The tea is ready; take your places, gentlemen."

Mr. Traveller, tasting the tea, pronounced it capital; and declared his astonishment that the Frau Philistine could prepare so excellent a beverage; but the host gave him to understand that he had brewed it himself. "It is my favourite beverage," said he, "and when I spend the evening at home, serves me for supper; or I cook a beefsteak and potatoes in the little machine which stands yonder, and which is a good deal in vogue amongst the students."

"So, so!" said the Englishman, "that is very sensible now."

While they thus chatted, the House-besom entered, and set upon the table a handsomely-shaped tart, which is called in this part of the country, a Radonen-cake, as a gift from Herr Schuetz, in whose house Hoffmann was familiar. The cake was admired, and the host addressed himself to cut it up scientifically, when--zounds! the whole cake was nothing but a snow-ball, which had been made in a proper mould, and which had received the requisite colour from an ingenious powdering with brick-dust. "So shalt thou return to the water out of which thou wert made," exclaimed Hoffmann, as the whole company laughed heartily at the deception.

When tea was over, the company divided itself. The Englishman and Von Kronen plunged deep into a game at chess. The other four played at whist, and Hoffmann, as master of the house, did the honours, wandering first to this and then to that table. The whist party continued long; after the first rubber they obliged the host to join then, and so spun out their play to the fifth rubber. In the meantime the two others had terminated their game at chess, and seated themselves by the stove, smoking their pipes, and chatting over this and that.

"Has your pipe a good chair-way?" asked the Englishman, whom this student expression amused.

"It goes like a flute," answered the other. "Why you have made yourself master of the art of smoking, even to its very technical terms."

"You can scarcely believe," said Mr. Traveller, "how much I am interested in every thing, that is German, of which smoking is one thing, and especially in all that is connected with its university system. So long as I continued in England, I did not trouble myself much on this head, but now I use all the endeavours I can to acquaint myself with the present constitution of your universities. You must recommend to me a book in which I can find some notice of the origin of universities in general, and of the earlier fortunes of that of Heidelberg in particular."

"The best book on that subject," said Enderlin, who had come from the whist-table, "is Von Kronen himself. He can give you such a lecture upon it, that all the rats in the house shall run out; for which reason they wished to appoint him, in Westphalia, to the office of chamber-hunter. _Tres faciunt collegium_, so let us erect him a _cathedra_, whence he may pronounce his lecture."

These arrangements were speedily made. In the meantime Von Kronen had put his visage into a very learned form, and begun:--

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF UNIVERSITIES.

Gentlemen,--Let us, as true sons of Minerva, exhibit an agreeable contrast to those people yonder, who have given themselves up to the burthen of play. May the honey of my words drop into your ears, and turn you into true disciples of wisdom. But the subject of our present lecture is the earlier fortunes of universities in general, and in particular of Ruperto-Carolo, that ancient fountain of knowledge, out of which we have drunk deep draughts.

"The sup of wisdom," interrupted Enderlin, "that we have eaten with a spoon, is a more beautiful metaphor--"

I warn the indiscreet hearer--said the _pro tempore_ professor, Von Kronen, sternly frowning,--of Tit ii. section 27, of the academical laws, where it is declared that--'insults towards persons who are placed in authority in the university, or towards the persons connected with them, shall be strictly punished; if they are offered from revenge, so must the punishment be made the sharper, and, according to circumstance, may be even penally amerced.' After this, let no man insult or interrupt.

Our European universities, as they at present exist, are the production of a comparatively late period, since, though we find institutions resembling them in very early times, yet they were essentially and wholly different to ours. History shows us how, through the continually progressing culture of a people from age to age, institutions for the fostering and diffusion of knowledge formed themselves; and thus we find, at first, the so-called Priest-Schools in Egypt, Persia, India, and amongst the Hebrews; amongst the Celtic people the cloister-like unions of the Druids, which in caves and solitary woods, imparted to the most distinguished of the youth oral instruction.

The business of teaching was confined to expounding of the laws, of the holy books, and so forth, and was communicated in verses. The educational institutions of the Greeks were of a higher grade. The first and most celebrated High School was Athens; which also in still later times, maintained a high rank in this respect. We must here only remind ourselves of the gardens of Plato, in which he imparted his instructions in philosophy. The Cynosarges, where Antisthenes taught; the Poikyle or Stoa, where Zeno assembled his disciples; the gardens of Epicurus, and afterwards of the museum at Alexandria. Philosophy was the great science: as to them the Faculties, as well as the so-called Bread sciences (sciences made a trade or profession of) were totally unknown. The Greeks also possessed public libraries, as those at Alexandria and Pergamus. The educational institutions of the Romans were modelled essentially upon those of the Greeks, and enjoyed the most extensive influence from the 607th year after the building of Rome; and the highest veneration was shown to professors from Greece, who taught in them philosophy and the arts. The Romans also held it indispensable to visit and study in the schools of Greece, and their young nobility especially resorted to Athens, Rhodes, Alexandria, etc. The Romans, moreover, were not acquainted with the division into Faculties, and every man of standing studied the liberal arts--studia humaniora--in their whole compass; and libraries, and collections of works and remains of art, were much more numerously and richly at their command. The study of philosophy was not the less zealously prosecuted than in Greece; but the grammatical philosophy of the Greek and Roman tongues, combined with rhetoric and poetry, were the highest objects of education. The continually increasing numbers of the immigrating Grecian professors, led to the founding of many other schools in Italy. Amongst the most important was the Athenaeum, founded by the Emperor Hadrian, afterwards called the Schola Romana; those of the capitol, and other temples. Vespasian was the first to establish public professors of political science with fixed salaries. Antoninus Pius raised the so-called imperial schools, as did Valentinian those of Rome generally, to the higher distinction, by a thorough and salutary reform. Athens, however, still continued to maintain the highest reputation, down to the tenth century, to which people flocked from all countries.

With the fall of Rome fell also the schools, and all the higher institutions for the diffusion of knowledge; but with the spread of Christianity they began again to rear their heads, but with a very essentially different character. Their tendency was preeminently theological,--as the theological seminaries, and the catechetical schools, especially at Alexandria, testify; which latter maintained the highest celebrity, from the second to the fourteenth century. This theological tendency manifested itself still more in the episcopal and cathedral schools, where indeed the so-called Seven Free Arts were also taught, but in the most miserable and imperfect manner. Theology, growing every day more sterile, yet exercised a perpetually increasing lordship over philosophy, and formally subjected it to tutelage, as the monastic schools from the sixth to the eleventh century most strikingly show. These institutions sought the immediate protection of the hierarchy, and the result of their labours was the School Philosophy.

Charlemagne and his friend Alcuin again first comprehended the idea of a general humane accomplishment. The former founded the Schola Palatii, for princes and young men of condition, and Alfred in England established similar ones there; but with the death of these remarkable men, all seemed to fall back again into the old track. These cloister schools, however, in the ninth century, merged into the so-called Faculty Schools; which again in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries lived anew as Universities. Thus, in consequence of the schools of Charlemagne and Alfred, a free spirit of scientific inquiry evolved itself from the cloister schools, which found a corroborating co-operation in the Rabbinical schools of North Africa, in Spain, and France, and still more, in the schools of the Arabs. There, such Faculty Schools stood forth with especial prominence; the one for medical science at Salerno; for jurisprudence at Bologna, which possessed distinguished privileges as the gift of the Emperor Henry I. through the _Autentica_ of the year 1158. The scholastic theology soon separated itself from the Aristotelian-Arabic Philosophy, and the seat of the latter became Paris. Amongst many precious privileges, which these three institutions received in consequence of the _Autentica_ of Frederick I., that of Philip Augustus for Paris was the most remarkable. It freed it from the civil jurisdiction, and placed it under the jurisdiction of its own teachers. Paris was also the first university in which all branches of education were taught; yet even there, still theology continued to be the prominent study, and none of the universities could confer all kinds of academical honours. So, doctors of theology could only be created in Paris; of law, only in Bologna, and so on. As these schools now became actually universities, they ceased to bear the names of scholae, studia, studia generalia, and the name of universities was adopted, and has ever since continued in use.

The teachers of the universities received originally no stipend from the state. Frederick II. paid to the teachers of the newly-founded university at Naples in 1224, the first fixed stipend. The great advantages of a university education becoming, by degrees, generally known, occasioned many cities, which saw these advantages, to endeavour to become university-cities themselves, so that from the thirteenth century the number greatly increased. Universities were founded in Montpellier in 1220; in Orleans in 1312; and in Prague in 1348; the last in particular formed on the model of that of Paris. Independence of the state created, especially in Prague, a most beneficial freedom of doctrine in the teachers, which was often directed against the prince, and often against the church, with the most distinguished consequences.

We are once more conducted by the mention of Prague back to the universities of Germany, and it must be, in the first place, observed, that this university for a considerable period was, and continued to be, the only one. But as knowledge penetrated more and more into Germany, and especially as it was cherished and promoted by the princes, the want of such higher educational institutions was more and more felt, and thus arose in the German territory, previous to the end of the fifteenth century, fifteen universities,--of which Vienna was founded in 1365; Heidelberg in 1387; Cologne in 1388; Erfurt in 1392; Leipsic in 1409; Rostock in 1419; Freisburg in Breisgau in 1452; Greifswalde in 1456, 1472; Trier in 1454, 1472; Basle in 1460; Ingoldstadt in 1471; Tuebingen in 1477; Mayence in 1471. At the beginning of the sixteenth century arose Wittenberg in 1502, and Frankfurt on the Oder in 1505; Marburg in 1527, the first Protestant university; Koenigsberg in Prussia in 1544; Jena in 1554, 1557; Altdorf in 1675, 1678; Helmstadt 1575.

At that period, however, the Protestant princes only could be justly praised for their care to provide able professors; the universities which continued Catholic, or which were newly-founded by Catholic princes, as those of Dillingen in 1613; Paderborn in 1615; and Molsheim in 1618; were occupied by the Jesuits. In consequence of the unfortunate Thirty Years' War, many of these universities fell; many suffered much from the chances of war; and these circumstances incited neighbouring princes to found new universities. So arose the university at Giessen in 1650; at Duisburg in 1655; at Kiel in 1665. The Elector Frederick III. of Brandenburg--King Frederick I.--changed in 1694 the Ritter School at Halle into a university. A general improvement of the instruction given in all the universities in this century is observable: but spite of all endeavours at improvement in this respect, the sciences all continued to be taught in a very unphilosophical manner, and in the Latin tongue.

The necessary advance from this wretched state of things began with the eighteenth century, through the universally restless activity of the philosopher Leibnitz. Christian Wolf taught first in the spirit of Leibnitz and in the German tongue. George II. seconding the better spirit of the time, founded a new university at Goettingen in 1734; Margrave Frederick of Brandenburg-Anspach one at Erlangen in 1743; and a Catholic one arose through the Prince-Bishop of Dalberg in 1734 at Fulda, but was dissolved again in 1804. The good spirit continued to work on through the remaining half of the eighteenth century, and thus in 1760, Duke Frederick of Mecklenburg founded a university at Buetzow, which was in 1789 united to that of Rostock. The Duke Karl Eugen of Wuertemberg in 1770 founded that of Stuttgardt, which was, however, again dissolved in 1794. Bonn also at that period received the foundation of its university. More recently was founded that at Landshut, whither the university of Ingoldstadt was removed in 1800, and again in 1827 removed to Munich. Wittemberg ceased in 1816, being united to that of Halle; and in 1810 a new university was founded at Berlin.

We have now, gentlemen, taken an historical glance at the German universities, and at their foundations, so far as is necessary. They were called forth by the ruling circumstances of the times, and established themselves now in this manner and now in that. But it is especially interesting to us to have seen that the university of Heidelberg was one of the earliest, and continues one of the first; its rank no one will presume to contest. She has raised her noble head amid all the storms of time, and no state revolutions or other political epochs could make her bend. Ruperto-Carolo shone like a morning sun on the horizon of scientific endeavour, and we now shall take with particular pleasure the opportunity----

"To invite the honourable listeners politely to partake of a modest supper;" interrupted Hoffmann. "Thou mayst finish thy learned lecture another time."

Von Kronen.--Far be it from me to throw any obstruction in the way of so praiseworthy a proposition; especially, as the favourite adage of our city of the Muses has always been--the utile dulci.

Mr. Traveller.--So postpone we then the continuance of the discourse to a future day.

PHRENOLOGY.

The little collation was in the mean time brought up, and the company, under the conduct of the musical artist, made the most successful attacks on the ham and veal cutlet. The Goettingen sausage, moreover, an imitation of the renowned Sulzer, was as little spared as the potato-salad, and the scattered remains soon alone marked the battle-field. A noble Rhine-wine recruited the muscles of the jaw, and loosed again the tongue of the brave combatants. The affairs of the day became the subject of discourse, and occurrences in Hanover, which then appeared likely vitally to affect the interests of all Germany, were eagerly discussed by all. Mr. Traveller, as the representative of England, stated the strong feeling which there prevailed against the King of Hanover, and so they came to talk of the prevailing views and theories in England, on many subjects, and Mr. Traveller speedily entangled himself in a discussion on Phrenology, which he endeavoured to defend. Freisleben, a determined opponent to the theory, immediately took up the subject zealously.

Freisleben.--They are now signs on the skull that man will expound, formerly they were signs in the heaven. What unpardonable presumption, from certain deviations from the regularity of the outer form, to infer an analogical change of the soul. A leap which, according to my opinion, is not less than from comets' tails to war. What presumption, from the body to seek to form conclusions upon the spirit, whose mode of connexion with it is to us totally unknown! It strikes me exactly as if any one should infer or assert the possession of a fine sense of smell, from the existence of a huge nose, or, as dancing is a function of the foot, that he who has a great foot must be a capital dancer.

Mr. Traveller.--Throw the matter into ridicule as much as you please, but take along with you at the same time the evidences which experience furnishes.

Freisleben.--These evidences have long been shown to evidence nothing, and it astonishes me that this doctrine of Gall and Spurzheim, this ephemeral structure, can find so much acceptance in England.

Mr. Traveller.--I know the thing only by popular representations. But the principles which are herein derived from anatomy and physiology, to which Gall and Spurzheim have rendered much service, the grounds which pathology and comparative anatomy also furnish, appear to me worthy of all attention.

Pittschaft.--That nobody denies; but Gall having rendered essential service to the anatomy of the brain, by no means justifies his doctrine.

Freisleben.--His theory must fall, when it is assailed _a priori_, or by experience. Above all things, unphilosophical, not to say ridiculous, is his distribution into twenty-seven senses. By what right has he only so many set forth; and why is a boundary drawn here?

Mr. Traveller.--Though many things may be said against this distribution, yet it is often seen in life that an individual sense as marked out by Gall, is pre-eminently developed and frequently almost exclusively predominates; I remind you of his five-sorts-of-memory sense.

Freisleben.--Certainly. But what is the cause of this? Is it not to be sought rather in external influences, which especially develope this kind of memory? And if we leave this out of view, then must we go still farther. So there is a painter who can paint only landscapes; and I recollect in Matthisson's Reminiscences, to have read of a Cretin in Berne, who could paint cats, and cats only, but them most excellently. How much farther must Gall's artistical faculty be subdivided, till it reaches down to the cat-painting faculty!

Mr. Traveller.--The artistical faculty is probably in this painter, but we must assume that it is prevented from unfolding itself in all directions.

Freisleben.--But there you knock yourself down. Since, if we assume that there is no necessity for the faculty, which the external elevation of the skull indicates, to develope itself, then the whole pile of Phrenology tumbles to the ground. But does it develope itself, and is this acknowledged as necessary, what incalculable and horrible consequences must this have! All moral responsibility ceases: the criminal escapes punishment, since he can show on his skull the irresistible murder-sense. But I will not pursue this farther, since, happily, we have nothing to fear from it. Scarcely in a single instance do the outer plates of the skull-bones correspond permanently with the inner ones, and therefore not with the brain. I call to your recollection only the skulls of certain animals, in which, between the two skull-plates, is to be found a large hollow, as we, indeed, also find in man; as, for instance, the hollow of the forehead--the frontal sinus--which is, in different individuals, very differently developed. Then again the most recent physiological experiments show, that in occurring injuries, they are not by any means of so much consequence in the external portion of the brain, in the hemisphere, but that it is exactly the inner portion which is of the most importance, and which also has a much more determinate shape. In injuries of the head too, cases have occurred, where whole spoonsful of the hemisphere of the brain have been taken out without the slightest diminution of the actively intellectual powers. Object not to me that the convolutions of the hemisphere of the brain have been particularly developed in distinguished men--here it was also the case with the inner portion: one part does not develope itself without the other. Object not that the anatomy of beasts gives no secure result, since if this is the case, how can phrenology itself dare to hope to give more certain judgments? The firm and immovable part--the form of the bones especially--is delusive: in the first place, since they have long acquired their form and consistency before every species of improvement of the improvable creature takes place, which comes long after the complete fixidity; and secondly, since this form depends so little upon our will, while the influence of external causes is so unavoidable, and a single pressure or stroke can gradually work a change, whose progress no art is capable of restraining. Moreover, even could any thing be deduced from this, still the firm parts yet constitute but a certain and perpetually fixed proportion, a single and insignificant link in the chain of countless circumstances, which go to the formation of the human character.

Mr. Traveller.--My God! my head is in a whirligig with all this--with all this rapid German.

Freisleben.--One must not allow one's-self to speak of the outer form of the head in which a free spirit dwells, as one would of a pumpkin; as little must we calculate circumstances which depend upon it, as we would calculate an eclipse. Others assert, with equal probability, that the character of a man lies in his countenance, whilst they appeal to the capability of drawing a conclusion on the whole from the indications of a part; as others, supporting themselves on this sufficient ground, assert, that man must act as a machine. And to this class of reasoning belongs--"in a handsome body dwells a handsome soul."

Ridicule majis hoc dictum, quam vere aestimo, Quando et formosos saepe inveni pessimos, Et turpi facie multos cognovi optimus. _Phaedrus_.

Pittschaft.--Ah, if we could but first rightly understand the changes in the brain itself. But a great visible change in the brain may be a very little change for the soul, and _vice versa_. And how will people draw conclusions from the very vault of the brain?

Mr. Traveller.--But, gentlemen, recollect how often phrenologists, from the outward form of the skull, have drawn correct conclusions. Recollect the allocation of distinguished heads as they are to be seen in plaster in the English and German museums.

Freisleben.--Yes, they have drawn some very neat conclusions, but we know very well how that stands. The false conclusions have been carefully put out of sight; and yet sufficient of them have come to the daylight to render the phrenologists ridiculous. They are, indeed, often still more innocent, the worthy demonstrators only seeing that which they knew very well before. Recollect also what a sagacious German naturalist says:--"The proof of the demonstration which the phrenologist makes is, in most cases, as superficial as the demonstration itself. Let a man eat a shovelful of salt, according to the prescription of Aristotle, with the person upon whose head and heart he makes so superficial a judgment, and he will then find what will become of his former judgment. But to err is human, and that not exclusively, for it is sometimes the fate of angels." Talent, and the endowments of the spirit, generally have no signs in the solid portion of the head. To prove this, let the selected casts of thinking heads, and selected ones of fools and not-thinking men, be placed side by side; and not the head of the learned man, of a careful education, be placed in opposition to that of the worst specimen of the totally uneducated country booby. Bedlam is peopled with inhabitants, who, if they did not stand staring as if chilled into stone, or smiling at the stars, or listening to the song of the angels, or would blow out the dog-star, or stood trembling with folded arms,--if, in fact, they were not judged by these aberrations, but by the shape of their heads alone, would command the highest respect. Still less can we draw correct conclusions from the shape of the living head than from the bare skull itself. A skilful artist, without exceeding the bounds of the probable, would be able to cast in wax a covering of muscles and skin for the head of any skeleton, and give it an expression which should possess any aspect that he pleased. And thus may the skull of a living person be, in reality, so covered with an irregular mass of muscular and cuticular integuments, as shall give an equally delusive effect.

Von Kronen.--whose attention had become excited by this illustration--here interposed. What an immeasurable leap from the exterior of the body to the interior of the soul! Had we a sense which enabled us to discover the inner quality of bodies, yet would such a leap still be a daring one. It is a well established fact, that the instrument does not make the artist; and many a one with a fork and a goosequill would make better sketches than another with an English case of instruments. Sound manly sense soon sees into this; it is only the passion for innovation, and an idle sophistry, soothing itself with false hopes, which will not see it. If a ship-captain answered a fellow who offered himself to his service with enthusiasm--"Thy will is good, but, nevertheless, thou art of no use to me. Thy shoulders are too narrow, and thou art too small altogether for the service," then must the good fellow probably put his hand on his mouth; but if the captain said, "Thou actest like a worthy fellow, but I see by thy figure that thou constrainest thyself at this moment, and art a scamp in thy heart;" in truth, such an address would, in any place, to the end of the world, be answered by any honest fellow with a box on the ear.

Mr. Traveller.--You will make me in the end suspicious of the whole circle of physics, or otherwise I must believe that you allow no place to the phrenologist amongst natural philosophers.

Freisleben.--I permit him freely to class himself amongst the naturalists; but he must attempt to take no greater rank amongst them than the _soi-disant_ political prophet does amongst subtle statesmen. But one can by no means class the genuine natural philosopher and the phrenologist and physiognomist together. The first err often humanly, the others err continually and monstrously.

While this discussion had grown warm, amongst the others a lively conversation had arisen on recent literature. They gave their opinions on the recent English romances of Bulwer and Marryat, which then were the order of the day. They condemned some of the later productions of the French. They contended for and against the influence of the young Germany; criticised Gutzhow's newest romance; and soon were upon a general theme, the different tendency of the public in England and Germany. There the preference for popular representation; the neglect of scientific reading, together with the very superficial school education; here, on the contrary, reverence for science, and over-driven grasping after scientific things, and a passion to be learned, which especially shows itself repulsively in the ladies, when they are carried away into the scientific vortex; they bewailed the wretched mass of rubbish that was now read, and especially that the Germans by reading too much did themselves injury. That, in particular, in the schools the children were held more to learning by rote than to thinking; at the same time thankfully acknowledging that it was sought with all diligence, to correct this error in the new Folks' Schools. "In England," says Freisleben, "one finds more original character in company, and amongst the common people, as may be seen in the English writings. In Germany it is totally different. And if any one stumbles on an original discovery, how long it continues, till his discovery, and till he himself become known. In Germany the greatest discoveries have been made, but they weighed them, and doubted so long whether they were new and would be useful, that their neighbours the French or the English seized on them, and secured the advantages of them to themselves."

Eckhard.--No nation feels so much the worth of other nations as the Germans; and yet is, alas! so little regarded by most of them, even for this obeisance.

Enderlin.--I think the other nations are quite in the right. A nation that would please all, deserves to be despised of all. This has been pretty much the case with Germany, and it is only just now that other people have learned to estimate her properly.

Von Kronen.--Lichtenberg in his time said justly--"The character of the Germans lies in two words: patriam fugimus."--_Virgil_.

Hoffmann.--Yes, Lichtenberg--_that_ is an original character! I have learned to prize him properly from Von Kronen. Yesterday, for the first time, I read his famous essay on the state of the German Romance of his time. It pleased me so much that I must read it out to you. It is short, and will at least be finished before the Phrenologists and Anti-Phrenologists there have finished their discussion.

ON THE GERMAN ROMANCE.

Our mode of living is become so simple, and all our customs so little mysterious; our cities are, for the most part, so small, the land so open; all is so simply true, that a man who is desirous to write a German romance, hardly knows how he is to bring the people together, or to lay his plot. Then, as the mothers now in Germany suckle their own children, there is an end of all exchanging them, and a fountain of emotion is thus stopped, that is not to be purchased with money. If I would persuade a maiden to come out in man's clothes, that is immediately discovered, and the servants betray it, before she can get out of the house; and besides, our ladies are educated in such housewifely notions that they have not the heart in them to do any thing of the kind. No, to sit fine by mamma, to cook and to sew, and to become themselves cooks and sewing mothers, that is their business. It is undoubtedly very convenient for them, but it's a shame to the Fatherland, and an invincible obstacle to the romance writer.

In England, people think that if two persons of the same sex sleep in the same room, a fever is unavoidable, on which account the people in one house are by night, for the most part separated, and a writer has only to take care that he sets open the house-door, and he can let who he will into the house, and need not fear that any body will awake sooner than he would have them. Furthermore, in England the chimneys are not merely the channels of smoke, but the especial windpipes of the chambers, and afford at the same time such an excellent way to come down into any room of the house, at once and unheard, that I have often been told that he who had once gone up and down a chimney would prefer it to a staircase.

In Germany a lover would make a pretty journey if he were to come down a chimney! Yes, if he had a mind to fall into a fire-hearth, or into a wash-kettle with lye, or into an anti-chamber with two or three stoves, which one probably could not open from within at all. And suppose one should let the lover come down into the kitchen, the question then is, which way would you bring him first upon the roof? The cats in Germany can take this way to their loves, but not men. On the contrary, in England, the roofs make a kind of street which sometimes are better than those on the ground; and when a man is upon one, it costs him then no further trouble to get upon another than to run across a village street in winter.

People will say that those contrivances have been hit upon on account of fires; but as these scarcely occur once in one hundred and fifty years in any house, so I conceive that they have rather been found advantageous to lovers driven to extremity and to thieves, who very often take this way, when they might have chosen others, and certainly always when a hasty retreat is necessary, exactly as the witches and the devil are wont to do in Germany. Finally, a right powerful prevention of intrigues is that otherwise fine and praiseworthy conceit of the post-directors in Germany, by whom a vast amount of the virtues of the times are preserved, since instead of the English coaches and chaises, in which a princess in the most delicate condition would neither fear nor be ashamed to travel, they have substituted those so-beloved open Rumpelwagen. For what mischief the convenient coaches and the most excellent highways of England may occasion, is not to be expressed by words.

For, in the first place, if a maiden goes out of London with her lover of an evening, they may be in France ere the father awoke, or in Scotland ere he has come to resolve with his relations what he shall do; therefore, a writer has need of neither fairies, conjurors, nor talismans in order to bring the beloved into security, since if he can only bring them to Charing-Cross or Hyde-Park Corner, they are as safe as if they were in Weaver Melek's chest in the Persian Tales.

On the contrary, in Germany, if the father misses but his daughter on the third day; if he only knows that she is gone by post-wagon, he can mount his horse and seize her again at the third station. Another mischievous circumstance is the, alas! much too good company in the commodious stage-coaches of England, which are always filled full of beautiful and well-dressed ladies, and where--a thing which parliament ought not not to suffer--the passengers so sit, that they must gaze upon one another; whereby is endangered, not only a highly dangerous bewilderment of the eyes, but sometimes a highly shameful, and on both sides a smile-exciting bewilderment of the legs of the opposite traveller; and finally, as frequently as dissolving a bewilderment of souls and thoughts arises, so that many an honourable young man who was proposing to travel from London to Oxford, has instead of that travelled to the devil. Such things, thanks to heaven, are impossible in our post-wagons; since, in the first place, no genteel ladies could possibly seat themselves in such a conveyance if they had not in their youth been after climbing hedges, magpie-nesting, apple-gathering and battering down of walnuts; since the spring over the side-ladder requires a remarkable nimbleness, and no lady can do it without setting the coach-master and the ostler-fellows that are standing round, laughing. In the second place, the passengers so seat themselves, when they at length do seat themselves, that they cannot look each other in the face, and in such a situation, whatever may be said to the contrary, cannot very well begin an intrigue. Conversation loses all its spice, and one can at the most only understand what another says, but not what he desires to say. In short, one has something else to do in a German post wagon than to gossip; one must hold one's-self fast when we come to holes, hold ourselves in readiness for a spring in case of accident; must keep an eye on the boughs, and duck at the proper time, that one's hat or one's head may be left in its place; keep an eye to the windy side, and keep strengthening the clothing on that quarter from which the attack comes; and if it rains, why then one has the property common to other creatures that live neither in the water nor on the water, of being silent when it is wet; and thus the conversation stands at once stock still. If one at length reaches a Wirthshaus (inn,) thus passes the time amongst other things--one dries himself, another shakes himself, one sucks his lozenge, another blows up his cheeks, or enacts whatever other child's megrim he may be in the habit of on such occasions. And hereby comes a circumstance into notice which makes all friendly intercourse in a Wirthshaus impossible; to wit,--that since so many miseries are bound up with post-wagon travelling, so care has been taken that the Wirthshauses shall be made so much worse than is necessary, in order to render a return to the post-wagons the more tolerable. And nobody can imagine to himself what an effect that has too. I have seen people who were pounded and knocked to pieces, and sighed ardently for repose, that when they saw the Wirthshaus in which they were to refresh themselves, with the courage of heroes, have resolved to travel on, which was similar to the fortitude of Regulus, which drove him back to Carthage, although he knew that they would there put him into a sort of German post-wagon, and so let him roll down the hill.

So fall through altogether the stage-coach intrigues with the stage-coaches themselves, those true hot-houses of episodes and declarations. But, it will be said, there is now a stage-coach in Hanover. Good, I know it; and one quite as good as an English one. And must we, therefore, begin all our romances on the way between Haarburg and Minden, which we now leave so swiftly behind us that we have hardly time to see it? All that the travellers do there, is to break out in praise of the king who has ordered this coach, and to sleep; for they are generally so wearied before they get into this coach, that they then fancy they are got home, or that they lie in bed. But those are proper objects truly to fill a romance with! To introduce five sleeping merchants, all snoring; or to fill out a chapter with the praises of the king! The first is by no means a fit subject for any book, and the latter for no romance.

But through this exception, I have wandered from my proper business. Yes, if there were not left yet a monastery or two, to which we can bring a loving couple for refuge, I should not know how to carry on a German romance to the third page; and when, in fact, there shall no longer be a cloister left, there is an end of German romance.

* * *

The majority of the company paid their tribute of approbation to this satire. The observations which they made upon it were interrupted in good time by the appearance of a steaming bowl of punch. When the guests had filled their glasses, Hoffmann seized his guitar, and accompanied the voices of the rest, who sung Schiller's famous song.

THE FOUR ELEMENTS.

Four Elements all thoroughly blent, Build up the world, our being cement.

Press ye the juice of citrons, and pour; Harsh is of life the innermost core.

Now let the sugar's tempering juice, Softly the fiery harsh strength reduce;

Now let the water bright gushing fall; Peacefully water embraceth all.

Let drops of spirit therein be thrown; Life to the life it giveth alone.

Quaff it off quickly ere virtue goes, Only revives the well while it glows.

Freisleben arose, and said, "Let us drink to the prosperity of our friend. May many happy years find him still young in his spirit, and in the love of his art. May future generations lament that he did not live amongst them. May he be continually surrounded by friends who love him as we do! May he only know sickness that he may learn more vividly to enjoy health. May so much earthly good fall to his lot, that he may live contented. To his prosperity let us give a three times thundering Live-hoch! Vivat!--vivat!--vivat!"

Hoffmann.--To the prosperity of my dear friends! May you--if in the autumn of our lives we should meet again--say to me, "All that we once wished thee on thy birthday, has had its fulfilment in ourselves. But may there never come a winter in your lives!" Let us sing something in company.

THERE TWINKLE THREE STARS.

There twinkle three stars, oh! so friendly! I' the darkness of life do they shine, These stars, oh! they sparkle so kindly, We call them love, music, and wine, We call them love, music, and wine.

There lives in the sweet voice of singing, A heart sympathizing and true; Song giveth new youth to rejoicing, And barreth the heart to all rue!

But wine unto song is united, A joyous and wondrous thing; With glowing rays clothes itself brightly,-- To earth a perpetual spring!

But glitt'ring and joyfully winking, When brightly the third star doth shine; It sounds in the spirit like singing, It glows in the bosom like wine.

Then fill, ye three cordial planets, Our breasts with your glory divine; In life and in death our companions, Be love, and sweet music, and wine!

And wine, and sweet love, and singing, They honour the festival night; Then live! who in kissing and loving, In wine and in singing delight! In wine and in singing delight!

Hoffmann.--Gentlemen, don't drink yet. I must yet once more animate you; so then sing:--

Roundelay and barley-wine, Love we them for ever; Grasp them bravely where they shine,-- Cup's exhausted never!

(To Mr. Traveller.) Brother, thy beloved is called?--

Mr. Traveller.--Georgina.

All.--Georgina, she shall live-o! shall live-o! Georgina, she shall live-o!

All.--Roundelay and true grape wine, Love we them for ever. Grasp them bravely where they shine,-- Cup's exhausted never.

(To Von Kronen). Brother, thy beloved is called?--

Von Kronen.--Rapunzel.

All.--Rapunzel, she shall live-o! shall live-o! shall live-o! Rapunzel, she shall live-o!

So goes the song in this manner round; and each one names the actual or feigned name of his lady.

Mr. Traveller.--Where, then, have you found the name of Rapunzel, Von Kronen?

Von Kronen.--Look into Grimms' "Kinder und Haus-Maerchen;" there you may read the moving history of Rapunzel, which has so seized upon me that I have without further ado made the poor Rapunzel my beloved.

Enderlin.--I hope that thou correspondest with her. How touchingly must the subscription of the letters sound:--"Thy faithful Rapunzel," or "Thy affectionate Rapunzel."

Pittschaft.--But do procure me the favour of thy Rapunzel writing something in my Stammbook.

Von Kronen.--In thy bore of a Stammbook? But O yes! yes! for she is quite at liberty to write in what she will.

Pittschaft.--And what, I wonder, will she write?

Von Kronen.--Instead of an answer, which perhaps after all may not come, I will give thee an anecdote.

Every body knows how great was at one time the rage in the universities to have Stammbuecher. Every student kept one; and all the inmates of the house, the numerous members of the landsmannschaft, the whole body of the teachers and other acquaintances who approached him, each and all found their place in it. A student even came once to Dr. Semmler in Halle, with the request that he would have the goodness to write in his Stammbuch. Semmler, who, spite of his well-known and highly praiseworthy economy of time, could not repress his curiosity to turn over the leaves of the Stammbuch, found, to his great amazement, almost on every page such sentences and sayings as were not the most calculated to give him a high idea of the morality of the friends of the gentleman Stammbuch-holder. Finding a clear page, he therefore wrote--Matt. viii. 31. "Lord, suffer me, that I go amongst this herd of swine."

Pittschaft.--If Rapunzel could say such stupid things as thou dost, I should set her down for a very conceited person, and would not trouble her with my Stammbuch, more particularly that she might not get a wicked notion of the morality of my friends, and amongst them of her beloved.

Hoffmann.--Away with all personalities. Let us have a roundelay.

There goes a drinking-law our table all around, around-- There goes a drinking-law our table all around:-- Three times three are nine-a, Ye know well what I opine-a. There goes a drinking-law our table all around.

What a jolly time the damsels have though-- They're not compelled to the war to go.

[Here he drinks out his glass, as each one does in his turn, after having sung.]

THE KRAeHWINKLER LANDSTURM.

But march you slow there before, but still march slow there before, Or the Kraehwinkler Landsturm can follow no more.

What a jolly time the maidens have though,-- They're not compelled to the war to go.

Pittschaft--Dame hostess, cook you Millet-bree, When the Landsturm comes it will hungry be.

Chorus--[As above, and repeated after the singing of each strophe.]

Freisleben--Our captain is from Rudolstadt, He eats a deal, but hungers for all that.

Von Kronen--Sir Captain! my follower goes so in trot, That scarcely a scrap of heel I have got.

Enderlin-- At Leipsic, in the People's-Fight, We had nearly taken a prisoner quite.

Eckhard-- The artillery would have fought right well, But of powder it can not bear the smell.

Hoffmann (for Mr. Traveller)--The cavalry stout doth charge amain, And is always in when the dumpling's slain.

Hoffmann.--Still farther goes our Lumpitus yet once more around!

At Hamburgh burst a dreadful bomb, Potz Wetter! how ran we there all and some!

And as the foe came galloping fast, We hid in the grass till they were past.

The Kraehwinkle Landsturm hath courage high, The baggage it always standeth by.

Our Captain is a most valiant wight, 'Tis only a pity he can not fight.

They gave us a banner moreover to show, Which way the wind did chance to blow.

Run, run, brave comrades, run left and right-- A French sentry-box stands there in sight!

This song was written originally in ridicule of the Austrian Landwehr. It has almost endless strophes, of which a few only are here given. It is very frequently used as a Round-song or roundelay, in which each person must sing a fresh verse, and when the known verses are at an end, some one extemporizes, so that every day it becomes richer in strophes. The sixth strophe is then usually sung as the conclusion.

Hoffmann.--I fill the glasses, and then let us sound a still greater Lumpitus.

Hoffman-- My brethren, when no more I'm drinking, But faint with gout and palsy lie, Exhausted on the death-bed sinking, Believe it then, my end is nigh. [Repeated as a Chorus.

Freisleben-- A lordly life the Pope doth hold, He lives on absolution gold; The best of wines still drinketh he-- The Pope, the Pope I fain would be.

Von Kronen-- Brothers! in this place of festive meeting, God in goodness hath us thus combined; Let us every trouble now defeating, Drink here with the friend of honest mind. There, where nectar glows--Valleralla! Sweetest pleasure blows--Valleralla! E'en as flowers when the spring hath shined.

Pittschaft-- So crown with leaves the love-o'erbrimming beakers, And drain them o'er and o'er; And drain them o'er and o'er; In Europe far and wide, ye pleasure seekers,-- Is such a wine no more! Is such a wine no more! Is such a wine no more! Is such a wine no more!

Enderlin-- Ca, ca, carouse it! Let us not fiery-heads become;-- Who won't here now sit, Let him stay at home! Edite bibite, collegiales Post multa secula, pocula nulla!

Mr. Traveller sings "The Old English Gentleman."

Eckhard-- God greet thee, Brother Straubinger, I'm glad to meet thee, tho-ough; Perhaps it is unknown to thee, That from Heidelberg I go-o. The master and the misteress, Of them I cant complai-en; But with these gents, the studi-ents, No mortal can conta-ien

Chorus.-- The master and the misteress, etc.

Hoffmann, in the mean time, had seated himself at the harpsichord, and drew a quodlibet from the most varied Burschen songs, leaping from one to the other, and interweaving phantasy-pieces between them. The platform in the chamber enabled the company to sing the Bavarian Folks'-song, "The Binschgauer." One chorus placed itself on the platform with the punch-glasses, the other remained by the steaming bowl. Hoffmann accompanied them on the harpsichord.

THE BINSCHGAUER'S PILGRIMAGE.

The Binschgauer would a pilgrimage go, Fain would they go singing, but how they did not know, Zschahi! Zschahe! Zschaho! etc. etc.

The Binschgauer have got there, Now take heed that ev'ry one his knapsack bear, Zschahi! Zschahe! Zschaho! etc. etc.

The Binschgauer far from their homescenes have gone; They saw many cities, and far around were known. Zschahi, Zschahe, Zschaho! etc. etc.

The Binschgauer long through joy and sorrow run, Till high the holy pinnacles glanced i' the evening sun. Zschahi, Zschahe, Zschaho! etc. etc.

The Binschgauer wended about that dome renowned, The vane-staff was broken, yet still the vane turned round. Zschahi, Zschahe, Zschaho! etc. etc.

The Binschgauer entered the holy dome within, The saints were all asleep, and woke not with their din. Zschahi, Zschahe, Zschaho! etc. etc.

The song was ended. The company became continually more jovial, and began, on the platform, to dance a most singular quadrille, to which their musician played on the harpsichord in the most extraordinary style. Von Kronen, of a tall and strong figure, stood there exactly as if he had been turned in wood, but an electrical stream seemed to run now through this, and now through that limb, and twitched him hither and thither. His motions were those of a puppet which is drawn by strings attached to every member. When the dance was become right wild, then darted he suddenly forwards, so that no one knew whence the movement came, and all squandered in astonishment His partner, the little Enderlin, made a graceful spring, and, as the tall fellow stretched wide his legs, darted boldly between them, and then danced round him with the newest steps. The other dancers had again seized each other's hands, and made such a desperate leap that they sprang almost to the top of the room. The music rushed on more wildly--the dance grew madder and madder, and with more ringing laughter of the spectators, as the pair, suddenly making a high side spring, sent a pane of glass from the window jingling down into the street. Great snow-flakes came whirling into the room through their new-made way. "It struck two!" cried several voices. "It is time to break up!" exclaimed others. All prepared themselves for departure, even the host himself, who would accompany his guests a little way.

The glasses were emptied--"To a speedy and as happy an evening!" and the farewell cigars lit.

The wind without had laid itself, but the snow-flakes chased each other rapidly through the air, and a deep snow covered the silent streets. In a few moments the merry home-goers were clad in a thick covering of snow; and being once thus besnowed, they separated themselves into two parties, and began to bombard each other with snowballs. One party prevailed and put the other into flight. The fleers espied a Bauer's sledge; one jumped in, the other two seized its pole, and thus rushed rapidly along the Hauptstrasse, pursued by the other party with snowballs. When they now reached one of the principal squares, the madcap chase came to an end. The sledge remained standing in the square to the amazement of the Bauer, who the next morning, after much hunting, found it there.

Now sounded a general "good-night," and every one hastened home. Hoffmann reached his chamber, which filled him with that feeling of desolation, so often felt in places which a moment before were all alive with the presence of those we love. But the delightful consciousness of having enjoyed an evening to the uttermost, the still more delightful consciousness of having afforded such an one to his friends, absorbed all other thoughts. He called to mind again the good wishes of his friends, and his last thoughts in the night were, "May God, if he denies me every thing else, never, to my life's end, deprive me of the sense which renders me capable of enjoying worthily such delightful hours."

DRINKING SONG.

Ye brothers, when no more I'm drinking, But faint with gout and palsy lie, Exhausted on the sick bed sinking, Believe it then, my end is nigh.

And die I this day or to-morrow, My testament's already made; My funeral from your care I'll borrow, But without splendour or parade.

And as for coffin, that remanding, A Rhenish cask for it shall pass; Instead of lemon placed each hand in, Give me a brimfull Deckel-glass.

Into the cellar then convey me, Where I have drunk whole hogsheads dry; With head unto the tap then lay me, My feet towards the wall may lie.

And when you're to the grave me bringing, As follow all then, man by man; For God's sake let no bell be ringing, And clinking glasses be your plan.

Upon my gravestone be inscribed, This man was born, grew, drank, and died,-- And now he rests where he imbibed In lifelong joy, the purple tide.

* * *

THE POPE.

A lordly life the Pope doth hold, He lives on absolution gold; The best of wines still drinketh he; The Pope, the Pope I fain would be.

But no! 'tis but a wretched lot, A German maiden loves him not. Alone in his great house lives he-- The Pope, the Pope, I would not be.

The Sultan lives full blithe and crowse, He liveth in a golden house, With lovely ladies liveth he-- The Sultan then I fain would be.

But no! he is a wretched man, He liveth by the Alcoran. No drop of wine may drink--not he; The Sultan then I will not be.

Their separate fortunes, howe'er fine, I'd wish not, for one moment, mine, But would to this right glad agree, Now Pope, now Sultanus to be.

Come, lovely maiden, yield a kiss, For this my reign as Sultan is. And faithful brother send a fee, For now I choose the Pope to be.

* * *

DRINKING SONG.

Brothers! in this place of festive meeting, Let us every trouble now defeating, God, in goodness, hath us thus combined; Drink here with the friend of honest mind. There, where nectar flows, Sweetest pleasure blows, E'en as flowers when the spring hath shined.

Golden time! oh revel we it through, Hanging on the friend's devoted breast; From the friend a blissful warmth we'll borrow; Of our pleasure cool in wine the zest. In the grapes pure blood, Drink we German mood, Feel we of a higher strength possessed.

Sip ye not when Bacchus' fountain floweth, With full beakers to lips faintly bent; He who life by drops yet only knoweth, Knoweth not of life the full intent. Lift it to thy mouth, Drain it in thy drouth, For a God from heaven it hath sent

On the spirit's light accustomed pinion, In the world the youngling plunges bold; Friends to win him, as his best dominion, And whom fast and faster he will hold. So remain mine all, Till the world shall fall; Round their friend truth's arms eternal fold.

Let ye not the strength of youth be wasted; In the wine-cap doth the gold-star shine; From sweet lips be honeyed sweetness tasted, For of life is love the heart divine. Is the strength gone forth? Lose the wine its worth? Follow we, old Charon, nor repine.

* * *

RHINE-WINE.

So, crown with leaves the love o'er-brimming beakers, And drain them o'er and o'er, In Europe far and wide, ye pleasure-seekers, Is such a wine no more!

It comes not out of Hungary nor Poland. Nor where they French do speak. St. Vitus, he may fetch wine from such wo-land, Ours there we do not seek.

It is from Fatherland's abundance rendered, How were it else so good! How could in it such noble peace be blended, And yet such bravest mood!

Yet it grows not upon all German mountains; For many hills we trace, Like the old Cretans, dull and sluggish fountains, Which are not worth their space.

The Ertzgebirge, ye need not explore there, If wine ye would behold; Thuece spring but silver and the cobalt ore there, And mischief-making gold.

Thueringia's mountains, for example, bringing, A growth which looks like wine, But it is not; o'er that there is no singing, No glad eyes round it shine.

The Blocksberg is the lengthy Sir Philister, As windy and as drear; Dance the cuckoo and his wild sacrister, Upon him here and there.

The Rhine! the Rhine! 'tis there our vines are growing! O blessed be the Rhine! The slopes by which that noble stream is flowing They give this precious wine.

So drink! so drink! let us all methods trying, For joyous hours combine. And if we knew where one in wo were lying We'd give him of this wine!