Odd Bits of History Part 7

The Crown Prince, subsequently Frederick William IV., favoured the appointment. The "angel of peace" proved a very demon of war. What with the dispute over mixed marriages, the Episcopal protest against State interference in Church matters, the Anathema p.r.o.nounced by the new prelate against the lat.i.tudinarian school of the followers of Hermes, particularly favoured by the Government and deliberately installed at Bonn, and the Archbishop's uncompromising ban upon the University _Convictorium_, there was war along the whole line. All Rhineland, be it remembered, was then still staunchly Romanist. Bonn contained but a handful of Protestants. The "concurrently endowed" University, planted in the midst of a Catholic country, was a standing abomination and a perpetual taunt to the native population. The Prince's letters of that time show how fully he appreciated the grave significance of the struggle even at his early age.

It was while he was at Bonn that the refractory Archbishop was carried off by force, to be "interned" at Minden.

Under such circ.u.mstances it required some resolution for a young Protestant Prince to settle amid an excited Romanist population. If to be "'ne Pruss" was a reproach, to be "'ne Juss"--that is "Gueux," or Protestant--meant downright anathema. And Prince Albert settled right in what may be called a little Protestant colony, saucily set up under the very shadow of the beautiful east-end of that splendid old "Munster,"

which traces its foundation to Constantine, and has been the scene of Councils and Imperial coronations from the tenth century downwards.

The Empress Frederick, a few years ago, when in Bonn, very naturally asked to be shown the house in which her father had lived. By that time every vestige of it had disappeared, and she could only be pointed out the site--a garden it is now, fronting an entirely new building in the Martinsplatz, close to where, up to the beginning of the century, stood the church which gave the square its name. But I can perfectly recall the unpretending structure, a three-storied, flat-gabled house, with a two-storied wing--the old-fashioned windows set off by dark-green shutters--lying rather in a hollow, within a yard enclosed in a stone wall pierced by a gate, but generally open in situation and yet, thanks to the enclosure, pretty private. It commanded very fair views of the Poppelsdorfer Allee--the favourite strolling-ground, ever since it was planted, for fashionable and unfashionable Bonn--of the Kreuzberg, and sideways of the more distant Seven Mountains. It seemed a small house to harbour two Princes and their suite, more especially when one was told that what seemed the main portion was reserved for the use of the owner.

But it was a building of considerable depth, and so afforded sufficient room for the ill.u.s.trious inmates and all their not very numerous household, which included, of course, the "excellent" Doctor Florschutz as tutor, the rather starchy martinet-soldier Herr von Wiechmann, who acted as governor, the Prince's favourite valet, and some more. All about the household, as about the Prince's doings generally, was marked by extreme simplicity, which could not, however, in any particular have suggested anything like n.i.g.g.ardliness, but merely the voluntary plain living of a gentleman who had no taste for sumptuous habits. Meals, appointments, entertainments, everything indicated a dislike of display. The Prince's trap was such as an innkeeper living opposite could, on its original owner's departure, purchase and use for his business-drives without occasioning remark. If there was one material thing in respect of which the Prince practised luxury, it was his little stud, which was small, but generally admired as choice, and which was, it need scarcely be added, much prized by its owner. The hours kept in the little green-shuttered house were probably the most regular in all the town. Everything in the ill.u.s.trious student's life was subordinated to the purposes of study.

Every hour had its allotted task. He must have been an early riser who could have seen the blinds down of a morning; and long before lights went out in some of the adjoining houses, all was darkness and rest in the Prince's home, which was a veritable temple of method and punctuality.

The quarters had been selected because the Duke of Saxe-Coburg wished his sons to be lodged with a professor. There were not many such with sufficiently large dwellings to select from, and possibly on that ground the choice had fallen upon a Professor of Medicine, who could have been of little service to the Princes in the prosecution of their studies. He was popularly known as "Gamaschenbischof"--"Gaiter-Bishop"--to distinguish him from the other Geheimrath Bischoff who became better known as a great professor of chemistry, but who wore no gaiters. I quite forget whether "Gamaschenbischof" was a Roman Catholic or a Protestant. But his next-door neighbour on the side of the old Neuthor--then still an old-fashioned arched gateway with a substantial gate to keep out bad characters at night--was the acknowledged head of the Lutheran congregation, then a mere handful, the sparing growth of twenty years of Prussian rule. The little community did not yet possess a church of their own as they do now.

Indeed, for many years after they had to content themselves with the use of the bald but lofty University chapel, which for many decades they have shared with their English fellow-Christians, often enough keeping the latter waiting when their sermon happened to be long, and considerately leaving a crucifix as a fixture for rigid Evangelicals to chafe at and write letters about to successive chaplains. But the proper stronghold of local Protestantism was to be found in that turreted little Chateau Gaillard facing the Munster, in which Pusey's friend, Professor Sack, Schleiermacher's least heterodox pupil, had at the Prince's time his official residence. The Coburg Princes, who loyally upheld their own Protestant church, were not infrequent visitors in the house of this pastor, who was well-informed and sociable, and by no means an unacceptable neighbour. Beyond the parsonage, directly ab.u.t.ting upon the Neuthor, was another Protestant inst.i.tution--the Lutheran school--which, some years later, became a noted centre of attraction to males of all creeds, by reason of the residence in it of "The Three Graces," the _Kuster's_--that is, the clerk and schoolmaster's--remarkably handsome daughters. But in 1837 and 1838 those ladies were still too young to do much mischief, even to so impressionable a cavalier as Prince Ernest. All these buildings spoken of, which still stood at my time, have long since been pulled down and made to give place to houses of a more modern type.

All things considered, it would have been difficult for the Duke of Coburg to make a better choice of a University in which to give his sons the last finishing touch of education. Bonn has always stood high as a home of learning. King Frederick William III. was careful, with the most luxurious buildings and what was at that time considered a truly princely endowment, to bestow upon his own peculiar "pet child" as competent a teaching staff as money and favour could procure. And in 1837, though Niebuhr was gone, and Arndt was suspended--for preaching too vigorously the gospel of German union, which was then reputed rank heresy--and though Dahlmann, who would have been a professor after Prince Albert's own heart, had not yet come, the teaching staff could compare with that of any period. But apart from that, there was a tone of freedom and geniality prevailing at Bonn which distinguished that place from all other German universities. It was the least Prussian of all Prussian High Schools--far more in the world and in touch with the world than all its sisters. Set up on "Frankish" soil, which used to give Germany its Emperors; the chosen residence, until recently, of prelates of an ancient See, who had entertained relations from time immemorial with all great Courts, and who had been recruited from princely houses; and, last, but not least, only a generation before an integral portion of the Republic, "one and indivisible," which planted its tricolor nowhere without leaving its free spirit behind, even after the outward ensign was gone--Bonn nourished a more independent habit of thought and encouraged wider and larger views than did the "zopf"-ruled universities of the East. It was here, doubtless, among the patriotic aspirations of a "Young Germany" unchilled by Carlsbad and Laibach, under the inspiring teaching of Arndt, that Duke Ernest, prophetically styled _Spes patriae_ in an address presented by the Academical Senate, conceived that liberal, high-minded and unselfish policy which paved the way as much as anything else for the Union of 1871.

And to Prince Albert, likewise, this must have seemed a wider world than that of Coburg; and, in a period of life more formative of character than any other, it must have served to prepare him better for that freer sphere of action into which he was destined shortly to be called.

Niebuhr, as observed, was gone from Bonn. Arndt was removed from his "chair" for saying too freely in 1820 what Princes had openly proclaimed in 1813. Dahlmann was, in truth, still one of "the Seven of Gottingen,"

inasmuch as Ernest Augustus had not yet made his Hanoverians to regret that they were governed by the Salic law. But there was Welcker, the great historian of art, and the brilliant elocutionist, from whom the Prince must have learnt much of that close knowledge and warm appreciation of art which afterwards made him so efficient a furtherer of culture in this kingdom. There were Loebell and Perthes, von Alten, Bethmann-Hollweg, Walter, Brandis, Nitzsch, Deiters, Bleek, Breidenstein, Noggerath, Argelander, Schlegel, Fichte, Plucker, Bocking, and many more--not a few of whom I can perfectly remember from my own days. The two Princes, and more particularly Prince Albert, knew how to turn the opportunities at their command to admirable account, not merely by attending the public lectures with exemplary regularity, but, in addition, by seeking out learning, so to speak, _en deshabille_, and drawing from it in the easy way of conversation and chat probably more information than it dispensed on more formal occasions. Prince Albert was on excellent terms with the most able of these men--Schlegel, Perthes, Bethmann-Hollweg, Walter and some more--and was frequently to be seen walking with one or other of them in the Poppelsdorfer Allee, or else on the Venusberg, or along the Rhine, keeping up an animated conversation. And often would he ask some one or two to his house, or else drop in--sometimes on his own invitation--to that peculiarly German repast of evening "tea," further to prosecute his cross-questioning. "Tea," of course, does not in this application mean anything like our own "five o'clock," nor yet quite so substantial a meal as our middle-cla.s.s "high tea," but a light evening repast, such as is usual (viz., after a good mid-day dinner) among the cultivated cla.s.ses in Germany, when _en famille_, from the Imperial Court downward. Taxing the stomach but little, such a meal leaves the head all the more free for intellectual occupation, and is, in truth, dependent for its best relish on the Attic salt supplied by the company. (The "tea" itself is, unfortunately, as a rule, indifferent in quality.) At Bonn these "teas"

became little feasts of reason, and used to be, I am told, one of the Prince's particular delights. He was in the habit of discussing questions of learning and politics and statesmanship very freely with his own chosen little set, Prince Lowenstein and others. But he knew the difference between this and putting Professors (who in Bonn were then not merely men of the lamp) into the witness-box and pleasurably pumping them dry over their own tea-table. n.o.body relished this treatment more than the Professors themselves, who in after-time often spoke of the enjoyable evenings which they had spent, and the pleasure of discussing matters on which they were masters with so apt a pupil, who knew how to put brightness and stimulating interest into the conversation. The Prince's enjoyment, it is to be suspected, went even a little further. For, men of great learning as these Professors were, more than one of them had contracted odd habits of speech and manner, which no man was more quick to note and more apt inoffensively to caricature--in mien and with pencil--than the Prince. We know that he could use pen and brush deftly enough. And more particularly of his artist's work completed at Bonn several specimens survive--for instance, the Queen's "Savoyard Boy." Some of the caricature sketches referred to are said to have been admirable, and no less so the mimicry which, without malice or guile, brought out tellingly the little oddities of these learned gentry, to the intense amus.e.m.e.nt of a privileged and very select audience. There was, as it happened, ample material. Schlegel, the great and the witty--there could have been no pleasanter companion than he who first made the Germans understand Shakespeare--was, with all his merits, vain and conceited, and foolishly insisted upon parading his conceit before the world. He was old at that time, and lectured only at rare intervals, but every now and then some of that old impetuosity would break out, which in earlier days had made him, without regard for conventionalities, pull off his coat and waistcoat in the midst of an evening party, in order to fling to his brother Frederick the smaller garment, for which in a rash moment he had bartered away a good story. Then there was Loebell, the friend of Tieck, the uncompromising Protestant, full of historic lore as an egg is of meat, and of truly magnetic attractiveness to his pupils, but ugly as a monkey, diffident and gauche, and, thanks to his habitual absence of mind, a source of the oddest and never-failing anecdote. Perthes and Fichte laid themselves equally open to ridicule. The "University Judge" (Proctor) von Salomon, commonly nicknamed "the Salamander," was made more than once to sit for a comic portrait; and Oberberghauptmann Count Beust--the Prince's own countryman, a native of Saxe-Coburg, with whom the Prince was on terms of comparative intimacy--provided at times irresistible food for laughter, not only by his curious squat little figure, but even more by that genuinely Saxon sing-song accent, which seems to be a common feature of all Beusts who have not remained in their old Brandenburg home. The statesman of the same name, whom we have seen in our midst, shared this same family defect, and was accordingly known in Saxony as "Beist;" and one of the Ministries of which he formed a member was currently spoken of, by way of joke, as "Behr _beisst_ Rabenhorst." As droll as any was Professor Kaufmann, from whom, long before I listened to the curious cadences of his speech, the Prince Consort learnt very orthodox political economy conveyed in the prosiest of ways, fortunately relieved by the quaintest ill.u.s.trations of economic truths which could ever have issued from the brain of man. He looked like one of Cruikshank's figures come to life, and it was really difficult not to laugh at him.

The Prince's shafts of wit never wanted point, but at the same time they never struck painfully home. There was no mimicry or jest which even its victims could not readily forgive. Years after the Prince had left Bonn, the very men whom he had amused himself by taking off most mercilessly looked back, not only without resentment, but with absolute satisfaction, on all this intercourse. And when, on the approach of the Prince's marriage, it was proposed to send him a Latin address of congratulation, and to bestow upon him--as the fittest offering for the occasion that the Senate could think of--the Degree of _Doctor utriusque juris_, the motion was carried by acclamation, and the learned Professor Ritschl was at once commissioned to compose a Latin ode, which turned out perfect in grammar and prosody, but which is a trifle too long to be here quoted.

With the students, generally speaking--apart from his own little princely set--the Prince was less intimate. He would mingle with them in the quadrangle, the lecture-hall, and the fencing-room, and he would invite them periodically, in batches, to his hospitable table, where, of course, he made a most genial host. But I have heard complaints of his supposed reserve and coldness, and his keeping people at a distance, contrasting just a little with the _engouement_ with which Prince Ernest was ready to take part in the fun and frolic of German student life. It was said that the coming engagement with the Queen, which rumour considerably ante-dated, had chilled Prince Albert's young blood, and led him to stand a little on his dignity. Probably this was to some extent a question of manner. But, moreover, it ought to be borne in mind, that student life was in those days just a trifle rough, and, knowing what it was, one can readily understand the Prince's disinclination to identify himself altogether with habits not by any means congenial to himself. He could grow sociable enough with students on proper occasions. He is known to have been a regular attendant at the _Fechtboden_--where, however, he practised rather with the broad-sword than with the student's rapier--ready to accept the challenge of any competent opponent; and he would occasionally look on with interest at a real _Mensur_, whenever good fencers were put forward to fight. We know that at a great fencing match he carried off the first prize.[11] Even beyond this, from time to time he would visit a students' _Kneipe_--having duly prepared himself for the short nocturnal dissipation with a little snooze--and join very readily in the fun and the mirth, more particularly in such amus.e.m.e.nts as allowed play for the intellectual faculties. He was fond of German melodies, and knew how to delight his audience with a song. And when it came to some serio-comic diversion--such as the mock-trial know as a _Bierconvent_, a travesty of legal proceedings, conceived, when ably led, in the spirit of Demosthenes' hypothetical lawsuit about "the shadow of an a.s.s"--he is said to have been excellent. But mere beer-drinking and shouting were not in his line. At home he was wont to cultivate the Muses, People still talk of a little volume of poetry which the two brothers are said to have brought out conjointly in support of a local charity, and to which Prince Albert is supposed to have contributed the verse, and Prince Ernest the tunes. I should not be surprised to learn that Prince Albert had as much to do with the music as with the text. So far as there was poetry and music and geniality to be found under the rough mask of student life, the Prince was very ready to take part in it. And during the sixteen months of his studentship he grew sufficiently familiar with some of his fellow-students even to _tutoyer_. My friend, E. von C----, who was then a boy, distinctly remembers meeting him walking towards the Rhine, and hearing him accosted by two burly "Westphalians": "Wo gehst du hin, Albert?" "Ich gehe ins Schiff," was his reply; "ich reise nach England." The Westphalians at once turned round to see him off. That was an eventful journey "to England."

How little _hauteur_ really had to do with the Prince's intercourse with his fellow-men is testified by the friendly acquaintanceship which grew up at Bonn between him and persons of an entirely different cla.s.s, and which has still left its honourable memories behind.

Pretty well opposite his own quarters, cornering the Martinsplatz--where now are two much-frequented shops--in those days stood a middle-sized house, over the door of which might be read the inscription "Weinwirthschaft von Peter Stamm." In later days, under a new proprietor, the house came to be more ambitiously christened "Gasthaus zum Deutschen Hof." In this establishment both Princes were frequent visitors, perhaps Prince Albert more so than his brother. It was at this corner generally that they mounted horse for a ride--I believe that some of their horses were put up in the "Weinwirthschaft"--and here accordingly my friend, von C----, used to watch for them, in order to hold their stirrups. In a University town, in which

Bibit hera, bibit herus, Bibit miles, bibit clerus, Bibit ille, bibit illa, Bibit servus c.u.m ancilla, Bibit velox, bibit piger, Bibit albus, bibit niger, Bibit constans, bibit vagus, Bibit rudis, bibit magus, Bibit pauper et aegrotus, Bibit exul et ignotus, Bibit puer, bibit ca.n.u.s, Bibit praesul et deca.n.u.s, Bibit soror, bibit frater, Bibit a.n.u.s, bibit mater, Bibit iste, bibit ille, Bibunt centum, bibunt mille: Tam pro Papa, tam pro rege Bibunt omnes sine lege,

of course there are wine-shops many, and beer-shops many; and neither student nor "Philistine" need ever be in any fear of having to remain "dry" for want of liquor. But there has always been some one or other wine-house raised a little above the common run, not by any pretentious architecture or outfit--as a rule it was in external features one of the most unpretending in the town--but by the superior quality of the liquor served. Here would meet--as is doubtless the case now--the _honoratiores_ of the town, and some other blithe spirits, admitted almost by favour, a select _clientele_, to sip down, to the accompaniment of fluent conversation, not the vulgar "schoppen" of the mult.i.tude, but the capitalist "special"--a half-pint held in a ma.s.sive goblet-shaped gla.s.s.

In my time the "select" wine-house of this sort was that of "Schmitzkobes"--which means "James Schmitz"--in the market-place. In the Prince's time it was the house of Peter Stamm. However, it was not for the wine that the Prince came to this house--though in moderation he appreciated a gla.s.s of good Rhenish, or Walporzheim. In our aristocratically organised country, where, moreover, sportsmanship is held to be public property, as accessible to the stockbroker as to the squire, we have no idea of the fast link which in Germany--altogether differently const.i.tuted, at any rate, then--the love of sport will bind between persons of totally different cla.s.ses. It holds them together like a bracket. Prince and farmer, n.o.ble and tradesman--it is all alike _quoad_ sport; for that purpose genuine comradeship is established, on altogether equal terms. There is no giving one's self away in this, nor yet any undue presumption. The tradesman remains a tradesman, the prince no less a prince; social differences are merely put aside. Now Peter Stamm was a most zealous sportsman, who knew where to find a hare or a bird for many miles round, and could spend whole nights and days with his dog and with his gun--more particularly if there were some like-minded companion to share the sport. And what was more for the present purpose, he was an ardent horse-fancier, and a connaisseur of horse-flesh. His brother, "Stamm-hannes"--that is, "John Stamm"--was a noted horse-dealer and horse-breaker, who always had some good cattle on hand. And, moreover, Peter Stamm was a great dog-fancier, and known for having the best dogs in all Bonn. From him, I believe, it was that the Prince purchased that handsome favourite of his, Eos, whom he brought over with him to England, his constant companion then on walks and drives and travels. So here was a threefold cord which bound together these two neighbours, living within a stone's throw of one another--a link which never broke in after-life. Long after the Prince had left Bonn, there used to be messages going backwards and forwards. When Peter was gone, Stamm-hannes kept up the intercourse, and on one of his travels to England even visited the Prince as an old friend. They are both dead now--and so is Nicolas, the third brother, who kept the Bellevue Hotel on the Rhine. But to the present day old Fraulein Stamm, now eighty-three years of age, carefully preserves and affectionately cherishes the few keepsakes which still remain of the Prince's giving--originally to Peter--and there is nothing that the old lady is more fond of talking about than those old days, when the Prince and Peter used to drive out to the Kottenforst together, and Peter would come home and tell her of their common, not overexciting, adventures. The keepsakes have dwindled down to three pictures and two porcelain cups, the latter rather rudely painted, as was the fashion in those days, with views of the Drachenfels and Rolandseck. Of the pictures, two are portraits of the young Princes taken at Brussels before they repaired to Bonn, and showing their boyish faces flanked by two heavy pairs of epaulettes. The third, a woodcut, represents some unknown sportsman going a-stalking.

There used to be other small articles, such as sportsman friends are in the habit of presenting to one another; but time has, one after the other, disposed of them.

The Prince, we know, was always particularly fond of bodily exercise. At Bonn he would fence regularly. And he would swim with as much zest, and think nothing of mixing with the common crowd in those rough-and-ready swimming-baths which I well remember; for in my time they were still all the convenience for river bathing that Bonn had to offer--a rude concern on the other bank of the Rhine, knocked together out of a raft and a few sheds. In those baths the Prince did not seem to mind whom he rubbed shoulders with. In this respect he closely resembled his son-in-law, the Emperor Frederick, whose popularity in Berlin was not a little enhanced by the _sans gene_ with which he would, while in the water, join in the splashing and larking of his future subjects, to whom it never on such occasions occurred to forget themselves. A simple "Na, Jungens, jetzt ist genug" from the Prince would at once warn them back into proper distance.

The Prince Consort became just as popular among the swimmers at Bonn. The Rhine is really a troublesome river to swim in, on account of the force of its current. The Prince would have himself rowed up a pretty long distance, to swim back. I once or twice swam the same distance, in company with Count H----, of the "Borussians," and we both found it quite long enough. A very favourite sport with the Prince was, to tumble little boys into the water--the swimming-master being by for safety--and then dive after them to bring them up. He would select such as were not likely to be frightened. And they came to like the fun.

But the Prince's favourite recreation of all was going a-shooting. In the near neighbourhood of Bonn there is no very ambitious sport. The more venturesome spirits go as far as the Eifel Mountains, there to kill wild-boar and red-deer. For this the Prince grudged the time. So he had to be content with hares and birds, an occasional roebuck--and, I dare say, in those, early days he now and then brought down a fox, which in Germany is reckoned rather good sport. When, in 1858, the Crown Prince, Emperor Frederick, came back from his wedding, and found the officers of the Deutz Cuira.s.siers drawn up in line at the Cologne station to salute him, he singled out Count F----, of M--dorf, to present more especially to his bride. "I must present Count F---- to you," he said; "it was on his estate that I shot my first fox." Either Count F----'s conscience stung him, or else he realised better than the Crown Prince in what light vulpicide is regarded in the Princess's country: "It was not really a fox, Sir," he explained with some embarra.s.sment; "it was a wild cat."

There were water-fowl near Bruhl; there used to be a heronry there. But I do not think the Prince went in that direction. His ordinary shooting-ground was near Bergheim, on the other side of the Rhine and, beyond the Venusberg, in the Kottenforst, a long stretch of forest, not everywhere well-timbered, in which Peter Stamm had a "Jagd," to which of course the Prince was welcome. Wherever the forest was a little ragged there were, of course, black game. And then, in spring, to the Prince's great delight, there was woodc.o.c.k shooting. The "Schnepfenstrich" was his pet sport, and never was he to be seen more regularly driving his plain little trap out to Rottgen--where Stamm had his shooting--the faithful Peter always by his side--than in the four weeks which precede Palm Sunday, the season of all others sacred in Germany to woodc.o.c.k shooting, for

Oculi, da kommen sie; Laetare, das ist das wahre; Judica, sind sie auch noch da; Palmarum, Trallarum.

The Latin words are the Lutheran calendar names for the four Sundays next before Easter.

Often Stamm-hannes would be of the party--often also Everard Sator, another local Nimrod and horse-fancier, of Stamm's peculiar set, and acceptable to the Prince. And some of the Prince's more aristocratic companions would likewise occasionally join. But the Prince and Peter were in this matter inseparables, roughing it out on the wooded heights from sheer love of sport; and after that they would meet in the "Weinwirthschaft" and talk over their common experiences, being attentively overheard by a small company who reckoned it a privilege, however little they might know about shooting, to listen to these sportmen's tales, and bottle them up to retail to others after the Prince was gone.

There was another very faithful friend, of humbler station still, whose heart the Prince managed to capture by his genial affability and the kind interest which it was his wont to manifest in others. n.o.body could have stayed any time in Bonn at that particular period without becoming acquainted with "Appeltring"--or, as she was more ceremoniously called to her face, "Frau Gevatterin." She was, without question, the most popular "character" in Bonn, and there was no man who had not a kind word for her, and was not ready to test her well-known power of repartee by a little joke. "Appeltring," of course, means "Apple-kate"--"Tring" standing for Katherine by one of those extraordinary transformations of names which, probably, not even Grimm could explain, and which in the Rhenish dialect convert "Heinrich" into "Drickes," and "Reinhard" into "Nieres." She was an apple-woman, as her name implies, or, rather, a seller of fruit generally, and had her stall or tent just outside the Neuthor, close to the Prince's quarters, and on a spot which he must pa.s.s several times almost every day--a coign of vantage, moreover, from which all the fashionable and unfashionable world taking the air in the Poppelsdorfer Allee, might be surveyed, as can all the fine folk pa.s.sing in and out of Hyde Park from Hyde Park Corner. She was on that spot still when I was at Bonn twenty-three years later, and she was there for some time after--a weather-bronzed, wrinkled old woman then, but still full of chat and lively talk, humour and repartee, and endowed with a truly encyclopaedic knowledge of everyone who had been anyone at Bonn, and of his life, and failings, and little adventures. Even in the Prince's day she was decidedly past her first youth, and devoid of personal attractions; but she had still something of the halo about her then of a not very distant serio-comic little love affair, about which she was made to hear no end of chaff--with a trumpeter (named Bengler, if I recollect right) who lost his life in that Russian war in which the great Moltke won his first spurs.

During all the time that she offered her wares outside the Neuthor her stall was a favourite resort with folk who had a spare quarter of an hour on their hands, some of them of the best blood. The Emperor Frederick has sat on that spot many a time, watching the pa.s.sers-by, and exchanging chat with "Tring," while eating cherries from one of the shallow flat-bottomed baskets in which "Frau Gevatterin," or her younger a.s.sistant, served them from the tent; and so have the Coburg Princes, more particularly Prince Albert, who had a peculiar liking for "Appeltring" and her quaint ways, her good temper, and her ready answers. Barring the Princes, "Tring's"

customers were not always prompt paymasters. This necessitated the keeping of accounts, which, as "Tring" was nothing of a penwoman, resulted in a description of bookkeeping so curious as to induce a learned archaeological society of Bonn afterwards to publish her records in facsimile. There were no names, but rude imitations of a beard, or a ta.s.sel, or big top-boots, or else a peculiar nose, or a pair of spectacles, or some other distinguishing feature about the particular debtor.

The habit of almost daily chat begot a peculiar familiarity and interest in one another's affairs between these two people at opposite poles of society, and inspired "Tring" with a devotion to the Prince which has just a touch of romance about it. To her simple but honest mind the Prince was the n.o.blest creature that walked the earth. Whenever he failed to pa.s.s to bid her good-day, she seemed to feel as if deprived of a substantial pleasure. For years and decades after he had gone she would relate with striking animation little stories of his life in Bonn, and tell of his kindness to her. She was indefatigable in inquiries about him, and would draw in every word of information received with eager curiosity. Nor did she ever hear of anyone going to England without commissioning him--"Jrusse Se den Prinzen Albehrt." It sounded very ridiculous to some, no doubt. But I venture to surmise, that to the Prince himself that broadly Rhenish "Jrusse Se den Prinzen Albehrt" would have been a not unwelcome greeting.

Most of the good people here spoken of, with whom the Prince exchanged jokes and more serious intercourse, whom he charmed with his happy temper or edified with graver talk, are now dead and gone. Bonn has grown a town of 50,000 or 60,000 inhabitants, well-to-do, bright and attractive, adding to its population year by year. The University has throughout its history maintained its old high rank. As a new generation rises up old reminiscences are dying out. Stories which thirty years ago pa.s.sed current from mouth to mouth are gradually being forgotten. There is so much more that used to be told of the Prince, when memories were fresh; indeed, there is much that might be told still, only the incidents seem trivial in themselves, and memorable only as demonstrating what singular power their hero possessed of riveting men's affections, and as concurring in impressing a stamp of n.o.ble principle, unselfish consideration for others, of a genial and happy disposition, and laborious devotion to study upon his student life of sixteen months. There was, there is reason to believe, very much good done in private, of which the outside world never heard. To Bonn the Prince's stay was a turning-point in its history; and, since elsewhere scarcely anything has been said about that particular epoch in the Prince's life, it may not be unmeet to gather together the fragments of traditions and reminiscences surviving, before they pa.s.s finally out of men's minds, and thus to fill a gap hitherto left in the memorials of a life which has in its later periods amply realized the promise given in the early days of youth here spoken of.

VIII.--SOMETHING ABOUT BEER.[12]

When Judas Iscariot, as the legend has it, prompted by a presumptuous ambition to emulate Our Saviour in the performance of a miracle similar to that of Cana, spoke his cabalistic words over the water which he desired to make potable, it may be argued that a worse product might have resulted from the process than beer--at any rate from a non-teetotal point of view.

According to another legend, of wider currency, the inventor of beer was not the apostate apostle, but a more or less mythical king of Brabant, named Gambrinus. His bine-crowned visage may be seen beaming from the walls of most tap-rooms in Germany and in those more or less German provinces which once formed, or should have formed, or still form, that political desideratum, the "Middle Kingdom." This is a case of _ex vocabulo fabula_. For Gambrivium is Cambray--the Cambray of the League and also of early brewing. And "Gambrinus" is either John the Victorious of Brabant, who fell in a tournament held at Bar-le-Duc on the occasion of the marriage of Henri, count of that country, with Eleanor, daughter of our King Edward I., or else--and more probably--it is Jean Sans-Peur of Burgundy, who, to ingratiate himself with his Flemish subjects, had a dollar coined, showing a wreath of hop-bine encircling his head--and also inst.i.tuted the order of the _Houblon_, giving no little offence thereby to his loyal clergy. Not that there was anything at all heretical in his act.

No; but the case was really much worse. For the clergy, it turned out, in those days had a vested interest in beer. That was in the fourteenth century, when the liquor was still generally brewed without hops, a mixture of aromatic herbs being used instead, which was in most cases supplied from episcopal forests. So it was in Brabant. The Bishop of Liege possessed virtually a monopoly of the trade in _gruyt_, and when Duke John favoured the cultivation of hops, the bishop's income suffered a serious diminution. Accordingly, his Eminence remonstrated--just as in our country, about 1400, and again in 1442, complaint was made to Parliament of the introduction of that "wicked weed, that would spoil the taste of drink and endanger the people." In the dioceses of Utrecht and Cologne it was just the same thing. The bishops fought hard for their _gruyt_ or _krut_, using their crosiers as a defensive weapon, but had eventually to give in. From this it would appear that what King Gambrinus really did introduce was not beer, but the use in the brewing of it of hops, the ingredient over which that eminent saint, Abbess Hildegardis of Rupertusberg, had already p.r.o.nounced her benediction. St. Hildegardis was a saint of unquestionable authority, having been specially recognised at the Council of Treves as a prophetess by St. Bernard and Pope Eugenius IV.

She recommended hops on the ground that, though "heating and drying," and productive of "a certain melancholy and sadness" (she must have been thinking of the effects next day), they possess the sovereign virtues of preventing noxious fermentation and also of preserving the beer. (Burton, in partial opposition to the saint, a.s.serts that beer--hopped, of course--"hath an especial virtue _against_ melancholy, as our herbalists confess.") St. Hildegardis' opinion was given in the twelfth century. That was not by any means the earliest age of beer; for we find it referred to in history some centuries before. Whether the inhabitants of Chalcedon, when they shouted in derision after the Emperor Valens, "Sabajarius!

Sabajarius!"--which has been translated, "drinker of beer"--really referred to beer, as we now understand it, must appear doubtful. In the same way, the reputed "beer" of the early Egyptians and Hebrews--alluded to by Xenophon, Herodotus, and other ancient writers--may or may not have been beer in our sense. But in the eighth century we find Charlemagne enjoining brewing in his dominions. In 862 we have Charles the Bald making to the monks of St. Denis a grant of ninety _boisseaux d'epeautre_ a year _pour faire de la cervoise_. In 1042 we have Henri I. conferring on the monks of Montreuil-sur-Marne the valuable right of brewing, and in 1268 St. Louis laying down rules for the guidance of brewers in Paris. Paris was then, as it now is becoming again--I cannot say that I like the idea--a very "beery" place. Its brewers, even at a very remote time, formed a highly respected corporation, using as their insignia and trade-mark an image of the Holy Virgin--their patron saint--incongruously enough grouped together with Ceres, both being encircled by the legend:--_Bacchi Ceres aemula_. No modern Pope would allow such crossing of the two religions. Ceres was of course in olden time looked upon as the especial G.o.ddess of beer, made of barley, which was after her named _Cerevisia_. Juvenal mentions _Demetrius_ as its name, derived of course from Demeter. However, Fischart, a notable German poet, who lived in the sixteenth century, ascribes its invention to Bacchus, as an intended subst.i.tute for wine wherever there are no grapes. Modern Germany has produced a very pretty song, which represents Wine as a wonder-working n.o.bleman, making a triumphal progress in grand style, clad in silk and gold, and Beer crossing his path as a st.u.r.dy but rather perky peasant, in a frieze jacket and top-boots, challenging him to a thaumaturgic tourney, as Jannes and Jambres challenged Moses. After an amusing little squabble the two make friends, and henceforth rule the world in joint sovereignty and happy unity. At Paris, in the reign of Charles V., we find the local brewers, twenty-one in number, so wealthy as to be able to pay a million _ecus d'or_ for their licenses. Under Charles VI., beer had become a regulation drink at the French court, and we have our own Richard II.

presenting the French king with a "_vaisseau a boire cervoise_." From this it may be inferred that the famous verselet--

Hops and turkeys, carps and beer,

or, as some rigid Anglican has improved it--

Hops, reformation, bays, and beer Came to England all in one year--

to wit, the year 1525--is a little wrong in its date, and that beer was known earlier. After the date named, we know that it soon made its way into the highest circles. As proof of this we have the one shoe which Queen Bess carelessly left behind after that lunch, of which beer formed an item, with which she was regaled on her progress through Suss.e.x, under the spreading oak still shown in that pretty village of Northiam--

O fair Norjem! thou dost far exceed Beckley, Peasmarsh, Udimore, and Brede--

which shoe may still be seen, by favour, in the private archaeological collection at Brickwall House, in company with Accepted Frewen's toasting-fork.

Saxon descent may have had much to do with the development of our own peculiar cerevisial taste--taste, that is, for beer with some body and a good strong flavour of malt. There can be no doubt that, compared with the produce of other countries, our beer is still the best--if only one's liver will stand it--the most tasty, the most nourishing--"meat, drink and cloth," as Sir John Linger puts it--beer which will occasionally "make a cat speak and a wise man dumb." The Saxons always had a liking for beer with something in it--not merely "strong water," as Sir Richard l'Estrange calls the small stuff. The ancient Teutons, we know, were all of them furious drinkers. Accordingly, not a few of the modern generation hold, with Luther's Elector of Saxony, that a custom of such very venerable antiquity ought not to be lightly abandoned. Tacitus writes that the Germans think it no shame to spend a whole day and night a-drinking. The Greek Emperor Nicephoras Phorcas told the amba.s.sador of Emperor Otho that his master's soldiers had no other proficiency but in getting drunk.

Rudolph of Hapsburgh grew vociferous over the discovery of good beer.

"Walk in, walk in!" he shouted, standing at a tavern door in Erfurt, wholly oblivious of his imperial dignity; "there is excellent beer to be had inside." And "good King Wenceslas" of our Christmas carol--described as "good" nowhere else--was an habitual toper, and was "done" accordingly by the French at Rheims, where he thought more of the wine than of the treaty which he was negotiating. Henri Quatre would on no account marry a German wife. "Je croirais," he said, "toujours avoir un pot de vin aupres de moi." A modern writer, Charles Monselet, says that in Stra.s.sburg--in this respect a typically German town--"tout se ressent de la domination de la biere." Beer lends its colour to the faces of the inhabitants, to their hair, to their clothes; to the soil and the houses; and the very women seem nothing but "walking _chopes_." But the Saxons in particular--not the modern ones, but those of the North, some of whom found their way into England--always loved good stout nutritious drink, such as that to which the German composer Von Flotow ascribes our st.u.r.dy robustness:

Das ist das treffliche Elixir, Das ist das kraftige Porterbier.

Obsopaeus says of the ancient Saxons:

Coctam Cererem potant _cra.s.sosque liquores_.

And an old rhyme, still quoted with gusto, goes to this effect:

Ein echter Sachse wird, wie alle Volker sagen, Nie schmal in Schultern sein, noch schlaffe Lenden tragen.

Fragt Einer, welches denn die Ursach' sei: Er isset Speck und Wurst, und trinket _Mumm_ dabei.

"Mumm" is our own good old "mum," about the meaning of which in an Act of Parliament there was recently some controversy, when even Mr. Gladstone did not quite know how to explain it. It is the good, thick, stout, nourishing beer--_nil sp.i.s.sius illo_--which makes blood and flesh, and gives strength--"vires praestat et augmentat carnem, generatque cruorem,"

says the school of Salerno. Very presumably it is such beer as this, too, of which the unnamed witty poet quoted in Percy's "Reliques" writes:

n.o.bilis ale-a Efficit heroas dignamque heroe puellam.