The Student Life of Germany Part 32

But as here we all have met Time to speed with pleasure; Should, methinks, the Beakers chime To the Poet's measure.

Good friends must, a hundred miles, Move from one another; Therefore you met here, stoest-an Brother as with Brother!

Live then he who is of peace And of good a donor!

First and foremost to our king, His of right's the honour.

'Gainst all enemies, the state, Still he doth defend it; To uphold it planneth much; Much more to extend it.

Now the next, salute I her,-- Her the true alone one!

And let each, as gallant knight, Think upon his own one.

Should a lovely maiden guess Her of whom I'm thinking; Let her archly nod to me-- To her own love drinking.

To our friends!--the two or three-- Be the third cheer voiced, Who with us in sunny days Quietly rejoiced.

They who from our night the gloom Swift and lightly scatter-- Lift to them a hearty--hoch!

Old friends, or the latter.

Broader now rolls on the stream With augmented billows; "Live they, hoch!" resound the cheer Unto all good fellows.

They who with combined strength Plant themselves together; In the sunshine of good luck; In the worst of weather!

As we are collected here, Thousands are collected: May their sports and joys run high-- Higher than expected.

From the spring unto the sea Many mills are turning, Wider far!--my heart streams out-- For the whole world burning!

CHAPTER XIX.

NEW YEAR'S EVE CONTINUED--SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY.

The company were raised into the best spirits by the song. The splendid cigars, such as seldom wander to the banks of the Neckar; the sparkling wine, which welled out of the little machine as inexhaustibly as cash out of Fortunatus' purse--all contributed to render the conversation, which turned on the recent festivity, animated and delicious. The Christmas festival, one of the very few people's feasts, which divided Germany yet maintained inviolably universal, had given especial pleasure to the Englishman, to whom it was a novel circ.u.mstance. Above all, he could not sufficiently extol a walk which his friends had taken him on Christmas-eve.

He who has ever witnessed in Germany a celebration of Christ's gifts to the children, knows well the joyful expectation with which the children await in an adjoining room the ecstatic moment when the doors of Paradise shall be opened to them. How beats their hearts, when at length the bell rings, after whose sound they have for weeks long yearned, and in antic.i.p.ation of which, they have often calculated how frequently the Sandman[46] must do his duty before that moment arrived.

And now, the instant that it is become dark, the impatience of the little ones can be no more restrained, and in all, even the poorest houses, the Bescherung, or distribution of the presents, begins. The shutters on this evening are closed in scarcely any of the houses, so that in the dark, as you pa.s.s along the streets, you see into the rooms lit up and embellished for the occasion. The Christ-tree covered with lights, throws its beams into the very darkness of the street; and the jubilant cries of the rushing-in children are heard, as transported with the view of their individual presents, they fly to each other to show them. This scene his friends had brought to his observation, and he could not sufficiently thank them for it.

A modest supper was now brought out; the friends seated themselves round the table, and while they addressed themselves to discuss it, they heard the reports of pistols every where resounding in the streets. The conversation turned itself upon the festivity of the present night, and on the different modes in which it is celebrated in different countries.

"That shooting," said Freisleben, "is a pleasure that we will surrender to other people; but the Vivat! we will help to accomplish. The Ch.o.r.es, Mr. Traveller, which betake themselves this night to their kneips, make, about twelve o'clock, a procession through the city, and bring to some of the Professors a 'Lebe hoch!' But till the hour arrive, we will endeavour to entertain ourselves with the recollection of a former occasion of this kind. It is so natural, at the conclusion of the year, for us to bring its circ.u.mstances once more before us, and with what must ours knit themselves?--Certainly with the University-city. I therefore make the proposal, that every one of us, in rotation, relate something which has a particular reference to remarkable persons and events, occurring or existing in Heidelberg in former times, and which were never wanting in Ruperto-Carolo; and in order to make a worthy beginning, our great historiographer, Von Kronen, may, as he lately was on the point of doing, communicate some of the most striking pa.s.sages from the annals of the City of the Muses."

The proposal met with general acceptance. The gla.s.ses were again replenished; the cigars sent their curling fumes into the air; and Von Kronen, throwing himself back in the corner of the sofa, began--

Heidelberg is one of our most ancient university-cities. Heidelberg, in the unfolding history of German science and German spirit, took a distinguished stand, and yet exists it, in the full-grown image of this scientific life of Germany, an important and essential member. At the mention of this university, start up in the memory renowned names, the recollection of great crises in the history of literature. It is, to the whole student youth of Germany, the spot of promise and of desire.

It stands foremost amongst those German universities to which even from abroad, from beyond the Rhine, the Alps, even the ocean, scholars a.s.semble themselves.

The most numerous and the most living traditions of German literature and German spirit amongst the French and English, date from Heidelberg, and Heidelberg is therefore pre-eminently the representative of our education, the type of the German universities, with those nations.

The founding of the university took place in the year 1386; a period in which, though literature flourished in Italy, a deep night still brooded over Germany. The then Emperor Charles IV. had erected a school of general study at Prague, on the model of the Paris university; and the advantages of this inst.i.tution could not escape the eyes of the Elector, a friend of the Emperor's, in his frequent visits to Prague--advantages which were derived to the whole country from this establishment. He, therefore, resolved to erect a university in his city of residence, Heidelberg. On the other hand, the foundation of the university had a political object. It was intended to prove an instrument for advancing the interests of Pope Urban VI., whose partisan Rupert I. of the Pfalz was. In this cause it stood forth in opposition to the university of Paris, which had declared for the other pope, Clement VII. Notwithstanding this circ.u.mstance, it was equally formed on the model of that of Paris, and received part of its first teachers thence. As there, the scholastic studies acquired an exclusive influence. Theology was in the ascendant; the Aristotelian philosophy, and the Canon Law, followed in immediate connexion; medicine, somewhat later, raised itself out of its scanty beginnings. Dialectical contentions take up nearly the whole of the early history of the university. Yet it is to be remarked, that the returned spirit of living experience announced itself, as it had earlier done here, through the predominance of Nominalism. Perhaps the study itself of the physical writings of Aristotle, slight and confined as it always was, might lay the first foundation of the empirical researches into nature; which later, here, as in Paris, came forth so conspicuously. On the contrary, the university closed itself resolutely against the humanity tendency, which penetrated into Germany out of Italy, and which Philip the Upright also was anxious to plant in Heidelberg; but which Frederick II., and his successor Otto Henry, were the first to accomplish, preparing thereby a way for the Cla.s.sical languages and literature themselves. Through Micyle, Ehem, and Melancthon, the university was reorganized; the predominance of the theological faculty restrained; and thus, together with the philosophical and humanity studies, a wider circle of operation opened to the practical sciences.

The study of law flourished under excellent teachers; in the faculty of medicine professorships of therapeutics, pathology, and physiology, were established.

The storm which now burst out in the train of the Reformation reduced the universities to great straits; religion became matter of politics, and the personal connexions and opinions of the princes, determined often in a very powerful manner the course of knowledge. The unfortunate embarra.s.sments of the Elector Frederick V., led to the storming of the castle of Heidelberg by the Bavarians; to the expulsion of the professors and students; to the sending away of the valuable library; and finally, to the total suppression of the university. Carl Frederick had it entirely to reinstate anew. He did it with a n.o.ble zeal, in the spirit and according to the needs of the time. The most distinguished teachers, as Cocijus, Spina, Frank, Freinsheime, and Textor, were called to it; a professorship for State and Popular law, the first founded in Germany, was established; and entrusted to the celebrated originator of this new doctrine, Samuel Puffendorf. A freer spirit arose in both speech and writing; and Carl Ludwig laid it under no restraint.

New agitations of the time, again disturbed this happy condition of the university; the political rule changed with the personal affairs of the princes; and literature felt the influence of this, in the strongest and most immediate manner. The teaching of philosophy was at a later period made over to the Lazarists; a dark reaction commenced against the liberal spirit; and at the same time that the peculiar speculative element of Heidelberg university fell into the shade, the empirical sciences rose up again into new existence on all sides.

A society had already, in 1734, established itself under the auspices of Professor Heuresius, for the cultivation of the history of the Fatherland, which however fell again. In 1769, a philosophical and economical society was founded in Lautern; and in 1774, a school of state economy. Both of these were removed to Heidelberg in 1784, and richly furnished with books and collections. From Heidelberg went forth the first impulse towards a scientific treatment of the doctrines of State economy.

The House of Zahringen now stepping into possession of the Pfalz, thus presided over the university. The second of the newly acquired territories, the Breisgau, erected in the university of Freiburg a rival to Heidelberg; a circ.u.mstance which was not without its effect on the latter. By the removal of the Catholic seminary to Freiburg, the scope and operation of the theological Faculty in Heidelberg were strikingly constringed; but only the stronger, and in this respect in opposition to the Freiburg university, and in more conspicuous superiority, advanced the other Faculties of Heidelberg, especially the judicial and medicinal, and of the philosophical, the section of state economy; which last, through the new organization of the university, const.i.tuted an especial department, and was placed in rank, at the head of the philosophical. This scientific tendency has raised itself on the preponderating necessity of the nation and the times; upon it grounded itself the fame and consideration of Heidelberg in foreign countries; and the new government was sagacious enough not to disturb this natural and historical position of the university by ill-timed interference.

The demands of modern education were so far conceded to, that, by calling into it men of the highest celebrity in all departments, a combination of the various ruling tendencies of the spirit of the times, a universality of studies, was attempted. The two Vosses were won in order to give new splendour to the university, and demonstrate the taste for cla.s.sicality; and a new impetus was given to the novel speculative tendencies in philosophy and theology.

But it soon became sufficiently convincing that these elements of education did not naturally a.s.similate themselves to the scientific life of Heidelberg, but were only artificially engrafted; that Heidelberg has not its mission to represent in itself the spirit of modern science and art; but the simple vocation of working out education and accomplishment suited to the necessities and interests of the practical life of the state and of civil offices, in both their wider and their more circ.u.mscribed spheres. It was then suffered to retain the character which it had established for itself, and those endeavours to force it into directions which did not naturally originate in its own bosom and nature, were discontinued. Thus it came to pa.s.s that the philosophy and the speculative theology altogether dragged; that the cla.s.sical and antiquarian studies became one-sided; that even in the practical sciences certain methods became prevalent; that the electrical shocks of the stream of the new literary topics and of scientific revolutions in vain thundered and lightened and raged round the professors of the old--professors who, from their isolated stools, smiled over that rushing and confused scene of excitement; and that the men of modern culture, the genial spirits, the speculative heads, with one voice called down anathemas on that Heidelberg Philisterium. But this anathematized Heidelberg Philisterium yet possesses an internal strength and freshness, with which the hollow inflation of the _soi-disant_ intellectual world found it difficult to measure itself; these old gentlemen, who seem so far removed from the spirit of the age, yet rest themselves in the real soil of the time, in the spirit of the period, in the progression of political and social life, far deeper than those genialists who in high-sounding theories and systems imagine that they have seized on the world-spirit. This scientific life which seems to stagnate, flows on without intermission noiselessly, steadily, but not by fits and starts.

Hoffmann.--The old gentlemen shall live, and to their health we will rub a salamander. Every one prepare a half-gla.s.s, and then I will command.

All seize their gla.s.ses, which are half-filled. They rub with them on the table in circles before them, all the time saying--"Salamander, salamander, salam--," Hoffmann commands, One, two, three! and at the three the gla.s.ses are emptied; One, two, three! they are again set down on the table altogether with a clap, where they continue rattling with them, till the command again One, two, three! when they are all lifted aloft, and at the final command once more set down altogether on the table with a thump.

CHAPTER XX.

NEW YEAR'S EVE CONTINUED.--UNIVERSITY STORIES.--VON PLAUEN.

Hoffmann.--I will now, for a change, give some pa.s.sages from the life and deeds of a hero, whom, were I a Zacharia, I would celebrate in a no less magnificent epic than he has done the exploits of his Renommist.

The Herr von Plauen, to whom I allude, studied for more than ten years here, and enacted more mad pranks than the whole united university besides would have been able to do. He was a little, broad-set fellow, of prepossessing exterior and expressive countenance, who stood particularly well with the ladies. His uncommon strength; his accomplishment in all bodily exercises; his overflowing humour continually gushing forth in witty conceits, procured him a constant good reception in the student world, and in the social circles of the city; and he long played in his Ch.o.r.e, as well as in the ball-room, a distinguished part, till his total sacrifice of character, and his really reprehensible actions, which were all alike to him so long as they carried him to his object, completed his ruin. By his strength he frequently put to shame the travelling Hercules who exhibit their powers for money; since, poising himself on a perpendicular pole, he would stretch himself out horizontally, so as to form a right angle with the pole, and at his pleasure, could double up strong silver coins. In the gymnastic ground, which yet existed, no one could stand against him; and in the fencing-school he beat down every one's guard.

As he once travelled in the Upper-Rhine country without a pa.s.sport, and a _gendarme_ on horseback, would have detained him, he threw both the man and his horse into the ditch by the roadside, and so left them. He was especially expert in the then so-much-liked shooting of geese, and thus made many a Philistine the poorer. Understand me right, Mr.

Traveller; to shoot, in studenten phrase, means to abstract without yet doing any thing unjust or contrary to honour; since, especially in the olden times, this was a student custom. Small things, as penknives, sticks, etc., if they were not dedicated, were shootable. One might take them from another, and with the words--"This is shot," he took possession of them. It may easily be conceived that it was only the elder students who indulged themselves in this practice against the Foxes, and no one could secure himself from this Spartan plundering but by instantly declaring a thing, which another seemed to have a design upon,--unshootable.

Von Kronen.--This expression dates itself from the practices of the schools of the fifteenth century. As then the teacher, with his helpers, was only engaged by the inhabitants of a place there for a year or so; so if the parties disagreed, the master, with his a.s.sistants, to whom generally a number of boys added themselves, proceeded from land to land, and supported themselves with alms, with singing before the houses, and with all manner of petty plunderings.

The scholars, who stood expressly under the protection of the a.s.sistants, must deliver to them geese, ducks, hens, and the like, which they became very expert in carrying off from the villages, and which, in their language, they termed shooting.

Hoffmann.--I have never before heard of this custom of antiquity. It is a pity that so beautiful a practice is become obsolete, or I could, as a musician, make most profitable use of it.

Freisleben:--

Friends beloved! there were finer times once Than are these times--that must be conceded,-- And a n.o.bler people lived ere we did.

Hoffmann.--But to come back to our story. Herr von Plauen possessed a more admirable dexterity in shooting than any of the schoolboys just referred to could possibly have; and no wonder,--as they were only schoolboys, and he was a student. Plenty of stories are related of him; how he twisted the neck of many a living goose, and popped them under his cloak; how with ladder and hook, he brought many a plucked goose down from the lofty store-room; yes, and how he came most easily at one ready stuffed and roasted.

On Holy St. Nicholas's-day, a worthy citizen of the place, whose little son also was called Nicholas, prepared a feast for some guests, the chief ornament of which was a goose, as fine as ever gabbled and screamed in the Pfalz. The goose was carried up; the guests had not, however, yet made their appearance, but the little son was impatient, and howling and crying desired a slice from the goose. The father strove in vain to quiet him; he howled and cried on. "Then," said the old man, "I will give the goose to the Pelznickel." (In our country there goes from house to house, on St. Nicholas's-day, fellows in disguise, who inquire into the past behaviour of the children, and give to the good ones apples, nuts, and little cakes, but warn the bad and threaten them with the rod. These disguised personages are styled Pelznickel.) With the word the old man set the dish with the goose in it on the outside of the window! This frightened the little one; he promised to be quiet if the father would take the goose in again; whereupon the father reached the dish in again, but to his astounding, the goose was gone! It was already rapidly on its way to the city of Dusseldorf, (a Wirthshaus in Heidelberg), where the Herr von Plauen and his companions found it smack right delectably with their red wine.

A similar pa.s.sage once befell our hero in the village Schlangenbach, where he was for a long time the guest of the Amtmann. They both, he and the Amtmann, who had himself been a l.u.s.ty student, made a call on the Frau Pfarrerin, the parson's lady. They talked of this and that; of husbandry, and of poultry and geese. "Ay," said the parson's lady, "I have a goose hanging above; you may match it if you can. But with what care and labour have I fed it myself; and stuffed it myself with the best Indian corn that was to be got. But, gentlemen, you shall judge for yourselves. I invite you next Sunday to discuss this famous goose."

"And yet," said Plauen, "I will wager that the Amtmann has one that is quite as good."

"Impossible!" exclaimed the Frau Pfarrerin.

"Amtmann," rejoined Plauen, "you won't admit that! I challenge you to invite the Frau Pfarrerin and her husband to-morrow, Sat.u.r.day, also to eat a goose, and we will afterwards see which goose is the best."

"Done!" said the Amtmann.