it was from this that Goethe and Schiller, Hauff and Tieck, and a thousand others, have issued to glorify valour, or consecrate patriotism, or beautify the regions of the human soul by their songs and their imaginative prose. It was from this that the whole body of ardent youth arose, and quitting their Kneips and their Chores, called all their country to reassert its liberty, to drive out its foes, and at the people's head, fought with the spirit of the ancient heroes, and chased from their soil for ever, the tyrant and overrunner of humbled Europe.
And yet there are those who are continually forgetting these things; asserting that all the student songs, and student clanship, and student freedom, end in smoke and vapour, and without any permanent result, and that they depart at the termination of their academical career their several ways, and sink into obscurity and insignificance. What! would they not have them become good citizens, sober judges, domestic men? But they who say that no high effects remain, know nothing of the youth of Germany. They cannot have seen how the new Rhine-song went through the whole country like an electric flash when France threatened to march to the banks of that noble river, and how every German student vowed if such a deed were perpetrated, they would go forth and fight to a man. They cannot know, as I do, that the loves and friendships formed by these youths are more permanent and indissoluble than any class of men with whom I have yet become acquainted; nor that in private society, where, and in my own house, I have seen much of them, they are amongst the most accomplished, gentlemanly, temperate, correctly-mannered, cordial-hearted, and intellectual men that European society possesses. But all such persons I willingly turn over to the perusal of this volume, the work of a young but learned author, who has recently passed, by a splendid examination, out of this student-life itself without having ever fought a single duel, or very probably got half or even quarter seas over. If the perusal of this volume should have the good effect of lessening amongst the German youth the tendency to the beer or the sword duel, and of inspiring our English youth with a more intellectual and poetical taste in their pleasures, certainly we may say, in the style of all good old prefaces, "that it will not have been written in vain."
Heidelberg, April 6th, 1841.
The General Beer-Comment of Heidelberg
LIST OF GERMAN SONGS.
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH.
1. The Sword Song 2. The German Fatherland 3. The Union Song 4. Are German Hearts 5. We Builded Ourselves 6. The Fox-Ride 7. Free is the Bursch 8. The Wirthin's Daughter 9. God greet Thee, Brother Straubinger 10. True Love 11. The Departure 12. The Gallant Ship is going 13. The Four Elements 14. There Twinkle Three Stars 15. Roundelay 16. The Krähwinkler Landsturm 17. The Binschgauer's Pilgrimage 18. Drinking Song 19. The Pope 20. Drinking Song 21. Rhine-Wine 22. Prince Eugene 23. Commers Song 24. An Unbounded Jollity 25. Gaudeamus Igitur 26. Old Noah 27. Old-fashioned Bursch 28. The Travel Song 29. The Landsfather 30. Prince of Fools 31. Ways of the Students 32. Crambambuli 33. Song of Wine 34. The Departing Bursch 35. The Old Bursch
THE
STUDENT LIFE OF GERMANY.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL PLAN, OFFICERS, AND COURTS, OF A GERMAN UNIVERSITY
Jerusalem beautifully observes, that the barbarism which often springs up behind the loveliest and most richly-coloured flower of knowledge, may be a kind of strengthening mud-bath, to prevent the over-delicacy which threatens the flower; and I fancy that one who reflects how far knowledge usually climbs in a student, will allow the so-called Burschen life to the Sons of the Muses, as a kind of barbarous Middle-age, which may so far fortify them as to prevent this delicacy of refinement exceeding its due bounds.--Jean Paul Richter's Quintus Fichslein.
Student Life! Burschen Life! What a magic sound have these words for him who has learnt for himself their real meaning! What a swarm of recollections come over him who has once visited that land, however long it may be since he returned homeward to a safer haven! Youth flies on wings of impatience towards this happy time; age, though indeed it may smile over the recollection of many a folly, recalls its memory with delight.
We hear two old men, who in later life recognise each other in civil office, and loaded with honourable duties. They speak of those beautiful dreams of youth with enthusiasm, like two old veterans rejoicing themselves in the recollections of the campaigns in which they have served, and the battles which they have fought together. "To the old