vanced civilisation could supply, formed, with all these united, a complete poetical system. The old cultivated poets had disdained the popular poesy. More learned than poetical they proposed to themselves the imitation of exotic originals. Those of the new school, on the contrary, reaching the summit of perfection about the last quarter of the sixteenth century, did not wish to destroy the poesy of the people before thoroughly adopting it as the best and principal element in the foundations of that which they were erecting. From the fountains of the ancient ballads and old popular songs, the best poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries drank in the national spirit which animated their productions, and by means of which they were enabled gradually to educate the popular mind to the extent of making it comprehend and relish the beautiful forms of perfect poesy. Hitherto these were unknown or unappreciated by the people generally. For a while deprived of their own minstrels, they saw themselves reduced to the condition of receiving no new sustenance in the shape of song which might sustain their national affections, and had thus to be content with the old poems, which had grown insipid through age, or occasionally with some of the later productions of the literary or lettered epoch, which, far from being restorations of the vigorous youth of the older ballads, were reproduced, despoiled of all their originality and simplicity.

The interest which lies between the seventh artistic class of the fifteenth century, and those of the eighth class down to the close of the sixteenth, is filled by ballads of the sixth class, previously described, which were half pedantic and half artistic. In this period, as we have said, the people, deprived of their own class poets, were compelled, in order to obtain some novelty, to surrender themselves to the spirit of pedantry which was then in the ascendant a spirit which ever comes in the wake of ignorance; and thus the compositions which were infected with the fashionable vice easily became popular. The old ballads, and their imitations, written in the language of a remote epoch, had become almost unintelligible to the people. Those of the troubadours of the fifteenth century were equally strange to them; and the truly artistic ones of the new school had scarcely begun to

exist. There remained, then, for the people, within the limits of their actual intelligence, only those of the sixth class, which, as we have said, were for their own times what the old ballads had been for theirs. In such a state of sterility the great, and even the mediocre poets, at the end of the sixteenth century, who addressed their songs to a people now more instructed and cultivated, took possession, as it were, of the national spirit which reigns in the old ballads, freed them from their barbarous rusticity, inoculated them with whatever knowledge, taste, or culture was popularly diffused around them, adorned them with the new graces of a melodious lyricism, capable of expressing and of adapting itself to the highest creations of genius. appeared the new ballads Moorish, chivalrous, historical, vulgar, amatory, satirical, doctrinal, and the rest works in which the poet made the lyrical element preponderate, and in which he proposed to himself, almost on every occasion, to sketch his own proper impressions, his own intimate thoughts, as well as the events which revolved about him, independent of his own identity.

Now

In acting thus they but obeyed the spirit of society and of their era, and gave life and elevation to the poetical system which was forming itself from the elements of the ancient schools. This magnificent work of time and nature was formed, diffused, and scattered without any centre of union: but under the organising influence of art it contrived to emerge from the state of embryo and chaos in which it lay hid. The poets, who in order to nationalise the new poesy, formed it out of the original elements of the old, by amalgamating with it all the improvements of contemporaneous culture, and by borrowing from it whatever was within the comprehension of the people, began to divest the primitive popular ballad of its natural rudeness, to soften by means of art the asperities that deformed it, to smooth its language and modes of utterance, and, finally, to adapt it to the expression of passions, sentiments, and ideas in an elevated and dignified manner. It must be admitted, that some of the earliest poets who dedicated themselves to this more perfect style of composition, fell frequently (doubtless because even art itself does not always work on fixed principle), not

only into the defects peculiar to the traditionary ballads, but also into those that belong to the lettered or pedantic era. It is on this account that even still there may be discovered in their works much carelessness and inele: gance of language, a turgid fulness of style, a defective and not over delicate taste, and an excessive desire of parading whatever learning they possessed, which was badly digested and absurdly out of place. Among the poets who imitated the new popular school may be mentioned Pedro de Padilla, Lucas Rodriguez, Lobo Lasa de la Vega, and many others, who in their own publications, or in the "Romancero General," and later collections, published ballads either anonymously or with their names.

But soon afterwards, when the ballad emancipated itself from the fetters that bound it, when art became to it like a second nature, without interfering with the spontaniety of original inspiration when, in fine, the great poets, such as Lope and Gongora, who shed such a light over the closing year of the sixteenth century, took it into their own possession, then indeed it clothed itself in all the splendour of poesy, diffusing among the people an intense feeling of poetic enjoyment, which found its fullest fruition in the drama, to which it contributed materials that even yet are unexhausted. The ballad became once again the repository of the popular poesy, in contradis tinction to the learned and classical school which, at their respective periods, Boscan, Garcilasso, Luis de Leon, Herrera, and Riojo brought to the highest perfection, and which, possessing qualities that were accepted by the ballad poets, diffused itself among the people, polishing their taste and enlarging their intelligence. Unfortunately the vigorous youth of the new national poetry was of short duration; and it was already past, when, in the seventeenth century, the Spanish nation, forgetful of its triumphs and its glories, let fall from its listless hands the sceptre of power which

ruled the world, and the enchanting lyre which was the model and delight of men. The same great geniuses who elevated the national poesy, placed it from the very beginning in the path of retrogression, by impregnating it with that false taste and that ominous affectation of which it sickened, even unto death. The fantastical conceits of Gongora invaded the most eminent mind; but while they admitted, their own eminent poetical inspirations were sufficient to palliate their defects; and Lope, Tirso, and Calderon, even when they Gongorised, awoke flashes of a brilliant and noble poesy. It was not so with those who succeeded them; wanting the creative fire and the deliberate taste which genius, art, and sound criticism produce, they abandoned themselves to a servile imitation of all that was vicious and corrupt, without being fortunate enough to be able to understand, much less to reproduce, the portion that was really excellent. Thirty years before this catastrophe took place, who would have believed that the beautiful and inspired poesy that then existed could have so far deteriorated that even the rude ballads of the streets would be preferred to it? The popular romances at the least preserved a certain na turalness, a certain moving interest, which were wanting in the vicious, affected, and pedantic works of the artistic poets who, from the end of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth centuries, cultivated the Spanish Muse. Such was the destiny of that divine inspiration which animated the illustrious men of genius, who a few years before created and enlarged the dominion of Castilian poesy. This proves that the people became corrupt in their taste less readily than the educated classes, and that ignorance itself does not go so completely astray as that false and presumptuous knowledge which, in order to distinguish itself the more conspicuously, rushes beyond the boundary of the real, and loses itself in tortuous ways and labyrinths that have no exit.*

WE feel confident of having chosen both an interesting and an instructive subject, in bringing before our readers a short account of the German universities. In no country, not even in England, are there any institutions of higher importance than they are, for the advancement of learning and science; and it is not only to perform a public task profitably, but also to pay a debt of private gratitude, that we invite consideration of those seats of erudition which have been visited and looked upon with reverence by so many British scholars, divines, philosophers, and medical professors, in the age of Cranmer and of Porson, in the time of Canning and of Dr. Arnold; albeit, amongst so many English visiters, and some true admirers, the German Universities have never yet met with one who was sufficiently actuated either by gratitude or else by a desire of criticising, as to lay before the public of this country a more lengthened and, if possible, just account of them. Satisfied to reap their advantages, content to borrow or to explore their intellectual treasures, we have never thought it necessary or expedient to consider the peculiar system of the German Universities in general, or to form a correct estimate of the moral and scientific tone that pervades them. Men recorded their impressions of them in little more than a doggrel verse or so, which Canning could address to Göttingen,* or Porson† devote to the memory of Brunck, Ruhnken, or Hermann, who at the same time, as Porsen confesses, made him drunk with their knowledge. From them less information is to be derived

*We allude to his well-known verses on

Richard Porson:

than from some continental travellers who now and then could not fail to turn an accidental and transitory glance towards the German Universities, and who allowed them sometimes a rank, however secondary, amongst the objects of their attention. Of the best we have met with, we may mention "Russell's Tour in Germany in 1824 and 1825," a book which is certainly written in a vigorous and judicious style, though it may pass sometimes rather a harsh criticism upon the peculiar national habits of the German student. The author, who resided some time at Jena, and seems to have acquired most of his information on the German Universities at the time of his stay at this particular universitytown, rates the moral standard of the German academicians very low. This will not astonish him who knows that Jena has been formerly noted in Germany for the wildness and extravagances of her students; but it is obvious, for the same reason, that Jena can hardly be considered as a fair specimen. In the latter part of his book, the author himself admits that the life of the students at Berlin and at Göttingen does not generally exhibit the crude forms which he found to be characteristic of the Jena student.

Thus we must refer our readers for further information on our subject principally to German publications. It may be well to add, that the Germans have shown a greater interest in the scientific institutions of their neighbours, than the latter have shown for the institutions of Germany. They possess a most elaborate account of the English universities by

Huber; and but as lately as 1851, a Professor from Joachimsthal College, Berlin, L. Weise, paid a visit to England and Scotland for the especial purpose of inquiring into the state of education at schools, both high and low, in these countries. The letters in which he published the results of his inquiries, after his return to Prussia, establish a close comparison between educational establishments in Prussia and those of England. "G. Bell's Journal of English Education" has given the only translation of them, as far as we know, up to the present time. Whatever we may think of the author's opinions-according to which the moral and religious part of education would seem better attended to in England, the mental and intellectual better in Prussia-the letters of Wiese will be worth the notice of all who take an interest in educational topics.

Their

We hope that at a time when the question of University reform is so strongly engrossing public attention, an account of the Universities of a neighbouring people may not be unwelcome. But we consider the subject not merely from an educational point of view. It would be very shortsighted, and doing the question little justice, were we to view them only as schools where the young are initiated in the rudiments of science. influence is not limited to the rising generation; and their claims to our examination rest upon a still broader foundation-they are nurseries for the philosopher, the scholar, and the statesman-for all who are to fill the most important stations of a country — in short, we may call them the foci of a nation's intellectual life, the sources of its learning, and the fountains of its science the illustrious assemblages of all its wisest and most thinking men. Moreover, as great social bodies, they display in a remarkable way the genius and character of a nation, and exercise a decisive influence on its moral, political, and social condition. And this particularly applies to the universities of Germany, which have at all times acted in that country a singularly conspicuous and prominent part; and have acquired there an importance

which does not belong, in the same degree, to the universities in other countries, both by the greater frequency with which they were resorted to, and by the political ascendancy which, in the turn of events, has devolved upon them.

We are fully aware of the impossibility of doing so comprehensive a subject full justice within the narrow li mits of this essay. We shall therefore limit our description of the German Universities to leading points of general interest, and treat of their peculiar system of instruction, their internal composition and constitution, their relation to the State; and instead of a longer and more precise discussion of their moral and political character, offer some short sketches of the life and habits of the German student, which the personal experiences and recollections of the writer have partly suggested.

A statistical and historical survey of the German Universities will fitly afford us a proper beginning. Germany boasts at present of about twenty-five universities; the uncertainty of the correct application of the terms German and University does not allow of a more exact statement. They are of very different ages, some very old, some quite recent. But, as regards their origin, they have been all erected by the sovereigns or secular powers of the dif ferent provinces, and none of them existed before the middle of the fourteenth century. This enables us already to draw a twofold conclusion concerning their nature. It explains, on one hand, the entire absence of mediæval institutions, and of monastic, secluded habits; and it shows, on the other also, why they were, and are yet, dependent on the governments. The earliest university in Germany was that of Prague. It was in 1348, under the Emperor Charles IV., when the taste for letters had revived so signally in Europe, when England may be said to have possessed her two old universities already for three centuries, Paris her Sorbonne already for four, that this university was erected as the first of German Universities. The idea originated in the mind of the Emperor, who was educated in Paris, at the univer