and wriggles. I desire, meine Herren, to call your attention to the profound metaphysical or psychological knowledge here displayed by Horace. He might have written vis, You wish to get away; or petis, You seek; or desideras, You desire; or niteris, You struggle ; but not one of them would have conveyed the nice shade of meaning expressed by cupis. Wish denotes pure and simple volition; seek, muscular volition, as that of a stag-hound; desire, intellectual, or, oftener, moral, volition, without cause or reason expressed; struggle, strong and violent volition, accompanied by kicks, blows, flinging of stones, and the like. But want denotes intense, interior, subjective volition, a movement of the intellect seldom found among the superficial and objective Italians, or even among the ancient Romans, but more frequent among Northern nations. Cupis abire! It is very expressive."

During the delivery of the above paragraph, the Professor seemed temporarily to lose himself in a profound metaphysical abstraction. He gradually lost sight of his manuscript, and began to pace slowly up and down on the platform. Presently he fell into the national attitude of meditation, to wit, the left hand laid gently across the abdomen, the head thrown slightly to the right and upward, and the right forefinger placed alongside the nose. this attitude he remained in a deep meditation for some moments. Then he began, in a dreamy and pensive strain, to repeat what he had uttered, but with his right side toward the audience, and his eyes directed upon the side wall of the room, as if he were abstractedly apostro phizing an imaginary audience.

In

Here I ventured to commit a breach of decorum to which the student of human nature is sometimes tempted. I turned back and looked into the faces of the audience of four persons. Any one who will perpetrate this piece

of ill manners in a theater, or when listening to a comical speaker, will be rewarded with an interesting phenomenon which will repay the loss of some of the finest passages. The facial muscles of the most impressible people in the audience, especially in Germany, seem to play in sympathy with the speaker's, assuming the same smiles and distortions. These movements sometimes extend, among Germans, even to the neck and arms, causing them to gyrate in unconscious and gentle accord, as if in an effort to assist or supplement the thought of the speaker.

In like manner, one may often observe little children at play, earnestly intent on some circular or twisting motion, industriously following it up with their lips or tongues. As Horace himself says,—

"Si vis me flere, dolendum est Primum ipsi tibi."

So now, graven on the bewildered face of the poor fellow with the black hair and blue spectacles, I saw the word cupis in all its pregnant significance. Let the reader only consider what a dreadful thing it was for a member of the "laboring classes" to have this intensely psychological word written upon his lineaments! I was mightily alarmed for him, lest it should strike into his system.

The Professor presently faced his audience again, and resumed upon cupis:

"I seem to myself, meine Herren, to see them now before me, the irrepressible bore in his luxurious toga and perfumed, flowing locks, leering with a grin of exultation on the unfortunate Horace, who 'sweats even down to the ends of his toes,' and looks piteously about for Apollo or some compassionate mortal to hasten to his rescue. The taunting tone of the impudent snob in that word is

quite untranslatable. Cupis abire. Cupis-ha, ha! Misere cupis-ha, ha, ha! [Great laughter.]

"When Horace tells this impertinent chatterbox-" Here the Herr Professor Doctor was suddenly interrupted by a deep and prolonged groan, followed by a heavy thud, as of a man falling to the floor. Hastening to the spot, we found that the unfortunate laborer with the blue spectacles had fallen under a paralytic stroke, and was insensible. The kind-hearted Professor hastened down from the platform in deep concern, and ran with great precipitation to fetch the sufferer a draught of beer. In the mean time we carried him gently out into the open air, and then across the street, into an apothecary shop, to await the arrival of a physician.

Seeing the lecture was hopelessly broken off, I started homeward, then lingered awhile on the pavement, while the relatives and sympathetic friends were administering cordials, rolling the unfortunate man on a barrel, hammering him on the back, and performing other well-meant operations. A physician arrived presently, and, after glancing at the sufferer, took his companion aside to question him as to his habits of life and the probable cause of the stroke. I overheard only the concluding sentences. "Did you say it was the honored Herr Professor Doctor Kinck von Kinck's lecture you were listening to ?" "It was, Herr Doctor."

"Ach, Donnerwetter! Then I can do nothing for him. It is a hopeless case."

Next morning I read in the newspaper the coroner's verdict: "Came to his death from an excessive and untimely administration of cupis."

STUDENT RAMBLES IN PRUSSIA.

I.

Hamlet. I am very glad to see you. Good even.

But what, in faith, makes you from Wittenberg?
Horatio. A truant disposition, good my lord.

BUT

HAMLET.

OUT Wittenberg breeds "truant dispositions" no more. No more does the German student, roundfaced, broad-shouldered, in his immense cannon-boots, and with his little skull-cap gayly cocked on one side of his head and brilliant with as many colors as a poppybed, saunter with his level gait through the narrow, crooked, cobble-paved alleys of lonely Wittenberg. No more do the Bierburschen prowl through the streets on midnight missions of sign-lifting, hoisting one the other upon his shoulders before some grocery door, or scattering like frightened rats at the alarm of the police "rattlers," diving higgledy - piggledy down the darkened alleys. No more in lonely Wittenberg does the incarcerated sign-lifter turn his leaden eyes from the depths of the university dungeon, as he hears in the court the footfall of some comrade who was fleeter than he, and sees his shadow flit across the narrow grating, and dolefully sigh, O beatus ille! No more in Wittenberg does the hapless fag, the freshman "fox," sigh for the day of his legal emancipation,—the great, the pregnant day which shall usher him into the miseries and the mysteries of the condition of "singed fox," when his emancipators shall

dance and yell around him, paint on his face a pair of whiskers, and sing the song of his deliverance:

Ich mal' dir einen Bart, dass du hinfort geartet

Sollst sein, nicht wie ein Kind, das noch ganz ungebartet."

Then, in due process of time, the "singed fox" became a " young boy," then an "old boy," and, last of all, arrived at the tremendous dignity and responsibility of a "moss-skin," a free person, inter pares primus. Then he could wear his sword of authority, and play the absolute tyrant over the luckless "schoolworms," "boobies," or "yellow-bills" in the classes below; compel his freshman to run on errands, to feast him without return, to lend him money without hope of repayment, to fight with the street-boys for his amusement, or to pommel for him the "obscurants" or "stinkers" who obstinately refused to yield to his tyranny by entering the secret societies. And if the wretched fag refused to obey, the lordly "moss-skin" could beat him with the flat of

his sword.

Evil days were those, albeit the demic freedom," and sad dogs were ates who went home to their elders.

golden age of " acamany of the graduThe old song says:

"Wer von Leipzig kommt ohne Weib,
Und von Halle mit gesundem Leib,

Und von Jena ungeschlagen,

Der hat von grossem Glück zu sagen."

Gone forever and forever by, not alone in Wittenberg, but everywhere, is that German student whom Kobbe limns with a touch of fond and tender pathos: "Ah! where are ye, happy times, when the German student was a being who considered himself lifted above common mortals, and who looked down upon the life of a citizen with unspeakable superciliousness and contempt? Like