The reception which was prepared for the new Duke seems indeed to have been especially cordial. While the deputies delivered the address to the new prince, Lepsius saw the populace rejoicing and singing the LaFayette hymn, and Götte,[4] “with all his coarseness, a very droll man,” quietly submit to the honors which were heaped upon him. “They wanted to go back to Richmond in crowds, and Götte gave out songs which were to be sung there. The Duke’s answer to the address was read amid great rejoicings. Every one was carried away by the happiest hopes of the future. Then they flocked to Richmond. The Duke was still at dinner. Permission was requested to sing the song: “Hail to Thee, William.” The Duke came out with General Hertzberg and several others, and remained standing during the whole song, which was sung by the crowd to a musical accompaniment. He then caused several citizens of consideration, who stood near, to be summoned, conversed graciously with them, etc. The rejoicing is indescribable, and the Brunswick ladies especially take the most active part in it all.”
An illumination was announced for the evening, and as Lepsius’ friends, who were members of the city militia, had to patrol, he also, to his delight, took a gun over his shoulder, and as an impromptu soldier, accompanied them through the brightly-lighted streets, unobserved and unmolested. The main guard, where the patrol finally came to anchor, was stationed on the old market-place, just opposite to the very beautifully-illuminated town-hall. Here he first listened to several remarkable narratives, and then heard them sing the so-called “ballad,” a satirical poem on the banished Duke Charles. The author himself, a goldsmith, sang the verses, and the whole chorus joined in the refrain, “Go ahead slowly!” It sounded very well. The first verse of this song, which in every respect was very moderate, ran thus:
“For a little while things went ill that day,
For they taught him manners, they taught him right;
They hunted him shamefully far away,
And his flaming castle they gave him for light.
But go ahead slowly, go ahead slowly,
So that we may all hear it well.”
The last stanza greets the new Duke thus:
“And not long after another man came,
That can rule the land far better than he;
So hurrah with me for that man’s name,
That frees us from the yoke of tyranny.
But go ahead slowly, go ahead slowly,
So that we may all hear it well.”
Richard copied off this song of nine stanzas, as well as all the documents relating to the Duke’s expulsion which he could get possession of, and sent the copies to his father. He was in the habit of thus collecting and writing out in his letters all that he thought could possibly give pleasure to his family in Naumburg. He maintained throughout his whole life this affectionate endeavor to show his gratitude to his father and to requite his love with deeds. He wished him not only to sympathize with his serious labors, but also to participate in everything amusing which he encountered, and to this category belonged the following verse, which he found on a sandstone pillar in the mill-stone quarry at Mansfield:
“If any man doth damage to
This quarry or its products, do,
He shall be punished according to law
And the state of the circumstances.”
During his fourth term (the second at Göttingen), Lepsius attended the lectures of O. Müller on Grecian Antiquities, Persius and Juvenal; of Dissen, on the oratio pro corona of Demosthenes; of Heeren, on the History of the European States, and of Ewald, on the Elements of Sanscrit. This language, indispensable for the linguist, and whose importance for the philologist also he had recognized even when at school, he had wished to study in Leipzig, but had not before been able to find time for it. He became one of H. Ewald’s most industrious pupils, though at first only with a view to general comparative philology, to which he now intended to devote himself with special zeal, in addition to his archaeological and historical studies. “Ewald,” he writes, “reads his Sanscrit Grammar in his room before five or six hearers, a great advantage for us, for he has an extremely low voice, though at the same time he speaks with extraordinary clearness and correctness. As I have always taken special interest in general comparative philology, I am so much the more delighted that Ewald enters into this largely, and does not always confine himself to Sanscrit. He by no means adheres strictly to Bopp’s Grammar. A great deal he gives in a more general way, and many things more briefly, and, as is always the case in oral teaching, everything more plainly: in Bopp, too, one finds nothing of comparison with other languages.” When Lepsius wrote these words, and even after his first meeting with Bopp in Berlin, he did not foresee that this was the scholar to whom he should afterwards be indebted for his own method in this very science of comparative philology.
The winter term, begun with great enthusiasm, was to meet with an unexpected interruption, for in December, 1830, the noted Göttingen revolution broke out. Richard, indeed only witnessed it as an impartial spectator, but it was followed by the closing of the lecture-rooms and the expulsion of many students. Even Lepsius could only escape this order with difficulty, under many conditions, and after his patrons and instructors had interceded for him. He naturally describes the “Göttingen Revolution” most minutely to his father, and his first letter on this subject we annex as an appendix to these pages.[5]
During the time that the government prohibited the professors from lecturing, Lepsius pursued the studies which he had commenced with undiminished assiduity, and he says in his letters that the closer personal intercourse with the instructors amply compensated him for the suspended lectures.