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 circumstance. 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 anticipation 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 pass 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 Chores, 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 circumstances 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 passages from the annals of the City of the Muses."
The proposal met with general acceptance. The glasses 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 assemble 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 institution 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 circumstance, 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 Classical 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 embarrassments 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 noble 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.