all the humane feelings. The governments and college authorities have long since proscribed and forbidden duelling; but of late even the students of Berlin, Bonn, and Breslau have themselves made efforts to prevent and eradicate them entirely, by the erection of a students' jury (Ehrengerichte), before which quarrels may be settled peacefully. The students' associations have always been suspected, and repeatedly dissolved by the governments; for these self-constituted clubs continually fostered a feeling of political dissatisfaction, and were sometimes decried as the haunts and refuge of secret conspiracies. It was under similar pretences that the general Burschenshaft was dissolved, after the murder of Kotzebue by a young enthusiast of the name of Sand. and lamentable to an observer. There are amongst them a number of braggadocios, eager to test their skill and the metal of their swords, and glad to pick a quarrel with any one to whom they are just in the humor for addressing their pert provocations. It is to this spirit that most duels must be traced; and they have not always even the excuse of personal antipathy, or difference of opinion, or a previous quarrel, or a miscarried joke, or some public or private insult that might have set the parties at war. For a few hasty words, satisfaction with arms is desired and promised; cards are exchanged, seconds chosen, the cartel solemnly declared, and time, place and weapon agreed upon. After a delay of some days or weeks, which are conscientiously made use of for practicing at the noble art, the parties repair, early on the The principal reason, however, why the appointed morning, with their friends, to ancient student associations are dying away, the place of rendezvous, on some neighbor- is not so much the order of the authorities, ing heath. An umpire and a medical stu- but is due to the existence of a strong feeling dent must always be present. Arrived on against them amongst the majority of the the ground, they fix the spot and distance present German academicians. The tradifor the fight, mark the mensura or circles tional Burschen- Comment, with all its rude within which the combatants must keep, and ludicrous appendages, begins to fall into strip the upper part of their body, and, af- utter disrespect, and is looked upon as antiter close examination of the weapons, the quated, useless rubbish, or as toys for insipid sanguinary contest begins. The umpire freshmen. The actual generation of Burholds his rapier steadfastly between them, schen is a more refined class of men; they in order to stop them at the first wound have exchanged the gauntlet for a pair of that is inflicted, and to prevent foul play. kids, the cap of the corps (or association) Thus the two antagonists may stand, parry- for a common chapeau, the sword or rapier ing and returning each other's thursts for for a riding whip or a walking stick; and it some minutes, until at length their vigor has almost ceased to be considered as a merit relaxes. Now comes the moment for the to provoke duels, to besot oneself with beer, decisive blow. The contest becomes more wine, and tobacco; or to go swaggering desperate, and the swords glance almost in- along the street with a professed view to anvisibly, whilst the shouting of the anxious noy each Philistine, beadle, or night-guard, friends mingles with the rapid clash of the who may come in their way. The old cusrapiers. Suddenly the umpire shouts-Sitzt, toms are only practiced on the sly, and are one of the two is hit; blood has been drawn carefully hidden from the eyes of the world, and the duel is over. And, whilst the medi- instead of parading in public as formerly; cal student advances to attend to the wound, even the old slang is hardly ever used or the umpire summons the two antagonists to referred to, without provoking a smile on shake hands and to promise that they will every countenance. Nor is it likely that the consider the offence as forgotten and as ex- sober, reflecting, and assiduous nature of the piated, and that they will neither bear one German students should make no reaction another any grudge from it, nor allow any against the crude and boisterous tone of information of the occurrence to spread. some of their comrades. It is in general but This is vowed, as throughout transactions of the smaller Universities which take delight this nature a certain chivalrous air and ap. in them, in order to bring some change into pearance of good grace is preserved. Thus the uniformity of continual study in their the mischief which duels cause consists for- rural towns. In Berlin and Vienna little of tunately in little beyond disfiguring the face the old students' habits is to be met with. by sword-cuts, as lives are but seldom or never set at stake. Yet we have no desire of cloaking the savage and barbarous nature of a custom which is so utterly repugnant to The predominating spirit of the larger German Universities bears of late reference rather to the political struggles of the country. It is certainly not the business of young men, nor of learned schools, to fight the battles of their fatherland, nor to discuss what laws and constitution they will establish. But it was to be expected that the Universities, which hold in Germany such a pre-eminent rank, should have also taken a leading part in the present aspirations of Germany after constitutional liberty. The academicians of Vienna and Berlin have made themselves the avowed champions of popular reform; and if freedom has yet hardly begun to shed her beneficent lustre over the middle of Europe, it is certainly not owing to a lack of patriotism and enthusiasm among the youth of the German high schools. The force and generality of the liberal sympathies among them is the most evident proof that, in the following decennium, when the generation of young men who frequented those schools in 1848 and 1849, will have succeeded to the offices and administration of the German States, that country must, by internal necessity, give way to the demands for liberty. It is sincerely to be wished that Heaven may grant to Germany a peaceful and steady solution of her internal difficulties, and that her Universities may unite moderation with firmness, in the open and untiring pursuit of free institutions. In conclusion, it may be useful to recapitulate the main outlines of the picture, so as to leave a distincter impression of them as a whole. The German Universities, which have many defects among much that is good, bear distinct traces and marks of the soil on which they are planted. They stand under the control of more or less arbitrary governments, and are to them the instruments for educating a supply of officers and professional employés, which those bureaucratical States require in order to be governed. But the Universities fulfil their task not in a little or slavish manner. As pre-eminently national institutions, they uphold the principle of universal admissibility, and exclude no doctrine, no creed or nationality from teaching or learning among them. They pursue an independent system of instruction which scorns any but scientific authority; they omit all mercenary means of stimulation, and expect their adepts to cultivate science purely for its own sake. They have sacrificed all the practical business of education, because superintendence is thought at once contrary to their constitution, and unsuitable to their students, who are expected to educate themselves. Assiduity and enthusiasm form the leading features of the youth who frequent them, and which, in spite of some habitual excrescences, are still found amongst them; they yield to Germany and to Europe a number of profound scholars, divines, and philosophers, who unite a close-looking, microscopic understanding with a wide and gigantic grasp of intellect. Situated in the heart and centre of Europe, visited by strangers from all quarters of the globe, the German Universities have acquired a far-spreading influence on the world of letters, both by their position, and by the nature of their intellectual stores. They stand as the strongholds of modern European intelligence, and form the safest and firmest anchors of general civilization and knowledge. May they remain true to their trust, may they prosper and flourish, and never cease to infuse wisdom and learning into the generations that annually gather around them! From Chambers' Journal. CHARLES KINGSLEY AS A LYRIC POET. Christian Socialist, a journal started by the promoters of Working-Men's Associations some few years since, which had but a small circulation and brief existence. It is from these we select most of our specimens of our author's lyrical genius, although not all of them. Mr. Kingsley is the descendant of a family of fervent Puritans, and the spirit which lived in them still flashes out the hot, earnest life which beat so impetuously beneath the armor of the Ironsides, still throbs in his writings. For example, here is a lyric worthy to have been chanted by a company of the Puritan soldiers the night before a battle, and their loftiest feelings might have found in it FEW readers acquainted with the prose- | The chief of these were published in the writings of Mr. Kingsley can be ignorant of the fact, that he is a true poet. The stream of his prose continually reveals the golden sand of poetry sparkling through it. In his pictures, taken from the many-colored landscape of life, and in his transcripts of natural scenery, we feel that he has selected with the poet's eye, and painted with the hand of a poetic artist. But it is not as a writer of poetry in prose we purpose speaking of him now, so much as a writer of poems-in fact, as a lyric poet. The Saint's Tragedy, which was Mr. Kingsley's first literary work, contained great poetic promise, both dramatic and lyric. It evinced a subtle knowledge of human emotion, especially of the mental workings and heart-burnings of humanity, wrestl-fitting utterance:ing with the views inculcated by Catholic ascetics. In addition to its dramatic interest and truthful delineation of character, there were scattered throughout it some drops of song, which, minute as they were, seemed to us to mirror the broad, deep nature of a lyric poet, even as the dew-drops reflect the overarching span of the broad, deep sky. In his prose works, Mr. Kingsley has also printed several fine lyrics, the beauty and strength of which have been the subject of almost universal remark. Alton Locke contains a ballad, Mary, go and call the Cattle Home, which is akin in its simplicity to those old Scotch ballads that melt us into tears with their thrilling, wild-wailing music. In Yeast appeared the Rough Rhyme on a Rough Matter. It is the cry of a poacher's widow, the passionate protest of a broken heart against the game-laws-poured forth to the great silence of midnight as she is sitting near the spot where her husband was killed. It is distinguished by intensity of feeling, and a Dantean distinctness, not frequently met with in the sophistication of modern poetry. Few that have read it will ever forget it. The lyrics we have mentioned are probably all the reader will have seen of Mr. Kingsley as a lyric poet: other pieces, however, have appeared in print. THE DAY OF THE LORD. The Day of the Lord is at hand, at hand, Of the Day of the Lord at hand. Gather you, gather you, angels of God- To the Day of the Lord at hand. Famine, and Plague, and War; Who would sit down and sigh for a lost age of gold, True hearts will leap up at the trumpet of God, And those who can suffer, can dare. This is a true ballad. It is clearly conceived, clearly finished, simply worded, and it contains neither metaphor nor conceit. These two lyrics alone will amply show that their author possesses the fire and force, the cuning art and the beauty of expression, of a lyrical master-in addition to which qualities, his Muse has at times a wondrous witchery and most subtle grace. Some of his dainty little lilts of song are so full of melody, they sing of themselves, which is the rarest of all lyrical attributes. They remind us of the sweet things done by the old dramatists, when they have dallied with airy fancies in a lyrical mood. Here is one : SONG. There sits a bird on every tree, There sits a bird on every tree, With a heigh-ho, and a heigh-ho! There blooms a flower on every bough, With a heigh-ho! There blooms a flower on every bough, Its gay leaves kiss-I'll show you how: With a heigh-ho, and a heigh-ho! Young maids must marry. The sun's a groom, the earth's a bride, With a heigh-ho! The sun's a groom, the earth's a bride, The earth shall pass-but love abide, With a heigh-ho, and a heigh-ho! Young maids must marry. We conclude our quotations with a brief strain of pathetic minor music, so like the tenderness of some Scottish music, which must have been struck out of the strong national heart, like waters out of the smitten rock, through rent and fissure. These eight lines bring out another quality of the lyric poet-that of suggestiveness-the power to convey a double meaning-to make a sigh or a sob speak more than words-to hint more than can be uttered-to express the inexpressible by veiling the mortal features, as did the old Greek artist: If these specimens are not sufficient to prove that a powerful lyrist is among us, we do not know what evidence would be necessary. "Tell Mr. Kingsley to leave novels, and write nothing but lyrics," said one of our greatest living writers to us the other day, when we showed him some of these songs. Often has the distinguished Chevalier Bunsen, in speaking of the song-literature of Germany and its influence on the people, urged Mr. Kingsley to devote his powers to becoming a Poet for the People, and a writer of songs to be sung by them. England has no Burns, no Béranger, not even a Moore: she waits for her national lyrist. Although not as yet, perhaps, thoroughly tried, we know no man who appears to be so fittingly endowed to ascend into this sphere of song, that is dark and silent, awaiting his advent, as Mr. Kingsley. He is an intense man, large in heart and brain, a passionate worshipper of truth and beauty. His heart has a twin-pulse beating with that of the people; his song has a direct heart-homeness, and is that of a singer born. The verses we have given, be it remembered, do not constitute the choicest picked from a larger quantity: they are the most of what we have seen, and are taken as they came. We claim for them the rare merit of originality there is no echo of an imitation, no reverberation of an echo. The melody has a bird like spontaneity. It will be found that each repetition serves to increase their beauty. Observe, too, how essential everything is that belongs to them: there is From Hogg's Instructor. THE POETRY OF ALFRED TENNYSON.* BY GERALD MASSEY. WAR and Revolution are not those unredeemed evils which the peace-men would have us believe them to be. The great, grim, terrible thing which appears to tower up so darkly as an obstacle in the path of progress, may become another Sinai, dreadful with the presence and eloquent with the voice of the Almighty speaking his grand decrees in thunder and lightning, and the terror of tempests. Rudely wakened from some voluptuous dream, or suddenly called from the lighted halls of peace, we stand looking out into the night, and, straining our eyes on the strife, we hear the clang and tumult, the thunders and the shoutings, the cry of the victor and the moanings of the wounded. War seems a fearful thing. By and by our eyes become attempered to the gloom, and we perceive that it has other aspects. Its lightnings often cleanse the moral atmosphere. Its sword cuts clean through the flimsy draperies and hollow masks of conventionality, sham, and artificiality. We get down to the ground-root of things, and look in the unveiled face of the great Nature. Fields may be heaped with slain, and Poems by Alfred Tennyson. Ninth Edition, 1854.-"The Princess, a Medley." Fourth Edition, 1851.-"In Memoriam." 1850. London: Moxon. mound and furrow be red with carnage, but such seed is not sown in vain, and may produce a worthy harvest in the after-years. It is said of many young men who went out to the Crimea, and who have seen the veil torn from the gorgon-face of Battle, and been within arm's-length of death, that, though they left England as thoughtless, vain, gay fops, they returned from that solemn experience, sad, wise, earnest, valiant men. Even so is it with the life of nations. War reveals what stuff they are made of, what endurance, heroism, truthfulness, earnestness, is in them still; and, constituted as man is, it is most necessary that these qualities be kept alive, seeing that life is a continual combat, and it is well that the battle trumpet should rouse us from the pillow of sloth, the bent-knee of slavery, and the all-fours of money-grubbing, into heroic attitude. One of the best and most precious results of war, national struggles, and the changes in relig ious, political, and social systems, is in the new and vigorous life they give to literature. There the mortal life lost by field and flood is caught up and rendered back to us immortal by the hands of Poetry. What a tide of fresh life poured through the heart of England after the mighty impulse of her Reformation, and burst up in a new out-bud |