Constitutions became as plenty in the market as blackberries; indeed, rather too much so, for at last there was a sort of glut. If the Germans had merely desired freedom of the press, trial by jury, burgher-guards, and the repeal of exceptional laws, the gift was ready for them; but they wanted something more, which the separate sovereigns could not give. In the midst of the haze of revolution, the popular eye was fixed upon a dim phantom of German unity--upon the eidolon of old Germania, once more compact and reunited. True, the old lady had been laid in her grave long before any of the present generation were born, not in the fulness of her strength, but after a gradual decay of atrophy. This, however, was a sort of political resurrection; for there she, or her image, stood, comely as in her best days, and clothed in mediæval attire. The dreams of the students seemed to be in the fair way of accomplishment, and a loud shout of "_Germania soll leben!_" arose from the banks of the Rhine. At Heidelberg, on the 5th of March, an assembly of the German notables was held. This was a self-constituted congress of fifty-one persons, and represented eight states, in rather singular proportions; for while the duchy of Baden contributed no less than twenty-one members, Wurtemberg nine, and Hesse-Cassel six, Austria was represented by one individual, and Rhenish Prussia by four. These gentlemen passed resolutions to the effect that Germany should become one and united; that her safety lay in herself, and not in alliance with Russia; and that the time had arrived for the assemblage of a body of national representatives. In the list of the parties so gathered together, we find the honoured names of Hecker and of Struve: the star of Von Gagern of Darmstadt was not yet in the ascendant. After having delegated to a committee of seven the task of preparing the basis of a German parliament, this meeting separated, to assemble again with others on the 30th of March at Frankfort, in the character of a legislative body.