It is mainly North Germany with whose institutions we have become more or less familiar through our newspaper literature, and the numbers of students who have from time to time gone thither for educational purposes. Some acquaintance has also been made with Baden and Wirtemberg, in South Germany, as these principalities have a population mainly Protestant; and Heidelberg, at least, has been a favorite resort for American students. But the same is not true of Catholic South Germany. Munich's collections and institutions of art--mainly the work of the late and still living King Lewis I.--have, indeed, become generally known. Mary Howitt, in her 'Art Student in Munich,' has given us some graphic delineations of life there. The talented and witty Baroness Tautphoens has done us still better service in her 'Initials' and 'Quits,' in relation both to life in the capital and in the mountains; yet the character, institutions, and customs of the people remain an almost unexplored field to the American reader. In the middle of the twelfth century Munich was still an insignificant village on the Isar, and had not even been erected into a separate parish. About this time Henry the Lion added to his duchy of Saxony, that of Bavaria, and having destroyed the old town of Foehring, which lay a little below the site of Munich on the other side of the river, transferred to the latter place the market and the collection of the customs, which had till then been held by the bishops of Freising with the imperial consent. The emperor Frederic I., in the year 1158, confirmed, against the remonstrances of Bishop Otho I., the doings of Henry. The duke hastened to surround the village with a wall and moat to afford protection to those who might choose to settle there, and in twenty years it had become a city. But the duke fell into disgrace with the emperor, and the latter revoked the rights he had granted; but this was like taking back a slander which had already been circulated. The effect had been produced. Munich was to become a capital. Bishop Otho's successor would gladly have destroyed the infant city and the bridge which had been the making of it. In consequence, however, of his early death, this beneficent purpose toward his see of Freising remained unexecuted. The next successor continued the same policy. He built a castle with the design of seizing the trading trains which should take the road to Munich, perhaps deeming this the best way of magnifying his office as a leader in the church militant. But before he could achieve his purpose of cutting off all supplies from the rival town, and turning trade and tribute all to his own place, a new defender of the rising city had sprung up in the house of Wittelsbocher--the same which still reigns over the kingdom of Bavaria,--and the matter of the feud was finally adjusted by the quiet surrender of the bridge and the tolls to the city.