Turenne came hither from behind that Rhine-stream, the French soldiers playing at ball, as they came, in the Dome of Speir, with the skulls of German kings; and finally, the latest scenes of the past, when upon that castle of Hambach the German and the French tricolour flapped on the same standard staff. And these histories which we have lived over again in this one view, are not yet dead and worn out, but still plant themselves in the very heart of the present, and intertwine themselves beneath our feet there, in many an intricate winding. A network of boundaries lies before us; every fresh glance falls on a fresh territory--upon a different race of the German people. There, towards the south, the ancient Swabia shadows itself forth; here, northward, Hesse divides itself from the Pfalz; there, beyond the river, contends the active French spirit against the strict old Bavarian discipline, and nourishes itself with its beloved traditions and daring hopes. Still farther off can we look into this very France itself, which for centuries has been so fatally disastrous to us. Those steam-vessels which cover the Rhine, and bear in them travellers of all nations, are ready to convey us upward to the foot of the Alps, or downward to the sea; and the busy and restless traffic, which moving between these points daily rushes to and fro, past us, there presses itself into the very centre of our field of vision." The reader must pardon us that we have permitted ourselves to be seduced by the charms of nature to inweave here what might perhaps have found a place in one of the last chapters; where indeed we propose to consider what influence the student life has on the spirit and mind of the pupil of Minerva. He will allow us now to return to our present subject. The more distant places the student seeks by means of a horse or carriage. The riding horses for hire are truly, for the most part, wretched jades. Even the means which the Renommist of Zachariæ used would prove unavailing here; and what he thus describes, on such Rosinantes as these could not come to pass. A spur-stroke and a curse gave wings unto his horse. The crack of ponderous whip, and rib-thumps, sans remorse, Sent him all foaming on, till almost, in a minute, The country lay behind him, the next, he was not in it.