We have already traced the derivation of the word "Bursche," and observed that the first unions of the students were designated "Landsmanschafts" and "Orders." The origin of the first actual Burschenschaft is to be sought in the times when, on the establishment of the Rhenish Prince-league, which placed itself submissively under the sceptre of Napoleon, and the consequent abdication of the imperial throne of Germany by Francis II. in 1806, every heart that beat with a German feeling must have been seized with the deepest sorrow at the fall and dashing to pieces of the Fatherland. An earnest desire to be able to give help to the outraged country--the belief in a God who alone was able to free it from its oppressions--filled the heart of the patriot, and must have roused him to a tone of mind, than which nothing could be farther from that serene enjoyment of life, often bordering on actual frivolity, to which the members of academical unions were not rarely accustomed to resign themselves. A patriotic spirit, a zealous, earnest aspiration, had already proclaimed itself in the latter years of the former century. Already in its seventieth year had the Poet-league at Göttingen organized itself under Klopstock. John Heinrich Voss, the two Grafs Stollberg, Hölty, and others, belonged to it. At the same time tumbled that fabric which the Order of Jesus had artfully raised, and the German language was finally established in those rights, out of which it had so long been expelled. The lachrymose tribe of common tragedies, and the moving comedies with which Kotzebue and Iffland overflowed the stage,[4] were compelled to give place to knightly dramas, and Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen became for the hundredth time imitated. The German Muse attained a higher flight through Lessing, and finally displayed herself to the world in the two noble forms of Schiller and Goethe. The first, far from all lightness, full of deep earnestness and noble sentiment, sought chiefly to effect the moral elevation and intellectual accomplishment of youth; and the youthful freshness of his language gave to his often more philosophical than poetical reflections and sentences, an irresistible charm for young minds. Goethe moved in a contrary direction. With a predominant sentiment for beauty, and an eminent talent for imitation, he sported through every department of literature, and floated perpetually with the current of the intellectual tendency of the age. By such men the German language was speedily advanced to its point of perfection; the French language ceased to be the conversation language of the court and of the polite circles. Joseph II. introduced the German language into the court of Vienna; after the death of Frederick II. it became acknowledged as that of the court of Prussia. For a long time Weimar became pre-eminently the capital city of German accomplishment; and Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Herder, and other distinguished men, found