a large glass, and begged the honour of an exchange of goblets with his host. Such an invitation was, of course, accepted, and whilst the Prince drank Póble's champaign to the bottom (in defiance of his physician's orders,) Pöble, shuddering at the sensation, drained the glass presented to him of the best Bordeaux vinegar, his eyes starting from their sockets, and the tears rolling down his cheeks at the pungency of the acid. With difficulty he recovered his breath, and strength sufficient to gasp out

"I'm poisoned!"

"What wine was that? Quick-quick, before the gentleman suffers," cried the Prince.

Green and gold bustled amongst the bottles, and then with face lugubrious as an undertaker's, said—

"Your pardon, my Prince, but I fear it is some of the vinegar of Cantharides, your Highness ordered to blister Silberschwanz, that the Professor has taken. Shall I send for a surgeon ?"

"He's a gone man," groaned every body. A surgeon a stomach pump-quick, quick!”

:

Down dropped Pöble as if he had been shot the pains of death seized on his imagination, and perspiration ran in rivulets from his brow.

"Water!" he shrieked. "Water-it burns me. Oh! horrible-horrible! my vitals shall be all one blister! Wretched, wretched man that I am!-I die, I die !"

Just at this moment the servant again entered the room, and unceremoniously proclaimed that it was not

G

the fluid blister the Professor had drank, but an innocent glass of vinegar, and held out the flask in proof of his assertion.

Poor Pöble, who was nearly dead with terror, breathed again; acid as was the vinegar, it seemed sweet in his mouth, in comparison with the deadly draught he thought he had swallowed. He rose from the floor, amidst general congratulations, and having swallowed a bumper of brandy, to correct any ill effects from the vinegar, became hilarious in proportion to his recent depression.

Course succeeded course, and the popping corks flew merrily to the ceiling; every one pledged Herr Pōble, and the little Professor's little eyes began to twinkle with unwonted brilliancy and animation.

"What agreeable society," thought he; "how real rank does away with all imaginary distinctions, and by courtesy and kindness equalizes all. How different from the intolerable hauteur and impertinence, which mark the society of the Professors, or the Bourgeosie! This is worth living for! This is enjoyment."

Such thoughts coursed in quick succession through the exhilirated brain of the little man, warmed by the mirth and condescension of his guests, and by the continued bumpers with which they plied him, till at last he had some vague conception of being elevated in his chair on the table, and of singing certain bacchanalian songs, amidst shouts and laughter. The last thing which floated in his mind was, that he received a goblet from the Prince's own hands; after which, all that

happened, was to him as misty and cloudy (common consequences of great elevation) as most German transcendental speculations usually are.

The Professor having been placed "hors de combat" by the last draught, which was composed of nearly pure spirits, was laid aside for the present, and the party lit their pipes, and summoned up the chasseur and green liveries, who, it need hardly be said, were students disguised in costumes, borrowed at the theatre. The only genuine character amongst the party was the courier.

These gentlemen had performed their parts in the kitchen as ably as their brethren in the salle à manger, and had succeeded in making the maid and the two link boys senselessly drunk.

Accordingly, in obedience to the summons, they marched up stairs, carrying those unresisting persons on their shoulders, and presented them, as the first fruits of the enterprise, which assumed position was most stoutly refuted by the party up stairs, who, in support of their denial, produced the snoring person of poor Pöble out of a corner, and exhibited it amidst a chorus of laughter.

This important point being settled, they carried their four senseless victims to the bed chamber, and having carefully and solemnly invested their respective countenances with the whiskers and moustaches which had assisted to disguise their own faces, through politeness, giving the maid the largest ; they then deposited her in the bed of state, and pulling down the crown, they tied

it with a garter fast on her head: Pöble was laid beside her, and to keep all steady, one of the boys was stretched, bolster-fashion, under their heads, and the other over their feet. Certain little adornments, beautifying touches with burned cork, were added, and then the party returned to the supper room. There, the wild carouse was kept up, till the very weariness of mirth and satiety oppressed them all; and then, considering the state of inebriety at which they had arrived, they behaved with wonderful discretion, withdrawing one by one, with the greatest caution to their several abodes; the last of the party was the Prince, who having extinguished the lights and locked the doors, most carefully deposited the keys in the porter's room, and making a solemn bow to the sleeping functionary, staggered off, and threading his mazy way through numerous obscure streets, at last permeated the windings of a very narrow court (not a regal one) with much difficulty, and no little retrogressive progression; then, having ascended to the fourth étage, he might have been seen making sundry lounges with a latch-key at the lock of a very humble door, which having contrived at last to introduce, he found his way into a very comfortless apartment, where, throwing himself on the bed without taking off any of his clothes, he slept till broad noon next day, and then awoke in the person of your humble servant-Carl Gruber.

CHAPTER V.

"The Pope he leads a pleasant life."

"Men are but children of a larger growth;
Our appetites as apt to change as theirs,
And full as craving too, and full as vain."

DRYDEN.

"Whoop after whoop with rack the ear assail'd,
As if unearthly fiends had burst their bar."

“You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things. Oh! you hard hearts! you cruel men of Rome!"

COWPER.

HAVING become established at the University as a clever fellow, in the eyes of the superior powers, and as an äechter Bursch, (which in English may be freely translated regular scamp,) in those of the students, there was no danger but that I should do well.

Already, from being almost a beggar, I had an income more than sufficient for a student-life, and my first, or philosophic year, was as yet hardly expired. There were some other little posts in the University which I had already marked as my own, as soon as my standing should be sufficient; but still my thoughts were always jumping by a laudable prolepsis to that