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It was to be remarked that though, by title and diploma, Professor der Allerley-Wissenschaft, or as we should say in English, Professor of Things in General,' he had never delivered any Course; perhaps never been incited thereto by any public furtherance or requisition. To all appearance, the enlightened Government. of Weissnichtwo, in founding their New University, imagined they had done enough, if in times like ours,' as the half-official Program expressed it, when all 'things are, rapidly or slowly, resolving themselves into 'Chaos, a Professorship of this kind had been established; 'whereby, as occasion called, the task of bodying some'what forth again from such Chaos might be, even slightly, 'facilitated.' That actual Lectures should be held, and Public Classes for the 'Science of Things in General,' they doubtless considered premature; on which ground too they had only established the Professorship, nowise endowed it; so that Teufelsdröckh, recommended by the highest Names,' had been promoted thereby to a Name merely.

Great, among the more enlightened classes, was the admiration of this new Professorship: how an enlightened Government had seen into the Want of the Age (Zeitbedürfniss); how at length, instead of Denial and Destruction, we were to have a science of Affirmation and Reconstruction; and Germany and Weissnichtwo were where they should be, in the vanguard of the world. Considerable also was the wonder at the new Professor, dropt opportunely enough into the nascent University; so able to lecture, should occasion call; so ready to hold his peace for indefinite periods, should an enlightened Government consider that occasion did not call. But such

admiration and such wonder, being followed by no act to keep them living, could last only nine days; and, long before our visit to that scene, had quite died away. The more cunning heads thought it was all an expiring clutch at popularity, on the part of a Minister, whom domestic embarrassments, court intrigues, old age, and dropsy soon afterwards finally drove from the helm.

As for Teufelsdröckh, except by his nightly appearances at the Grünen Ganse, Weissnichtwo saw little of him, felt little of him. Here, over his tumbler of Gukguk, he sat reading Journals; sometimes contemplatively looking into the clouds of his tobacco-pipe, without other visible employment: always, from his mild ways, an agreeable phenomenon there; more especially when he opened his lips for speech; on which occasions the whole Coffeehouse would hush itself into silence, as if sure to hear something noteworthy. Nay, perhaps to hear a whole series and river of the most memorable utterances; such as, when once thawed, he would for hours indulge in, with fit audience: and the more memorable, as issuing from a head apparently not more interested in them, not more conscious of them, than is the sculptured stone head of some public Fountain, which through its brass mouth-tube emits water to the worthy and the unworthy; careless whether it be for cooking victuals or quenching conflagrations; indeed, maintains the same earnest assiduous look, whether any water be flowing or not.

To the Editor of these sheets, as to a young enthusiastic Englishman, however unworthy, Teufelsdröckh opened himself perhaps more than to the most. Pity only that we could not then half guess his importance, and scrutinise him with due power of vision! We enjoyed,

what not three men in Weissnichtwo could boast of, a certain degree of access to the Professor's private domicile. It was the attic floor of the highest house in the Wahngasse; and might truly be called the pinnacle of Weissnichtwo, for it rose sheer up above the contiguous roofs, themselves rising from elevated ground. Moreover, with its windows, it looked towards all the four Orte, or as the Scotch say, and we ought to say, Airts: the Sitting-room itself commanded three ; another came to view in the Schlafgemach (Bed-room) at the opposite end; to say nothing of the Kitchen, which offered two, as it were, duplicates, and showing nothing new. So that it was in fact the speculum or watch-tower of Teufelsdröckh; wherefrom, sitting at ease, he might see the whole life-circulation of that considerable City; the streets and lanes of which, with all their doing and driving (Thun und Treiben), were for the most part visible there.

"I look down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive," have we heard him say, " and witness their wax-laying "and honey-making, and poison-brewing, and choking "by sulphur. From the Palace esplanade, where music

plays while Serene Highness is pleased to eat his vic"tuals, down the low lane, where in her door-sill the

aged widow, knitting for a thin livelihood, sits to feel "the afternoon sun, I see it all; for, except the Schloss"kirche weathercock, no biped stands so high. Couriers "arrive bestrapped and bebooted, bearing Joy and Sorrow "bagged up in pouches of leather: there, topladen, and "with four swift horses, rolls in the country Baron and “his household; here, on timber leg, the lamed Soldier "hops painfully along, begging alms: a thousand car

"riages, and wains, and cars, come tumbling in with "Food, with young Rusticity, and other Raw Produce, "inanimate or animate, and go tumbling out again with "Produce manufactured. That living flood, pouring "through these streets, of all qualities and ages, knowest "thou whence it is coming, whither it is going? Aus der "Ewigkeit, zu der Ewigkeit hin: From Eternity, on"wards to Eternity! These are Apparitions: what else? "Are they not Souls rendered visible; in Bodies, that "took shape and will lose it; melting into air? Their "solid pavement is a Picture of the Sense; they walk

on the bosom of Nothing, blank Time is behind them "and before them. Or fanciest thou, the red and yellow "Clothes-screen yonder, with spurs on its heels, and "feather in its crown, is but of To-day, without a Yester"day or a To-morrow; and had not rather its Ancestor "alive when Hengst and Horsa overran thy Island? "Friend, thou seest here a living link in that Tissue of "History, which inweaves all Being: watch well, or it "will be past thee, and seen no more."

"Ach, mein Leiber !" said he once, at midnight, when we had returned from the Coffee-house in rather earnest talk, "it is a true sublimity to dwell here. These fringes "of lamplight, struggling up through smoke and thou"sand-fold exhalation, some fathoms into the ancient reign of Night, what thinks Böotes of them, as he "leads his Hunting Dogs over the Zenith in their leash "of sidereal fire? That stifled hum of Midnight, when "Traffic has lain down to rest; and the chariot-wheels "of Vanity, still rolling here and there through distant streets, are bearing her to Halls roofed in, and lighted "to the due pitch for her; and only Vice and Misery, to

"prowl or to moan like nightbirds, are abroad: that 66 hum, I say, like the stertorous, unquiet slumber of sick "Life, is heard in Heaven! Oh, under that hideous "coverlet of vapours, and putrefactions, and unimagina"ble gases, what a Fermenting-vat lies simmering and "hid! The joyful and the sorrowful are there; men "are dying there, men are being born; men are praying, on the other side of a brick partition, men are cursing; and around them all is the vast, void Night. "The proud Grandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, "or reposes within damask curtains; Wretchedness "cowers into truckle-beds, or shivers hunger-stricken "into his lair of straw: in obscure cellars, Rouge-et-Noir "languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard hungry "Villains; while Councillors of State sit plotting, and

playing their high chess-game, whereof the pawns are "Men. The Lover whispers his mistress that the coach "is ready; and she, full of hope and fear, glides down, "to fly with him over the borders: the Thief, still more

silently, sets-to his picklocks and crowbars, or lurks in "wait till the watchmen first snore in their boxes. Gay

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mansions, with supper-rooms and dancing-rooms, are "full of light and music and high swelling hearts; but, "in the Condemned Cells, the pulse of life beats tre"mulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes look out through "the darkness, which is around and within, for the light ❝of a stern last morning. Six men are to be hanged on "the morrow: comes no hammering from the Raben"stein ?—their gallows must even now be o' building. Upwards of five hundred thousand two-legged animals "without feathers lie round us, in horizontal position; "their heads all in nightcaps, and full of the foolishest