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 victuals, 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 Yester66 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 Lieber!" 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

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"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 pray"ing, 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, 66 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

"dreams. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers "in his rank dens of shame; and the Mother, with streaming hair, kneels over her pallid dying infant, "whose cracked lips only her tears now moisten."All these heaped and huddled together, with nothing "but a little carpentry and masonry between them ;"crammed in, like salted fish, in their barrel ;

-or weltering, shall I say, like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed "Vipers, each struggling to get its head above the "others: such work goes on under that smoke-counterpane!—But I, mein Werther, sit above it all; I am "alone with the Stars."

We looked in his face to see whether, in the utterance of such extraordinary Night-thoughts, no feeling might be traced there; but with the light we had, which indeed was only a single tallow-light, and far enough from the window, nothing save that old calmness and fixedness was visible.

These were the Professor's talking seasons: most commonly he spoke in mere monosyllables, or sat altogether silent, and smoked; while the visitor had liberty either to say what he listed, receiving for answer an occasional grunt; or to look round for a space, and then take himself away. It was a strange apartment; full of books and tattered papers, and miscellaneous shreds of all conceivable substances, united in a common element of dust.' Books lay on tables, and below tables; here fluttered a sheet of manuscript, there a torn handkerchief, or nightcap hastily thrown aside: ink-bottles alternated with bread crusts, coffee-pots, tobacco-boxes, Periodical Literature, and Blucher Boots. Old Leischen (Lisekin, 'Liza), who was his bed-maker and stove

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