Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume II
down to the "handwerksbursch," or journeying mechanic, which latter class is often unmercifully persecuted by the university student. From time immemorial there seems to have been a feeling of animosity between the two classes, as nearer home we find existing between the "town and gown."

The German student of the middle ages, as in our times, was fond of swagger, delighted in wearing high boots, enormous spurs, an exaggerated sword, a preposterous hat, was provoked to a duel on the slightest occasion, boasted of the number of "schoppen" or "seidel" of beer that he could stow away beneath his doublet, and ran up long bills without a thought of how they were to be paid.

In those days every student had his guitar or other musical instrument wherewith to serenade his "Liebchen" or lady-love, for that latter article was indispensable to the life of a student, and though much grossness and barbarity has been attributed to him, he is, nevertheless, at times capable of being elevated by a pure and refined passion, for he has much poetry in his nature, and is both sentimental and romantic in the extreme.

In all ages students have meddled much in politics, and princes have been known to tremble before their audacity and resolution.

But enough of this digression, gentlemen. My present tale demands only that you should call up in your minds the German student on his foot tour in the long vacation, with his keen relish of the beautiful, his lusty and well-trained frame that laughs at fatigue, his love of good-fellowship, his tender thoughts of home with the image of his lady-love. "Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, Entering with every step it took through many a scene." --BYRON.

I must now return to my ancestor, who at the time this story commences was on one of these pedestrian rambles, accompanied by some twenty of his fellow students, all stout, hearty youths who could eat, drink, and fight with any in the university, and flirt, too, I've no doubt, when occasion tempted them.

These attributes, you will say, are not strictly necessary to the student preparing for honours, yet, nevertheless, somehow German students manage to find time for other amusements besides dry study. They can play, but when they do study, they study hard.

My ancestor at the time I speak of was a young man of about twenty, and had already been two years at the university. We may presume, therefore, that he spoke German tolerably well, if not well.I believe it was in the Harz 
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