[Footnote 5:  Afterwards author of a learned but fantastic Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews.  Biesenthal had an enthusiastic reverence for what in the hands of others were the dry details of Hebrew Grammar.  “Herr Doctor,” a dense pupil once asked him, “ought there not to be a Daghesh in that Tau?” “God forbid!” was the horrified reply.]

At the close of the winter semester, the last weeks of which had been saddened by the news of James Russell’s death; he set out on a tour extending over three months, and planned to include the principal cities and sights of Central and Southern Europe.  He had only about L20 in his pocket, but he made this cover all the expenditure that was necessary for his modest wants.  He travelled alone and, whenever it was possible, on foot, in the blouse and peaked cap of a German workman, and with a light knapsack strapped on his shoulders.  He avoided hotels and lived cheaply, even meanly; but, with his splendid health, simple tastes, and overflowing interest in all that he saw, this did not greatly matter.

His classical studies, and an already wide knowledge of European history, suggested endless interesting associations with the places through which he passed; and the picture galleries furnished him with materials for art criticisms which, considering that he had had few opportunities of seeing paintings, surprise one by their insight and grasp.  At Wittenberg we find him standing by the grave of Luther in the Castle Church, and reflecting on the connection between his presence there and the life and work of the man whose body lay below.  “But for him there had neither been a Scotland to send out pilgrim students of theology, nor a Germany to receive them.”

At Halle he has interesting interviews with Tholuck and Julius Mueller; from Dresden he diverges to Herrnhut, where he witnesses the ordination of a Moravian missionary and takes part in a love-feast.  At Prague, that wonderful city where the barbaric East begins, he finds his deepest interest stirred by the Jewish burying-ground and the hoary old synagogue.  And so he passes on from city to city, and from land to land, by Vienna, Salzburg, and Munich, to Innsbruck, thence over the Brenner to Trent and Venice, and by Bologna to Florence and Rome.  Returning by Genoa, Milan, and the Italian Lakes, he passes into Switzerland, and travels homeward by the Rhine.  During this tour, when, in spite of the heat, he frequently walked forty-five or fifty miles a day, he had little time for letter-writing; but a small paper-covered book, in which he each night jotted down in pencil his impressions of what he had seen during the past day, has fortunately been preserved.  From this three brief extracts may be made, and may serve as specimens of the whole, which is virtually reproduced entire in Dr. MacEwen’s Biography.  The first contains a description of the Jewish cemetery at Prague:  “Through winding, filthy, pent-up, and over-peopled lanes, in the part of the old town