All manners which result from the given relations of a common existence are indestructible; and, in my time, many things still reminded us of Zachariae’s epic poem.  Only one of our fellow-academicians thought himself rich and independent enough to snap his fingers at public opinion.  He drank acquaintance with all the hackney-coachmen, whom he allowed to sit inside the coach as if they were gentlemen, while he drove them on the box; thought it a great joke to upset them now and then, and contrived to satisfy them for their smashed vehicles as well as for their occasional bruises; but otherwise he did no harm to any one, seeming only to make a mock of the public en masse.  Once, on a most beautiful promenade-day, he and a comrade of his seized upon the donkeys of the miller in St. Thomas’s square:  well-dressed, and in their shoes and stockings, they rode around the city with the greatest solemnity, stared at by all the promenaders, with whom the glacis was swarming.  When some sensible persons remonstrated with him on the subject, he assured them, quite unembarrassed, that he only wanted to see how the Lord Christ might have looked in a like case.  Yet he found no imitators and few companions.

For the student of any wealth and standing had every reason to show himself attentive to the mercantile class, and to be the more solicitous about the proper external forms, as the colony [Footnote:  Leipzig was so called, because a large and influential portion of its citizens were sprung from a colony of Huguenots, who settled there after the revocation of the edict of Nantes.—­American Note.] exhibited a model of French manners.  The professors, opulent both from their private property and from their liberal salaries, were not dependent upon their scholars; and many subjects of the state, educated at the government schools or other gymnasia, and hoping for preferment, did not venture to throw off the traditional customs.  The neighborhood of Dresden, the attention thence paid to us, and the true piety of the superintendent of the course of study, could not be without a moral, nay, a religious, influence.

At first this kind of life was not repugnant to me:  my letters of introduction had given me the entree into good families, whose circle of relatives also received me well.  But as I was soon forced to feel that the company had much to find fault with in me, and that, after dressing myself in their fashion, I must now talk according to their tongue also; and as, moreover, I could plainly see that I was, on the other hand, but little benefited by the instruction and mental improvement I had promised myself from my academical residence,—­I began to be lazy, and to neglect the social duties of visiting, and other attentions; and indeed I should have sooner withdrawn from all such connections, had not fear and esteem attached me firmly to Hofrath Boehme, and confidence and affection to his wife.  The husband,