The Student Life of Germany Part 46

141. He who has written down any one with authority on the Beer-tablet, and has written him down wrong, is to be called before a future Special Beer-convention. This Beer-convention has to take care that the fault of him who received the commission be amended.

[The remainder of this Beer-Comment is given in the chapter describing a Commers.]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The author here makes no charge against the great numbers of high-minded and gentlemanly young men who pa.s.s through, and confer distinction on, our universities; but, as before observed, alludes only to that cla.s.s and those parties, which are not only depicted by the Westminster Review, but so fully described by the Editor of the Quarterly Review, in "Reginald Dalton."]

[Footnote 2: The term _Rechtspracticant_ implies the commonest, the lowest, and most tedious stage of a statesman's career: in fact, while he is acting as a clerk or pupil in the amtmann's office, he acquires _practical_ knowledge of the administration of justice.]

[Footnote 3: The words in the original are "on their Cerevis," a student term, "on their beer;" meaning, in the beer-court, on their honour.]

[Footnote 4: Inhabitants of the Marsch.]

[Footnote 5: In the Graffschaft Mark.]

[Footnote 6: Play on the grandiloquent words of Kotzebue.]

[Footnote 7: About a pint.]

[Footnote 8: Probably to prevent Kotzebue's retreat.]

[Footnote 9: No person in Germany can fill any office in a state, not even that of a postmaster, or captain of police, nor follow any of the high professions, those of law, divinity, and physic, after he has pa.s.sed his college examinations, and taken his degree, without having undergone another examination before a board expressly appointed by each state.]

[Footnote 10: The founder of the Orphan-House.]

[Footnote 11: The established word for s.h.i.+rt-collar in Germany is the very odd one of Vater-morder, literally "Father-killers;" and they are said to have acquired this name from an anecdote manufactured on their first introduction, in order to ridicule their extravagant size and stiffness, as worn by buckish young men. It was said that so large and stiffly-starched had a young student his collar, that when he went home, in rus.h.i.+ng to embrace his father, he run him through the neck with the point of it, and killed him on the spot.]

[Footnote 12: This word, to suit the air, must be p.r.o.nounced postilyn, with a strong accent on the last syllable.]

[Footnote 13: Cicero, humorously here thus p.r.o.nounced, because a party among the cla.s.sics insist that it was anciently so p.r.o.nounced.]

[Footnote 14: Labours hard, like an ox.]

[Footnote 15: As we have no word or short phrase in English to express this German custom, we retain their own term, which means touch your gla.s.ses together; their mode of expressing civility, as in our drinking to each other, and used by them on all occasions of festivity and rejoicing, as in giving a health, a vivat, or a toast.]

[Footnote 16: The Ch.o.r.e colours.]

[Footnote 17: A dandy.]

[Footnote 18: While translating this pa.s.sage, the tidings have come across the river, that a student is shot dead in the wood opposite to my windows behind the Hirsch-ga.s.se, in a duel with pistols.--Tr.]

[Footnote 19: In English money, from about three to seven pounds.]

[Footnote 20: The bell which it rung at a quarter to eleven at night, at the hearing of which all persons are to evacuate public-houses, and betake themselves home.]

[Footnote 21: The university of Heidelberg.]

[Footnote 22: The everlasting subject of regret to the merchant in Kotzebue's comedy _Pagen-Streiche_.]

[Footnote 23: Because it was the Burschenschaft riband, and therefore a great desecration to be worn by a Knoten.]

[Footnote 24: A well known Wirthshouse.]

[Footnote 25: A Besom is a girl.]

[Footnote 26: The Senior.]

[Footnote 27: Schools in which all the real and practical branches of education necessary or advantageous to the business of life, are taught, in contradistinction to the ideal and more ornamental branches, as literature, metaphysics, the more critical prosecution of the cla.s.sics, etc.]

[Footnote 28: These are not to be confounded with common Gewerb-schools, which are merely for mechanics: by keeping in mind the _Higher_ Gewerb-school, the distinction is clear.]

[Footnote 29: Right of matriculation in the universities on the ground of the applicant having properly matured his studies in the Gymnasium.]

[Footnote 30: Here the learned author undoubtedly alludes to the universal pa.s.sion for smoking. Germany is truly, in every sense a _piping_ nation.]

[Footnote 31: This is translated with the same free defiance of rhyme and metre as distinguishes the original, and which may find plenty of parallels in our own old ballads of the people.]

[Footnote 32: States Confederation.]

[Footnote 33: Parliament of a State.]

[Footnote 34: A slanting cut in the left cheek.]

[Footnote 35: Great tun.]

[Footnote 36: A tale of Hauff's under that name.]

[Footnote 37: See the Special Commers.]

[Footnote 38: We have here introduced Korner's idea for the sake of euphony.]

[Footnote 39: Touching their gla.s.ses. The humorous Schluck says that Schmollis is by some derived from the obsolete word Schmollen--to blow one's-self up, to make one's-self great; that is, before another, by drinking. Schmollen, at the same time means to be angry, to make a face, etc.; meanings, however, which are not to the purpose. Others derive it from the two syllables, Schmal aus (schmalus, schmollis,) equivalent to clean out, that is, the gla.s.s to the last drop, as the old song says--"There remains not a nail's proof even within."]

[Footnote 40: Remark of the translator of Schluck's Latin. "This is false. No real student does pay his shot."]

[Footnote 41: A stick, or rather a cudgel, but a rapier is the most reasonable.]

[Footnote 42: Inn.]

[Footnote 43: Lateinisch (Latin.)]

[Footnote 44: Burger's Abbot, with the king's three questions. The same legend as the Abbot of Canterbury and King John.]

[Footnote 45: The Wirthshaus of Sadler Muller.]

[Footnote 46: It is a popular expression in Germany when children are rubbing their eyes, a symptom that they are sleepy and ready for bed--that the Sandman has thrown sand in their eyes.]