[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

“Hip—hip—hurrah! Three glasses all round!”

They were drunk rapidly.

“Trump, my boy, I drink you three glasses.”

“Drink, old fellow—I take them, and three
more”

“Drink.”

“Lackland,—I drink you a third of this bocale
of Liebfrauen-milch,” said Trump

“All d—d humbug,” said the Englishman.
“However, it is your custom. Drink, in God's
name.”

“Dummberg, I drink you this whole bocale,”
shouted Rabenmark.

“Fox—fox!” growled Dummberg, a student of
at least forty-five. “You forget yourself. A fox
must never presume to challenge an old bursch like
me. The crass fox may aspire to the `burnt fox,'
but there his ambition must stop. Wait till I drink
to you, Rabenmark, and be wiser in future,” concluded
the veteran, with a pull at a very seedy pair
of moustachios.

“I deny it,” said Rabenmark, “I deny it; I

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

assert my right,” and he prepared to drink off the
bocale.

“Listen, young man,” said Dummberg, drawing
a little greasy book, printed on very brown paper,
from his pocket; “Listen to the text of the `Universal
Beer Drinker's Code.' The code for drinking
beer applies equally to wine; and as I had myself
a hand in preparing this volume for the press,
you may have no doubt of the accuracy of every
one of its precepts. Let me see—let me see. Ah,
here it is—Section IV.—division 8. `Foxes among
foxes enjoy the same rights as burschen among
themselves; they may drink to each other any
number of glasses. No fox, however, is allowed to
challenge to drink either a young bursch or an old
one.' So, you, who are yet in your first semester,
at the University, and, consequently, a raw `crasser'
fox, will hardly now maintain your right to
challenge me, who was a `bursch' before you were
born.”

Rabenmark accordingly sat down abashed; and
before he gets up again, I may as well describe, in
a word or two, the scene in which I found myself
engaged.

Auerbach's cellar was celebrated as the scene of
one of the most singular events in the notorious Dr.
Faust's biography. At the time when I first visited
Leipzig—and I dare say it remains much the same
at the present day—Auerbach's “Haus and Hof”
was a house of tolerable dimensions,

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

communicating by a small open court with one of the larger
cross-streets of the great bookseller's paradise.

Göthe had not yet written Faust; but the wild
fable which was the foundation of that wonderful
drama, was as well known as now. The cellar
proper, in which my companions and myself were
seated, was a small wine-vault, rather more commodiously
furnished than cellars usually are. It
had white-washed walls, a little the worse for wear,
a boarded and sanded floor, and sundry antique and
particularly uncomfortable chairs and settles. On
opposite sides of the wall were two pictures, in marvellously
shabby fresco; the one represented the interview
of Dr. Faust and Mephistopheles with Messieurs
Frosch, Siebel, and other worthy plebeians of
Leipzig: the other, the conclusion of the debauch
instituted by Mephistopheles, with the bewilderment
of the same confederacy, and the abrupt elopement of
Mephistopheles and his learned pupil, who, commodiously
seated astride the same wine cask, are represented
as flying out of the cellar-window, to the
great edification of their late boon companions.

We had got through the story of both pictures,
which the garrulous waiter and cicerone would tell
every stranger, as his ancestors before him had
done, (all offices are hereditary in Germany, from
an emperor to an executioner,) and were now diligently
investigating the comparative merits of the
Rhenish of the previous century, and of our own.

With one exception, my companions were inti-o
mate friends of a day's growth. The exceptin

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

was, the Englishman, whose acquaintance I had
made at the country-seat of a Pomeranian gentleman,
where we had both been spending some
weeks.

As this person became very intimately connected
with me, and took a prominent part in the events
which I have preserved of this portion of my biography,
it will be as well to describe him in a few
words.

Sansterre Lackland was about ten years older
than myself, and, consequently, a little nearer thirty
than twenty; he was of high descent, and small
property—the youngest son of the youngest brother
of the Earl of Agincourt. The features of Antinous
were not more accurately moulded, nor more beautiful
than his; and his tall figure and distinguished
address were worthy of his nation and his race.

With him I was sitting a little apart from the
rest of the company, with most of whom he was
tolerably well acquainted. There were six students
from Göttingen, and half-a-dozen others of Leipzig
who had been making what is technically called
a “beer journey,” during the Pentecost holidays,
and as the ostensible and only object of such a
pilgrimage (which usually conducts the party from
one university to another) is to drink as great a
quantity of beer and Rhenish at each stopping place,
as human beings are capable of, they had not unwisely
made Leipzig the last stage of their journey,
where they had been revelling in the most

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

glorious intoxication, till it was time for them to return.

These journeys are always made on foot. A
knapsack contains a change of linen; and as at
each university town they are accustomed, according
to universal usage, to quarter themselves upon
their respective friends among the students there,
the only use to which their scanty supply of Fredericks-d'or
is applied, is to pay for the wine and
beer which form the objects of the journey.

As their Fredericks had nearly all flown, they
were to take their departure next day; and as both
Lackland and myself were idle men, without aim
or object, we had agreed to study a phenomenon of
human nature that was new to us, and had determined
to return with this party to Göttingen.

Among these students, there were two who are
connected with certain adventures, which I propose
to relate. These were Otto Von Rabenmark, and
Hermann Leopold Caspar Bernard Adolph Ulrich
Count Trump Von Toggenburg-Hohenstaufer.

Rabenmark was the “fox” (the slang term for a
student in his first year) who had just been challenging
the veteran student to drink. He was very
young, even for a fox; for at the time I write of,
he was not yet quite seventeen; but in precocity of
character, in every respect, he went immeasurably
beyond any person I have ever known. As to his
figure, I certainly have seldom seen a more unprepossessing
person at first sight, though on better acquaintance,
after I had become warmly attached to

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

him, I began to think him rather well-looking. He
had coarse scrubby hair, of a mixed colour, something
between a red and a whity-brown. His face
was peppered all over with freckles, and his eyes
were colourless in the centre, and looked as if edged
with red tape. An enormous scar, the relic of a
recent duel, in which like a thorough fox, he was
constantly engaged, extended from the tip of his
nose to the edge of his right ear, and had been sewed
up with fourteen stitches, every one of which (as
the “Pauk Doctor” had been a botcher at his trade)
was distinctly and grotesquely visible. As every
one of the students present was tatooed and scarified
in the same way, like so many New Zealand chiefs,
his decoration of itself hardly excited attention; but
as, to heighten the charms of his physiognomy, he
had recently shaved off one of his eyebrows, his face
certainly might lay claim to a bizarre and very
unique character. His figure was slender, and not
yet mature, but already of a tolerable height. His
dress was in the extreme of the then Göttingen
fashion. He wore a chaotic coat, without collar or
buttons, and as destitute of colour as of shape; enormously
wide trowsers, and boots with iron heels and
portentous spurs. His shirt-collar, unconscious of cravat,
was doubled over his shoulders, and his hair
hung down about his ears and neck. A faint attempt
at moustachios, of an indefinite colour, completed
the equipment of his face, and a huge sabre,
strapped round his waist, that of his habiliments.
As he wrote Von before his name, and was

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

descended of a Bohemian family, who had been
baronized before Charlemagne's time, he wore an
enormous seal ring on his fore-finger, with his armorial
bearing. Such was Otto Von Rabenmark, a
youth, who, in a more fortunate sphere, would have
won himself name and fame. He was gifted with
talents and acquirements immeasurably beyond his
years. He spoke half a dozen languages — Heaven
knows when he had picked them up — was an
excellent classical scholar, and well read in history;
played well on the violin and piano; and if not
a dexterous was at least a desperate and daring
swordsman. He was of undoubted courage, and a
little of a renomist, (or swaggerer,) a defect which
his extreme youth excused, and from which he very
soon recovered.

As for Count Trump Von Toggenburg, there was
hardly a crowned head in Europe with whom he
was not allied, excepting perhaps some two or three
parvenu sovereigns, whom he thought unworthy of
his relationship. He traced his family, with great
accuracy, up to the Deluge; but that catastrophe
seemed, among other injuries to the human race, to
have obliterated most of the land-marks of the Toggenburg
genealogy. He contented himself accordingly
with declaring, that the direct line of his
family was lost among the antediluvians, and he
kept himself conversant with all the geological researches
that were made, in the hope, I am convinced,
of discovering some fossil remain of a mammoth
Toggenburg among the newly-discovered

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

relics of the ancient world. His family was the
main object of his thoughts. He noted down as carefully
as a parish clerk every new addition to any of
its numerous branches. As there were no less than
twelve distinct branches of the Toggenburg family
in North Germany, and as each branch was very
poor, and consequently very prolific, this single occupation
employed most of his time. He carried
with him always a little book, which was written
by a Count Toggenburg in the 10th century, and
which purported to be an essay on the rise and
progress of the Toggenburg family. This he asserted
was a very rare work, and to prove it, he
affirmed that he had inquired of almost every bookseller
in Germany for a copy, and could never find
one who had ever heard either of the book, the
author, or the author's family. His father, who had
only his salary of privy councillor to support him,—
for although he wrote himself on all occasions Ritterguts-Besitzer,
(proprietor of a knight's estate,)
no one could ever discover the exact location of his
manor, — was only able to allow him five hundred
rix dollars for his wechsel, or annual allowance.
This was not brilliant; but he, nevertheless, contrived
to play a very tolerable fiddle with it; for five
hundred rix dollars go farther in a German university
than any where else; and allowed him to keep,
if not a pair of horses, at least a pair of spurs, of
very respectable dimensions, which he sported on
all occasions, and which, whether he rode or not,
he considered to be an indispensable article of dress

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

to one of his chivalrous descent. For the rest, Count
Trump was a good-natured, amiable, young man,
a good deal of a bore, when on his favourite topic,
that is, for four-fifths of the time; but in other respects
an agreeable companion. He was pale, and
thin, with fair hair, and an aquiline nose; wore a
magnificent bag-cap of red velvet, with a broad
band of purple, green, and gold round the brim,
and a dress of a less republican and more worldly
cut than the rest of his companions. He was smoking
a porcelain pipe, on which were printed sixteen
quarterings of the Toggenburg arms, and from
whose long cherry stick there dangled a pair of
tassels of the same colours as the band around his
cap. These colours were the badge of his club—
the most aristocratic one, he assured me, in Gottingen,
in which there was not a single member
who had not a Von to his name.

Dummberg was the student of five and forty, a-fat,
and shabby-looking individual, with a shock
head of hair, and beer-colour mustachios. He
was short, with an enormous paunch, and was
often known to drink thirty-five bottles of beer, or a
dozen of hock, at a single sitting. He was one of
that nondescript class which are always hanging
round a German university — a superannuated
student, living from Semester to Semester, making
his appearance regularly at the Kneipe and the
Fechtboden, (the drinking-room and the duelling
hall,) without occupation, and without visible means
of support. He was a constant gambler in a small

[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]

way; and as he always joined in every party of
Zwicken or Landsknecht with an empty pocket, he
was sure to lose nothing, and usually contrived to
win a few guldens. This was the only natural
way of accounting for his subsistence, and it was
winked at by many, out of regard to his age and
venerable appearance.

Affenstein, the last of the Göttingen gentry, was
a junior Bursch, (junger Bursch,) or student in his
third Semester. He was a dark-complexioned
youth, with very black hair, and a beard of formal
cut. His mouth was enormous; but as it was
nearly concealed by his moustachios, he would have
been very well looking, if he had not, unfortunately,
wanted a nose;—this had been shorn off in a duel,
so closely, as to leave his face as smooth as his palm,
and the deficiency, combined with his other attractions,
reduced his personal pretensions, it must be
confessed, to a very low mark.

Besides these, were a number of the aboriginal
students of Leipzig, all with moustachios, club caps,
polonaise coats, pipes, tassels, and poodles.

It was getting very late; a great many bottles
had been uncorked, and the old cellar-vault rang
with their uproar and their songs.


“Und kommt der Wechsel heute
So sind wir reiche Leute
Und haben Geld wie Heu
Doch morgen ist's vorbei—”
sang Affenstein.

[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]

“He—ri—Hei—ro—Hei—ri—Hei—ro—
Bei uns gehts immer so—oo—”
roared the chorus.

“Psha!” said the veteran Dummberg; “why
waste your time in singing such unnecessary songs?
If you will sing, sing at least a song that has a
drinking part to it. Listen; we will sing the round
songs to our sweethearts. I will begin.” And so
he sang, in a grumbling base, the first stave of the
well known song—

“Rabenmark! dein Liebchen heisst?”

“Gretchen!” shouted the fox, in reply.

And so went the song round the table. The
uproar and drunkenness increasing at every step,
till all the Gretchens, and Mariechens, and Justinas,
and Minnas, all the sweethearts of the company,
had been duly toasted in bumpers of Liebfraunmilch.

“You students are most potent at potting,” said
I, to Trump Von Toggenburg, who sat next me,—
for Lackland and I had accepted an invitation to
join the table.

[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]

“Pretty well!” said he; “but perhaps the greatest
wine drinker that ever was in Germany, was
my great-grandfather, Count Ullrich Trump Von
Toggenburg, who was a colonel in the Austrian
service, in the year of our Lord 16—. You are
probably acquainted with his name.”

“Oh! most intimately,” said I, wishing to avoid
a memoir by his descendant.

“Well,” said my neighbour, “my great-grandfather
was so noted for his drinking capacity, that
hardly any of his brother officers ventured to compete
with him. If they did, they were sure to be
comfortably laid under the table before he had fairly
begun to drink. One evening,—it was shortly
after the seige of —, in which the colonel
particularly distinguished himself, as you doubtless
recollect—”

“Perfectly,” said I.

“One evening,—it must have been, I think, late
in February, or it might have been in the beginning
of March.—the siege I know began in January,
and was not raised till the 20th of February, by
the appearance of Donnerberg with 20,000 troops,
from beyond the Elbe. One evening, a party of
officers,—my great-grandfather, then about thirty
years of age, among the number,—were making a
night of it at the `Golden Stag' in Munich. They
had drunk a good deal of champagne in compliment
to the French officers who were present, and
were now busily engaged in discussing Bochsbeutel
and other potent wines of the Palatinate. They

[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]

sat long, and drank deeply, but towards one o'clock
in the morning, they began, one by one to drop off,
and before two, they were all snoring in their chairs,
or on the floor, excepting my respectable ancestor,
and an officer in a foreign-looking uniform, whom
he had never before seen.

“`I hear you are as celebrated at the banquet of
Bacchus, as in the camp of Mars,' said the stranger,
very classically, at the same time bowing politely
to my ancestor. The latter always described
him as a pale, gentleman-like looking man, of
middle age, with a Roman nose, a satirical expression
about the mouth, and a just discernible
limp in his gait.

“`If that be the case,' continued he, `I suppose
you are willing to prolong our symposium a little
longer than these milksops have been disposed
to; and if you have no objection, we will order
another bottle.'

“The colonel assented; a fresh bottle was
brought, together with a plate of caviare. The
officer, who appeared to be a man of various information,
and agreeable manners, entered into an
interesting conversation, during which, bottle after
bottle was drained, till my ancestor began to find
his head growing a little dizzy.

“Perceiving, however, no corresponding indication
on the part of his companion, he bore up manfully
against his weakness, and again, bottle after
bottle disappeared. Towards four o'clock, however,
he became convinced that he must give in very

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

soon. His head whirled like a windmill; the bottles
and glasses staggered about the table; the
chairs and sofas danced round the room. He could
not distinguish his mouth from his glass; himself
from his companion. Every thing was mixed up
in his mind in a preposterous and confused manner;
and all the time, the stranger, who had drunk twice
the quantity of wine that he had, was giving, with
a composed demeanour, and with a face whose pale
colour had not been a shade heightened by his tremendous
debauch, a detailed and minute account
of the siege of Eckendorff, by Tilly, in the thirty
years' war. Of what it was apropos, it would
have puzzled my relation to say, for his brain was
so muddled that he had long lost the thread of the
conversation; but there he sat, with his lines of circumvallation
made with little bits of biscuit, and a
puddle of Rhenish floating neatly round a citadel
of anchovy toasts; marching and counter-marching,
making breaches and repairing them—attacking
here, defending there, and talking of parapets,
palisadoes, breast works and half moons, as gravely
as if assisting at a council of general officers; and
ever and anon, swallowing whole goblets of Rhenish,
while my poor progenitor was at the last gasp,
and just sinking upon the floor.

“`Let us drink the Emperor,' said the stranger,
putting an end to his demonstration, and filling up
for his companion and himself.

“My ancestor made a last convulsive effort; seized
his beaker, drained it, and sank heavily upon the

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

floor. As he was falling, however, he saw his companion
stroke his hair placidly back from his temples,
and at the same time,—now mark the singularity
of the adventure!—he beheld a column of
pale blue smoke ascend into the air, from a hole in
the stranger's head.

“`The devil's in the fellow!' muttered my ancestor,
with his last breath, as he rolled fairly on the
ground.

“`You've hit it! you've hit it! roared the other,
springing from his chair, and applying a vial to the
colonel's nose, who, feeling suddenly refreshed, picked
himself up, and sat down again as fresh and
thirsty as if he had never seen the bottom of a
bottle.

“`You are a gentleman of penetration,' continued
the stranger, filling up the glasses, `and I
made, long ago, a determination to reward the first
man who should retain his senses long enough to
see the wine fumes escaping from my head in the
singular way you have beheld. It is not till I am
hard pushed, that I make use of my peculiar secret.
For your recompense, take this,' said he, tapping
him on the temple with his forefinger. `Now,
whenever you have finished a bottle, and you wish
to be free of its disagreeable effects, you have but to
thrust your finger through your hair, turn the
little screw you will find concealed above your
temples, and you will soon find the fumes evaporated.
'

“My ancestor, wishing to thank him for his kind

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

ness, turned to him with outstretched arms, when,
behold, he had vanished! not a vestige of him
remained (though both the doors and the windows
were bolted,) excepting a slight smell of brimstone,
which was discernible in the apartment.[1]

“The events of this remarkable evening were
never disclosed by my great-grandfather during his
life-time: but were embodied into the `Essay on the
Rise and Progress of the Toggenburg family,' from
posthumous memoir on the subject, left by the celebrated
colonel himself.

“Perhaps you have read the book?” interrupted
he, thrusting his hand in his pocket.

“A thousand times,” said I; “what an instructive
work!”

“Ah! well,” said he with a sigh, “otherwise I
would have lent it to you. But to resume.—

“My ancestor, after this event, became celebrated
throughout Europe for his capacity for drinking.
I believe he made a bet once, that he would drink
the whole of the Heidelberg tun at a sitting, and
won it, and he was observed besides, to be very
fortunate in every thing he undertook; he was always
rolling in money, and married the daughter
of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria.

“He disappeared, however, one night in an awful
thunder-storm, and was never heard of. Twenty
years afterwards, however, a skull was found in the
cellar of Toggenburg Castle, in which a hole

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

exactly a quarter of an inch diameter was drilled, and
neatly stopped with a silver screw. This was all we
ever could gather on the subject.”

During this long-winded recital the company had
been growing very uproarious. Rabenmark had
jumped upon the table, where he danced about
among the bottles and glasses, mouthing and chattering
like a monkey.

“Cease buffooning, you ape!” growled the morose
Dummberg, to the fox.

“Ass! ass! yelled Rabenmark, springing to the
floor again. “I will not permit such language. I
am not an ape; and the insult can only be
washed out in wine. I challenge you to a wineduel.
To do this, I presume you will not deny my
right?”

“Certainly not,” growled the other; “choose
your second.”

“I choose Toggenburg,” said Rabenmark.

“And I Schnappsberger,” said Dummberg.

Here the two combatants in this singular duel
(in which the object of each party is to drain his
goblet in a shorter time than his antagonist,
without drawing breath, and without spilling a
drop,) received each a tumbler of equal size, holding
about a pint, and filled to the brim with Rhenish.

“Are the weapons equal?” demanded one second.

“Equal they are,” responded the other.

“Sieze your weapons,” cried Toggenburg.

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

Each grasped his glass.

“One—two—”

Each glass was at the lip, and a long breath
drawn.

“Three, and away!”

The eyes were set,—the breath held,—and the
convulsive swallowing began. The event of the
conquest, however, was not a moment doubtful.
Dummberg, an old stager, drank with slow, deep,
and measured swallows; while Rabenmark,—his
eyes rolling almost out of his head,—clutched the
goblet in both hands, swallowed spasmodically, sputtered
in his glass, bit off the rim, and fell into a
coughing fit that nearly choked him, at the same
moment that Dummberg turned his glass quietly
upon his nail.

“Beaten!” cried all the company, “The fox
must pay six bottles.” So Rabenmark ordered the
half-dozen.

“No matter, little Rabenmark,” said Toggenburg,
“you have done very well for a fox. Come,
we will drink Schmollis together.”

“Very well,” said Rabenmark, and so each filled
his glass, drained it at once, and hugging each other
lovingly round the neck, kissed each other with such
a hearty smack, that the cellar resounded.

“Be my friend,” said Toggenburg.

“Be my brother,” said Rabenmark; and they
were “thou-brothers” from that moment.

The main article in this mystic bond of union is
that the parties shall always address each other as

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

“thou” in the second singular, instead of the formal
third person plural.

The fox, being negligent, and very drunk, forgot
all this very soon; and in speaking to Toggenburg
a quarter of an hour after, he addressed him
in the third person plural.

“Fox, thou hast broken our schmollis,” said that
worthy. “Thou must pay the forfeit. I call a
wine convention. It shall consist of Affenstein,
Dummberg, and Schnappsberger.”

The three sat down together in committee. Affenstein,
to add dignity to the convention, drew from
his waistcoat pocket an artificial nose of silver, and
of brilliant hue. This, he assured me, he wore
only on state occasions, contenting himself ordinarily
with one of pasteboard.

“What have you to state to the convention?”
said he, as President, to Trump Von Toggenburg.

“Simply,” said the party addressed, “that the
fox, Von Rabenmark, has drunk schmollis with the
junior bursch, Count Trump Von Toggenburg, and
has broken it within half-an-hour.”

“What have you to say in your defence?” said
Affenstein.

“Nothing at all,” said Rabenmark, “except that
I am very drunk.”

“Crimen non minuit ebrietas,” said the President.
“In what were the schmollis drunk?” he
continued.

“In Marcobrunner,” said Trump.

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

“Fox Rabenmark, you must order six bottles of
Marcobrunner for the company. The convention
is dissolved.”

So here were six bottles more forfeited by the fox.
Experience is the only school-mistress.

Having such a plentiful supply of wine, in addition
to that which they had already contrived to
make away with, the uproar increased. The conversation
became animated, but they seemed always
to discuss the same eternal subjects. Duels, dogs,
drinking-matches; beer, wine and women, together
with freedom, the rights of man, and the German
republic, were jumbled promiscuously together.
Then a dozen songs were sung at once; a dozen
stories were told and nobody listened. The uproar
was furious. Glasses were broken, bottles thrown
at the waiter's head, tables kicked over, and windows
demolished, when suddenly a postillion's bugle
sounded in the street.

Rabenmark jumped up with a yell, and rushed
out of the cellar, followed by the whole pack, while
Lackland and I accompanied them to see what
they were about. It was about ten o'clock, and
bright starlight.

A diligence stood in the street, just ready to start.
It was only waiting for the conductor and the postillions,
one of whom was already there, and just
about to mount. Rabenmark rushed into the street,
jumped upon the postillion, floored him, seized his
bugle, and then scrambled, like a monkey, into the
saddle. Another student mounted one of the three

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

horses, the rest tumbled themselves helter skelter
into the vehicle, and the self-elected postillions spurred
the horses into a gallop. Away rumbled the
diligence through the silent streets of Leipzig, Rabenmark
playing on the postillion's purloined bugle
like mad, till the night-caps of the quiet burghers
of Leipzig popped out of every window in the town.

eaf284v1.n1[1] The hint to this adventure will be found, I think, in one of
Hauff's novels.

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