ten. I was now desirous of forming a nearer connexion with the sages who had made so great an impression on my young imagination.
Of the eminent men who at this time were professors at Wittenberg, Reinhard was the chief. It was his reputation mainly which made this university the rival even of that of Leipsic. Attracted by his celebrity, more than six hundred students thronged the ancient thoroughfares of the little town. But, alas when the bloom of the flower is the brightest, the worm of destruction is often then busiest at its core. The University of Wittenberg is no more. Its intellectual bulwarks have been swept away by the revolutions which, since the days of my student life, have so often removed the ancient landmarks of kingdom.
Another rising man among us was Schulze, who afterwards, under the feigned name of Œnesidemus, made such a dire onslaught upon Kant, and sapped the foundations of the critical philosophy. At this time, however, he was almost unknown to fame, and the students had conceived a prejudice against him, on account of the uncouthness of his manners, and because he had published a book which was a mere rifacciamento of Reinhard's philosophical discourses.
The first year of my university life was spent, I am sorry to say, in superlative idleness. Having brought with me from school a tolerably ample stock of scholastic acquirements, I thought that I could afford to be lazy, and to take my swing of the enjoyments which a youngster, just escaped from pedagogical authority, devours with so keen a relish, and finds strewn so liberally in his path. Instead, therefore, of being a regular attender of college lectures, I haunted coffeehouses and billiard rooms, or made frequent equestrian excursions into the surrounding country. In these diversions I squandered a great deal of money. At last my father peremptorily refused to come down with the dust; but the old lady, my grandmother, had not forgotten my early psalm-singing propensities, and to her bounty I was indebted for many a supply which I should have thought it the height of ingratitude to have spent in any other way than in that which conduced most to my own selfish gratifications.
In the midst of my dissipation I was overtaken by a severe fit of sickness. It came upon me in the shape of a feverish ague, which recurred every eight or ten days, and then left me with an exhausted frame, and all my energies laid prostrate. After consulting many doctors, and trying various remedies in vain, I determined to take the case in to my own hands, and be my own physician. Accordingly, I ate a couple of salt herrings, and drank two bottles of Merseberg beer, (the strongest and bitterest that can be obtained.) I then started and ran, nor stopped until I dropped down, drenched in perspiration, and almost fainting with fatigue. I immediately fell into a profound slumber, and when I awoke I was well in every limb, and as sound as a roach. The fever had completely left me, nor did it ever again return. When I told my physician of what I had done, he congratulated me on my not having killed myself outright by the experiment. But perhaps that arose from his ignorance of the true principles of medicine. For my practice was based on the soundest homœopathic rules; and, as Hahneman had not at that time promulgated his doctrines, I may regard myself as the practical discoverer of his novel method of cure.
I had now spent three sessions at Wittenberg, without profiting greatly by its academical renown; and my ardour in the pursuit of pleasure being considerably abated since my illness, I resolved to make up for lost time, and devote myself to the proper occupations of the place. I attended Reinhard's lectures, and placed myself entirely under the guidance and advice of that excellent man. I worked so hard, that in a short time he deemed me worthy of being promoted to the distinction of preaching in his pulpit. I also frequently officiated on Sundays in the churches of the neighbouring clergy, and had thus many opportunities of qualifying myself for the business of a parson—in so far, at least. as preaching was concerned. While preaching, I always, at first, kept the heads of my discourse lying open on the desk before me; although I very rarely had recourse to them. Yet, on one occasion, when I was less prepared than usual, I remember being a good deal flustered by their slipping from under my band when I was in a very
