No one of us knew so much as what an anagram was; even the rector looked quite perplexed. As none answered, the latter began to give us a description of anagrams in general.. I set myself to work, and sprang forth with my discovery, Vastari! This was something different from the newspaper one: so much the greater was our superintendent's admiration, and the more as the successful aspirant was a little boy, on the lowest bench of the secunda. He growled out his applause to me, but at the same time set the whole school about my ears, as he stoutly upbraided them with being beaten by an infinus.

'Enough! this pedantic adventure gave the first impulse to the development of my powers. I began to take some credit to myself, and in spite of all the oppression and contempt in which I languished, to resolve on struggling forward. This first struggle was in truth, ineffectual enough; was soon regarded as a piece of pride and conceitedness; it brought on me a thousand humiliations and disquietudes; at times it might degenerate on my part into defiance. Nevertheless, it kept me at the stretch of my diligence, ill-guided as it was, and withdrew me from the company of my class-fellows, among whom, as among children of low birth and bad nurture could not fail to be the case, the utmost coarseness and boorishness of every sort prevailed. The plan of these schools does not include any general inspection, but limits itself to mere intellectual instruction.

'Yet on all hands,' continues he, I found myself too sadly hampered. The perverse way in which the old parson treated me; at home the discontent and grudging of my parents, especially of my father, who could not get on with his work, and still thought, that had I kept by his way of life, he might now have had some help; the pressure of want, the feeling of being behind every other; all this would allow no cheerful thought, no sentiment of worth, to spring up within me. A timorous, bashful, awkward carriage shut me out still further from all exterior attractions. Where could I learn good manners, elegance, a right way of thought? where could I attain any culture for heart and spirit?

Upwards, however, I still strove. A feeling of honor, a wish for something better, an effort to work myself out of this abasement, incessantly attended me; but without direction as it was, it led me rather to sullenness, misanthropy, and clownishness.

At length a place opened for me, where some training in these points lay within my reach. One of our senators took his mother-in-law home to live with him; she had still two children with her, a son and a daughter, both about my age. For the son private lessons were wanted; and happily I was chosen for the purpose.

'As these private hours brought me in a gulden monthly, I now began to defend myself a little against the grumbling of my parents. Hitherto I had been in the habit of doing work occasionally, that I might not be told how I was eating their bread for nothing; clothes, and oil for my lamp, I had earned by teaching in the house; these things I could now relinquish ; and thus my condition was in some degree improved. On the other hand, I had now opportunity of seeing persons of better education. I gained the good will of the family; so that besides the lesson-hours I generally lived there. Such society afforded me some culture, extended my conceptions and opinions, and also polished a little the rudeness of my exterior.

In this senatorial house he must have been somewhat more at ease; for he now very privately fell in love with his pupil's sister, and made and burnt many Greek and Latin verses in her praise; and had sweet dreams of sometime rising so high as to be worthy of her.' Even as matters stood, he acquired her friendship and that of her mother. But the grand concern for the present was how to get to college at Leipsic. Old Sebastian had promised to stand good on this occasion; and unquestionably would have done so with the greatest pleasure, had it cost him nothing; but he promised and promised, without doing aught; above all, without putting his hand in his pocket; and elsewhere there was no hope or resource. At length, wearied perhaps with the boy's importunity, he determined to bestir himself; and so directed his assistant, who was just making a journey to Leipsic, to show Heyne the road; the two arrived in perfect safety: Heyne still longing after cash, for of his own he had only two gulden, about five shillings; but the assistant left him in a lodging house, and went his way, saying he had no farther orders!

The miseries of a poor scholar's life were now to be Heyne's portion in full measure. Ill-clothed, totally destitute of books, with five shillings in his purse, he found himself set down in the Leipsic university, to study all learning. Despondency at first. overmastered the poor boy's heart, and he sunk into sickness, from which indeed he recovered; but only, as he says, 'to fall into conditions of life where he became the prey of desperation.' How he contrived to exist, much more to study, is scarcely apparent from this narrative. The unhappy old Sebastian did at length send him some pittance, and at rare intervals repeated the dole; yet ever with his own peculiar grace; not till after unspeakable solicitations; in quantities that were consumed by inextinguishable debt, and coupled with sour admonitions; nay, on one occasion addressed externally, A Mr

6

Heyne, ETUDIANT NEGLIGEANT.' For half a year he would leave him without all help; then promise to come, and see what he was doing; come accordingly, and return without leaving him a penny; neither could the destitute youth ever obtain any public furtherance; no freytisch (free-table) or stipendium was to be procured. Many times he had no regular meal; often not three halfpence for a loaf at mid-day.' He longed to be dead, for his spirit was often sunk in the gloom of darkness. One good heart alone,' says he, 'I found, and that in the servant girl of the house where I lodged. She laid out money for my most pressing necessities, and risked almost all she had, seeing me in such frightful want. Could I but find thee in the world even now, thou good pious soul, that I might repay thee what thou then didst for me!

Heyne declares it to be still a mystery to him how he stood all this. 'What carried me forward,' continues he, was not ambition; my youthful dream of one day taking a place, or aiming to take one, among the learned. It is true, the bitter feeling of debasement, of deficiency in education and external polish; the consciousness of awkwardness in social life, incessantly accompanied me. But my chief strength lay in a certain defiance of fate. This gave me courage not to yield; everywhere to try to the uttermost whether I was doomed without remedy never to rise from this degradation.

Of order in his studies there could be little expectation. He did not even know what profession he was aiming after; old Sebastian was for theology; and Heyne, though himself averse to it, affected, and only affected to comply; besides he had no money to pay class fees: it was only to open lectures, or at most to ill-guarded class-rooms that he could gain admission. Of this ill-guarded sort was Winkler's; into which poor Heyne insinuated himself to hear philosophy. Alas! the first problem of all philosophy, the keeping of soul and body together, was well nigh too hard for him. Winkler's students were of a riotous description, accustomed, among other improprieties, to scharren, scraping with the feet. One day they chose to receive Heyne in this fashion; and he could not venture back. Nevertheless,' adds he, simply enough, the beadle came to me sometime afterwards, demanding the fee: I had my own shifts to take before I could raise it.'

Ernesti was the only teacher from whom he derived any benefit; the man, indeed, whose influence seems to have shaped the whole subsequent course of his studies. By dint of excessive endeavors he gained admittance to Ernesti's lectures; and here first learned, says Heeren,what interpretation of the classics meant.

But Heyne's best teacher was himself. No pressure of distresses, no want of books, advisers, or encouragement, not hunger itself could abate his resolute perseverance. What books he could come at, he borrowed; and such was his excess of zeal in reading, that for a whole half year he allowed himself only two nights of sleep in the week, till at last a fever obliged him to be more moderate. His diligence was undirected, or ill-directed, but it never rested, never paused, and must at length prevail. Fortune had cast him into a cavern, and he was groping darkly round; but the prisoner was a giant, and would at length burst forth as a giant into the light of day. Heyne, without any clear aim, almost without any hope, had set his heart on attaining knowledge; a force, as of instinct, drove him on, and no promise and no threat could turn him back. It was at the very depth of his destitution, when he had not three groschen for a loaf to dine on,' that he refused a tutorship, with handsome enough appointments, but which was to have removed him from the University. Crist had sent for him one Sunday, and made him the proposal: There arose a violent struggle within me,' says he, which drove me to and fro for several days; to this hour it is incomprehensible to me where I found resolution to determine on renouncing the offer, and pursuing my object in Leipsic.' A man with a half volition goes backwards and forwards, and makes no way on the smoothest road; a man with a whole volition advances on the roughest, and will reach his purpose if there be a little wisdom in it.

With his first two years residence in Leipsic, Heyne's personal narrative terminates. A long series of straitened hopeless days were yet appointed him. By Ernesti's or Crist's recommendation, he occasionally got employment in giving private lessons; at one time, he worked as secretary and classical hodman to 'Cruscius, the philosopher,' who felt a little rusted in his Greek and Latin; everywhere he found the scantiest accommodation, and, shifting from side to side in dreary vicissitudes of want, had to spin out an existence, warmed by no ray of comfort, except the fire that burnt or smouldered unquenchably within his own bosom. However, he had now chosen a profession, that of law, at which, as at many other branches of learning, he was laboring with his old diligence. Of preferment in this province there was, for the present, little or no hope; but this was no new thing with Heyne. By degrees, too, his fine talents and endeavors, and his perverse situation, began to attract notice and sympathy; and here and there some well-wisher had his eye on him, and stood ready to do him a service. Two and twenty years of penury and joyless struggling had now passed over the man; how many more such might be added was

still uncertain; yet, surely the longest winter is followed by a spring.

Another trifling incident, little better than that old 'pedantic adventure,' again brought about important changes in Heyne's situation. Among his favorers in Leipsic had been the preacher of a French chapel, one Lacoste, who, at this time, was cut off by death. Heyne, it is said, in the real sorrow of his heart, composed a long Latin Epicedium on that occasion; the poem had nowise been intended for the press; but certain hearers of the deceased were so pleased with it, that they had it printed, and this in the finest style of typography and decoration. It was this latter circumstance, not the merit of the verses, which is said to have been considerable, that attracted the attention of Count Brühl, the well-known prime minister and favorite of the Elector. Brühl's sons were studying in Leipsic; he was pleased to express himself contented with the poem, and to say, that he should like to have the author in his service. A prime minister's words are not as water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered; but rather as heavenly manna, which is treasured up and eaten, not without a religious sentiment. Heyne was forthwith written to from all quarters, that his fortune was made: he had but to show himself in Dresden, said his friends, with one voice, and golden showers from the ministerial cornucopia would refresh him almost to saturation. For, was not the Count taken with him; and who in all Saxony, not excepting Serene Highness itself, could gainsay the Count? Over-persuaded, and against his will, Heyne at length determined on the journey; for which, as an indispensable preliminary, fifty-one thalers' had to be borrowed; and so, following this hopeful quest, he actually arrived at Dresden in April, 1752. Count Brühl received him with the most captivating smiles; and even assured him in words, that he, Count Brühl, would take care of him. But a prime minister has so much to take care of! Heyne danced attendance all spring and summer, happier than our Johnson, inasmuch as he had not to 'blow his fingers in a cold lobby,' the weather being warm; and obtained not only promises, but useful experience of their value at courts.

He was to be made a secretary, with five hundred, with four hundred, or even with three hundred thalers of income: only, in the meanwhile, his old stock of fifty-one,' had quite run out, and he had nothing to live upon. By great good luck, he procured some employment in his old craft, private teaching, which helped him through the winter; but, as this ceased, he remained without resources. He tried working for the booksellers, and translated a French romance and a Greek one, Chariton's