he never shows to such advantage as with it in his hand – never so like an apple of gold in a picture of silver. It seems a pity, then, that he should ever strive to be aught sublimer than a beer-drinker. For nothing else is he so fit; nothing else, perhaps, renders him so genial and happy; and surely there are many things which do him more harm. Gambrinus, the mightiest of Germans, not only did nothing else he owes his greatness to that fact. Methinks there is deep significance in the story how, when Satan called to claim his bargain, the German Bacchus trusted to no other weapon than this single beer-drinking faculty of his, and therewith got the better of his enemy. He played a manly part: a smaller man would have fallen to evasion, forsaking his true stronghold for another with which he was unacquainted. Gambrinus succeeded, as do all men who know their power and rely upon it. Doubtless, he might have wasted his time in making himself a fair philosopher, politician, soldier, or what not; but all would not have saved him from the devil. Saxons - here is food for reflection.

it is Gambrinus's self he sees - fearfully. changed, indeed, yet essentially the same. I fear there is some disagreeable secret at the bottom of all this, and that poor old Gambrinus did not quite escape the devil's claws, after all. However, if we can be resolute not to commit ourselves too far with the god, we may be tolerably secured against falling into the clutches of the hobgoblin. Meanwhile, excellent Frau Schmidt, another pint of beer!

III.

WHAT may be the subtle principle according to which liquors depend for their flavour upon the form and fashion of the vessel from which they are quaffed, I know nat; but certainly German beer should be drunk only from the schoppen. For a long time I put my faith in an Oxford mug of pewter with a plate-glass bottom; but, in the end, I reverted to the national tankard, with its massive base, its scolloped glass sides, and its lid enamelled with pictures and mottoes. The rest of the world might produce port-glasses, hock-glasses, sherry-glasses, absinthe-glasses; it was reserved for Germany to evolve the schoppen. Whether Gambrinus was the first to invent it, I am not precisely informed, but am inclined to consider it a supreme product of our modern civilization.

way of drinking-vessels on exhibition there, I should have thought the ancients must half the time have been in doubt what they were swallowing. There were elephants, fishes, Chinese pagodas, legless human figures which, unlike their living prototypes, would never stand upright unless they were empty; huge silver-mounted horns; ingenious arrangements to rap the drinker's pate if he spared to drink all at a draught, or to prick his tongue if he drank not fast

I am bound to admit, however, that this luxury, like all others, may be indulged in to imprudent lengths, and thereby lead to consequences anything but peaceful or meditative. A legend is current of a certain evil demon, Katzen- I once visited the Antiken Sammlung jammer by name, who is as hateful as in the Museum of the Zwinger; and Gambrinus is genial; and it is whis-judging by the wild experiments in the pered that between the two there is a mysterious and awful connection. When the jovial monarch's symposium is at its maddest height, when the guests are merriest and the liquor most delicious-then is it that this hideous presence lurks most nigh. The lights may blaze upon the festive board; but out of the shadow below, and in gloomy alcoves here and there, the boon companions shudder at the glimpse of his ghastly features. Those who have met him face to face (and such men live) describe him as sal-enough. Some goblets there were of the low, cadaverous, blear-eyed, and unwholesome his countenance overspread with a grey despair, as of a creature born from joy to misery, and retaining, in his wretchedness, the memory of all that makes life sweet, and the yearning for it. Moreover and this is perhaps the gris-eyed, curly-bearded, with hands gloveliest feature of the legend- he is said to less, unclean, and very cold. Near at bear a villanous and most unaccountable hand stood a marble bust of Washington, resemblance to Gambrinus himself; in- placid, respectable, and rather dirty. somuch, that when encountered the morn- How often had he heard that lie reitering after a carousal, the beholder can ated, without once being able to knit his scarce free himself from the delusion that marble brow at the liar, or wink a pupil

capacity of seven quarts-
- so the guide
assured me; and he added, in a quiet
tone, that the mighty ones of yore thought
nothing of emptying one without drawing
breath. He was a tall, thin, courteous,
amenable fellow that guide-yellow-

5

IV.

FROM Our present point of view, Dres

less eye at the visitor, not to be taken in. be thirsty, but drink either out of mere
But I doubt not that the fact of the bust's bravado, or else from a belief that to
being there deepened the guide's crime. drink steadily the first half of their lives,
Of a less barbarous age are the ivory will secure them from thirst during the
tankards, elaborately carved, to be found second. If this creed be not a popular
in the windows of curiosity-shops through- fallacy, it is a most important truth.
out Dresden. There, moreover, stand Nevertheless, it would perhaps be safer
tall green glasses of Bohemian manufac- to continue the remedy throughout the
ture, jewelled and painted with ara- decline of existence, and so float com-
besques and figures. But all are but | fortably into the other life.
approximations to the excellence of the
clear glass schoppen of to-day, which,
if it hold but a pint, may be replenished
a hundred times a day, and is vastly more den might be described as a beer-lake, of
manageable than the seven-quart affair. which the breweries are the head-waters.
They are usually some seven or eight The liquid, howexer, is divided up into
inches high, and twice as much in girth reservoirs of all sizes, from thousand-gal-
-just a proportion of a respectable lon tuns to pint bottles. The fishes are
toper; but this model is varied within the Dresdeners themselves, who, instead
certain limits and some of Gothic de- of swimming in the lake, allow it to swim
sign, with peaked lids, are as beautiful as in them a more pleasant and economic
heart could wish; and a pewter mannikin arrangement.
an inch and a half high, staggering under
the weight of a barrel of liquor, is perched
above the handle. The lids are a distin-
guishing feature, necessary to retard the
too rapid evaporation of the foam. They
must be kept down, like a maiden's;
should we neglect this precaution, not
only is our beer liable to stale, but any
impertinent fellow sitting near may, by
beer-law, snatch a draught of it without
saying, By your leave!

This lake resembles the ocean in having hours of flood and ebb; but the tide never runs out so far as to leave the fishes high and dry. The periods of high beer, or full fishes, are, roughly speaking, from twelve to two at noon and from six to ten in the evening.

It is really not easy to exaggerate the importance of beer-saloons to the city economy. Beer, like other valuable things, has a tendency to lodge humbly: is fond of antique, not to say plebeian, We may, of course, hurl the mug at surroundings; and is so thorough a dem him; there are few better missiles than agogue that it not only flatters the multia good schoppen, and every Saxon knows tude, but harbours in their midst! Now, how to use it in this way also. The so uninviting are some Dresden neighschoppen-throwing spirit is latent in the bourhoods, we must believe that, except most seeming-inoffensive of the race, and for the beer-saloons in them, they would will crop out on occasion. We do not speedily be left without inhabitants. know our friend until we have seen him Thus beer equalizes the distribution of at such a moment. He has no tendency population. What is of more moment, it to individual action; he loves a majority, provides employment either directly or though not ignorant of how to turn the indirectly for a vast proportion of the contrary position into a virtue. With a people. Not to speak of the architects, crowd to back him, he will sling his mug coopers, glass-workers, and numberless at anybody; and it is instructive to ob- others to whose support it largely conserve, when once his victory is secure, tributes, it actually creates the landlords, how voluble, excited, and indignant he waiters, and waitresses. We may go furbecomes -how implacable and over-ther, and point out that it is the vital bearing towards his foe; the same Saxon in his beer-saloon as at Sedan!

principle, if not the cause, of the popular
concerts, as well as of summer excursions
into rural suburbs, whose healthful
beauties would else remain unexplored.
The student Kneipen owe what life they
have more to their beer than to either
their traditions or the Schläger.
short, society, among the mass of the
people, is clustered round the beer-glass:
and the liquor of Gambrinus is not more
the national beverage than it is the build-
er-up of the nation.

In

The beer-saloon is the Saxon's club, | Saxons of the better class, and are utparlour, and drawing-room, and is free terly unconscious of anything coarse or alike to rich and poor, noble and simple. ungainly in thus giving publicity to their The family-man as well as the bachelor, mutual endearments. The untutored the old with the young man, is regular stranger had perhaps believed that puband uniform in his attendance. For licity of love, to be sublime, must be manSaxons have no homes, nor the refine- ifested under very exceptional circumment which leads most creatures, human stances. He had read with pleasure or other, to reserve for themselves a re- how the beautiful woman threw herself treat apart from the world's common path upon her lover's bosom, so to intercept and gaze. It must not be inferred that the fatal bullet: or his heart had throbbed the husband objects to taking his wife at the passionate last embrace of wife and children along with him: the broad and husband upon the scaffold steps. Saxon tolerance never dreams of ostra- But he is extravagant and prejudiced : cising woman from the scene of her lord's not instant death, but a quart or so of conviviality. Though seldom present in beer, is pretext all-sufficient. Nay, may large numbers, there is generally a sprin- it not be that our Saxon sweethearts kling of them in every roomful of drink- would find death put their affection out ers. I have not observed that they of joint, and therefore do wisely to be exercise any restraint upon the tone of satisfied with the easy godfathership of conversation: considering the light in Gambrinus? At all events, our critiwhich woman is regarded, it is not to be cisms are as gratuitous as untutored. expected that they should; and as for The mixed assembly in which the exhichildren, they are not regarded at all. bition takes place considers it so little The wives watch the conversation of their extraordinary, as scarcely to be at the masters much as a dog might do, seldom trouble of looking at it or away from it. thinking of contributing to it; or if they Nevertheless there seems to be a spiritdo, it is not in womanly fashion, but so ual nudity about it, which, if not divine, far as possible in imitation of the men's indicates a phase of civilization elsemanner. They drink their fair share of where unknown. beer, often from the men's glass; but I cannot say that the geniality thus induced improves them. Until pretty far up in the social scale, there is little essential difference between the lower orders of women and those above them, especially after Gambrinus has laid his wand upon them. In the German language are no equivalents for the best sense of our lady and gentleman; and perhaps the reason is not entirely a linguistic one.

Female Saxony is very industrious; carries its sewing or embroidery about with it everywhere, and knits to admiration. When in its own company, it chatters like magpies, and we watch it with an appropriately amused interest. But our interest is of another sort when, as sometimes happens, a man enters with his newly-married wife, or sweetheart. The untutored stranger observes with curiosity the indifference of the couple! to the public eye. Towards the close of the second glass, her head droops upon his shoulder, their hands and eyes meet, they murmur in each other's ear, and fatuously smile. It is nothing to them that the table and the room are crowded with strange faces. The untutored stranger, if he imagine these people to be other than of perfect social respectability, commits a profound mistake. They are

I have introduced this scene because it typifies a universal trait. Saxons cannot be happy except in public and under one another's noses. The edge of pain is dulled for them if only they may undergo their torture in the market-place; and no piece of good luck is worth having which has not been dragged through the common gutter. Each man's family is too small for him, he must take his neighbour's likewise into his bosom. Is this the result of a lofty spirit of human brotherhood? or is it diseased vanity, which finds its only comfort in stripping the wretched fig-leaves alike from its virtue and its vice? Nevertheless, most Saxons, if charged to their faces with being the first of nations, admit the impeachment: which proves how little true greatness has in common with the minor proprieties.

It would be pleasant to study this trait in its effect upon gossip and scandal. If a man denudes himself in presence of my crony and me, does he not deprive our epigrams of their sting, and make our innuendoes ridiculous? Backbiters, thus rudely treated, must lose that delicate flavour which renders a dish of French scandal the delight of the world. But the guild dies hard, and even in the face of a persecution which should go

1

the length not only of confessing dis-
creditabilities, but of taking a pride in
them, will still find some husks to fatten
upon.

From The Cornhill Magazine.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.

tress.

CHAPTER LVI.

(continued.)

you are going to take the Lower Farm on your own account."

"I've had the refusal o' it, 'tis true; but nothing is settled yet, and I have reasons for gieing up. I shall finish out my year there as manager for the trustees, but no more."

"And what shall I do without you? O Gabriel, I don't think you ought to go away! You've been with me so long through bright times and dark times. such old friends as we are - that it seems unkind almost. I had fancied that if you leased the other farm as master, you might still give a helping look across at mine. And now going away! “I would have willingly.' "Yet now that I am more helpless than ever you go away."

"DON'T let me drive you away, misI think I won't go in to-night." "O no-you don't drive me away." Then they stood in a state of some embarrassment, Bathsheba trying to wipe her dreadfully drenched and inflamed face without his noticing her. At length "Yes, that's the ill fortune o' it," said Oak said, "I've not seen you - I mean Gabriel, in a distressed tone. "And it spoken to you- since ever so long, have is because of that very helplessness that I?" But he feared to bring distressing I feel bound to go. Good afternoon, memories back, and interrupted himself ma'am." He concluded in evident anxwith "Were you going into church?" iety to get away, and at once went out of "No," she said. "I came to see the the churchyard by a path she could tombstone privately- to see if they had follow on no pretence whatever. cut the inscription as I wished. Mr. Oak, you needn't mind speaking to me, if you wish to, on the matter which is in both our minds at this moment." "And have they done it as you wished?" said Oak.

---

Bathsheba went home, her mind occupied with a new trouble, which, being rather harassing than deadly, was calculated to do good by diverting her from the chronic gloom of her life. She was set thinking a great deal about Oak and of his wish to shun her; and there occurred to Bathsheba several incidents of her So together they went and read the latter intercourse with him, which, trivial tomb. Eight months ago!" Gabriel when singly viewed, amounted together murmured when he saw the date. "It seems like yesterday to me."

"Yes. Come and see it, if you have not already."

66

"And to me as if it were years ago long years, and I had been dead between. And now I am going home, Mr. Oak."

Oak walked after her. "I wanted to name a small matter to you as soon as I could," he said with hesitation. "Merely about business, and I think I may just mention it now, if you'll allow me.'

"O yes, certainly."

"It is that I may soon have to give up
the management of your farm, Mrs.
Troy. The fact is, I am thinking of leav-
ing England
not yet you know next
spring."

"Leaving England!" she said in surprise and genuine disappointment. Why, Gabriel, what are you going to do that for?"

Well, I've thought it best," Oak stammered out. "California is the spot I've had in my mind to try."

"But it is understood everywhere that

to a perceptible disinclination for her society. It broke upon her at length as a great pain that her last old disciple was about to forsake her and flee. He who had believed in her and argued on her side when all the rest of the world was against her, had at last like the others become weary and neglectful of the old cause, and was leaving her to fight her battles alone.

Three weeks went on, and more evidence of his want of interest in her was forthcoming. She noticed that instead of entering the small parlour or office where the farm accounts were kept, and waiting, or leaving a memorandum as he had hitherto done during her seclusion, Oak never came at all when she was likely to be there, only entering at unseasonable hours when her presence in that part of the house was least to be expected. Whenever he wanted directions he sent a message, or note with neither heading nor signature, to which she was

obliged to reply in the same off-hand style. Poor Bathsheba began to suffer now from the most torturing sting of all - a sensation that she was despised.

A dancing firelight shone from the window, but nobody was visible in the room. She tapped nervously, and then thought it doubtful if it were right for a single woman to call upon a bachelor who lived alone, although he was her manager and she might be supposed to call on business without any real impropriety. Gabriel opened the door, and the moon shone upon his forehead.

"Mr. Oak," said Bathsheba, faintly.
"Yes; I am Mr. Oak," said Gabriel.
"Who have I the honour Oh! how

stupid of me not to know you, mistress!"
"I shall not be your mistress much
longer, shall I, Gabriel?" she said, in
pathetic tones.
But come

The autumn wore away gloomily enough amid these melancholy conjectures, and Christmas day came, completing a year of her legal widowhood, and two years and a quarter of her life alone. On examining her heart it appeared beyond measure strange that the subject of which the season might have been supposed suggestive the event in the hall at Boldwood's- was not agitating her at all; but instead, an agonizing conviction that everybody abjured her- for what she could not tell-and that Oak was the ringleader of the recusants. Coming out of church that day she looked round in the hope that Oak, whose bass voice she had heard rolling out from the gallery overhead in a most unconcerned manner, might chance to linger in heritor, that I'm afraid I haven't proper acpath in the old way. There he was, as commodation. Will you sit down, please? usual, coming up the path behind her; Here's a chair, and there's one, too. I but on seeing Bathsheba turn, he looked am sorry that my chairs all have wood aside, and as soon as he got beyond the seats, and are rather hard, but I — was gate, and there was the barest excuse for thinking of getting some new ones." Oak a divergence, he made one, and van-placed two or three for her. ished.

The next morning brought the culminating stroke; she had been expecting it long. It was a formal notice by letter from him that he should not renew his engagement with her for the following Lady-day.

"Well, no. I suppose

in, ma'am. Oh-and I'll get a light,"
Oak replied, with some awkwardness.
"No; not on my account."

"It is so seldom that I get a lady vis

66

They are quite easy enough for me." So down she sat, and down sat he, the fire dancing in their faces, and upon

The few worn-out traps, all a-sheenen
With long years of handlen,

that formed Oak's array of household Bathsheba actually sat and cried over possessions, which sent back a dancing this letter most bitterly. She was agreflection in reply. It was very odd to grieved and wounded that the possession these two persons, who knew each other of hopeless love from Gabriel, which she passing well, that the mere circumstance had grown to regard as her inaljenable of their meeting in a new place and in a right for life, should have been with- new way should make them so awkward drawn just at his own pleasure in this and constrained. In the fields, or at her way. She was bewildered too by the house, there had never been any embarprospect of having to rely on her own re-rassment; but now that Oak had become sources again: it seemed to herself that she never could again acquire energy sufficient to go to market, barter, and sell. Since Troy's death Oak had attended all sales and fairs for her, transacting her business at the came time with his own.

the entertainer, their lives seemed to be moved back again to the days when they were strangers.

"You'll think it strange that I have come, but

"Oh, no; not at all!"

What should she do now! "But I thought — Gabriel, I have been Her life was becoming a desolation. uneasy in the belief that I have offended So desolate was Bathsheba this even-you, and that you are going away on that ing, that in an absolute hunger for pity account. It grieved me very much, and and sympathy, and miserable in that she I couldn't help coming." appeared to have outlived the only true friendship she had ever owned, she put on her bonnet and cloak and went down to Oak's house just after sunset, guided on her way by the pale primrose rays of a crescent moon a few days old.

"Offended me! As if you could do that, Bathsheba!

"Haven't I?" she asked, gladly. "But what are you going away for else?" "I am not going to emigrate, you know; I wasn't aware that you would