1828.] University of Bonn. 393 



killed and wounded, I fear such memorials would be so frequent as to 

 verify the foreboding of Campbell : 



" Shall war's polluted banner ne'er be furled ? 

 Shall crimes and tyrants cease but with the world?" 



But, as these reflections are somewhat episodical, I was going on to 

 say that Bonn is quite destitute of architectural beauties : its streets are 

 narrow, dirty, and ill-paved ; and the houses are not equal, in size or 

 appearance, to those of the Netherlands, or of many German towns- 

 such as Coblentz, Mayence, or Frankfort. The only open spots worthy 

 of being called places are the market-place, which you arrive at from 

 Cologne, through Kolnstrasse, or Cologne-street, and Bonngasse, or Bonn- 

 street. The other open place, the Vierrechsplalz, is between Hunds- 

 gasse (Dog-street), leading to Coblentz, and the river. The sight of an 

 open place is what I always expect to be gratified with in a foreign 

 town lamenting, as I do, that no such enjoyments for the public exist 

 in London, or our large towns. An open square in a town gives of itself 

 the idea of freedom, particularly when surrounded by shops, and used 

 as a public parade. At Bonn, the market-place was used for this latter 

 purpose ; but since the walks in the neighbourhood have been so much 

 improved, they are naturally resorted to for the evening's promenade. 

 I know few more delightful shades than that of the chesnuts, which 

 extend nearly a mile from the University to Poppelsdorf, a village in the 

 road to the hill of Creugberg. At Poppelsdorf is the old chateau of Cle- 

 mensruhe, a sort of appendage to the University, containing cabinets of 

 mineralogy, botany, zoology, and chemistry, and apartments for several 

 of the professors. Here also is the botanical garden of twenty acres, 

 where the professor of botany (Dr. Nees von Esenbeck) occasionally 

 gives peripatetic lectures, much in the same way as Dr. Buckland's geo- 

 logical expeditions from Oxford. There is a striking difference in the 

 attention paid to natural history by the English and the foreign univer- 

 sities : in the former it is considered a mere superfluity ; and I hardly 

 knew six men in Oxford who had any knowledge of animal anatomy, or 

 could tell the calyx of a flower from the corolla. Latterly, we have had 

 some little attendance given on the geological and mineralogical lectures 

 in Oxford ; but I fear it is more attributable to the novelty of these 

 researches, and the popularity of the professor, than to these sciences 

 having fairly struck root. In every college in Germany, the Nether- 

 lands, and, I believe, in France, natural history is a principal branch 

 of education ; and the traveller is immediately struck with the cabinets 

 and gardens as an indispensable appendage of the university. And if 

 education be something better than the mere cramming of boys with 3 

 jargon of (to them) senseless dead languages if it be really valuable, not 

 for the matter which is taught, but for the habits of attention and obser- 

 vation that it secures if its object, in short, be to form virtuous and 

 intelligent men how can such objects be better attained than by intro- 

 ducing the student to the powers of God, displayed in the several king- 

 doms of nature ? 



These reflections occurred to me whilst resting under one of the fine 

 cypresses in the Poppelsdorf garden, looking full upon the seven hills on 

 the other side of the father river. One of the students came and sat down 

 on the bench with me. He had an intelligent forehead, bright eyes, and 



M. M. New SmV*. VOL. V. No. 28. 3 E 



