took part in various extra-academic enterprises, was a member of the
_Burschenschaft_, that democratic-patriotic organization so gravely
suspected by the reactionary governments, and made many friends. He
duly studied history and law; he heard Ernst Moritz Arndt interpret
the _Germania_ of Tacitus; but more especially did he profit by
official and personal relations with A.W. Schlegel, who taught Heine
what he himself knew best, namely, the secret of literary form and the
art of metrical expression.

The fall of 1820 saw Heine at Göttingen, the Hanoverian university to
which, shortly before, the Americans Ticknor and Everett had repaired
and at which in that very year Bancroft had attained his degree of
doctor of philosophy. Here, however, Heine was repelled by the
aristocratic exclusiveness of the Hanoverian squires who gave the tone
to student society, as well as by the mummified dryness of the
professors. In marked contrast to the patriotic and romantic spirit of
Bonn he noted here with amazement that the distinguished Germanist
Benecke lectured on the _Nibelungenlied_ to an auditory of nine. His
own residence was destined this time to be brief; for serious quarrels
coming to the ear of the faculty, he was, on January 23, 1821,
advised to withdraw; and in April he enrolled himself as a student at
the University of Berlin.

The next three years were filled with manifold activities. As a
student Heine was deeply impressed by the absolute philosophy
expounded by Hegel; as a Jew he lent a willing hand to the endeavors
of an association recently founded for the amelioration of the social
and political condition of the Hebrews; in the drawing room of Rahel
Levin, now the wife of Varnhagen von Ense, he came in touch with
gifted men and women who were ardent admirers of Goethe, and some of