Germany to Mr. John Raven, of John's College; `Tell Mr. Maden I will
drink with him now a carouse of wine; and would to God he had a
vessel of Rhenish wine; and perchance, when I come to Cambridge, I
will so provide here, that every year I will have a little piece of
Rhenish wine.' Nor, in fine, do I wonder at the German Emperor of
whom he speaks in another letter to the same John Raven, and says,
`The Emperor drank the best that I ever saw; he had his head in the
glass five times as long as any of us, and never drank less than a
good quart at once of Rhenish wine.' These were scholars and
gentlemen.

"But to resume our old theme of scholars and their whereabout,"
said the Baron, with an unusual glow, caught no doubt from the
golden sunshine, imprisoned, like the student Anselmus, in the glass
bottle; "where should the scholar live? In solitudeor in society? In
the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of
nature beat, or in the dark, gray city, where he can hear and feel
the throbbing heart of man? I will make answer for him, and say, in
the dark, gray city. Oh, they do greatly err, who think, that the
stars are all the poetry which cities have; and therefore that the
poet's only dwelling should be in sylvan solitudes, under the green
roof of trees. Beautiful, no doubt, are all the forms of Nature,
when transfigured by the miraculous power of poetry; hamlets and
harvest-fields, and nut-brown waters, flowing ever under the forest,
vast and shadowy, with all the sights and sounds of rural life. But
after all, what are these but the decorations and painted scenery in
the great theatre of human life? What are they but the coarse
materials of the poet's song? Glorious indeed is the world of God
around us, but more glorious the world of God within us. There lies
the Land of Song; there lies the poet's native land. The river of