nd, but appeared immediately set
at rest when he observed that it was only Heinrich Beer, who had
approached to invite him to a game at whist."

In 1823 Heine returned to Gottingen to complete his career as a
law-student, and this time he gave evidence of advanced mental maturity,
not only by producing many of the charming poems subsequently included in
the "Reisebilder," but also by prosecuting his professional studies
diligently enough to leave Gottingen, in 1825, as _Doctor juris_.
Hereupon he settled at Hamburg as an advocate, but his profession seems
to have been the least pressing of his occupations. In those days a
small blonde young man, with the brim of his hat drawn over his nose, his
coat flying open, and his hands stuck in his trousers pockets, might be
seen stumbling along the streets of Hamburg, staring from side to side,
and appearing to have small regard to the figure he made in the eyes of
the good citizens. Occasionally an inhabitant more literary than usual
would point out this young man to his companion as _Heinrich Heine_; but
in general the young poet had not to endure the inconveniences of being a
lion. His poems were devoured, but he was not asked to devour flattery
in return. Whether because the fair Hamburgers acted in the spirit of
Johnson's advice to Hannah More--to "consider what her flattery was worth
before she choked him with it"--or for some other reason, Heine,
according to the testimony of August Lewald, to whom we owe these
particulars of his Hamburg life, was left free from the persecution of
tea-parties. Not, however, from another persecution of Genius--nervous
headaches, which some persons, we are told, regarded as an improbable
fiction, intended as a pretext for raising a delicate white hand to his
forehead. It is probable that the sceptical persons alluded to were
themselves untroubled with nervous headaches, and that their hands were
_not_ delicate. Slight details, these, but worth telling about a man of
genius, because they help us to keep in mind that he is, after all, our
brother, having to endure the petty every-day ills of life as we have;
with this difference, that his heightened sensibility converts what are
mere insect stings for us into scorpion stings for him.

It was, perhaps, in these Hamburg days that Heine paid the visit to
Goethe, of which he gives us this charming little picture:

"When I visited him in Weimar, and stood before him, I involunt