om everything like intrusive gossip, and will derive its
coloring chiefly from the autobiographical hints and descriptions
scattered through his own writings. Those of our readers who happen to
know nothing of Heine will in this way be making their acquaintance with
the writer while they are learning the outline of his career.

We have said that Heine was born with the present century; but this
statement is not precise, for we learn that, according to his certificate
of baptism, he was born December 12th, 1799. However, as he himself
says, the important point is that he was born, and born on the banks of
the Rhine, at Dusseldorf, where his father was a merchant. In his
"Reisebilder" he gives us some recollections, in his wild poetic way, of
the dear old town where he spent his childhood, and of his schoolboy
troubles there. We shall quote from these in butterfly fashion, sipping
a little nectar here and there, without regard to any strict order:

"I first saw the light on the banks of that lovely stream, where
Folly grows on the green hills, and in autumn is plucked, pressed,
poured into casks, and sent into foreign lands. Believe me, I
yesterday heard some one utter folly which, in anno 1811, lay in a
bunch of grapes I then saw growing on the Johannisberg. . . . Mon
Dieu! if I had only such faith in me that I could remove mountains,
the Johannisberg would be the very mountain I should send for
wherever I might be; but as my faith is not so strong, imagination
must help me, and it transports me at once to the lovely Rhine. . . .
I am again a child, and playing with other children on the
Schlossplatz, at Dusseldorf on the Rhine. Yes, madam, there was I
born; and I note this expressly, in case, after my death, seven
cities--Schilda, Krahwinkel, Polkwitz, Bockum, Dulken, Gottingen, and
Schoppenstadt--should contend for the honor of being my birthplace.
Dusseldorf is a town on the Rhine; sixteen thousand men live there,
and many hundred thousand men besides lie buried there. . . . . Among
them, many of whom my mother says, that it would be better if they
were still living; for example, my grandfather and my uncle, the old
Herr von Geldern and the young Herr von Geldern, both such celebrated
doctors, who saved so many men from death, and yet must die
themselves. And the pious Ursula, who carried me in her arms when I
was a child, a