to the author of _Gertrude of Wyoming_.

Goettingen, however, is the object of his journey, and at Goettingen
he remains for the next year and a half. If he does not learn to scorn
the delights of society, he has at least the resolution to live the
laborious days of the earnest student. He studies five languages, and
works twelve hours in the twenty-four. Greek, German, theology, and
natural history seem chiefly to claim his attention, but he is also
busy with French, Italian, and Latin, and manages at the same time to
keep up his English reading. He is much amused with the German
professors, and describes them with no little humor. There is
Michaelis, who asks one of his scholars for some silver shoe-buckles,
in lieu of a fee. There is Schultze, who "looks as if he had fasted
six months on Greek prosody and the Pindaric meters." There is
Blumenbach, who has a sharp discussion at a dinner-table, and next day
sends down three huge quartos all marked to show his authorities and
justify his statements.

Here is another interesting anecdote given in Ticknor's _Memoirs_:

"When I was in Goettingen, in 1816, I saw Wolf, the most distinguished
Greek scholar of the time. He could also lecture extemporaneously in
Latin. He was curious about this country, and questioned me about our
scholars and the amount of our scholarship. I told him what I
could,--amongst other things, of a fashionable, dashing preacher of
New York having told me that he took great pleasure in reading the
choruses of AEschylus, and that he read them without a dictionary! I
was walking with Wolf at the time, and, on hearing this, he stopped,
squared round, and said, 'He told you that, did he?' 'Yes,' I
answered. 'Very well; the next time you hear him say it, do you tell
him he lies, and that I say so.'"

During a six weeks' vacation there is a pleasant tour through Germany,
and at Weimar Mr. Ticknor makes the acquaintance of Goethe, who talked
about Byron, and "his great knowledge of human nature."

And now in the November of 1816, there comes an intimation that
Harvard College wishes to recall Mr. Ticknor to his old home, and give
him the professorship of French and Spanish literature. It was a
matter of difficulty for him to make a final decision, and a year
passes before he determined to accept the charge, and a year and a
half more before he enters upon its duties.

Meanwhile he leaves Goettingen, visits Paris, Geneva, and Rome, and
then goes on to