have written the "Nordsee-Lieder," had not the
well-known firm of Hoffman & Campe come to the rescue with the necessary
funds, in consideration of which they stipulated he should write a
volume of songs for them.

In Hamburg I was sent to the Johanneum, a large public school. It was
rather hard, after having been called a German sausage in England, to be
derided as an English "Rossbiff" or "Shonebool," which was meant for
John Bull. The whole class roared with laughter when I rose for the
first time to decline [Greek: he Mohysa], pronouncing the defunct Greek
language as it was spoken in King's College, and the jeers of that whole
class so galled and stung me that I wished I could kill all German boys
at a stroke, or at least maim those despicable ones within my reach for
life. It was well I could not act upon the impulse, for many a German
boy of that day was to be a staunch friend to me in after life. I had my
troubles in those Teutonic school-days, and I thought the proceedings
monotonous, but still there was pleasurable excitement to be had
occasionally, as when old Hummel came along--a half-witted water-carrier
whom every bad boy in Hamburg knew and hooted. Three words we would
shout in his face, three words that meant absolutely nothing, but that
sounded worse than any bad language I had ever heard. He was a shaky old
man, and the water-pails suspended from his shoulders prevented his
running after us, and so we could indulge with impunity in the
exhilarating sport of mocking him to the fullest extent our wicked
little human hearts desired.

I have also a pleasant recollection of caterpillar-hunting; we were
spending the summer near Hamburg in a rustic retreat, and a regular
plague of these insects made life a burden to some members of the
family. They were larger than ordinary caterpillars and more hairy, and
they were so numerous that much thought and care had to be bestowed on
the methods of protecting ourselves against them; for they did not
confine themselves to the garden, they made no difference between
vegetable produce and grand-aunts, and would mistake the best bonnets of
those worthies for cabbage leaves. There was even a rumour that one of
these slimy crawlers had been crushed out of existence by my
grandest-aunt, who chanced to be the heaviest one too. How that
caterpillar found its way between that lady's bed-sheets, and whether it
did so with or without assistance, was fortunately never ascertained