The great battles of 1813 and 1815, in which the German people regained their independence, effected a marvellous change in the spirits and sentiments of the nation.

Accustomed for a long time to endure in silence the insults and arrogance of a foreign despot, they had learned to despair of themselves; a deadly lethargy held their energies in bondage and in the fairy visions of poetry and the daring dreams of metaphysical speculation they sought consolation for the pains and burdens of reality. The victories of Leipsic and Waterloo completely altered the tone of their feelings. It is a not uncommon fact that individuals usually the reverse of self-asserting exhibit, on occasions, an overweening self-consciousness, which is all the more pointed and aggressive because of their secret and habitual self-distrust. We note with curious interest the recurrence of the same obnoxious trait in the life of a great nation. The novel sense of power intoxicated them, the German mind for the moment lost its poise; Romanticism flourished, the violence of the Middle Ages was mistaken for manhood, and held up to the emulation of the present generation. Whatever was German was therefore esteemed good; whatever was foreign was therefore despised, or at best ignored.

The Jews were made to feel the sharp sting of this feverish vanity; their Asiatic origin was cast up against them, though it might have been supposed that a residence of fifteen centuries had given them some claim to dwell at peace with the children of the soil. In the year 1819 the assassination of Kotzebue added fresh fuel to the fervor of Teutonic passion. In August of that year a professor of Wurzburg, who had written in defence of the Jews, was publicly insulted by the students. A tumult ensued, the cry "Hep-Hep"* arose on every side, and "Death to the Jews" was the watchword. On the next day the magistrate ordered them to leave Wurzburg, and four hundred in number they were driven beyond the city's limits. Similar excesses occurred in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Meiningen, Carlsruhe, and elsewhere. Inflammatory pamphlets contributed to increase the excitement.

Grattenauer, Runs, Fries, had written to good effect. All the old falsehoods were revived, the fable of the use of Christian blood at Passover among the rest. It seemed as though the genius of chivalry which the Romantic school had invoked had returned with its grim attendant train to renew the orgies of mediaeval persecution in the full light of the nineteenth century. In November appeared the "Judenspiegel," by Hundt-Radowsky. In this the author argues that the murder of a Jew is neither criminal nor sinful. In order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed however, he proposes a more peaceful means of ridding the German people of "these vermin." His propositions, couched in plain language and delivered in sober earnest, are simply these: the men to be castrated, and sold as slaves to the East Indies; the women—but the pen refuses to record the fiendish suggestion. It is mortifying to reflect that this infamous publication was widely circulated and eagerly read.*