His powers of elocution were of a high order,
and crowds of students were drawn to his lecture room. That freedom of
utterance which cost him the rectorship at Speyer, was like Dr. Watts's
or Pope's instinct for making rhymes--it was his nature, and could not
be whipped out of him; and it was equally natural that it should assume
the form of wit and humor.
There are not a few anecdotes in the popular mouth illustrating this
trait. He seems to have had no great liking to that race of men called
kings, and it is said that he once alluded to them, in a lecture, in the
not very respectful remark that 'they were numbered, like the hacks in
our streets.' The reader's apprehension of the point of another
anecdote, in which Dr. Neumann appears in an attitude not very
respectful to his own sovereign, Louis II of Bavaria, will depend upon
his knowing something of the situation and history of the university
buildings in Munich. The king, among the many things he did for the
architectural adorning of the city, built a street to be called by his
name. It is all outside of the old wall, and its outer end is closed by
a triumphal arch. Next to this, and outside of the city as it _then_
was, the king purchased ground, perhaps because it was cheap, and built
the present university edifice. As much farther out of the then city
proper lies the miserable little town of Schwabing.
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