gave him to come and see him in France in happier days—a prognostication wonderfully accomplished.

On my return to Egypt, as representative of the Geographical Society, in 1869, at the opening of the Suez Canal, I saw Shereef Pasha, the Minister of the Interior, who had married one of Suleiman's daughters, and who spoke of the great consideration in which the memory of his father-in-law was still held.

II.

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT AT THE

COURT OF BERLIN.

THE annoyance felt by men of scrupulous honour in this country at the supposed breach of confidence in the rapid publication of the correspondence between Alexander von Humboldt and Varnhagen von Ense, and the malicious character of some extracts that have been largely circulated, doubtless prevented many persons from finding in that volume all it suggests and reveals.

Un

Varnhagen von Ense was an indefatigable collector of autograph letters, and he has left behind him one of the largest collections on record. like many other amateurs, he attached the main importance to the characteristic or historic contents of the documents he amassed, and a considerable portion of the work is taken up by contributions received from Humboldt for this purpose. appears, however, to have had some compunction

He

as to the retention of Humboldt's own letters to himself as part of his treasure, and, however much it might have afflicted him in his dilettante pursuit, he would probably have destroyed these revelations of Humboldt's innermost life, had not the writer himself distinctly expressed his notions on the subject: Make yourself quite easy in the possession of my irreverences (Impietäten),' is the sense of Humboldt's letter of 1841; when I am gone, which will not be long first, do exactly as you please with them; they are your property.' Yet on another occasion Humboldt complains of the unjust historical impression which is conveyed by accidental and transitory epistolary phrases, and illustrates this in his own case by a passage in which Schiller tells Körner that he, Humboldt, is 'a man of very limited understanding, who, notwithstanding his restless activity, will never attain any eminence,' at the very time that their relations were of the most intimate character, and after Schiller had written to him in a former letter that he was a far more gifted and higher-minded man than his brother. Humboldt also quotes a letter from a collection of autographs in Augsburg, in which a friend writes, 'Alexander Humboldt again accompanies the King to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle

in the capacity of bloodhound,' and adds, 'Such are the representations on the stage of life for the benefit of a credulous posterity!' He therefore knew very well what he was doing when he authorized Varnhagen to keep his letters, although perhaps he never anticipated that they would appear in any concrete form: he may rather have expected that the facts and opinions contained in them would come out incidentally at different intervals, when the chief actors in the scene might have passed away: but he was clearly willing to take upon himself all the responsibility, without anxiety as to any pain he might inflict or any irritation he would excite.

It is therefore not Humboldt or the friends of Humboldt who are injured by the publication, but those persons of high social and literary station who are roughly and often unjustly criticised. With most of these judgments, however, it is probable that Varnhagen heartily agreed, and his representatives may possibly share his feelings, and there is more literary discourtesy than breach of confidence in any fault that has here been committed. My concern, however, at this moment is with the figure of Humboldt himself as the writer of these petulant and discomfortable letters,