Biographical Memoir of the late Friedrich Hoffmann. 13 



August, he compared the light of Vesuvius to the fiery sword 

 of the angel which drove our first parents from Paradise. 



He proceeded by sea from Naples to Leghorn ; and the gra- 

 cious reception he experienced from the Grand Duke of Tus- 

 cany, combined with the varied information he received from 

 his numerous acquaintances at Florence, Pisa, and Siena, de- 

 layed his departure till October. It was impossible for him to 

 pass so near to the remarkable marble quarries of Carrara, with- 

 out investigating them minutely. Thus the winter found him 

 still in Upper Italy ; and it was only when his researches were 

 interrupted by the weather, that, about the new year 1833, he 

 crossed the St Gotthard, and found a first resting-place, on this 

 side the Alps, in the hospitable house of his faithful travelling 

 companion (Escher) at Zurich. 



Hoffmann was gifted by nature not only with a high order 

 of mental powers, but also with a strong bodily frame, which 

 his early campaign had rendered capable of great exertions. 

 Already during his wanderings in northern Germany, his insa- 

 tiable thirst for investigation, even of the most difficult country, 

 had sometimes exacted too much from his great strength of 

 body. He had suffered from some severe falls ; and, in the 

 hours of depression before his journey to Italy, he complained 

 that his strength had begun to leave him just at the time when 

 it was most required. Animated by the new prospects and en- 

 joyments w hich the Italian journey presented to him, his mind 

 gave wonderful support to his body. The necessity of seeing 

 every thing with his own eyes, caused him to shun none of 

 that exertion by which personal observation must generally be 

 purchased. Although his bodily condition became somewhat 

 precarious in Sicily, still he allowed himself no rest. The 

 transition from the warm south to the cold north, is even per- 

 ceptible in summer ; but it is much more so during a journey 

 made northwards in the winter season. The passage of the 

 Alps, performed in the beginning of January, completed the 

 exhaustion, Hoft'mann came to Zurich in a state of great 

 weakness ; but a most friendly reception, and the most sympa- 

 thizing care and attention, succeeded in restoring his strength 

 so far as to enable him to travel to Heidelberg and Frankfort, 

 and to reach Berlin about the end of March 1833. 



