112 Sketch of the Life of Professor Heeren. 



Heeren ; and if his ideas were the occasion or cause of their 

 journeys and discoveries, these in their turn had a useful in- 

 fluence upon his work. The third edition, pubHshed in 1815, 

 with the commencement of the researches respecting the Greeks, 

 was more than double the size of the first. There are also 

 in it important additions respecting India. The continental 

 blockade had shut up Germany, not only from the manufac- 

 tures, but also from the ideas and writings of England. The 

 great events of 1813 and 1814 overturned that obstacle, and 

 re-established the long-interrupted communications. Our au- 

 thor published the result of his most recent investigations in two 

 fragments, one on the point at which the knowledge which we 

 have of ancient India stops, the other on the policy and com- 

 merce of ancient India. 



In 1796, M. Heeren married a daughter of his master, Heyne. 

 Three years after, he succeeded Gatterer in the chair of History, 

 the duties of which he had already performed. This situation 

 afforded him an opportunity of embracing history in its whole 

 extent. However, he had always little taste for the history of 

 the north and of Germany, and never taught it. But what ap- 

 peared most interesting in his eyes was the study of the rela- 

 tions of the modern states. He did not stop at the surface of 

 events, but penetrated into their interior, explored their causes, 

 seized the predominating ideas and views of each age, and the 

 personal character of the men who directed affairs. It is in this 

 manner that political interest and philosophical interest are 

 blended ; and as the commercial relations have acquired an al- 

 ways increasing action upon the public state of Europe, he was 

 led to consider the influence of commerce and colonization, 

 which produced in 1809 his Historical Manual of the political 

 system of the European States and their Colonies, from the 

 discovery of the two Indies. Ten years before, he had published 

 the Manual of Ancient History *. The circumstances in which 

 Europe was then placed, gave more value to the Manual of Mo- 

 dern History. The domination which extended over almost the 

 whole Continent, rendered the remembrance of past liberty dear- 

 er, and the book, as presenting a full, though diminished pic- 



* An English translation of this work was published last year, 1829 at 

 Oxford. 



