10 



BECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



She entrusted herself, lier fortune, and one 

 son by lier first marriage, to the aide- de- 

 camp, and on the 22nd of June, 1767, at Pots- 

 dam, gave birth to Charles William Hum- 

 boldt, and at the chateau of Tegel, near 

 Berlin, on the 14th of September, 1769, to 

 the subject of this paper. The elder brother, 

 Charles, grew up to be one of the finest wits 

 in Germany ; he was a poet, critic, philolo- 

 gist, statesman. His brother was, after his 

 kind, a statesman too, one who interpreted 

 the laws of Nature, and, after living a very 

 long life, full of honour and renown, has died, 

 leaving behind him the name of the greatest 

 naturalist and savant of his country. 



IDTJCATIOK — THE FIBST IMPrLSE. 



The two boys were but young when they 

 lost their father, and their education and 

 introduction to the world was therefore left 

 entirely to Madame Humboldt. This lady 

 had entrusted one Joachim Campe in the 

 education of her eldest son. The master was 

 then well known as the author of "The 

 Young Crusoe ;" now he is forgotten, save 

 when connected with his pupils, for it is the 

 property of great men to render all around 

 them celebrated. Various was the instruc- 

 tion given to the young Humboldts. Besides 

 Campe, Christian Kunth should be men- 

 tioned amongst Humboldt's teachers. From 

 their father's chateau the two boys went to 

 Berlin, Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and, lastly, to 

 Gottingen. 



It was at the last place, whilst his brother 

 was writing poetry, and was filled with all the 

 enthusiasm of the ardent spirits of the time 

 in regard to that event, the French Eevo- 

 lution — an event which, by the way, disap- 

 pointed and horrified all its admirers — that 

 Alexander happily met a gentleman of some 

 notoriety, who had been round the world 

 •with Captain Cook. The glowing narration 

 of the beauties of Nature, which Humboldt 

 heard from the mouth of this man, George 



Forster, fired him with the first desire to be- 

 come a naturalist. He had made a debut 

 in literature. He came out with something 

 very scientific, something excessively learned, 

 the result of cramming. He wrote abso- 

 lutely " On the Textile Fabrics of the Gre- 

 cians," about which he could have known 

 nothing. Henceforward he was to abandon 

 " textile fabrics," and to inquire not how 

 Penelope's petticoat was spun, but how God 

 made this earth, and in what way He had 

 clothed the plains with verdure and the 

 forests with leaves. 



GEOBGE rOESTEE. 



To this George Forster, in truth, the 

 world should give credit for much of Hum- 

 boldt's glory. It is a great thing to have 

 given the first impulse to a youthful genius. 

 Man, or book, which does it cannot be too 

 highly estimated. "Robinson Crusoe" has 

 filled our navy, rendered our merchants 

 famous, has given a seaward impulse to the 

 nation which other people seek in vain to 

 possess. So old George Forster, gossiping 

 over his modest can of Bavarian beer about 

 his voyage with the great Captain Cook, sets 

 that in a flame which eighty years cannot 

 quench, and which in its progress, like a 

 great fire on a high hiU, casts its reflection far 

 and wide. 



"With George Forster, Humboldt made his 

 first scientific tour. He travelled to England 

 and to France, examining the earth, its 

 strata, and the mineral productions of each 

 countiy. He was also actuated by a strange 

 desire to go to the new world, and to observe 

 the life of a savage, to mark how far it dif- 

 fered from that of civilized man, but that 

 desire was not yet to be gratified. With the 

 advice and assistance of Forster, he pub- 

 lished his first scientific work on the " Basalts 

 of the Ehine" ( Uber des Basalts aus Bhein) 

 in 1790, when he had scarcely passed his 

 twenty-first year. He had already become 

 known for his ardent desire of knowledge, 



