EECREATIVE SCIENCE. 



57 



aud to congratulate liim on account of his 

 accession to the throne. 



Since that period he each year, until the 

 time of his death, renewed his visits to Paris, 

 greatly to the satisfaction of his very many 

 admirers and friends there, and about this 

 period (1835-38) he published his " Critical 

 Examination of the Geography of the New 

 World." 



HtTMBOLDT IN ENGLAND. 



Allied as we are with Prussia, with 

 almost the certainty of an heir of English 

 descent one day filling the throne, it is some 

 satisfaction to record that, in addition to 

 diplomatists and warriors, she sent us in the 

 train of her ambassadors at least one genius. 

 In 1841 he came, in company with Frederick 

 WiUiamlV., to London, and was present at 

 the christening of the Prince of Wales, the 

 Prussian monarch being the royal sponsor. 

 He was received with enthusiasm, and feted 

 all over the country. With the exception of 

 a flying visit to Copenhagen in 1845, this 

 was, we believe, the last journey undertaken 

 by the great traveller. 



THE 1A.ST GBEAT WOEK, THE " COSMOS." 



The evening of life had come — slowly, 

 indeed, but surely — upon him. Calmly phi- 

 losophical and happy, witli a mind full of 

 shadowy pictures of the beauties of the natu- 

 ral world, with a still greater love for Grod's 

 earth, a still fonder appreciation of its won- 

 ders, when he might momently be called to 

 quit it for ever, the wise and good old man 

 determined to undertake a colossal enter- 

 prise ; one fit, we might suppose, rather for 

 the fire and energy of youth, than for the 

 flagging hand and pausing brain of old age. 

 But Humboldt was one of those perpetual 

 workers who must work or not exist, to 

 whom alone the grave brings rest when it 

 reduces the quick hand to stillness and the 

 busy brain to dust. He thought with Drydon, 



• A setting sun 



Should leave a track of glory in the skies." 



And the track of glory which he left is his 

 monumental work, the " Cosmos." 



In his "Pictures of Nature" {Anischten 

 de Natur), he had from time to time culled 

 choice experiences from his voyages ; in the 

 " Cosmos " he determined to' pass in review 

 the whole sum and substance of what wo 

 human creatures know of heaven and earth 

 — that is, of physical, not of spiritual, know- 

 ledge. He has attempted the seemingly 

 contradictory task of being scientific and 

 picturesque — hard, dry, and full of details, 

 and yet light, amusing, and instructive. He 

 has wedded the exactness of a carpenter's 

 rule to the glowing description of the pen of 

 a poet, and in this he has generally suc- 

 ceeded. By his " Cosmos " he is more uni- 

 versally known than by any other book. He 

 himself has told us that he regards it " as a 

 work offered to the German public, in the 

 evening of an active life, the plan of which 

 had been present in his mind, in faint out- 

 line, for more than half a century." 



It is impossible for us here to give a 

 description of the work. The time it took in 

 publication will show its vastness. The first 

 volume of the German edition appeared in 

 April, 1845, and the fourth, thirteen years 

 afterwards, in 1858. A translation by seve- 

 ral scientific gentlemen, amongst whom 

 General Sabine may be mentioned, of the 

 first two parts, has appeared in London. 

 The whole work has not, we beheve, been 

 translated, or at least published. The 

 "Cosmos" is the one work of the great 

 man which will carry him down to poste- 

 rity ; it is the Iliad of this modern Homer, 

 the old man eloquent as the poet, but hap- 

 pily not blind ; the ^neid of the new Virgil. 

 " Who else," cries one of his critics, " could 

 have achieved, who but he could have at- 

 tempted, the Atlantean service ? Spread his 

 'Cosmos' before a young and ardent mind, 

 which has just accomplished its liberal nur- 



