OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 235 



deprived of the use of my eyes, so that I had to rely upon the hand of 

 a friend to make a few memoranda on a slip of paper, which might 

 enable me to present my thoughts in a somewhat regular order. But 

 I have, since the day we heard of his death, recalled all my recollec- 

 tions of him ; and, if you will permit me, I will present them to you 

 as they are now vividly in my mind. 



" Humboldt — Alexander von Humboldt as he always called 

 himself, though he was christened with the names of Frederick 

 Heinricii Alexander — was born in 1769, on the 14th of Septem- 

 ber, — in that memorable year which gave to the world those philoso- 

 phers, warriors, and statesmen who have changed the face of Science 

 and the condition of affairs in our century. It was in that year that 

 Cuvier and Chateaubriand were also born ; and among the warriors 

 and statesmen, Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington are children 

 of 17 CD ; and it is certainly a year of which we can say that its 

 children have revolutionized the world. Of the early life of Humboldt 

 I know nothing ; and I find no records, except that in his tenth year 

 he lost his father, who had been a major in the army during the Seven 

 Years' "War, and afterwards a chamberlain to the King of Prussia. 

 But his mother took excellent care of him, and watched over his early 

 education. The influence she had upon his life is evident from the 

 fact, that, notwithstanding his yearning for the sight of foreign lands, 

 he did not begin to make active preparations for his travels during her 

 lifetime. In the winter of 1787-88, he was sent to the University of 

 Frankfort on the Oder, to study finances. He was to be a statesman ; 

 he was to enter high offices, for which there was a fair chance, owing 

 to his noble birth and the patronage he could expect at the court. He 

 remained, however, but a short time there. 



" Not finding those studies to his taste, after a semester's residence in 

 the University, we find him again at Berlin, and there in intimate 

 friendship with "Wildenow, then Professor of Botany, and who at that 

 time possessed the greatest herbarium in existence. Botany was the 

 first branch of natural science to which Humboldt paid especial atten- 

 tion. The next year he went to Gottingen, being then a youth of 

 twenty years ; and here he studied Natural History with Blumenbach, 

 and thus had an opportunity of seeing the progress Zoology was mak- 

 ing in anticipation of the great movement by which Cuvier placed that 

 science on a new foundation. For it is an unquestionable fact, that in 

 first presenting a classification of the animal kiogdom based upon a 



