OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : MAY 29, 1856. 107 



dropped its benefactions in look, word, and deed all along his life-path, 



— in these and other like traits he realized to many, with more fulness 

 than they can readily recall it elsewhere, the ideal of a Christian gen- 

 tleman. And it was his happiness and ours that he died, though full 

 of years, before the infirmities of old age had impaired either his ca- 

 pacity of enjoyment, or — what would have been to him the same thing 



— the power of active beneficence. " Felix, non vitce tantum claritate, 

 sed etiam opportunitate mortis." 



Charles Beck, late Vice-President of the Academy, died in Cam- 

 bridge, March 19, 1866, after an illness of only three hours. He 

 was the son of a merchant, and was born at Heidelberg on the 19 th of 

 August, 1798. His mother afterwards marrying for her second hus- 

 band Professor De "Wette, the family moved to Berlin in the year 1810, 

 when De Wette, then about thirty years old, and already widely known 

 as a theologian, was called to a chair in the new University. 



The boyhood and early youth of Dr. Beck were passed partly in 

 Carlsruhe and partly in Berlin, in which latter place he enjoyed un- 

 usual advantages. He was a pupil in the Werder Gymnasium, where, 

 among other instructors, he had the elder Zumpt : his step-father's liter- 

 ary and social position gave him an opportunity of seeing and hearing 

 the gifted men in whom Berlin then abounded ; and the events of the 

 War of Liberation, going on before his eyes, awakened in him a spirit of 

 patriotic fervor which never died out, and which made his example and 

 influence of great worth in after days to his adopted country. Indeed, 

 the chances of war made his home at times unsafe for women and chil- 

 dren : on one occasion it was thought best for his mother to leave town, 

 and as she travelled with her son they listened all day to the roar of 

 Napoleon's guns. The day after the battle of Grossbeeren, not far from 

 Berlin, August 23, 1813, he visited the battle-field, and was vividly 

 impressed with the dreadful reality of the contest in which his country 

 was engaged. He was one of the patriotic pupils in the Gymnastic 

 School of Jahn, established near Berlin in 1811 : he belonged also to 

 the Band of Virtue, an association which embraced the flower of the 

 German youth, and to the Burschenschaft. 



The lessons of this period were not lost upon young Beck. His 

 well-knit frame was made strong and supple by the manly exercises for 

 which he retained a love all his life. His mind, naturally of a hardy 

 mould, acquired great force and a set determination. With the 

 shrewdest practical judgment, with the soundest common sense, he 

 was always ready to sacrifice everything to his ideas of right. 



