MEMOIR OF nEINRICH LEBEllECHT FLEISCEIER.* 



By Prop. A. Muller, Ph. D, 



Translated by Miss HEXRiETfA fSzoi.D. 



Were it desirable to single out the rarest ami most admirable among 

 the many fine qualities of the great aud good scholar to whose memory 

 these lines are devoted, 1 should not hesitate to name the perfect self- 

 denial which at all times prompted him to place his unparallelled attaiu- 

 ments at the disposal of others. Among German orientalists (if Assyrio- 

 logists be excepted), few will be found who have not profited by his un- 

 selfishness ; and abroad likewise there are many who are similarly in- 

 debted. We all knew where to seek when our meager stores were on the 

 jjointof giviug out, and we stood in need of the gifts with which his treas- 

 ure-houses were abundantly filled. In dispensing these to great and small, 

 he was untiring, generous, and impartial as God's sun which shines 

 upon the just and the unjust alike. More than a year has passed since 

 his hand has grown numb and his eye dim, but where do they linger 

 who should have hastened to his grave, and wreathed with tributes of 

 gratitude the hillock which nature, slow though her processes are, has 

 twice decked svith fresh verdure? I blame, I accuse no one. Many a 

 shrinking soul hides its gratitude in reverential silence rather than pa- 

 rade fine and tender feelings in the market-place. Doubtless there are 

 others who reluctantly find themselves forced by the cares of existence, 

 by daily new burthensome tasks, to deny themselves the fulfillment of a 

 warmly cherished desire. And most probably there are still others, 

 here and there, who, like the writer of these words, are even now, after 

 unavoidable delay, on the point of paying the long-planned tribute of 

 l)iety. Nevertheless it remains a sad fact that, with the exception of 

 the somewhat business-like though not unsympathetic announcements 

 of the French Institute and of the Bavarian Academy, the brief remarks, 

 accompanying an excellent portrait of Fleischer in the Leipzig Illustrirte 

 Zeitung, an article in the Neiv Yoric Times, and a barren notice in the 

 London Athenanim, only two attempts have up to this time been made 

 to give adequate and becoming treatment to the work of this distin- 

 guished scholar : Thorbecke's sketch in the Journal of the German 



• From IJezzenberger's BeitriUje zur Kuride der indogermaninchen Sprachen, Gottingen, 

 1889, vol. XV, pp. 319-337. 



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