CONTINENTAL PATRONAGE. S4.9 



the reigning family to science and literature is well 

 known ; and has spread its vivifying influence to the 

 institutions and the philosophers of that kingdom. 

 Not to mention the celebrated Humboldt, who has 

 been loaded with honorary and pecuniary rewards, 

 and Lichtenstein, the learned and accomplished tra- 

 veller and naturalist, a long list might be given of 

 other names, celebrated in different departments of 

 science, who repose in the sunshine of royal favour, 

 and are enabled to devote themselves, " in learned 

 leisure," to the investigation of abstract truth. It 

 is a fact well known, that, at " the congress of 

 German naturalists and philosophers, which took 

 place at Berlin in 1828, the attachment of the King 

 and of the royal family of Prussia to the sciences 

 was most strikingly displayed. On the evening of 

 the first day of the meeting, Baron Humboldt, the 

 celebrated traveller, and chamberlain to the King, 

 gave a large soiree in the concert-room attached to 

 the theatre. Nearly twelve hundred persons of rank 

 and talent were assembled on this occasion ; and the 

 King of Prussia himself honoured this illustrious 

 assembly with his presence. Several princes of 

 foreign states, the Prussian nobility, and the foreign 

 ambassadors, were also present. The princes of the 

 blood mingled with the cultivators of science, and 

 the heir-apparent to the Prussian throne was seen 

 in earnest conversation with the philosophers of his 

 own or other kingdoms that were most celebrated for 

 their talents and their genius." * Science in all its 



* When Hogarth, indignant at the apathy of our court 

 towards artists and the arts, dedicated his celebrated print of 



