278 Mr Johnston's Reply to Professor Muncke. 



Germany may continue to attract the attention, and to enjoy 

 the henefit of knowledge, of the learned men of other nations, 

 and that science may cement the union which commercial in- 

 tercourse had originated, and paved the way for amongst na- 

 tions. May the language of the Germans also become more 

 and more familiar to foreigners, to enable them to obtain cor- 

 rect and unprejudiced information themselves, as well in a so- 

 cial as in a scientific point of view. 



Heidelberg, June 1831. 



Art. XV — Observations on Professor Muncke's Remarks 

 on Mr Johnston's Account of the Meeting at Hamburgh. 

 In a Letter to the Editor from Mr Johnston. 



My Dear Sir, 

 I have to thank you for your kindness in allowing me to per- 

 use Professor Muncke's remarks on my Account of the Meeting 

 of the German Naturalists at Hamburgh, before they were sent 

 to press. Permit me to add a very few notes by way of reply. 



Professor Muncke is a person of some note, an amiable man, 

 I believe, and one that I was prepared to esteem. I had not 

 the pleasure of forming his acquaintance at Hamburgh, for a 

 mere introduction, followed by the occasional interchange of a 

 sentence during the several days of meeting, cannot be called 

 such ; but I shall not soon forget his animated manner when in 

 his travelling dress he entered the Stadthaus on the morning of 

 the first day of meeting, and found himself among so many 

 assembled Naturforscher. I at once set him down as an en- 

 thusiastic man, and in such men I have generally found some- 

 thing worthy of esteem and admiration. 



It is therefore gratifying to me to learn from Professor 

 Muncke that my account, " on the whole, is a true and correct 

 one," even when he takes up his pen deliberately to point out 

 my errors. I have gone wrong, he says, from one or all of three 

 causes, from prejudice, from misconception, or from want of 

 good information. From wilful error or misrepresentation he 

 acquits me therefore, and so far he does me only justice. 



Whoever has honoured me by the perusal of my account of 

 the meeting at Hamburgh, will bear me out in saying, that it 



