Mr Johnston's Reply to Professor Muncke. 281 



of Dr Pricke," who had been named secretary to the meeting. 

 I mixed much among all classes of the Naturforscher while at 

 Hamburgh, and made more new acquaintances perhaps than any 

 other stranger at the meeting ; and my persuasion is, that the 

 choice gave general dissatisfaction, and was therefore unfortunate. 

 He must have been particularly kind to Professor Muncke to 

 have gained so far upon his good graces. And if the selection 

 was so generally acceptable, what may Dr Muncke mean when 

 he says, (p. 275,) " the association will find it no easy task in 

 future to obtain proper men ready to occupy the intricate of- 

 fice of secretary, should, — as has been the case in Hamburgh, 

 — many of the congregated members exact to see their often 

 but too contradictory and unreasonable pretensions attended to." 

 Of course it cannot mean any thing inconsistent with what he 

 lias elsewhere said. 



I am particularly grateful for the correction in the spelling 

 of the word Borsen. On referring to my note book, I find it is 

 not an error of the press but a defect of knowledge in myself. 

 It shows how diffusive is the Doctor's philanthropy when he 

 has been at the trouble to write all the way from Heidelberg to 

 inform me of my error. 



There is little else to which I need advert. Dr Muncke is 

 offended at the two anecdotes I have inserted in illustration of 

 the arbitrary spirit of the German governments. Me says they 

 were not considered sufficiently well founded to be introduced 

 into the breakfast journals of Germany. And yet he tells us 

 that the two circumstances actually took place, the one in 1820, 

 the other in 1828, when he was himself in Vienna ! Does 

 he really wish us to believe that every thing well founded 

 finds its way either into the breakfast or dinner journals in 

 Germany. The very exclusion of such anecdotes, which 

 spread from north to south nevertheless, is just a proof of 

 what I stated, that the governments arc suspicious and arbi- 

 trary. Did Professor Muncke of Heidelberg, in the course of 

 his travels, ever hear of such a tiling as a censorship of the 

 press ? We have not now to learn, however plausibly he may talk 

 the matter over to us, that in his fatherland the republic of let- 

 ters is a mere name. And then as to the foundation of these 

 two anecdotes, the one I had, among other persons, from a di- 



