NIEBUHR, BARTHOLD GEORGE. 



NIEMCEWICZ, JULIAN URSIK. 



had got together a man of statistical information relative to the 

 modern states of Europe, wliich would have eufliccd of itself to gain 

 a repuUtion for any man ; tlicro was hardly a stray hint in the whole 

 aria of classical writen which liad escaped his searching eye, and the 

 whole of hi* knowledge l*y before him ao ai to be comprehended at 

 one glance. In the words of one of hii most ardent admirers, ' While 

 his horizon was ever widening before him, it nev< r souk out of sight 

 behind him ; what he poatesaed ho always retained : what he once 

 knew became a part of his mind, and the means and instrument of 

 acquiring more knowledge ; and he is one of the very few examples of 

 men gifted with a memory so tenacious as to seem incapable of for- 

 getting anything, who at the came time have had an intellect so 

 vigorous as in no degree to be oppressed or enfeebled by the weight 

 of their learning, but who, on the contrary, have kept it in orderly 

 orray, and made it minister continually to the plastic energy of 

 thought." (' Philol. Mus.,' i. 271.) 



Some deductions must however be made from this general eulogy. 

 While Niebuhr'x great work has been neglected or censured, with equal 

 injustice, by persons who hare been too indolent to encounter the 

 labour of studying it or incapable of appreciating the method of criti- 

 cal investigation which the author bus adopted, it may be doubted, on 

 the other hand, whether many scholar.-*, both in Germany and England, 

 have not been too willing to acquiesce in all Niebuhr's results, to adopt 

 whatever he has written, and sometimes even to receive as established 

 truths assertions unsupported by evidence or directly opposed by 

 express testimonies. Some recent German writers have indeed taken 

 a middle course ; they adopt the general views and critical method of 

 the historian, but they find much in the details that is defective or 

 erroneous. This appears to us to be the true spirit in which Niebuhr's 

 work should be studied. The young students of Roman history should 

 he told that they will prove themselves worthy disciples of Niebuhr 

 rather by following his method than by assuming his results ; it must 

 be impressed upon them that the original authorities should in all 

 cases be carefully lifted and compared, snd that they cannot rely 

 implicitly on the authority of their master in cases where the theory 

 depends on philological interpretation. It cannot be denied that the 

 ardent imagination of Niebuhr, and his power of combining and con- 

 structing, sometimes led him to form a complete theory before he had 

 rxauiinrd all the evidence ; one consequence of which is, that, under 

 the influence of his own cr nt ions, he will sometimes extract a meaning 

 from a passage which the words do not contain, and at other times 

 arbitrarily reject cxidence when it interferes with his own hypothesis. 

 It is true that 'this Fame power and his intuitive sagacity have some- 

 times enabled him to supply a link in a chain when all direct evidence 

 was wanting, and the certainty of his conjectures in such cases is at 

 once felt by the symmetry and consistency which they impart to the 

 whole fabric of the theory. The writings of Savigny, the illustrious 

 friend of the hUtorian, also furnirh examples of the certainty which 

 historical conjecture may attain when it is founded on complete know- 

 hdge and dirccUd by a matured judgmeut. It must also be remarked 

 that Niebuhr's ft} IP is very faulty. It is generally deficient in perspi- 

 cuity, and thcuch eloquent passages and striking descriptions are found 

 here and there, it wants that sustained dignity which we remark in the 

 writings of some other distinguished historians. 



Considering the long time which Niebuhr spent in public life, it is 

 somewhat strange that he should not have been better acquainted than 

 he seems to hive been with the modern science of political economy ; 

 and he occasionally betrays very crude and ill-formed opinions on the 

 internal polity of other countries; witness his remarks on the relative 

 position of England and Ireland. But with all the drawbacks wliich 

 the most rigorous criticism can exact, the feeling with which we con- 

 template hix character and attainments is one of almost unmixed 

 admiration. He was in fact a rare combination of the man of business, 

 the icholar, and the man of genius. If he had had no other claim to 

 celebrity, he would have deserved to be mentioned among the general 

 liugui.-U whose attainments have from timo to time astonished the 

 world. His father, writing in December 1807, states that he was then 

 acquainted with twenty languages (' Lebensuachrichtcn,' i. 30), and 

 there is no doubt that he subsequently added to the list No man 

 baa ever borne bis faculties more meekly than Niebuhr. Though ho 

 had been trusted and honoured by a powerful sovereign, and rewarded 

 for public services in a situation of dignity and importance, and though 

 he was recognised as the chief of philologeri in the most learned 

 country of Europe, his habits were to the lost those of a retired 

 student, and bis manners those of an unassuming domestic man. A 

 vet/ plea-ing picture of his mode of living has been given by the late 

 Professor Sandford, who visited him at Bonn in 1829 (see ' Blackwood's 

 Magazine' for January 1838, p. 60, Ac.); a warm testimony to the 

 benevolence of his character and the goodnets of his heart is furnished 

 by Liebcr, in bis ' Reminiscences of Niebuhr ; ' and we see the whnlo 

 man, in all bis relations social, literary, and political in the highly- 

 interesting collection of his letters edited by Madame Hensler (' Lebons- 

 nacliricSten iiber Barthold Georg Niebuhr, aus I'.riifcn dcsselben,' Ac., 

 Hamburg, 1838, Ac., or even more completely in Mi-s Winkworth's 

 admirable translation of that work (with important additions and 

 valuable (seats by Bunnen, Ac.), 3 vols. 1852. 



The following is a list of Niebuhr's principal work* : 1. ' Rumiscbe 

 Geschichte,' 2 vols. 8vo, Berlin, 1811. Thia edition was translated 



into English by Mr. Walter, London, 1S27. '2. ' Frontonis Reliquiro, 

 ab A. Maio primum ediUe, notis variorum edidit B. 0. Nifbuln iu ; 

 accedunt C. AureL Symmachi octo Oratiouum Fragmenta.' Berol., 

 1816. 3. ' Cicero pro Fonteio et Rabirio,' 8vo, Rome, 1820. 4. ' Klavii 

 Merobaudia Carmina,' St. Qalli, 1823, 2nd edition, Bonnie. 1S24. 6. 

 'Ub'miscbo Oeschichte,' Erster Thcil, Berlin, lv.7; Xw. it.-r Tli.il, 

 Berlin, 1830 ; Dritter Theil (posthumous), 1 $32. The first two volumes 

 have been translated into English by J. C. Hare and ( \ir.imp Thirlwall, 

 1828 32. The third volume was translated by Dr. \V. Snath and Dr. 

 I.. Schmitz. Of this translation Niebuhr himself has expressed l.ia 

 opinion in dedicating his 'Byzantine Historians' to the translators 

 " quorum ope Historia mea Romana a Britannia prorsui ita ut earn 

 ammo concept patrioquo sermone conscrip-i legitur." C. 'Corpus 

 Scriptorum Historic Byzantium, editio emendatior et copiosior, cou- 

 silio B. O. Niebuhrii. C. F. instituta,' Ac., Bonnro, 1828. Of this 

 edition Niebuhr published the ' Agathias,' and joined with Bekker in 

 publishing ' Dexippus,' ' Eunapiua,' and other shorter histories, which 

 appeared together in one volume. 7. ' Kleine Historische und 1'hilolo- 

 gische Schriften, Ersto Sammlune,' Bonn, 1S28. This was the first 

 volume of a collection of his shorter essays, which had appeared in the 

 'Transactions of the Berlin Academy' or in the ' Rheiniacbea Museum;' 

 it also contained hii biography of his father and his introductory 

 lecture ou Roman history. Many of these treatises have been trans- 

 lated into English, some of them in the ' Classical Journal ' and the 

 ' Philological Museum.' The essays ' On the Geography of Herodotus ' 

 and ' On the Scythians ' have appeared in a separate form at Oxford. 



Besides these works, which he published in his own name, Niebuhr 

 has conferred a most important benefit on Roman jurisprudence by his 

 discovery of the fragments of Gains. [GAlus.] He was unable to stay 

 at Verona long enough to copy the manuscript himself, and as he says 

 in a letter to the widow lleusler (' Lebensnacbr.' ii. 240), was obliged 

 to content himself with the merit, which would eoon be forgotten, of 

 having made the discovery, not by accident, but after a diligent search. 

 Niebuhr interested himself very much iu the restoration of past-ages 

 from lost writings contained in palimpsest*, and in consequence became 

 involved iu a controversy with his rival discoverer, Mai, with regard 

 to some emendations which he had proposed iu certain fragments dis- 

 covered by Mai, which emendations were subsequently confirmed by a 

 manuscript at Turin. Mai charged Niebuhr witU having borrows I his 

 emendations from tlic manuscript, and it was not without difficulty 

 that Niebuhr prevailed upon the authorities at Rome to grant an 

 ' imprimatur ' to his justification. Niebuhr's ' Lectures on t!ie History 

 of Rome' have been published from notes made by his pupil-, in 

 German by Dr. Marcus Niebuhr and Dr. L. Schmitz, ami iu Kuglish 

 in 3 vols. Svo, 1848-62, under the editorship of Dr. L. Schmitz, and 

 another version by MM. Chepmell and Deumiler, 2 vols. 16mo, 1849; 

 and his ' Lectures on Ancient Ethnography and Geography,' also from 

 his pupils' notes, in German by Dr. Isler, and iu Knglish by Dr. L. 

 Schmitz, 2 vols., 1853. Some of his other courses of lectures havo 

 likewise been published from the notes of pupils. 



NIEMCIiVVICZ, JULIAN URSIN, on eminent Polish poet, drama- 

 tist, historian, and patriot, was born iu 17.'<7 at Skoki, iu tliu palatinate 

 of Brzesc in Lithuania. His name in l'.ili.-h is equivalent to ' Ger- 

 Euautou' in English, and his family was of course originally German : 

 but according to Niesiecki, whose ' Herbarz PoUki ' ia the groat 

 authority on Polish genealogies, it had beeu guttled iu Lithuania from 

 the commencement of the 16th century. At the time of the first 

 partition of Poland in 1 772, Niemcewicz was a boy of fifteen, pursuing 

 his studies at the institution for cadets iu Warsaw. At the age of 

 twenty he commenced military service in the Lithuanian army, as 

 adjutant to one of the Princes Czartoryski. Kosciuszko, who was one 

 year older than Niemcewicz, was au officer iu the same corps ; they 

 became intimate friends, and continued so till Kosciuszko's departure 

 from Europe to offer his services to the Americans in the war of 

 independence. A few years later Niemcewicz made an extended tour 

 to France, England, and Italy. Among his early poems occurs an 

 ' Ode on quitting England ' in 1787, iu which he expresses his regret at 

 leaving the " too beloved shores " of the " land of equality, happiness, 

 and freedom." In the next year he quitted the army with the rank 

 of major to enter on political duties as 'nuncio' or 'deputy' of 

 Livonia, at the Polish diet. It was a critical period in the annals of 

 Poland, when a daring effort was made by the patriotic party to arrest 

 the too obvious progress of the country to ruin and dismemberment. 

 The constitutional diet, which lasted from 1788 to 1792, did much to 

 arrest this progress, and Niemcewicz was one of its most conspicuous 

 members. In 1791 he commenced with his friend Mimtowi-ki, a 

 ' Castellan ' at the diet, and with Weyssenhoff, his colleague f ,r 

 Livonia, the publication of the 'Gazetn Narodowa i Obca,' or ' National 

 aud Foreign Gazette,' which had a marked influence on tho march of 

 affairs. In the same year bo had a principal hand in drawing up tho 

 constitution known as the 'Constitution of the Third of May,' which 

 on that day was presented by King Stanislaus I'ouiatowski to the diet 

 as emanating from himself, and accepted on the spot. By this consti- 

 tution the monarchy from elective became hereditary, and the oppres- 

 sive privileges of the nobility over the peasantry wero abolixhed. 

 It received the approbation of Fox and the warm panegyric of Hurke. 

 Niemcewicz had; at the same timo the most brilliant success in 

 endeavouring to reform the national political feelings by the drama. 



