84 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



upon his studies, his mode of thought, and the formation of 

 his extensive scheme of life-long activity. In George Forster 

 we have, in a certain sense, the prototype of Alexander von 

 Humboldt. 



George Forster, thirty-six years of age at the time of his in- 

 troduction to Humboldt, and therefore his senior by only fifteen 

 years, had already circumnavigated the globe as one of the ex- 

 pedition that accompanied Cook in his second voyage, and the 

 masterly narrative he soon after published had justly raised him 

 to fame. He had studied various branches of natural science, 

 including physics and chemistry, he excelled as a draughtsman 

 of plants and animals, he possessed an extensive acquaintance 

 with philosophy, literature, and the fine arts, and had devoted 

 himself enthusiastically to the study of geography, history, and 

 politics ; he wrote Latin and understood Greek, and he spoke 

 and wrote with facility both French and English, he could read 

 Dutch and Italian, and was to some extent acquainted with the 

 Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Eussian, and. Polish languages. 

 To these acquirements he united a disposition at once amiable 

 and modest, which rendered him an agreeable as well as intel- 

 lectual companion. Forster was a master in the art of por- 

 traying nature, his descriptions are such as to charm the artist 

 no less than to instruct the enquirer, and while elevating by 

 their poetic flights, enchanting by their picturesque adornment, 

 they yet bring before the mind of the reader only the simple 

 truth. But the delight with which his unrivalled books of 

 travel can even now be read arises not so much from the extent 

 of the information he displays upon the subjects he treats of, 

 nor from the charm of the artistic colouring in which he por- 

 trays them, as from the intense human sympathy manifested 

 throughout a sympathy which led him always to select man, 

 his condition, manners, and circumstances of life, as the chief 

 object of his attention, which taught him to look with tender 

 and loving interest beyond the feathers and the tattooing to 

 the man himself, and enabled him under every form and in 

 every position to acknowledge the right of reason. 



At the close of an age characterised by a spirit of piracy and 

 self-seeking which had even left its impress upon the grandest 

 geographical discoveries of the century, Forster was the first to 



. 

 - 



