COLLEGE LIFE. 97 



matician attracted to the Academy the attendance of young" 

 men destined for a political career. 



That a number of foreigners availed themselves of the ad- 

 vantages afforded by this institution at Hamburg is apparent 

 from the fact, that of the 159 students who received instruction 

 at the Academy between the years 1767 and 1778, nearly half 

 that number were from foreign parts, and included 25 English- 

 men, 6 Frenchmen, 3 Danes, 4 Dutchmen, 2 Italians, 8 

 Eussians, 6 Swedes, 14 Scotchmen, 2 Poles, 2 Portuguese, 3 

 Spaniards, 1 Norwegian, and 1 American a proportion which 

 has since increased year by year. 



The concourse of so many youths from all parts of Europe 

 furnished, in the words of Humboldt. a most favourable oppor- 

 tunity for learning in the best possible way the various living- 

 languages. With the object apparently of acquiring greater 

 fluency in English, Humboldt shared his lodgings with a 

 young Englishman, John Grill, whom he afterwards met at 

 Barcelona in 1798, at that time a wealthy partner in- the still 

 prosperous mercantile house of that name. After the lapse 

 of more than half a century, he still remembered this friend 

 of his youth, and testified his gratitude for the hospitable 

 reception he had received from him at Barcelona by the noble 

 sympathy he tendered to one of the family who met his death at 

 Berlin in 1848. Among other fellow-students of Humboldt 

 were Speckter, the father of Otto Speckter, well known by his 

 illustrations of Key's fables ; Wattenbach, the father of the 

 distinguished historian of Heidelberg ; Maclean, whose name 

 became of the highest repute among the merchants of Dantzic ; 

 Bothling, a wealthy Russian from St. Petersburg, possessing a 

 yearly income of 40,000 rubles, who at one time shared the same 

 room with Humboldt, and who subsequently was desirous of 

 accompanying him on his projected extensive journey. 



A passage in a letter to Sommering of January 28, 1791, 

 furnishes the best insight into his studies and mode of life at 

 Hamburg : ' ... I am contented with my mode of life at 

 Hamburg, but not happy, less happy even than at Grottingen, 

 where the monotony of my existence was relieved by the 

 society of one or two friends and the vicinity of some moss- 

 grown mountains. I am, however, always contented, when I feel 



VOL. I. H 



