162 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



Karl August soon fulfilled the prophetic words of Wieland to 

 Jacob! : ' If Heaven only grant life to our young prince and to 

 the excellent friends by whom he is surrounded, we shall in 

 a few years have a little court here worthy of being visited from 

 all parts of the world.' With Goethe's arrival at the court 

 of Karl August in November 1775, began the halcyon days of 

 Weimar's celebrity. Votaries of every branch of the arts and 

 sciences were welcome guests at the court, and every friend 

 of the Muses was certain of a cordial reception. 6 Bethlehem of 

 Judah is not deserted, the wise men visit it,' writes Herder to 

 Knebel, on September 11, 1784. 



While classical poetry was being cultivated at Weimar to its 

 highest stage of development, a fresh interest in scientific 

 inquiry was simultaneously awakened in the neighbouring 

 town of Jena. It is undoubtedly to the genius of Schiller, 

 who, since 1789, had occupied the chair of history at the 

 University, that the revolution of thought in Germany, ema- 

 nating from Jena, is mainly to be ascribed. 



In this position of influence Weimar and Jena stood alone 

 during the last decade of the past century. Even Berlin, when 

 exercising so wide and important an influence in later years, 

 never possessed the charm, nor attained the height of intellec- 

 tual power and activity, which at that time animated all hearts 

 and minds in Weimar and Jena. The eminent men of Berlin 

 had in almost all periods of her history stood in intellectual isola- 

 tion ; no social intercourse had ever existed whereby to bridge 

 the chilling separation. A striking contrast was afforded by 

 the mode of life at Weimar. The prince and the scholar, the 

 poet and the statesman, lived there one common existence, 

 mutually stimulating to intellectual activity. And the result 

 of this activity was no tender hot-house plant, fostered only in 

 princely circles ; it flourished equally in the study of the 

 scholar, the garret of the thoughtful poet, and in the boudoir 

 of gifted and cultivated women. Weimar and Jena consti- 

 tuted one intellectual family. When poetry, with weary wing, 

 could no longer soar at Weimar to her accustomed heights, 

 science at Jena would be fired by a fresh impulse ; and when 

 the formalities of university life exercised too contracting an 



