164 ALEXANDEK VON HUMBOLDT. 



Boyhood's pleasures e'en were tinted 



With the longing felt within, 

 To enquire of Nature's secrets, 



And her confidence to win. 1 



Even in his earliest poetic effusions there are to be found 

 traces of his love for the contemplation of nature, and during 

 his residence at Strasburg, in 1770, he evinced a marked pre- 

 ference for the study of the natural sciences. He attended 

 lectures on chemistry and anatomy, was present at Loben stein's 

 clinical instruction given at the bedsides of his patients, and 

 he even attended a course upon midwifery. Soon after his 

 settlement at Weimar he was led by his official employment, in 

 the cultivation of land and the management of forests, to de- 

 vote himself to the science of botany, while almost at the same 

 time his attention was directed, by the influence of Merck, to 

 osteology and comparative anatomy. And, since the project 

 had been started for reworking the mines at Ilmenau, the 

 science of mineralogy had become the favourite and fashionable 

 study at Weimar. c Everyone,' says Bottiger, 2 ' was absorbed in 

 mineralogy, even the court ladies found a deep meaning in 

 stones, and arranged them in cabinets.' Groethe himself always 

 set a very high value on his scientific studies. ' I have,' he 

 relates in later years, ' devoted a great portion of my life to 

 the study of science, for which I early conceived a strong 

 passion. The results of my investigations were not attained by 

 a mere inspiration, but through quiet, persevering, and inde- 

 fatigable labour.' In his zeal for mineralogy c no mountain 

 was too high, no mine too deep, no passage too contracted, no 

 labyrinth too intricate.' . . . Bohemia and Carlsbad were 

 pre-eminent in the influence they exerted over his inquiring 



mind. 



To say what rapture through me thrilled, 

 To paint what joy my heart then filled, 



1 t Freudig war vor vielen Jahren 



Eifrig so der Geist bestrebt, 

 Zu erforschen, zu erfahren, 

 Wie Natur im Schaffen lebt/ 



2 ' Literarische Zustande und Zeitgenossen,' vol. i. p. 22. 



