60 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



Germans, whether resident in Paris or occasional visitors. The 

 patronage he accorded to his countrymen of distinction is 

 manifest by his attendance when past the age of sixty upon 

 the lectures on ancient and modern Greek delivered in Paris 

 by Professor Haase, of Breslau, and by obtaining for Klaproth, 

 the well-known Chinese scholar, from whom he received in- 

 struction in the Asiatic languages, a grant of 40,000 francs 

 from the court of Berlin, in aid of the publication of his works 

 on Chinese. 



Humboldt often introduced his fellow-countrymen to the 

 statesmen and men of distinction with whom he had made 

 acquaintance at Paris, and ever showed himself ready to 

 furnish them with counsel and assistance. To Olbers, the 

 celebrated physician and astronomer, who visited Paris in 1811 

 as a delegate from Bremen, he displayed great hospitality, 

 and procured for him numerous invitations. When the 

 distinguished lawyer, Eduard Grans, 1 to whom reference has 

 been frequently made in these pages, paid a visit to Paris 

 in 1825, he at once sought out Humboldt, to whom he had 

 letters of recommendation from Prince Wittgenstein and the 

 minister Von Altenstein, and by whom he was introduced to 

 Cuvier, Grerard, and others. Grans remarks : ' This eminent 

 man seemed only to value his world-wide celebrity for the power 

 it gave him in assisting his fellow-countrymen and in guiding 

 them in the choice of their sphere of labour. Never has so 

 deep and comprehensive an acquaintance with science been 

 united to so much kind feeling and readiness to devote time 

 and attention to the advantage of others, as in the case of this 

 illustrious philosopher, who, in addition, possessed that intimate 

 knowledge of everything lying beyond the ordinary range of 

 science which seems possible only to the Grerman mind.' 



For zealous students of science Humboldt had always a 

 ready welcome. From many among his compatriots have we 

 heard the recital of their first introduction to him, and of 

 the inalienable regard which they formed for him even in the 

 early stages of their intercourse. 



Heinrich Berghaus, who accompanied the allied armies on 

 their second entrance into Paris in 1815, eagerly sought an 

 1 Gans, Euckblicke auf Personen und Zustiinde ' (Berlin, 1836), p. 4. 



