KESIDENCE AT BERLIN TO THE REVOLUTION OF JULY. 95 



by Valenciennes, who had been his travelling companion in 

 the year 1818, and alighted at the ' Stadt Kom.' ! During this 

 preliminary visit of six weeks, the town gossip was busy with 

 ascribing motives for his return. By some it was attributed 

 to a ministerial appointment, probably as Minister for Public 

 Instruction, since that post was, as we may remember, pressed 

 upon him with much urgency in 1810; with greater truth 

 it was by others attributed to pecuniary embarrassment, and 

 they at once saw him installed in the lucrative and honour- 

 able position of President of the Academy of Sciences, as Leib- 

 nitz had been before him. Varnhagen, to whom we are indebted 

 for the preservation of these surmises, subjoins the following 

 comment : ' It is quite impossible that he himself can have any 

 such wish ; Paris is the right place for him, and he will be sure 

 to return thither : as most people can there lay out money to 



boldt. You must already have completed the publication of the works 

 which you believed could only be accomplished satisfactorily in Paris. I 

 cannot therefore grant you permission to remain longer in a country which 

 ought to be an object of hatred to every true Prussian. I expect therefore 

 that you will return to your native land as soon as possible. Your well- 

 affectioned Sovereign, FREDERICK WILLIAM.' Although Ilerr Duncker 

 and Ilerr Riedel have obligingly searched through the private archives, no 

 reference has been discovered to any such letter. In regard to other 

 matters, we do not feel called upon to pay any attention to the unsupported 

 statements contained in that anonymous compilation. 



1 This brief notice is one among many of a similar character written by 

 Humboldt during the latter years of his life in a fragmentary manner upon 

 separate scraps of paper. They bear the inscription, ' Chronological order 

 of the events of my life,' and commence with these introductory words : ' I 

 do not undertake to write a description of my eventful life, since that is a 

 work for which even I lack the necessary material, and for which I have 

 never felt the smallest inclination. The object of these pages is restricted 

 to a mere chronological record of those trivial occurrences in which the 

 public have shown some interest, and which have not unfrequ en tly been mis- 

 dated and misrepresented. The inner life of a man is undoubtedly affected 

 in a great variety of ways by outward events, but the heart's susceptibility, 

 from which springs the veritable life, is the product of the varied character 

 of the relationships surrounding him.' A brief account of his youth up to 

 his sojourn at Gottingen follows, to which is added a list of dates without 

 order or arrangement. He seems to have been intent on rewriting the 

 biographical article in the l Gegenwart,' already mentioned, which had been 

 proposed to him, as appears from the remark, 'Brockhaus, p. 10, alles bene/ 

 It is to be regretted that death prevented the completion of these remini- 

 scences, which, though now almost illegible, afford some interesting data. 



