J02 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



endeavouring to investigate the causes of his supposed disgrace. 1 

 The fact that Humboldt, on this occasion, did not accompany 

 the king to the baths at Teplitz was erroneously attributed to 

 some such cause. 



Certainly Humboldt had no lack of enemies amid the sur- 

 roundings of the court. Among the most prominent of these 

 was Ancillon, who, when tutor to the Crown Prince, had viewed 

 with jealousy the attraction early evinced in his lively young- 

 pupil for the society of one whose vast treasures of knowledge 

 were stored in a mind of such comprehensive grasp. He justly 

 dreaded the revelation of his own superficial education, which 

 he artfully concealed under a meaningless flow of words, and 

 the discovery of the shallowness of his views in regard to the 

 momentous questions of theology, moral philosophy, history, 

 and politics. He hated both the Humboldts with great 

 cordiality, but the especial object of his aversion was Alex- 

 ander, whom he was accustomed to designate ' the Encyclo- 

 paedic Cat.' 2 It can be no matter of surprise, either, that 

 Von Kamptz, one of the Ministers of State, should have 

 regarded Humboldt with suspicious hatred, as a ' revolutionist 

 in court favour.' These unfriendly influences produced but 

 little effect upon the crown prince and none whatever on the 

 king, who would not allow the smallest restriction to be placed 

 upon the position of useful activity which he had from the first 

 assigned to Humboldt. He was, in August, nominated by 

 Frederick William president of a commission for investigating 

 the claims of the petitions for relief, addressed by artists and 

 men of science an office in which he was associated with 

 Schinkel, Eauch, and Schadow. 



Humboldt, in fact, lost no time in availing himself of his 

 position for administering help and patronage to those who 

 needed it. He at once obtained a pension of 4,000 francs for 

 Koreff in Paris, and in this first effort experienced the annoy- 

 ance, of which he afterwards so frequently complained, arising 

 from the dilatoriness of Altenstein, the Minister of Public 



1 For this and all similar statements it will be understood that Yarn- 

 hagen is our authority. See several places in ' Blatter aus der preussischen 

 Geschichte,' vols. iv. and v. 



2 Varnhagen, ' Tagebiicher/ vol. i. p. 52. 



