108 ALEXANDEK VON HUMBOLDT. 



tellectual giant could play with it as he pleased, and could 

 turn and twist it in such a manner as to make it an oppor- 

 tunity for the display of penetration, wit, irony, worldly wisdom, 

 memory, and versatile genius, in which there not unfrequently 

 mingled a little spite along with his knavish bonhomie. 1 Of 

 the consummate tact with which he was able to adapt himself 

 to the habits of society at Berlin, as he had formerly to the 

 social customs of Paris, we have the testimony of a writer still 

 living who enjoyed his personal friendship; 1 to this evidence 

 we shall subsequently have occasion to refer, when discussing 

 the character of our hero. It is almost needless to remark, 

 that Humboldt was the honoured guest at all public entertain- 

 ments ; and on such occasions during the spring and summer 

 of 1827, shortly after his arrival at Berlin, he was frequently 

 thrown into the society of August Wilhelm Schlegel a circum- 

 stance of some significance, since from this intercourse he de- 

 rived the final incitement to the celebrated lectures on physical 

 geography which laid the foundation of ' Cosmos,' and to which 

 we now propose to direct our attention. 



It is undoubtedly to the Romantic School if we set aside 

 the isolated efforts of Moritz in Berlin in 1789 2 that Germany 

 is indebted for the attempt to popularise science by means of 

 lectures, in which the highest intellectual subjects are brought 

 before the consideration of an educated public. It was at the 

 commencement of this century between the years 1801 and 

 1804 that August Wilhelm von Schlegel ventured at Berlin, 

 the centre of popular enlightenment, to propound by means of 

 lectures the aesthetic doctrines of the new school, including 

 critical discussions upon the art of poetry. He was succeeded 

 by Fichte, who, in the winter of 1804-5, delivered a powerful 

 and animating course of lectures upon the ethics of politics un- 

 der the title of c The Characteristics of the present Age,' and 

 followed up the subject in the winter of 1807-8 by a concluding 

 series, ' Discourses to the German Nation.' The sermons de- 

 livered by Schleiermacher during the next few years, charac- 

 terised as they were by a tone of sublime philosophy, might 

 almost be regarded as a further elaboration and completion of 



1 H. W. Dove, ' Gedachtnissrede auf Alexander von Humboldt/ pp. 9-12. 



2 See vol. i. p. 60 of this work. 



