204 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



Gottingen,' by Carriere and others. It has been already re- 

 marked how much he enjoyed these days of personal inter- 

 course with Gauss ; his host on this occasion was Wilhelm 

 Weber, of whose ' touching self-sacrifice ' Humboldt speaks 

 with gratitude. With his old love of learning he found time in 

 the midst of the festivities to visit the library, and write out 

 for Dove an important passage from the travels of Churruca 

 upon the changes of the wind in the southern hemisphere. 

 ' The passage,' he adds, ' has remained in my memory since I 

 first read it in 1797,' an interval of forty years ! 



From Gottingen Humboldt went in the month of September 

 for two days to Hanover, where, besides visits of state to 

 6 ministers, ambassadors, and court officials,' he sought an ii}.- 

 terview with Miss Caroline Herschel, whom he described as 

 4 intelligent and cheerful as ever ; ' and with the same freedom 

 that he had formerly enjoyed with the viceroy, ' the good and 

 amiable Duke of Cambridge,' he conversed with the king, 

 Ernest Augustus, upon the value and influence of the University. 

 This obstinate monarch, who was even then preparing the decree 

 by which the rights of the people were to be abrogated, and by 

 which he was to make himself hated and despised both by his 

 contemporaries and posterity, accorded to Humboldt a gracious 

 reception, and gave him audience for an hour. He professed 

 himself delighted with all he had seen at Gottingen, ' a finer 

 set of young men had never come before him.' In his political 

 sentiments he appeared to Humboldt to betray a mixture of 

 fear and anger. 1 Scarcely two months afterwards followed the 

 protest of the seven professors of Gottingen, which resulted 

 within a month in their world-famous expulsion. 2 The im- 

 portant moral bearing of these events seems to justify us in 

 furnishing copious extracts from Humboldt's letters, illustrating 

 his position with regard to this affair. The most distressing 

 circumstance to him, from its probable effect on the interests 

 of science, was the threatened interruption to the joint labours 

 of Gauss and Weber, as the latter, though not expelled the 



' Briefe an Varnhagen/ No. 31 j and various letters to Gauss. 

 2 [The seven professors of Gottingen were expelled the University by 

 King Ernest Augustus in consequence of their vehement protest against his 

 abrogation of the Constitution granted by William IV. in 1833.] 



