230 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



It must not be viewed altogether as a want of right feeling, 

 or as ingratitude towards his sovereign, that on the imminent 

 approach of the death of King Frederick William III., 1 Hum- 

 "boldt should have secretly regarded that event with hopeful 

 anticipation. Such an anticipation was not, indeed, entirely 

 of a selfish character, for he was too well acquainted with the 

 crown prince not to expect that his accession would bring him 

 increased, if not incessant interruptions. During the summer 

 of 1839, Humboldt had derived great benefit from his quiet 

 stay at Paretz, ' in the peaceful retirement of the land of the 

 Havel,' after his usually remarkably robust health had been 

 completely upset by the first of a long series of attacks of 

 influenza, -< that senseless definition of a pathologic X!' It 

 was far more the hope of forwarding the interests of science, to 

 which he might lend assistance by his counsel and direction, 

 that led him > "to look forward with pleasure to the accession 

 of a prince upon whom not merely Jiis hopes, but those of all 

 Germany, one might say of all Europe, were fixed, anticipating 

 for Prussia a period of glory similar to that she had enjoyed a 

 century before. That Prussia needed such a regeneration was 

 not to be denied. -.It was reserved to Bishop Eylert, the 

 court chaplain, to discover that, in addition to incontrovertible 

 virtues, Frederick William III. possessed ' a clear cosmopolitan 

 view of men and things : ' by the bishop's own confession, 

 however, these views 'were unquestionably to be ascribed to 

 Alexander von Humboldt, and that not by direct influence, but 

 indirectly through opportune conversations.' ' His aim,' con- 

 tinues the good bishop, c had not been to make the king tolerant 

 and popular ; this he was already by natural disposition. To 

 the king it had become a necessity to hold daily converse with 

 this man of noble spirit and childlike simplicity, before whom 

 a large portion of the world had passed under personal observa- 

 tion, and from whom he received with ever-renewed pleasure 

 a flow of instructive conversation upon the scientific and poli- 

 tical topics of the day. Humboldt, who during his long life 

 had ever been devoted to the close observation of nature, both 

 in a practical and theoretic point of view, was accustomed to 



1 In a letter to Jacob! of August 21, 1840. 



