FROM ACCESSION OF FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. TO 1848. 239 



to this wish increased until it assumed the attitude of defiance, 

 and it was fostered and strengthened by the conviction of his 

 own intellectual superiority. The stormy passions of revolu- 

 tion at length gained the victory over his proud spirit, and 

 from that moment he broke down utterly, both intellectually 

 and morally. His fate might have been viewed in the light of 

 a tragedy, had he before the final, catastrophe striven for his 

 political ideal with more principle and with less selfishness 

 and obstinacy, or else, when the storm had passed, had either 

 bowed before it as one conquered, or returned to the honour- 

 able conflict with renewed strength. Instead of this, he made 

 public concessions of that to which he was at heart opposed, 

 secretly maintaining the determination of gradually retracting 

 them one by one by underhand measures. Viewed in a moral 

 aspect, his reign thus became divided into two distinct por- 

 tions, widely separated the one from the other; prior to 1848, 

 the noble impulses of his nature are often prominent, though 

 in a listless manner carrying him hither and thither, with no 

 fixity of purpose ; after the Eevolution the darker side of his 

 character is brought to light, his vacillation assumes the form 

 of dissimulation, his inconstancy appears like untrustworthi- 

 ness, his kind and generous feelings are less and less brought 

 into active operation, while there is a more frequent ebullition 

 of uncontrolled passion. A nature like his can flourish only in 

 the sunshine of prosperity ; with the loss of enjoyment in his 

 various projects and schemes, and of delight in his real or 

 supposed originality, this great dilettante seemed also to lose 

 the talent he once possessed ; his wit became shallow, his elo- 

 quence shorn of its brilliancy, his intellectual pleasures con- 

 tracted ; it seemed only through habit that he continued to 

 build palaces and chapels, and still prosecuted his ecclesiastical 

 schemes, until at length he became shrouded in the night of 

 affliction : only now and then was the veil of oblivion broken 

 through by a transient gleam of intelligence, soon to be extin- 

 guished by returning unconsciousness. 



In view of the change wrought in the king by the Revo- 

 lution of 1848, this epoch has been selected as forming a 

 natural division in the life of Humboldt, who continued in 



