274 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



a word had been said to him under either reign concerning 

 such an edition, although he had himself conducted a French 

 work through the press, at a cost of 600,000 francs,' and 

 though he would not, under any circumstances, have refused 

 a commission from the Academy, he positively declined to act 

 either as President or Secretary of the Committee. He could 

 not but view with irony the commission given by the king to 

 August Wilhelm von Schlegel to write a preface to the work in 

 French ; ' Schlegel,' he remarks to Bockh, ' is doubtless the 

 only person in Germany who can write modern French with 

 elegance and correctness, and who has made a study of the 

 technicalities of printing. In spite of the thirty volumes I 

 have published in that language, I am not supposed to be able 

 to compete with him, nor have I the slightest inclination so to 

 do.' At first Humboldt anticipated that ' Schlegel, from his 

 conceit, woujd form a subject of amusement at the Committee,' 

 but he gradually grew weary of the 'tedious folly' of the 

 ' Buddhist of Bonn,' whose letters appeared to him nothing 

 but ' empty scribbling,' till at length he did not scruple to in- 

 dulge in the bitterest comments upon that c Indian ape Hanu- 

 man.' Humboldt was at some pains to persuade the king to 

 commit the work entirely into the hands of the ' honest 

 Prussian,' only in this way could the Academy be fully respon- 

 sible for the work ; and it was altogether opposed to his wish 

 that the military portions of the work were submitted to a 

 subordinate committee of military men. He, as usual, under- 

 took the task of obtaining the necessary funds from Govern- 

 ment, and when Bockh, on account of the disunion of the 

 Committee, expressed some intention of sending in his resigna- 

 tion, he averted the ' danger ' by another interview with Eich- 

 horn, to whom ' he complained that so little was done to render 

 matters agreeable to Bockh.' Pietistic machinations, headed 

 by the king, were incessantly at work to suppress in this edition 

 all the non-historical writings of his great ancestor ; but on 

 this point Humboldt made a valiant stand in the interests of 

 science, and after an earnest discussion with the king ' at the 

 close of which he displayed some emotion,' the affair was put 

 on the right track. 1 



1 Varnhagen's ' Tagebiicher/ vol. ii. pp. 40, 41; and from unpublished 

 letters to Bockh.' See also Trendelenburg's ' Kleine Schriften/ vol. i. p. 306. 



