282 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



king had sent no direct reply to Arago ; and in order to pro- 

 cure this gratification for his republican friend, he wrote five 

 letters of reminder at short intervals to Schumacher. On the 

 principle of do ut des, which he expresses with some naivete, he 

 urged Schumacher to address a letter to Frederick William IV., 

 alluding in flattering terms to the little that Prussia had as 

 yet effected in astronomy and geodesy. c Expressions of in- 

 terest of this kind from one occupying an entirely independent 

 position cannot fail to exert an influence beneficial to science.' 

 Thus were both princes and statesmen entangled by him in a 

 harmless intrigue in favour of the advancement of science. In 

 invariably adopting an involved course of action in his bene- 

 volent schemes, it would be difficult to say whether he was most 

 influenced by the natural bias of his mind, or by an acute 

 insight into court life. In any case, he was always deeply 

 gratified by the success of such trivial artifices, and allowed 

 himself without hesitation to be made use of by others in all 

 such matters : ' Only tell me, my dear friend, exactly what 

 you wish me to say, that you may make what use of it you 

 can.' 



Humboldt's friendly relationships with Denmark were fur- 

 ther cemented by a visit of four days to Copenhagen in June 

 1845, when he delivered a magnificent speech 'from an open 

 window,' in praise of the nation and its illustrious monarch. 1 

 On the voyage out he had a narrow escape of falling over- 

 board while on deck with the king, watching the waves in 

 the moonlight. ' It would have been a charming way of quit- 

 ting life,' he wrote gaily to Arago, ' and making a prudent re- 

 treat from the second volume of " Cosmos." ' He escaped with 

 a bruise some eight inches long an impress of the deck after 

 ' Moser's process of nature printing.' 



Among these efforts on Humboldt's part to excite in the 

 king not a love of science, for that he felt was an impossibility 

 but some appreciation of scientific men, must undoubtedly 

 be included the energetic employment of his influence as 

 Chancellor of the Order of Merit, created in 1842, by a spon- 



1 ' Briefe an Varnhagen/ No. 71 ; the year given, 1843, is erroneous. 

 See ( Tagebiicher,' vol. iii. p. 101, and especially De la Roquette, vol. ii. p. 

 811. 



