364 ALEXANDEK VON HUMBOLDT. 



them away I shall be committing myself to the most stupid 

 nonsense in " Cosmos " while revering and quoting you in 

 every page.' 



No one acquainted with his love of accuracy will for a 

 moment suppose that, in availing himself of the aid of others, 

 he sought to appropriate any of their labours ; every page of 

 ' Cosmos ' controverts such an idea. We have seen that the 

 whole work, especially the notes, was consecrated by Humboldt 

 into a sort of Pantheon for all to whom he was in any way in- 

 debted. When making a trifling inquiry from Dirichlet, he 

 adds : ' Tell me in your reply whether I ought to mention your 

 name, or whether, as it is so elementary, you would rather that 

 amount of wisdom should appear to come from me.' In a note 

 to Bellermann, the landscape painter, to whom he had given, in 

 1842, a letter of recommendation to all citizens of Venezuela, he 

 writes : ' Pray send me your name in full, as I wish to make 

 favourable mention of you in the new volume of " Cosmos " in 

 connection with Rugendas.' As these lines were written in Hum- 

 boldt's usual style of illegible hieroglyphics, Bellermann, who 

 doubted not they contained one of the usual technical inquiries, 

 would not trust himself to decipher it in a hurry, but told the 

 messenger he would think over the subject, and send his Excel- 

 lency an answer in the morning. Humboldt's custom of sub- 

 mitting the proof-sheets to the inspection of his friends, in order 

 that they might see the passages bearing any reference to them- 

 selves, was liable to give rise to serious errors, as may be seen 

 from the following lamentable letter to Tieck, written early 

 in 1848 1 : 



'I am writing these lines, my dear friend, most un- 

 comfortably in bed, where I have been confined for some 

 days with an attack of rheumatism, and I therefore fear that my 

 writing will be more illegible even than usual. Your letter 

 has grieved me sadly ; it is the first trouble I have experienced 

 since my return to my native country. Why should I be 

 subjected all at once to such a suspicion who have never ceased 

 to rejoice in your presence among us a pleasure which has 

 never known a shade, not even when the ancient tragic poet 2 



1 ' Briefe an Ludwig Tieck,' edited by Karl von Holtei, vol. ii. p. 34. 

 3 Allusion to the revival of ' Antigone.' 



