. THE LAST TEN YEARS. 375 



weeks before his death, to Hauff's translation of the ' Relation 

 historique,' the only German edition to which he gave his sanc- 

 tion. To these works he was urged by motives of friendship 

 or kind feeling, by warm personal regard for Arago, and by a 

 sense of respectful sympathy with the family of Prince Walde- 

 mar ; towards Mollhausen, the son-in-law of Seifert, he was 

 anxious to testify the warm interest he ever felt in his devoted 

 attendant, while in the introductory remarks to HaufTs work 

 he comments upon the pleasure he experienced ' in being pri- 

 vileged to witness the narrative of the journey that had been 

 prosecuted in the enthusiasm of youth rendered into his own 

 beautiful language, and in this form perused by his fellow- 

 countrymen, who for more than two generations had followed 

 with gratifying interest his scientific investigations, and had 

 even for his latest works evinced a sympathetic appreciation.' 



With these slighter works may also be reckoned the ' Hints 

 upon Physics and Greology,' written in April 1857, at the re- 

 quest of the Archduke Maximilian, for the expedition of the 

 frigate ' Novara ' ] a composition with no merit in grace of 

 style, but valuable for the information conveyed, not in the 

 form of instruction such as he had formerly drawn up for 

 French and English expeditions, but in simple advice to less 

 experienced travellers, in connection principally with his fa- 

 vourite subject of volcanoes. The papers of slighter moment 

 printed during these years for private circulation as, for in- 

 stance, public addresses and memorial notices are scarcely to 

 be regarded as works, and deserve mention only in connection 

 with the description of his daily routine to which we now 

 propose directing our attention. 



This perhaps can scarcely be better done than by intro- 

 ducing the well-known narrative, contributed to the 'New 

 York Tribune,' of a visit paid to Humboldt by the American 

 traveller, Bayard Taylor, on November 25, 1856 : 2 



' I came to Berlin, not to visit its museums and galleries, its 

 magnificent street of lindens, its operas and theatres, nor to 



1 ' Reise des osterreich. Fregatte " Novara " ' (Vienna, 1861), vol. i. Ap- 

 pendix I. and II. 



2 [See also 'At Home and Abroad/ by Bayard Taylor. First Series 

 (G. P. Putnam, New York, I860).] 



