THE LAST TEN YEARS. 403 



means pleasing to the historian, though admitting of easy 

 explanation. We have already seen that Humboldt's pecu- 

 niary circumstances were in a precarious condition on his first 

 arrival at Berlin. He was wholly dependent upon the royal 

 pension of 5,000 thalers, and this sum at no time proved 

 adequate to meet his expenditure. The rent of his house soon 

 rose from 550 to 750 thalers ; the carriage needed for his 

 duties at court cost 60 thalers per month, and the expenses of 

 postage amounted at least to half that sum. To this was to 

 be added the cost of living and other expenses, including 

 numerous charities, examples of which came before us in his 

 letters to Eisenstein. Suffice it to say, by the 10th of every 

 month his funds were exhausted. Debts were the inevitable 

 consequence ; even the money he received for ' Cosmos ' was 

 but a drop in the ocean ; the sums realised by the sale of some 

 of his presentation books could bring no perceptible alleviation. 

 The only resource left was to solicit from the king from time 

 to time extra tokens of his bounty. We have seen with how 

 much kindness and consideration these requests were met by 

 Frederick William IV.; it is quite unnecessary to enumerate 

 the individual sums paid to him through Mendelssohn. By 

 order also of the Eegent, after Humboldt's death the sum of 

 1,300 thalers was paid to the same house in discharge of his 

 debts. Seifert was, as may be supposed, well acquainted with 

 his master's necessities, and at times of great pressure, espe- 

 cially during the Asiatic expedition, he forbore to receive his 

 wages, amounting to 25 thalers monthly. Even when these 

 crises had passed away, Humboldt felt, in view of the faithful 

 service rendered him by Seifert and his inconsiderable remu- 

 neration, that he was still in his debt, and sought to find means 

 of tendering him or his family some assistance. As we have 

 seen, he procured for him from the king the post of castellan at 

 one of the royal hunting-seats ; for his son-in-law Mollhausen 

 he obtained an appointment in the royal private library at 

 Potsdam. Of the many personal efforts made by Humboldt for 

 the benefit of Seifert, we shall for brevity's sake only allude to 

 the publication, in 1858, of a chromo-lithograph of Hilde- 

 brandt's water-colour drawing of his library. He drew up in 

 French the circular to be forwarded by Seifert to all ' illus- 



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