24 Humboldt's Letters. 



sors under German princes appears more tragical than 

 that of the Greeks such a man cannot but be admired 

 as a curiosity! The " Kirchen-Zeitung" will never 

 inscribe his name in the list of "the faithful," and 

 the Schimmelmanns will hardly thank you, my most 

 honored friend, that the work recalls the Danish- 

 Holstein saturnalia of sentimental demagogism. 



I am very much gratified that you will take " Har- 

 denberg" in hand. It is a difficult but satisfactory 

 task, if you be careful to separate the epochs, and pro- 

 vided his life be judged without party hatred, which 

 seems to have subsided at last, with regard to Hegel 

 in the Academy. 



Thankfully yours, A. HUMBOLDT. 



We find in Varnhagen's diary the following entry 

 referring to the above : " Alexander von Humboldt 

 said to Gans, after the July revolution, when he heard 

 him express very exalted hopes of the new govern- 

 ment, ' Believe me, dear friend, my wishes go as far as 

 yours, but my hopes are very feeble. I have seen 

 changes of government in France fbr forty years. 

 They always fall by their own incapacity; the new 

 ones give always the same promises, but they never 

 keep them, and the march to ruin is renewed. I 

 was personally acquainted with most of the men in 

 power, some of them intimately; there were distin- 



