Humboldt's Letters. 283 



but Raumer insisted upon his opinion, which, he said, 

 was not changed by Humboldt. Then the King, who 

 confessed himself to be powerless against his minister, 

 wrote to Bunseu, who took the matter in hand, and the 

 brothers Schlagintweit now receive English aid. And 

 the very same King, who pretends to be so jealous of 

 his prerogatives, permits them to be thus encroached 

 upon ? ' Yes, sometimes he delights in playing the 

 part of a constitutional monarch, absolves himself from 

 all responsibility when the matter is a delicate one, 

 answers demands made upon him by adverting to the 

 difficulty of obtaining the signatures of his ministers, and 

 even pretends to regard that "baggage, the state" as 

 something with which he had little concern, accuses the 

 ministers of forgetting him in their devotion to that 

 " baggage, the state," &c., <fcc. 



" ' In the asking of small sums the King often experi- 

 ences the greatest resistance, large ones he gets ; he is 

 refused three hundred tbalers for a poor scientific man 

 or artist, forty thousand thalers for buying something, 

 they dare not refuse. What a mess of confusion and 

 disaster! The King is quite satisfied that he is per- 

 mitted to cook up church matters to his heart's content, 

 for these are considered separate from the state, no 

 minister has a word in them.' That I do not under- 

 stand and it cannot be so, the ministers I believe have 

 their hands in it too. 'The meanest fellow of the 



