310 Humboldt's Letters. 



of land. c Formerly they intended, in Rio de Janeiro, 

 to arrest me as a dangerous spy, and to send me 

 back to Europe, the order drawn up for the pur- 

 pose is still shown there as a curiosity; now they 

 make me an arbitrator ! I, of course, decided for Brazil, 

 because I wanted the large order; the Republic of 

 Venezuela has none to confer !' These words, spoken in 

 the gayest irony, I interrupted with the exclamation, 

 4 How times change !' ' Yes ; the order of arrest, and 

 then the insignia of the great order!' 'Oh, no,' I 

 replied, ' I did not think of this personal affair, but of 

 the historical ; formerly the pope was the general arbi- 

 trator !' Humboldt saw the last volumes of the life of 

 Stein on my table, and expressed his displeasure on the 

 external arrangement, the meagreness of the text, and 

 the unsifted character of this book; he thought that the 

 gold snuff-box, with brilliants, which the King had 

 already sent to Pertz for these volumes, was entirely too 

 much. Injustice, crying and mean, perpetrated by Stein 

 against old Prince Wittgenstein. Pertz, too, he said, was 

 unjust to Wittgenstein. Stein had not at all been a firm 

 character, no one had changed views and judgments 

 more easily. (Beyme said the same thing, and adduced 

 instances of it.) His early liberal ideas on national eco- 

 nomy, civil institutions, commerce, and trades, were a 

 product of the times, which he afterwards entirely 

 renounced and disputed when the current of opinioc 





