348 Humboldt's Letters. 



and delicacy, and of a solemn monition of what should 

 have been extracted from nature and art, and the 

 weapon of science. If my brother William, who, in 

 his correspondence with Wolf, discoursed so largely on 

 lax and severe hexameters, could but have lived to 

 witness this family honor ! 



.Your advice, even when not clothed in verse, is law 

 to me. I shall follow it at once ; and you have made 

 matters a great deal easier than they were. Aleajacta 

 sit ! Could you, perhaps, dear friend, transfer the last 

 ten syllables (or lines) of the Grand Ducal letter into 

 your classic chirography, so as possibly to enable me to 

 guess what it is that I am understood to have promised. 



Fremont's portrait reminds one vividly of Chateau- 

 briand. A biography of the former has just appeared 

 in New York, dedicated to me " Memoirs of the Life 

 and Public Services of John Charles Fremont, by John 

 Bigelow (?)." The dedication says : " To Alexander von 

 Humboldt this memoir of one whose genius he was 

 among the first to discover and acknowledge, is respect- 

 fully inscribed by the author." Delicate words, a little 

 artificially combined. There is a copy of the letter 

 written to him from Sans Souci, in the King's name, in 

 1850, accompanying the great prize medal for science 

 and art, upon his having projected the most extensive 

 barometrical level ever executed, from Missouri to the 

 South Sea. It closes with the words of which Sans 



