MY IXEAR FRIEND, ARAGO. 435 



gular love which the Americans bore him. To me that 

 little piece of news was inexpressibly touching which 

 simply informed us that our Minister in Berlin, with the 

 Americans now present at that city — a cluster of 

 mourners from afar — formed part of his funeral pro- 

 cession, the only foreign nation thus represented. 



"In his simplicity and genial warmth he did what 

 many a bold man would have hesitated to do. I was 

 present as a young and distant listener, when, at Rome, 

 immediately after the Congress of Verona, the King of 

 Prussia, Humboldt and Niebuhr conversed on the affairs 

 of the day, and when the last-mentioned spoke in no 

 flattering terms of the political views and antecedents of 

 Arago, who, it is well known, was a very advanced 

 Republican of the Gallican School, an uncompromising 

 French Democrat. Frederick William III. simply abo- 

 minated republicanism, yet when Niebuhr had finished, 

 Humboldt said, with a sweetness which I vividly remem- 

 ber: 'Still this monster is the dearest friend I have in 

 France.' 



" Humboldt had all his brother's views of the necessity 

 of the highest University education and of the widest 

 possible popular education, and he gave impulse to 

 many a scientific, historical, or ethnological expedition, 

 fitted out even by foreign governments, for he was con- 

 sidered the counsellor of all. 



" But I cannot dwell, here, any longer on his versatility 

 and manifold aptitude. It is proved by the literature 

 of almost every branch. If we read Barth on Central 

 Africa, we find Humboldt; if we read Say's Political 

 Economy, we find his name ; if we study the history of 

 the Nineteenth Century, we find his name in the diplo- 



