APPENDIX. 369 



and died at Tegel in 1839, while in the act of reciting an 

 ode of Pindar. He always appears to have combined 

 the most abstruse studies with a practical attention to 

 politics, and while he was prime minister of his native 

 country, he also occupied one of the first places among 

 the philologists of Germany. The comparative study of 

 languages at all times constituted his favourite pursuit, 

 and he has left numerous traces of his learning in this 

 department of knowledge. The language and population 

 of the Basque countries offered a curious problem, which 

 he endeavoured to solve by assiduous researches carried 

 on in the Basque country, where he resided for a long 

 time. The fruit of his researches first appeared in a 

 work, entitled Researches on the primitive inhabitants of 

 Spain, based on the Basque language. He also pub- 

 lished a vocabulary of this tongue, and enriched the work 

 of Adelung with numerous additions and corrections 

 bearing upon the same subject. 



Alexander von Humboldt has survived his brother, 

 and is now one the patriarchs of science. He was born in 

 1769, a memorable year, which also gave birth to Cha- 

 teaubriand, Cuvier, and Napoleon. He prosecuted his 

 classical studies under the direction of Forster, who had 

 served as naturalist in one of Captain Cook's voyages, 

 and it is very probable that he derived from his inter- 

 course with his master, that love of science and of distant 

 travel which old age has scarcely extinguished. At the 

 age of twenty-three he was appointed director of the 

 mines of the Fichtelgeberge, and one year afterwards he 

 published a memoir on the fossil flora of the district. A 

 sedentary life did not, however, suit the tastes of Forster's 

 pupil, and the young von Humboldt having soon tendered 

 his resignation, travelled through a great part of Europe 

 sedulously devoting himself to the study of all branches of 

 science, and thus endeavouring the better to prepare 

 VOL. II. B B 



