BROWN AND HUMBOLDT. 287 



The telegraph of last week brought to us the painful intel- 

 ligence that the patriarch of science, the universal Humboldt, 

 died at Berlin on the 6th of May. Born in 1769, a year 

 more prolific in great men than any equal period of all pre- 

 ceding time, 1 Humboldt had, before the end of the eigh- 

 teenth century, exhibited qualities of the very highest order, 

 and obtained a place of acknowledged celebrity in Europe. 

 This, however, was the mere prelude to his career, for with 

 the close of that century he commenced, with Bonpland, his 

 wonderful exploration of Spanish America, which continued 

 during five years. This journey must be considered in all fu- 

 ture time as, substantially, the scientific discovery of Spanish 

 America ; and whether we measure its results by the amount 

 of knowledge through the wide fields of astronomy, geog- 

 raphy, geology, mineralogy, meteorology, zoology, botany, 

 and political economy, or the personal qualities by which 

 this knowledge was collected and reduced to its place in the 

 records of science, we cannot hesitate to rank the expedition 

 amongst the most important and successful ever executed by 

 man. 



On his return to Europe, in 1805, Humboldt was employed 

 several years in reducing his immense collection of materials 

 to form for publication. From that time to his death, a pe- 

 riod of almost half a century, he resided (except for a short 

 time, in which he made his journey to northern Asia) in Eu- 

 rope, mostly in France and Germany. The last twelve oj fif- 

 teen years of this great man were principally employed in the 

 production of his " Cosmos," — the crowning labor of his long 

 life, the harvest of his matiire wisdom, — a work that could 

 not have been produced by any other man, simply because no 

 other man possessed the treasures, or the key to the treasures, 

 of the various knowledge contained in it. 



From his return to Europe to his death, he possessed, indis- 

 putably, the first place among philosophers, for the vast ex- 



1 Napoleon, Wellington, Mehemet Ali, Soult, Lannes, Ney, Castle- 

 reagh, Chateaubriand, Cuvier, and Humboldt. The name of Metternich 

 is sometimes added to this list, probably incorrectly. That of Canning 

 does not belong here, nor that of Mackintosh, nor of Sir Walter Scott. 



