r 



CONTINENTAL TRAVELLERS. 349 



especially vith Humboldt, Chateaubriand, and Lamar- chapter 

 tine : — " It is impossiljle to contemplate the works of xxvilL 

 these great men without arriving at the conclusion, that Continental 

 it is in the varied and discursive education of the conti- *'^^^ ^^^ 

 nent that a foundation has been laid for the extraordi- 

 nary' eminence which its travellers have attained. It is 

 the vast number of subjects with which the young men 

 are in some degree made acquainted at the German uni- 

 versities, which has rendered tlieni so ca{)able in after 

 life of travelling with advantage in any quarter of the 

 globe, and writing their travels with effect. This advan- 

 tage is in a peculiar manner conspicuous in Humboldt, Peculiar 

 whose mind, naturally ardent and capacious, had been of n'^^bTdt. 

 surprisingly enlarged and extended by early and vai'ious 

 study in the most celebrated German universities. He 

 acquired, in consequence, so extraordinary a command of 

 almost every department of physical and political sci- 

 ence, that there is hardly any branch of it in which facts 

 of importance may not be found in his travels. He 

 combined, in a degree perhaps never before equalled in 

 one individual, the most opposite, and generally deemed 

 irreconcilable, mental qualities. To an ardent poetical 

 temperament, and an eye alive to the most vivid im- combination 

 pressions of external things, he united a power of elo- of powers 

 quence rarely given to the most gifted orators, and the 

 habit of close and accurate reasoning which belongs to 

 the intellectual powers adapted for the highest branches 

 of the exact sciences. An able mathematician, a pro- 

 found natural philosopher, an exact observer of nature, 

 he was at the same time a learned statistician, an indefa- 

 tigable social observer, an unwearied philanthrophist, 

 and the most powerful describer of nature that perhaps 

 ever undertook to portray her great and glorious features. 

 It is this extraordinary combination of qualities that 

 render his works so surprising and valuable. The intel- 

 lectual and imaginative powers rarely coexist in remark- 

 able vigour in the same individual ; but when thej' do, 

 they produce the utmost triumphs of the human mind." 



