man who fancies that his recollections extend to the 

 first year of his life (the Margravine's estimate was 

 different : J'etais un enfant tres precoce ; a deux ans je 

 savais parler, a trois ans je mar chats!), has, like 

 Cardan, a Familiar in a black cloak,* soberly 

 makes love to old maids, only to convert them to 

 virtue and literature, and who looks upon the fate 

 of German professors under German princes as more 

 tragical than that of the Greeks. The " Church 

 Gazette "f will not number him among believers ; and 

 the Schimmelmanns, \ my friend, will not give you much 

 thanks for a book which recalls the Saturnalia of a 

 sentimental Danish-Holstein mob. I am delighted 

 beyond measure that you are going to take Harden- 

 berg in hand a difficult, but grateful, task, if you 

 can only discriminate between the various epochs, and 

 party spirit will, for once, be quiet. Even in Hegel's 

 case it seems at last, to my great joy, -to be silenced 

 in the Academy. 



Most gratefully yours, 

 Friday. A. HuMBOLDT. 



We find the following entry in Varnhagen's Diary, under the above 

 date : "After the Revolution of July, Alexander von Humboldt said 



* Erhard was under the impression, as related in the work of Varnhagen, 

 that he was attended and guarded by a supernatural being who always 

 appeared to him wearing a black cloak or cape. Jerome Cardan, the dis- 

 tinguished physician and astrologer, entertained a similar opinion, as has 

 been also the case with many celebrated persons in ancient and modern 

 times, from Socrates to our own day. TR. 



f The " Church Gazette " is the ultra- Lutheran paper, edited by Dr. 

 Hengstenberg. TR. 



J The noble family of the Schimmelmanns, one of whom was a Minister 

 of State, were great friends of Humboldt and of the Varnhagen family. TR. 



Hardenberg, Chancellor of State from 1810 to 1822. The memoir alluded 

 to in the text seems never to have been published. TR. 



