172 



my brother had prepared them for publication, and as 

 they had been offered for sale. In no nation, I believe, 

 can there be found another such as he, whose life was 

 dedicated to the task of enriching the world of thought. 

 How delighted am I with the prospect of once more 

 seeing issue from your hands a masterpiece of sharply- 

 defined, lively, yet delicate delineations of social and 

 diplomatic incidents. 



With unalterable attachment, 



Yours gratefully, 



A. HUMBOLDT. 



It may, perhaps, not have been quite prudent, in a 

 monarch historically great, to yield (albeit in the illu- 

 sory atmosphere of Versailles) to the temptation of con- 

 trasting the memory of the barricades with a spectacle 

 a la Louis XIV.,* and, for the sake of very uncertain 

 gain, to have created great difficulties for his successor. 

 The behaviour, however, of Palmers ton and Albert- 

 Victoria is churlish and in bad taste. Meanwhile, the 

 sober Anglo-Americans are founding a western World 

 Empire, threatening the commerce of the Chinese. 



My MS. "On the Tissues of the Ancients," p. 106 

 and p. 113, appears to have been lost among the 

 papers left by Wolf.f The " Effect of Church Music," 

 p. 323, contains many finely written passages. 



In the year 1846, we find the following remark in Yarnhagen's 

 Diary : " In discussing the capacity of one of the younger Princes 



* A reference to the Spanish marriages. TR. 



t Friedrich August Wolf, the distinguished philologist, chiefly known by 

 his Homeric theory. He was intimate with both the Humboldts, who some- 

 times forwarded their papers to him for his opinion. TR. 



