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of the times, I am in a state of uncertainty, my dear 

 old friend, as to whether I have already sent you the 

 seventh volume of my brother's collected works ! I am 

 thoroughly ashamed of myself ; but I know you have 

 not yet learned to be angry with me. The article 

 against Capo d'Istria,* the demand of having Stras- 

 bourg given up, sound like an irony of fate when con- 

 trasted with our present humility. 



Your respectful and attached old friend, 



A. v. HUMBOLDT. 



I have been deeply pained by the death of Leopold 

 von Buchf a compound of a noble, generous mind, 

 quick temper, small despotism of opinions one of the 

 few men of original mind. He has given to his science 

 a new form : he was one of the most illustrious orna- 

 ments of the age. Our friendship has lasted for sixty- 

 three years, without being once disturbed, although we 

 frequently laboured in the same field ; as I found him 

 in 1791, at Freiberg, where, although five years 

 younger than myself, he had entered before me the 

 Academy of Mining. This burial was to me a pre- 

 lude c'est comme cela que je serai dimanche. And in 

 what condition do I leave the world ? I, who remem- 

 ber 1789, and have shared in its emotions ! However, 

 centuries are but seconds in the great process of the 

 development of advancing humanity. Yet the rising 

 curve has small ben dings in it, and it is very incon- 

 venient to find one's self on such a segment of its 

 descending portion. 



* John Anthony Capo d'Istria, President of .Greece from 1827 to 1831. 

 Eecognised finally as an agent of Russia, he was assassinated by the brothers 

 Mauromichalis, at Nauplia. TR. 



t Died 4th March, 1853. Humboldt, in " KOSIHOS," calls him the greatest 

 geologist of the day. TR. 



P 



