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I have disagreeable remnants of correspondence 

 with a certain Dr. Gross Hoffinger,* at Vienna, who 

 accuses himself of having written against Prussia in 

 1848, and now requires recommendations from 

 Prussia to the Austrian Government ; have you any 

 recollections of him ? 



Note by Varnhagen. " In the neighbouring Carthage," Gotha, on 

 account of the bitter jealousy of this place against "Weimar, which 

 stands for Rome ! 



CCVII. 



KARL ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE- WEIMAR, 

 TO HUMBOLDT. 



I have safely received your Excellency's letter 

 from the hand of * * *. Accept my sincerest thanks 

 for those lines for that new mark of your kind feel- 

 ing for me, which I find always the same. The 

 bearer of them is for the present buried in the abysses 

 of my archives. As soon as I return from Hanover, 

 whither invitations call me for a few days, I shall 

 summon the explorer up to daylight, in order to ex- 

 plore him ; waiting for further development from 

 the future, as the expecting people did before the 

 gate of the oracle. The analogy leads me from 

 abyss to abyss, and so I arrive from the archives to 

 the bottom of the sea. That map of it which you 

 wrote to me about, where can I obtain it ? When I 

 inquired for it, some time ago, at Gotha, my inquiry 



* The less said of him the sooner mended, having long ago been justly 

 consigned by Gutzkow to the " servants' hall" of literature. He tried by the 

 most nauseous flattery to make his way at Vienna, and, wonderful to say, did 

 not even succeed in that paradise of all the literary scum of Germany. TR. 



