309 

 CCXXI. 



HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. 



Berlin, 7th March, 1858. 



I suppose, dear friend, that the indiscreet and 

 almost silly book of Normanby has not yet reached 

 you. I shall not return it to Lady Bloomfield 

 without offering it to you. Run through it by the 

 table of contents, and be kind enough to return 

 it me in four or five days. It describes a badly 

 acted comedy. 



Your most attached 



A. v. HUMBOLDT. 



Sunday night. 



My respects to your amiable niece. 



(A Year of Revolution. From a Journal kept in 

 Paris, in 1848. ^ By the Marquis of Normanby, K.Gr. 

 London, 1857. Two vols. 8vo.) 



On the 8th of March, 1858, Varnhagen observes in his Diary: 

 "Humboldt sends me, with some friendly lines, the book, of the 

 Marquis of Normanby on the Revolution of 1848. He calls it an 

 indiscreet and almost silly book. I call it a stupid, and, as far as its 

 contents are concerned, a treacherous one ; it shows how injurious it 

 is to have anything to do with diplomatists, especially with an un- 

 official one, as the Marquis then was, to whom both Lamartine, as 

 well as Cavaignac, have lent too ready an ear. He is one of the 

 dullest and most tedious Englishmen that ever existed." 



On the 9th of March, 1858, Varnhagen adds to his judgment on 

 Normanby the following : " Head farther in Normanby. He is a 

 poor simpleton, but, by means of his ill-written book, one learns 

 how to understand sufficiently the contemptibility of Louis Philippe, 

 the baseness of Guizot the destructive influences of sneaks and 



