MEMOIR OF WERNER. 
19 
wished to invoke his genius, and make him their 
patron in a manner previously unknown. 
When hearing of such unusual success, who would 
not suppose that he was one of those men who are 
most ardent in propagating their doctrines, and who 
have acquired an ascendency over their cotempora- 
ries by numerous and eloquent writings, or who have 
procured adherents through the influence of wealth, 
or an elevated station in society? But in his case 
there was nothing of all this. Confined to a small 
town in Saxony, without authority in the country, 
he could have no influence on the fortunes of his pu- 
pils. He formed no connexion with people in power ; 
and such was the singular timidity of his disposition, 
and aversion to writing, that not more than a few 
sheets of his composition have been committed to 
the press. Far from seeking to render himself im- 
portant, he was so little conscious of his own merit, 
that the most trifling honours conferred on him, even 
at a time when his reputation was spread throughout 
all quarters of the world, greatly surpassed ail that 
he had ever hoped for or desired. 
But this man, though so little occupied with him- 
self, and so far from conceiving that he was in any 
degree called upon to write for the instruction of 
others, had an indefinable charm in his language and 
conversation. When once he had been heard — 
when once, over a few fragments of stones or rocks 
disposed almost by chance, he had developed, as if 
by inspiration, all those general ideas and innumer- 
able relations which his genius had perceived, no one 
