been broken for some time, now began to fail rapidly. Day after day Dr. Heim might have been seen on horseback, with his saddle-bags full of medicine, rounding the stretch of land between Spandau and Tegel. But he could do little for the shattered constitution and the sixty years of his patient. He died in January 1779, and was buried at Tegel. After the major's death Dr. Heim continued to come as usual, not now bringing medicine, let us hope, but with a book under his arm for Kunth, or possibly for William and Alexander. Or perhaps it was a rare flower from his conservatory. For as long ago as the days of Von Burgsdorf he was noted for his knowledge of foreign trees and plants, and he helped the head ranger to lay out the nurseries and plantations, which the Humboldts were now enjoying. He would drop in near their dinner hour, and being pressed would remain to dinner, and often for hours after, instructing the boys in botany, and explaining to them the twenty-four classes of the system of Linnæus. They could now know the names, classes, and characteristics of the flowers, which they had before admired ignorantly. William was considered the cleverest, because he could easily comprehend the doctor's lessons, and retain the botanical names: Alexander was not, or did not scem, so apt. The brothers went with the doctor in his excursions about the neighbourhood, and in May 1783, were present with him in Spandau, where they saw Frederick the Great reviewing his grenadiers--one of his annual amuse ments. But grand reviews, country excursions, after-dinner chats on botany, and the cosy comforts of home, must AT SCHOOL IN BERLIN. 11 soon come to an end. For though the widowed mother lives only in her children, she knows that they must one day be men, and go out into the world. So the best thing they can do is to go to Berlin, and pursue their studies, and enlarge their experiences. To Berlin they go. They are instructed in Greek and the modern languages, William having great philological talent, while Alexander, whose love of the natural sciences grows with his growth, continues the study of botany under the celebrated botanist Wildenow. Kunth, who accompanies them, engages Engel, Klein, Dohn, and others to give them complete courses of lectures on philosophy, law and political economy. Nor do they neglect the literature of their own land and time. They read Goethe and Schiller together. William prefers "Werter," and "Don Carlos," and their art-writings; Alexander, while he admires these, prefers Goethe's more abstruse researches in natural history. So passes the time, now in the bustle of the capital, and now in the quiet of the old castle at home. Dear old Tegel! it is doubly dear to them now. For there their mother lives, and there lies their dead father's dust. In 1786 they commenced their academical life in the University of Frankfort on the Oder, where they remained nearly two years, William devoting himself to the study of law, and Alexander to political economy. In 1788 they removed to the University of Gottingen. The name of this University will remind the reader of English comic poetry, of Canning's famous song in the burlesque drama, "The Rovers." 12 12 BLUMENBACH. "Whene'er with haggard eyes I view The stanzas are quizzical enough, but the University itself was a staid, grave place, full of earnest students, and learned professors. Among the latter we may mention three who were celebrated in their different branches of literature and science, and who helped to mould the minds of William and Alexander. These were Blumenbach, Heyne, and Eichhorn. Eichhorn, the professor of Arabic, was a profound scholar, especially in biblical literature, of which he may be considered the historian. He filled the chair of Theology. In the chair of Archæology sat Christian Gottlob Heyne, a venerable man of sixty, who had risen from the lowest circumstances by the force of his will, and his talents. His specialité was classic bibliography. He edited Homer, Pindar, Diodorus Siculus, Epictetus, Virgil, Tibullus, and other Greek and Roman authors, great and small, enriching their text with learned commentarics. When the Humboldts became his scholars he was busy making out a catalogue of the immense library of the University. Last was Johann Frederic Blumenbach, professor of physiology and comparative anatomy. Passionately attached to science all his life, which by the way was nearly as long as that of his famous pupil, Humboldt, his love of anatomy commenced at the early age of ten, from accidentally seeing a skeleton in the house of one of his father's friends, a physician of course. He soon had a collection of bones and skulls of his own, and taking to medicine in Jena, obtained his degree in Gottingen in 1775. The next year he was appointed conservator of the noble Museum of Natural History in the University, which he enriched by numerous collections of great value. He preceded Cuvier in many of his discoveries, instituting, shortly before the Humboldts entered his classes, the method of comparing different varieties of human skeletons, and skeletons of animals. To the care of these famous professors William and Alexander were committed by their old tutor and friend, Kunth, and they remained under their teachings for two years. Strongly attracted by Eichhorn and Heyne, William pursued his favorite studies, philology and art, while Alexander speculated on "the ground plan of man" in the lecture room of Blumenbach. But the person who exercised the most influence over him while at Gottingen, was the son-in-law of his teacher, Heyne-George Forster. Nor is this at all strange, for the experience of every day shows us that the influence of man over man outweighs that of books a thousand fold. There are times, indeed, when even a bad man is more potent than many good books. Blu menbach, Heyne, Eichhorn, and the rest, excellent and indispensable as they were, were books, so to speak, dead books to the realistic Alexander, while Forster was a man, a live man. He had seen what they had only dreamed of. The feats of Alexander's mythical friend, Crusoe, were outdone by Forster. Not that Forster had ever been shipwrecked on a solitary island; but he had done better he had put a girdle round the earth. Some sixteen years before, when a boy of eighteen, he had ᎥᏎ TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY. accompanied Captain Cook as a naturalist in that great navigator's second voyage round the world. Afterwards professor of natural history in Hesse Cassell, and at Wilna, he was now spending the summer with his wife at the house of his father-in-law, Heyne. He had written several works on natural history, geography, philosophy, and politics, besides a history of his voyage round the world. Writing of Forster in 1844, more than fifty years after his death, Humboldt paid the following tribute to his memory: "Through him began a new era of scientific voyages, the aim of which was to arrive at a knowledge of the comparative history and geography of different countries. Gifted with delicate esthetic feelings, and retaining a vivid impression of the pictures with which Tahiti and the other then happy islands of the Pacific had filled his imagination, as in recent times that of Charles Darwin, George Forster was the first to depict in pleasing colors the changing stages of vegetation, the relations of climate. and of articles of food in their influence on the civilization of mankind, according to differences of original descent and habitation. All that can give truth, individuality, and distinctiveness to the delineation of exotic nature is united in his works. We trace, not only in his admirable description of Cook's second voyage of discovery, but still more in his smaller writings, the germ of that richer fruit which has since matured." Such was George Forster, who, after Campe, was the chief instrument in determining the future life of Alex ander Von Humboldt. They were fast friends during the short period of their intercourse in Gottingen, and all the time they could spare from their customary |