PREFACE.

I

HAVE with great diffidence ventured upon the following biographical sketch, based upon Professor Klenke's "Denkmal." My sole apology is that my humble effort to popularize the memory of Humboldt has received encouragement from many men renowned in science-some of them personal friends of that illustrious man. I indulge the hope, however, that the interesting nature of the subject will go far to atone for my inadequate treatment of it. The reader will no doubt meet with many defects of style inseparable from efforts to think in one language and express those thoughts in another; and I therefore bespeak his indulgence for my attempt to write in a tongue I never learned from my mother's lips.

To treat a great theme greatly, requires something of cognate greatness. To this I do not pretend.

F. A. S.

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

OUR

UR researches into the phenomena of the physical and the human cosmos present us with many curious parallels. In those two distinct, yet inseparably united realms, there are periods when the creative energies seemed to slumber, and periods when they seemed to manifest themselves in splendid and unwonted energy. Like the aloe, which, according to popular belief, flowered but once in a hundred years, then putting forth a blossom of marvellous beauty; so nature atoned for her seeming sleep by the creation of minds which became new vital forces in the world of man. star did not rise alone in the twilight of heaven: great men dawned upon the world in constellations. Sometimes a decade of years saw the advent of those who were to give character to the century in which they lived. Sometimes a

B

One

single year was marked in this way; and such was the year 1769. Between the chimes of its new year's morn and the last setting of its December sun, were born into the world, Cuvier, Wellington, Napoleon; Sir Thomas Lawrence, long the first portrait-painter of the age, and President of the Royal Academy; William Smith, called the father of English geology, and Alexander von Humboldt. Various sciences and arts were thus represented. I would not attempt to trace characters so varied, destinies so unlike: for me the life of Humboldt, in its consistency, its integrity, its success, and its rewards, possesses a complete power and symmetry which none of his renowned compeers could show. Few men have lived for so long a time under the eyes of the world. There is no life, however insignificant it may appear, which does not in some way advantage the world. But a life like Humboldt's, enriched with the experience of two centuries, and illuminated by a long series of splendid achievements, opened a new avenue into the realms of truth and of science. I would, therefore, attempt to speak of the mind and the heart of Humboldt, of his capacities, his ideas, his character; of his place, not merely as a man of science in the world of