Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 3 / Essays on Literature, Biography, and Antiquities

by F. Max Müller

XIV. ARE THERE JEWS IN CORNWALL?

There is hardly a book on Cornish history or antiquities in which we are not seriously informed that at some time or other the Jews migrated to Cornwall, or worked as slaves in Cornish mines. Some writers state this simply as a fact requiring no further confirmation; others support it by that kind of evidence which Herodotus, no doubt, would have considered sufficient for establishing the former presence of Pelasgians in different parts of Greece, but which would hardly have satisfied Niebuhr, still less Sir G. C. Lewis. Old smelting-houses, they tell us, are still called Jews' houses in Cornwall; and if, even after that, anybody could be so skeptical as to doubt that the Jews, after the destruction of Jerusalem, were sent in large numbers to work as slaves in the Cornish mines, he is silenced at once by an appeal to the name of Marazion, the well-known town opposite St. Michael's Mount, which means the “bitterness of Zion,” and is also called Market Jew. Many a traveller has no doubt shaken his unbelieving head, and asked himself how it is that no real historian should ever have mentioned the migration of the Jews to the Far West, whether it took place under Nero or under one of the later Flavian [pg 288] Emperors. Yet all the Cornish guides are positive on the subject, and the primâ facie evidence is certainly so startling that we can hardly wonder if certain anthropologists discovered even the sharply marked features of the Jewish race among the sturdy fishermen of Mount's Bay.

Before we examine the facts on which this Jewish theory is founded,—facts, as will be seen, chiefly derived from names of places, and other relics of language,—it will be well to inquire a little into the character of the Cornish language, so that we may know what kind of evidence we have any right to expect from such a witness.

The ancient language of Cornwall, as is well known, was a Celtic dialect, closely allied to the languages of Brittany and Wales, and less nearly, though by no means distantly, related to the languages of Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. Cornish began to die out in Cornwall about the time of the Reformation, being slowly but surely supplanted by English, till it was buried with Dolly Pentreath and similar worthies about the end of the last century.[60] Now there is in most languages, but more particularly in those which are losing their consciousness or their vitality, what, by a name borrowed from geology, may be called a metamorphic process. It consists chiefly in this, that words, as they cease to be properly understood, are slightly changed, generally with the object of imparting to them once more an intelligible meaning. This new meaning is mostly a mistaken one, yet it is not only readily accepted, but the word in its new dress and with its new character is frequently made to support facts or fictions which could be supported by no [pg 289] other evidence. Who does not believe that sweetheart has something to do with heart? Yet it was originally formed like drunk-ard, dull-ard, and nigg-ard; and poets, not grammarians, are responsible for the mischief it may have done under its plausible disguise. By the same process, shamefast, formed like steadfast and still properly spelt by Chaucer and in the early editions of the Authorized Version of the Bible, has long become shamefaced, bringing before us the blushing roses of a lovely face. The Vikings, mere pirates from the viks or creeks of Scandinavia, have, by the same process, been raised to the dignity of kings; just as coat cards—the king, and queen, and knave in their gorgeous gowns—were exalted into court cards.

Although this kind of metamorphosis takes place in every language, yet it is most frequent in countries where two languages come in contact with each other, and where, in the end, one is superseded by the other. Robertus Curtus, the eldest son of the Conqueror, was by the Saxons called Curt-hose. The name of Oxford contains in its first syllable an old Celtic word, the well-known term for water or river, which occurs as ux in Uxbridge, as ex in Exmouth, as ax in Axmouth, and in many more disguises down to the whisk of whiskey, the Scotch Usquebaugh.[61] In the name of the Isis, and of the suburb of Osney, the same Celtic word has been preserved. The Saxons kept the Celtic name of the river, and they called the place where one of the Roman roads crossed the river Ox, Oxford. The name, however, was soon mistaken, and interpreted as purely Saxon; and if any one should doubt that Oxford was a kind of Bosphorus, and meant a ford for [pg 290] oxen, the ancient arms of the city were readily appealed to in order to cut short all doubts on the subject. The Welsh name Ryt-yhcen for Oxford was a retranslation into Welsh of an original Celtic name, to which a new form and a new meaning had been given by the Saxon conquerors.

Similar accidents happened to Greek words after they were adopted by the people of Italy, particularly by the Romans. The Latin orichalcum, for instance, is simply the Greek word ὀρείχαλκος, from ὄρος, mountain, and χαλκός, copper. Why it was called mountain-copper, no one seems to know. It was originally a kind of fabulous metal, brought to light from the brains of the poet rather than from the bowels of the earth. Though the poets, and even Plato, speak of it as, after gold, the most precious of metals, Aristotle sternly denies that there ever was any real metal corresponding to the extravagant descriptions of the ὀρείχαλκος. Afterwards the same word was used in a more sober and technical sense, though it is not always easy to say when it means copper, or bronze (i.e. copper and tin), or brass (i.e. copper and zinc). The Latin poets not only adopted the Greek word in the fabulous sense in which they found it used in Homer, but forgetting that the first portion of the name was derived from the Greek ὄρος, hill, they pronounced and even spelt it as if derived from the Latin aurum, gold, and thus found a new confirmation of its equality with gold, which would have greatly surprised the original framers of that curious compound.[62]

In a county like Cornwall, where the ancient Celtic dialect continued to be spoken, though disturbed and [pg 291] overlaid from time to time by Latin, Saxon, and Norman, where Celts had to adopt certain Saxon and Norman, and Saxons and Normans certain Celtic words, we have a right to expect an ample field for observing this metamorphic process, and for tracing its influence in the transformation of names, and in the formation of legends, traditions, nay even, as we shall see, in the production of generally accepted historical facts. To call this process metamorphic, using that name in the sense given to it by geologists, may at first sight seem pedantic and far-fetched. But if we see how a new language forms what may be called a new stratum covering the old language; how the life or heat of the old language, though apparently extinct, breaks forth again through the superincumbent crust, destroys its regular features and assimilates its stratified layers with its own igneous or volcanic nature, our comparison, though somewhat elaborate, will be justified to a great extent, and we shall only have to ask our geological readers to make allowance for this, that, in languages, the foreign element has always to be considered as the superincumbent stratum, Cornish forming the crust to English or English to Cornish, according as the speaker uses the one or the other as his native or as his acquired speech.

Our first witness in support of this metamorphic process is Mr. Scawen, who lived about two hundred years ago, a true Cornishman, though he wrote in English, or in what he is pleased so to call. In blaming the Cornish gentry and nobility for having attempted to give to their ancient and honorable names a kind of Norman varnish, and for having adopted new-fangled coats of arms, Mr. Scawen remarks on the several mistakes, intentional or unintentional, that occurred in this [pg 292] foolish process. “The grounds of two several mistakes,” he writes, “are very obvious: 1st, upon the Tre or Ter; 2d, upon the Ross or Rose. Tre or Ter in Cornish commonly signifies a town, or rather place, and it has always an adjunct with it. Tri is the number 3. Those men willingly mistake one for another. And so, in French heraldry terms, they used to fancy and contrive those with any such three things as may be like, or cohere with, or may be adapted to anything or things in their surnames, whether very handsome or not is not much stood upon. Another usual mistake is upon Ross, which, as they seem to fancy, should be a Rose, but Ross in Cornish is a vale or valley. Now for this their French-Latin tutors, when they go into the field of Mars, put them in their coat armor prettily to smell out a Rose or flower (a fading honor instead of a durable one); so any three such things, agreeable perhaps a little to their names, are taken up and retained from abroad, when their own at home have a much better scent and more lasting.”

Some amusing instances of what may be called Saxon puns on Cornish words have been communicated to me by a Cornish friend of mine, Mr. Bellows. “The old Cornish name for Falmouth,” he writes, “was Penny come quick,[63] and they tell a most improbable story to account for it. I believe the whole compound is the Cornish Pen y cwm gwic, ‘Head of the creek valley.’ In like manner they have turned Bryn uhella (highest hill) into Brown Willy, and Cwm ty goed (woodhouse valley) into Come to good.” To this might be added the common etymologies of Helstone and Camelford. The former name has nothing to do with the Saxon helstone, a covering stone, or with the infernal regions, [pg 293] but meant “place on the river;” the latter, in spite of the camel in the arms of the town, meant the ford of the river Camel. A frequent mistake arises from the misapprehension of the Celtic dun, hill, which enters in the composition of many local names, and was changed by the Saxons into town or tun. Thus Meli-dunum is now Moulton, Seccan-dun is Seckington, and Beamdun is Bampton.[64]

This transformation of Celtic into Saxon or Norman terms is not confined, however, to the names of families, towns, and villages; and we shall see how the fables to which it has given rise have not only disfigured the records of some of the most ancient families in Cornwall, but have thrown a haze over the annals of the whole county.

Returning to the Jews in their Cornish exile, we find, no doubt, as mentioned before, that even in the Ordnance maps the little town opposite St. Michael's Mount is called Marazion and Market Jew. Marazion sounds decidedly like Hebrew, and might signify Mârâh, “bitterness, grief,” Zion, “of Zion.” M. Esquiros, a believer in Cornish Jews, thinks that Mara might be a corruption of the Latin Amara, bitter; but he forgets that this etymology would really defeat its very object, and destroy the Hebrew origin of the name. The next question therefore is, What is the real origin of the name Marazion, and of its alias, Market Jew? It cannot be too often repeated that inquiries into the origin of local names are, in the first place, historical, and only in the second place, philological. To attempt an explanation of any name, without having first traced it back to the earliest form in which we can find it, is to set at defiance the plainest rules of the [pg 294] science of language as well as of the science of history. Even if the interpretation of a local name should be right, it would be of no scientific value without the preliminary inquiry into its history, which frequently consists in a succession of the most startling changes and corruptions. Those who are at all familiar with the history of Cornish names of places will not be surprised to find the same name written in four or five, nay, in ten different ways. The fact is that those who pronounced the names were frequently ignorant of their real import, and those who had to write them down could hardly catch their correct pronunciation. Thus we find that Camden calls Marazion Merkiu; Carew, Marcaiew. Leland in his “Itinerary” (about 1538) uses the names Markesin, Markine (vol. iii. fol. 4); and in another place (vol. vii. fol. 119) he applies, it would seem, to the same town the name of Marasdeythyon. William of Worcester (about 1478) writes promiscuously Markysyoo (p. 103), Marchew and Margew (p. 133), Marchasyowe and Markysyow (p. 98). In a charter of Queen Elizabeth, dated 1595, the name is written Marghasiewe; in another of the year 1313, Markesion; in another of 1309, Markasyon; in another of Richard, Earl of Cornwall (Rex Romanorum, 1257), Marchadyon, which seems the oldest, and at the same time the most primitive form.[65] Besides these, Dr. Oliver has found in different title-deeds [pg 295] the following varieties of the same name:—Marghasion, Markesiow, Marghasiew, Maryazion, and Marazion. The only explanation of the name which we meet with in early writers, such as Leland, Camden, and Carew, is that it meant “Thursday Market.” Leland explains Marasdeythyon by forum Jovis. Camden explains Merkiu in the same manner, and Carew takes Marcaiew as originally Marhas diew, i.e. “Thursdaies market, for then it useth this traffike.”

This interpretation of Marhasdiew as Thursday Market, appears at first very plausible, and it has at all events far better claims on our acceptance than the modern Hebrew etymology of “Bitterness of Zion.” But, strange to say, although from a charter of Robert, Earl of Cornwall, it appears that the monks of the Mount had the privilege of holding a market on Thursday (die quintæ feriæ), there is no evidence, and no probability, that a town so close to the Mount as Marazion ever held a market on the same day.[66] Thursday in Cornish was called deyow, not diew. The only additional evidence we get is this, that in the taxation of Bishop Walter Bronescombe, made August 12, 1261, and quoted in Bishop Stapledon's register of 1313, the place is called Markesion de parvo mercato,[67] and that in a charter of Richard, King of the Romans and Earl of Cornwall, permission was granted to the prior of St. Michael's Mount that three markets, which formerly had been held in Marghasbigan, on ground not belonging to him, should in future be held on his own ground [pg 296] in Marchadyon. Parvus mercatus is evidently the same place as Marghasbigan, for Marghas-bigan means in Cornish the same as Mercatus parvus, namely, “Little Market.” The charter of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, is more perplexing, and it would seem to yield no sense, unless we again take Marchadyon as a mere variety of Marghasbigan, and suppose that the privilege granted to the prior of St. Michael's Mount consisted really in transferring the fair from land in Marazion not belonging to him, to land in Marazion belonging to him. Anyhow, it is clear that in Marazion we have some kind of name for market.

The old Cornish word for market is marchas, a corruption of the Latin mercatus. Originally the Cornish word must have been marchad, and this form is preserved in Armorican, while in Cornish the ch gradually sunk to h, and the final d to s. This change of d into s is of frequent occurrence in modern as compared with ancient Cornish, and the history of our word will enable us, to a certain extent, to fix the time when that change took place. In the charter of Richard, Earl of Cornwall (about 1257), we find Marchadyon; in a charter of 1309, Markasyon. The change of d into s had taken place during these fifty years.[68] But what is the termination yon? Considering that Marazion is called the Little Market, I should like to see in yon the diminutive Cornish suffix, corresponding to the Welsh yn. But if this should be objected to, on the ground that no such diminutives occur in the literary [pg 297] monuments of the Cornish language, another explanation is open, which was first suggested to me by Mr. Bellows: Marchadion may be taken as a perfectly regular plural in Cornish, and we should then have to suppose that, instead of being called the Market or the Little Market, the place was called, from its three statute markets, “The Markets.” And this would help us to explain, not only the gradual growth of the name Marazion, but likewise, I think, the gradual formation of “Market Jew;” for another termination of the plural in Cornish is ieu, which, added to Marchad, would give us Marchadieu.[69]

Now it is perfectly true that no real Cornishman, I mean no man who spoke Cornish, would ever have taken Marchadiew for Market Jew, or Jews' Market. The name for Jew in Cornish is quite different. It is Edhow, Yedhow, Yudhow, corrupted likewise into Ezow; plural, Yedhewon, etc. But to a Saxon ear the Cornish name Marchadiew might well convey the idea of Market Jew, and thus, by a metamorphic process, a name meaning in Cornish the Markets would give rise in a perfectly natural manner, not only to the two names, Marazion and Market Jew, but likewise to the historical legends of Jews settled in the county of Cornwall.[70]

But there still remain the Jews' houses, the name given, it is said, to the old, deserted smelting-houses [pg 299] in Cornwall, and in Cornwall only. Though, in the absence of any historical evidence as to the employment of this term Jew's house in former ages, it will be more difficult to arrive at its original form and meaning, yet an explanation offers itself which, by a procedure very similar to that which was applied to Marazion and Market Jew, may account for the origin of this name likewise.

The Cornish name for house was originally ty. In modern Cornish, however, to quote from Lhuyd's Grammar, t has been changed to tsh, as ti, thou, tshei; ty, a house, tshey; which tsh is also sometimes changed to dzh, as ol mein y dzkyi, “all in the house.” Out of this dzhyi we may easily understand how a Saxon mouth and a Saxon ear might have elicited a sound somewhat like the English Jew.

But we do not get at Jews' house by so easy a road, if indeed we get at it at all. We are told that a smelting-house was called a White-house, in Cornish Chiwidden, widden standing for gwydn, which is a corruption of the old Cornish gwyn, white. This name of Chiwidden is a famous name in Cornish hagiography. He was the companion of St. Perran, or St. Piran, the most popular saint among the mining population of Cornwall.

Mr. Hunt, who in his interesting work, “The Popular Romances of the West of England,” has assigned a separate chapter to Cornish saints, tells us how St. Piran, while living in Ireland, fed ten Irish kings and their armies, for ten days together, with three cows. Notwithstanding this and other miracles, some of these kings condemned him to be cast off a precipice into the sea, with a millstone round his neck. St. Piran, however, floated on safely to Cornwall, and he [pg 300] landed, on the 5th of March, on the sands which still bear his name, Perranzabuloe, or Perran on the Sands.

The lives of saints form one of the most curious subjects for the historian, and still more for the student of language; and the day, no doubt, will come when it will be possible to take those wonderful conglomerates of fact and fiction to pieces, and, as in one of those huge masses of graywacke or rubblestone, to assign each grain and fragment to the stratum from which it was taken, before they were all rolled together and cemented by the ebb and flow of popular tradition. With regard to the lives of Irish and Scotch and British saints, it ought to be stated, for the credit of the pious authors of the “Acta Sanctorum,” that even they admit their tertiary origin. “During the twelfth century,” they say, “when many of the ancient monasteries in Ireland were handed over to monks from England, and many new houses were built for them, these monks began to compile the acts of the saints with greater industry than judgment. They collected all they could find among the uncertain traditions of the natives and in obscure Irish writings, following the example of Jocelin, whose work on the acts of St. Patrick had been received everywhere with wonderful applause. But many of them have miserably failed, so that the foolish have laughed at them, and the wise been filled with indignation.” (“Bollandi Acta,” 5th of March, p. 390, B). In the same work (p. 392, A), it is pointed out that the Irish monks, whenever they heard of any saints in other parts of England whose names and lives reminded them of Irish saints, at once concluded that they were of Irish origin; and that the people in some parts of England, as they possessed no written acts of [pg 301] their popular saints, were glad to identify their own with the famous saints of the Irish Church. This has evidently happened in the case of St. Piran. St. Piran, in one of his characters, is certainly a truly Cornish saint; but when the monks in Cornwall heard the wonderful legends of the Irish saint, St. Kiran, they seem to have grafted their own St. Piran on the Irish St. Kiran. The difference in the names must have seemed less to them than to us; for words which in Cornish are pronounced with p, are pronounced, as a rule, in Irish with k. Thus, head in Cornish is pen, in Irish ceann, son is map, in Irish mac. The town built at the eastern extremity of the wall of Severus, was called Penguaul, i.e. pen, caput, guaul, walls; the English call it Penel-tun, while in Scotch it was pronounced Cenail.[71] That St. Kiran had originally nothing to do with St. Piran can still be proved, for the earlier Lives of St. Kiran, though full of fabulous stories, represent him as dying in Ireland. His saint's day was the 5th of March; that of St. Piran, the 2d of May. The later Lives, however, though they say nothing as yet of the millstone, represent St. Kiran, when a very old man, as suddenly leaving his country in order that he might die in Cornwall. We are told that suddenly, when already near his death, he called together his little flock, and said to them: “My dear brothers and sons, according to a divine disposition I must leave Ireland and go to Cornwall, and wait for the end of my life there. I cannot resist the will of God.” He then sailed to Cornwall, and built himself a house, where he performed many miracles. He was buried in Cornwall on the sandy sea, fifteen miles from Petrokstowe, and twenty-five miles from Mousehole.[72] [pg 302] In this manner the Irish and the Cornish saints, who originally had nothing in common but their names, became amalgamated,[73] and the saint's day of St. Piran was moved from the 2d of May to the 5th of March. Yet although thus welded into one, nothing could well be imagined more different than the characters of the Irish and of the Cornish saint. The Irish saint lived a truly ascetic life; he preached, wrought miracles, and died. The Cornish saint was a jolly miner, not always very steady on his legs.[74] Let us hear what the Cornish have to tell of him. His name occurs in several names of places, such as Perran Zabuloe, Perran Uthno, in Perran the Little, and in Perran Ar-worthall. His name, pronounced Perran, or Piran, has been further corrupted into Picras, and Picrous, though some authorities suppose that this is again a different saint from St. Piran. Anyhow, both St. Perran and St. Picras live in the memory of the Cornish miner as the discoverers of tin; and the tinners' great holiday, the Thursday before Christmas, is still called Picrou's day.[75] The legend relates that St. Piran, when still in Cornwall, employed a heavy black stone as a part of his fire-place. The fire was more intense than usual, and a stream of beautiful white metal flowed out of the fire. Great was the joy of [pg 303] the saint, and he communicated his discovery to St. Chiwidden. They examined the stone together, and Chiwidden, who was learned in the learning of the East, soon devised a process for producing this metal in large quantities. The two saints called the Cornishmen together. They told them of their treasures, and they taught them how to dig the ore from the earth, and how, by the agency of fire, to obtain the metal. Great was the joy in Cornwall, and many days of feasting followed the announcement. Mead and metheglin, with other drinks, flowed in abundance; and vile rumor says the saints and their people were rendered equally unstable thereby. “Drunk as a Perraner” has certainly passed into a proverb from that day.

It is quite clear from these accounts that the legendary discoverer of tin in Cornwall was originally a totally different character from the Irish saint, St. Kiran. If one might indulge in a conjecture, I should say that there probably was in the Celtic language a root kar, which in the Cymbric branch would assume the form par. Now cair in Gaelic means to dig, to raise; and from it a substantive might be derived, meaning digger or miner. In Ireland, Kiran seems to have been simply a proper name, like Smith or Baker, for there is nothing in the legends of St. Kiran that points to mining or smelting. In Cornwall, on the contrary, St. Piran, before he was engrafted on St. Kiran, was probably nothing but a personification or apotheosis of the Miner, as much as Dorus was the personification of the Dorians, and Brutus the first King of Britain.

The rule, “noscitur a sociis,” may be applied to St. Piran. His friend and associate, St. Chiwidden, or St. Whitehouse, is a personification of the white-house, i.e. the smelting-house, without which St. Piran, the [pg 304] miner, would have been a very useless saint. If Chywidden, i.e. the smelting-house, became the St. Chywidden, why should we look in the Cornish St. Piran for anything beyond Piran, i.e. the miner?

However, what is of importance to us for our present object is not St. Piran, but St. Chywidden, the white-house or smelting-house. We are looking all this time for the original meaning of the Jews' houses, and the question is, how can we, starting from Chywidden, arrive at Jews'-house? I am afraid we can not do so without a jump or two; all we can do is to show that they are jumps which language herself is fond of taking, and which therefore we must not shirk, if we wish to ride straight after her.

Well, then, the first jump which language frequently takes is this, that instead of using a noun with a qualifying adjective, such as white-house, the noun by itself is used without any such qualification. This can, of course, be done with very prominent words only, words which are used so often, and which express ideas so constantly present to the mind of the speaker, that no mistake is likely to arise. In English, “the House” is used for the House of Commons; in later Latin “domus” was used for the House of God. Among fisherman in Scotland “fish” means salmon. In Greek λίθος, stone, in the feminine, is used for the magnet, originally Μαγνῆτις λίθος while the masculine λίθος means a stone in general. In Cornwall, ore by itself means copper ore only, while tin ore is called black tin. In times, therefore, when the whole attention of Cornwall was absorbed by mining and smelting, and when smelting-houses were most likely the only large buildings that seemed to deserve the name of houses, there is nothing extraordinary in tshey or dzhyi, [pg 305] even without widden, white, having become the recognized name for smelting-houses.

But now comes a second jump, and again one that can be proved to have been a very favorite one with many languages. When people speaking different languages live together in the same country, they frequently, in adopting a foreign term, add to it, by way of interpretation, the word that corresponds to it in their own language. Thus Portsmouth is a name half Latin and half English. Portus was the Roman name given to the harbor. This was adopted by the Saxons, but interpreted at the same time by a Saxon word, namely, mouth, which really means harbor. This interpretation was hardly intentional, but arose naturally. Port first became a kind of proper name, and then mouth was added, so that “the mouth of Port,” i.e. of the place called Portus by the Romans, became at last Portsmouth. But this does not satisfy the early historians, and, as happens so frequently when there is anything corrupt in language, a legend springs up almost spontaneously to remove all doubts and difficulties. Thus we read in the venerable Saxon Chronicle under the year 501, “that Port came to Britain with his two sons, Bieda and Maegla, with two ships, and their place was called Portsmouth; and they slew a British man, a very noble man.”[76] Such is the growth of legends, aye, and in many cases the growth of history.

Formed on the same principle as Portsmouth we find such words as Hayle-river, the Cornish hal by itself meaning salt marsh, moor, or estuary; Treville or Trou-ville, where the Celtic tre, town, is explained by the French ville; the Cotswold Hills, where the Celtic word cot, wood, is explained by the Saxon wold or [pg 306] weald, a wood. In Dun-bar-ton, the Celtic word dun, hill, is explained by the Saxon bar for byrig, burg, ton being added to form the name of the town that rose up under the protection of the hill-castle. In Penhow the same process has been suspected; how, the German Höhe,[77] expressing nearly the same idea as pen, head. In Constantine, in Cornwall, one of the large stones with rock-basins is called the Mên-rock,[78] rock being simply the interpretation of the Cornish mên.

If, then, we suppose that in exactly the same manner the people of Cornwall spoke of Tshey-houses, or Dshyi-houses, is it so very extraordinary that this hybrid word should at last have been interpreted as Jew-houses or Jews' houses? I do not say that the history of the word can be traced through all its phases with the same certainty as that of Marazion; all I maintain is that, in explaining its history, no step has been admitted that cannot be proved by sufficient evidence to be in strict keeping with the well-known movements, or, if it is respectful to say so, the well-known antics of language.

Thus vanish the Jews from Cornwall; but there still remain the Saracens. One is surprised to meet with Saracens in the West of England; still more, to hear of their having worked in the tin-mines, like the Jews. According to some writers, however, Saracen is only another name for Jews, though no explanation is given why this detested name should have been applied to the Jews in Cornwall, and nowhere else. This view is held, for instance, by Carew, who writes: [pg 307] “The Cornish maintain these works to have been very ancient, and the first wrought by the Jews with pickaxes of holm, box, hartshorn; they prove this by the names of those places yet enduring, to wit, Attall-Sarazin (or, as in some editions, Sazarin); in English, the Jews' Offcast.”

Camden (p. 69) says: “We are taught from Diodorus and Æthicus that the ancient Britons had worked hard at the mines, but the Saxons and Normans seem to have neglected them for a long time, or to have employed the labor of Arabs or Saracens, for the inhabitants call deserted shafts, Attall-Sarazin, i.e. the leavings of the Saracens.”

Thus, then, we have not only the Saracens in Cornwall admitted as simply a matter of history, but their presence actually used in order to prove that the Saxons and Normans neglected to work the mines in the West of England.

A still more circumstantial account is given by Hals, as quoted by Gilbert in his “Parochial History of Cornwall.” Here we are told that King Henry III., by proclamation, let out all Jews in his dominions at a certain rent to such as would poll and rifle them, and amongst others to his brother Richard, King of the Romans, who, after he had plundered their estates, committed their bodies, as his slaves, to labor in the tin-mines of Cornwall; the memory of whose workings is still preserved in the names of several tin works, called Towle Sarasin, and corruptly Attall Saracen; i.e. the refuse or outcast of Saracens; that is to say, of those Jews descended from Sarah and Abraham. Other works were called Whele Etherson (alias Ethewon), the Jews' Works, or Unbelievers' Works, in Cornish.

Here we see how history is made; and if our inquiries led to no other result, they would still be useful as a warning against putting implicit faith in the statements of writers who are separated by several centuries from the events they are relating. Here we have men like Carew and Camden, both highly cultivated, learned, and conscientious, and yet neither of them hesitating, in a work of historical character, to assert as a fact, what, after making every allowance, can only be called a very bold guess. Have we any reason to suppose that Herodotus and Thucydides, when speaking of the original abodes of the various races of Greece, of their migrations, their wars and final settlements, had better evidence before them, or were more cautious in using their evidence, than Camden and Carew? And is it likely that modern scholars, however learned and however careful, can ever arrive at really satisfactory results by sifting and arranging and rearranging the ethnological statements of the ancients, as to the original abodes or the later migrations of Pelasgians, Tyrrhenians, Thracians, Macedonians, and Illyrians, or even of Dorians, Æolians, and Ionians? What is Carew's evidence in support of his statement that the Jews first worked the tin-mines of Cornwall? Simply the sayings of the people in Cornwall, who support their sayings by the name given to deserted mines, Attall Sarazin. Now admitting that Attall Sarazin or Attall Sazarin, meant the refuse of the Saracens, how is it possible, in cold blood, to identify the Saracens with Jews, and where is there a tittle of evidence to prove that the Jews were the first to work these mines,—mines, be it remembered, which, according to the same Carew, were certainly worked before the beginning of our era?

But leaving the Jews of the time of Nero, let us examine the more definite and more moderate statements of Hals and Gilbert. According to them, the deserted shafts are called by a Cornish name meaning the refuse of the Saracens, because, as late as the thirteenth century, the Jews were sent to work in these mines. It is difficult, no doubt, to prove a negative, and to show that no Jews ever worked in the mines of Cornwall. All that can be done, in a case like this, is to show that no one has produced an atom of evidence in support of Mr. Gilbert's opinion. The Jews were certainly ill treated, plundered, tortured, and exiled during the reign of the Plantagenet kings; but that they were sent to the Cornish mines, no contemporary writer has ever ventured to assert. The passage in Matthew Paris, to which Mr. Gilbert most likely alludes, says the very contrary of what he draws from it. Matthew Paris says that Henry III. extorted money from the Jews, and that when they petitioned for a safe conduct, in order to leave England altogether, he sold them to his brother Richard, “ut quos Rex excoriaverat, Comes evisceraret.”[79] But this selling of the Jews meant no more than that, in return for money advanced him by his brother, the Earl of Cornwall, the King pawned to him, for a number of years, the taxes, legitimate or illegitimate, which could be extorted from the Jews. That this was the real meaning of the bargain between the King and his brother, the Earl of Cornwall, can be proved by the document printed in Rymer's “Fœdera,” vol. i. p. 543, “De Judæis Comiti Cornubiæ assignatis, pro solutione pecuniæ sibi a Rege debitæ.”[80] Anyhow, there is not a single word about [pg 310] the Jews having been sent to Cornwall, or having had to work in the mines. On the contrary, Matthew Paris says, “Comes pepercit iis,” “the Earl spared them.”

After thus looking in vain for any truly historical evidence in support of Jewish settlements in Cornwall, I suppose they may in future be safely treated as a “verbal myth,” of which there are more indeed in different chapters of history, both ancient and modern, than is commonly supposed. As in Cornwall the name of a market has given rise to the fable of Jewish settlements, the name of another market in Finland led to the belief that there were Turks settled in that northern country. Abo, the ancient capital of Finland, was called Turku, which is the Swedish word torg, market. Adam of Bremen, enumerating the various tribes adjoining the Baltic, mentions Turci among the rest, and these Turci were by others mistaken for Turks.[81]

Even after such myths have been laid open to the very roots, there is a strong tendency not to drop them altogether. Thus Mr. H. Merivale is far too good an historian to admit the presence of Jews in Cornwall as far back as the destruction of Jerusalem.[82] He knows there is no evidence for it, and he would not repeat a mere fable, however plausible. Yet Marazion and the Jews' houses evidently linger in his memory, and he throws out a hint that they may find an historical explanation in the fact that under the Plantagenet kings the Jews commonly farmed or wrought the mines. Is there any contemporary evidence [pg 311] even for this? I do not think so. Dr. Borlase, indeed, in his “Natural History of Cornwall” (p. 190), says, “In the time of King John, I find the product of tin in this county very inconsiderable, the right of working for tin being as yet wholly in the King, the property of tinners precarious and unsettled, and what tin was raised was engrossed and managed by the Jews, to the great regret of the barons and their vassals.” It is a pity that Dr. Borlase should not have given his authority, but there is little doubt that he simply quoted from Carew. Carew tells us how the Cornish gentlemen borrowed money from the merchants of London, giving them tin as security (p. 14); and though he does not call the merchants Jews, yet he speaks of them as usurers, and reproves their “cut throate and abominable dealing.” He continues afterwards, speaking of the same usurers (p. 16), “After such time as the Jewes by their extreme dealing had worne themselves, first out of the love of the English inhabitants, and afterwards out of the land itselfe, and so left the mines unwrought, it hapned, that certaine gentlemen, being lords of seven tithings in Blackmoore, whose grounds were best stored with this minerall, grewe desirous to renew this benefit,” etc. To judge from several indications, this is really the passage which Dr. Borlase had before him when writing of the Jews as engrossing and managing the tin that was raised, and in that case neither is Carew a contemporary witness, nor would it follow from what he says that one single Jew ever set foot on Cornish soil, or that any Jews ever tasted the actual bitterness of working in the mines.

Having thus disposed of the Jews, we now turn to [pg 312] the Saracens in Cornwall. We shall not enter upon the curious and complicated history of that name. It is enough to refer to a short note in Gibbon,[83] in order to show that Saracen was a name known to Greeks and Romans, long before the rise of Islam, but never applied to the Jews by any writer of authority, not even by those who saw in the Saracens “the children of Sarah.”

What, then, it may be asked, is the origin of the expression Attal Sarazin in Cornwall? Attal, or Atal, is said to be a Cornish word, the Welsh Adhail, and means refuse, waste.[84] As to Sarazin, it is most likely another Cornish word, which by a metamorphic process, has been slightly changed in order to yield some sense intelligible to Saxon speakers. We find in Cornish tarad, meaning a piercer, a borer; and, in another form, tardar is distinctly used, together with axe and hammer, as the name of a mining implement. The Latin taratrum, Gr. τέρετρον, Fr. tarière, all come from the same source. If from tarad we form a plural, we get taradion. In modern Cornish we find that d sinks down to s, which would give us taras,[85] and plural tarasion. Next, the final l of atal may, like several final l's in the closely allied language of Brittany, have [pg 313] infected the initial t of tarasion, and changed it to th, which th, again, would, in modern Cornish, sink down to s.[86] Thus atal tharasion might have been intended for the refuse of the borings, possibly the refuse of the mines; but pronounced in Saxon fashion, it might readily have been mistaken for the Atal or refuse of the Sarasion or Saracens.

POSTSCRIPT.

The essay on the presence of Jews in Cornwall has given rise to much controversy; and as I republish it here without any important alterations, I feel it incumbent to say a few words in answer to the objections that have been brought forward against it. No one, I think, can read my essay without perceiving that what I question is not the presence of single Jews in Cornwall, but the migration of large numbers of Jews into the extreme West of Britain, whether at the time of the Phœnicians, or at the period of the destruction of Jerusalem, or under the Flavian princes, or even at a later time. The Rev. Dr. Bannister in a paper on “the Jews in Cornwall,” published in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, 1867, does indeed represent me as having maintained “that one single Jew never set foot on Cornish soil!” But if my readers will refer to the passage thus quoted from my essay by Dr. Bannister, they will see that it was not meant in that sense. In the passage thus quoted with inverted commas,[87] I simply argued that from certain words used by Carew, on which great stress had been laid, it would not even follow “that one single Jew ever set foot on Cornish soil,” which surely is very different from saying that I maintained that no single Jew ever set foot on Cornish soil. It would indeed [pg 314] be the most extraordinary fact if Cornwall had never been visited by Jews. If it were so, Cornwall would stand alone, as far as such an immunity is concerned, among all the countries of Europe. But it is one thing for Jews to be scattered about in towns,[88] or even for one or two Jews to have actually worked in tin mines, and quite another to speak of towns receiving Hebrew names in Cornwall, and of deserted tin-mines being called the workings of the Jews. To explain such startling facts, if facts they be, a kind of Jewish exodus to Cornwall had to be admitted, and was admitted as long as such names as Marazion and Attal Sarazin were accepted in their traditional meaning. My own opinion was that these names had given rise to the assumed presence of Jews in Cornwall, and not that the presence of Jews in Cornwall had given rise to these names.

If, therefore, it could be proved that some Jewish families had been settled in Cornwall in very early times, or that a few Jewish slaves had been employed as miners, my theory would not at all be affected. But I must say that the attempts at proving even so much have been far from successful. Surely the occurrence of Old Testament names among the people of Cornwall, such as Abraham, Joseph, or Solomon (there is a Solomon, Duke of Cornwall), does not prove that their bearers were Jews. Again, if we read in the time of Edward II. that “John Peverel held Hametethy of Roger le Jeu,” we may be quite certain that le Jeu does not mean “the Jew,” and that in the time of Edward II. no John Peverel held land of a Jew. Again, if in the time of Edward III. we read of one “Abraham, the tinner, who employed 300 men in the stream-works of Brodhok,” it would require stronger proof than the mere name to make us believe that this Abraham was a Jew.

I had endeavored to show that there was no evidence as to the Earl of Cornwall, the brother of Henry III., having employed Jews in the Cornish mines, and had pointed out a passage from Rymer's “Fœdera” where it is stated that the Earl spared them (pepercit). Dr. Bannister remarks: “Though we are told that he spared them, might not this be similar to Joseph's brethren sparing him,—by committing their bodies as his slaves to work in the tin-mines?” It might be so, no doubt, but we do not know it. Again, Dr. Bannister remarks: “Jerome tells us [pg 315] that when Titus took Jerusalem, an incredible number of Jews were sold like horses, and dispersed over the face of the whole earth. The account given by Josephus is, that of those spared after indiscriminate slaughter, some were dispersed through the provinces for the use of the theatres, as gladiators; others were sent to the Egyptian mines, and others sold as slaves. If the Romans at this time worked the Cornish mines, why may not some have been sent here?” I can only answer, as before; they may have been, no doubt, but we do not know it.

I had myself searched very carefully for any documents that might prove the presence even of single Jews in Cornwall, previous to the time when they were banished the realm by Edward I. But my inquiries had not proved more successful than those of my predecessors. Pearce, in his “Laws and Customs of the Stanaries,” published in London, 1725, shares the common belief that the Jews worked in the Cornish mines. “The tinners,” he says (p. ii), “call the antient works by the name of the Working of the Jews, and it is most manifest, that there were Jews inhabiting here until 1291; and this they prove by the names yet enduring, viz. Attall Sarazin, in English, The Jews Feast.” But in spite of his strong belief in the presence of Jews in Cornwall, Pearce adds: “But whether they had liberty to work and search for tin, does not appear, because they had their dwellings chiefly in great Towns and Cities; and being great Usurers, were in that year banished out of England, to the number of 15,060, by the most noble Prince, Edward I.”

At last, however, with the kind assistance of Mr. Macray, I discovered a few real Jews in Cornwall in the third year of King John, 1202, namely, one Simon de Dena, one Deudone, the son of Samuel, and one Aaron. Some of their monetary transactions are recorded in the “Rotulus Cancellarii vel Antigraphum Magni Rotuli Pipæ de tertio anno Regni Regis Johannis” (printed under the direction of the Commissioners of the Public Records in 1863, p. 96), and we have here not only their names as evidence of their Jewish origin, but they are actually spoken of as “prædictus Judens.” Their transactions, however, are purely financial, and do not lead us to suppose that the Jews, in order to make tin, condescended, in the time of King John or at any other time, to the drudgery of working in tin-mines.

July, 1867.

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XV. THE INSULATION OF ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT.[89]

St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall is so well known to most people, either from sight or from report, that a description of its peculiar features may be deemed almost superfluous; but in order to start fair, I shall quote a short account from the pen of an eminent geologist, Mr. Pengelly, to whom I shall have to refer frequently in the course of this paper.

“St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall, he says, “is an island at very high water, and, with rare exceptions, a peninsula at very low water. The distance from Marazion Cliff, the nearest point of the mainland, to spring-tide high-water mark on its own strand, is about 1680 feet. The total isthmus consists of the outcrop of highly inclined Devonian slate and associated rocks, and in most cases is covered with a thin layer of gravel or sand. At spring-tides, in still weather, it is at high-water about twelve feet below, and at low-water six feet above, the sea level. In fine weather it is dry from four to five hours every tide; but occasionally, during very stormy weather and neap tides, it is impossible to cross from the mainland for two or three days together.”

“The Mount is an outlier of granite, measuring at its base about five furlongs in circumference, and rising to the height of one hundred and ninety-five feet above mean tide. At high-water it plunges abruptly into the sea, except on the north or landward side, where the granite comes into contact with slate. Here there is a small plain occupied by a village.... The country immediately behind or north of the town of Marazion consists of Devonian strata, traversed by traps and elvans, and attains a considerable elevation.”

At the meeting of the British Association in 1865, Mr. Pengelly, in a paper on “The Insulation of St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall,” maintained that the change which converted that Mount from a promontory into an island must have taken place, not only within the human period, but since Cornwall was occupied by a people speaking the Cornish language. As a proof of this somewhat startling assertion, he adduced the ancient British name of St. Michael's Mount, signifying the Hoar rock in the wood. Nobody would think of applying such a name to the Mount in its present state; and as we know that during the last two thousand years the Mount has been, as it is now, an island at high, and a promontory at low tide, it would indeed seem to follow that its name must have been framed before the destruction of the ancient forest by which it was once surrounded, and before the separation of the Mount from the mainland.

Sir Henry James, in a “Note on the Block of Tin dredged in Falmouth Harbor,” asserts, it is true, that there are trees growing on the Mount in sufficient numbers to have justified the ancient descriptive name of “the Hoar rock in the wood;” but though there are traces of trees visible on the engravings published [pg 318] a hundred years ago, in Dr. Borlase's “Antiquities of Cornwall,” these are most likely due to artistic embellishment only. At present no writer will discover in St. Michael's Mount what could fairly be called either trees or a wood, even in Cornwall.

That the geographical change from a promontory into a real island did not take place during the last two thousand years, is proved by the description which Diodorus Siculus, a little before the Christian era, gives of St. Michael's Mount. “The inhabitants of the promontory of Belerium,” he says (lib. v. c. 22), “were hospitable, and, on account of their intercourse with strangers, eminently civilized in their habits. These are the people who work the tin, which they melt into the form of astragali, and then carry it to an island in front of Britain, called Ictis. This island is left dry at low tide, and they then transport the tin in carts from the shore. Here the traders buy it from the natives, and carry it to Gaul, over which it travels on horseback in about thirty days to the mouths of the Rhone.” That the Island of Ictis, described by Diodorus, is St. Michael's Mount, seems, to say the least, very probable, and was at last admitted even by the late Sir G. C. Lewis. In fact, the description which Diodorus gives answers so completely to what St. Michael's Mount is at the present day, that few would deny that if the Mount ever was a “Hoar rock in the wood,” it must have been so before the time of which Diodorus speaks, that is, at least before the last two thousand years. The nine apparent reasons why St. Michael's Mount cannot be the Ictis of Diodorus, and their refutation, may be seen in Mr. Pengelly's paper “On the Insulation of St. Michael's Mount,” p. 6, seq.

Mr. Pengelly proceeded to show that the geological [pg 319] change which converted the promontory into an island may be due to two causes. First, it may have taken place in consequence of the encroachment of the sea. This would demand a belief that at least 20,000 years ago Cornwall was inhabited by men who spoke Cornish. Secondly, this change may have taken place by a general subsidence of the land, and this is the opinion adopted by Mr. Pengelly. No exact date was assigned to this subsidence, but Mr. Pengelly finished by expressing his decided opinion that, subsequent to a period when Cornwall was inhabited by a race speaking a Celtic language, St. Michael's Mount was “a hoar rock in the wood,” and has since become insulated by powerful geological changes.

In a more recent paper read at the Royal Institution (April 5, 1867), Mr. Pengelly has somewhat modified his opinion. Taking for granted that at some time or other St. Michael's Mount was a peninsula and not yet an island, he calculates that it must have taken 16,800 years before the coast line could have receded from the Mount to the present cliffs. He arrived at this result by taking the retrocession of the cliffs at ten feet in a century, the distance between the Mount and the mainland being at present 1,680 feet.

If, however, the severance of the Mount from the mainland was the result, not of retrocession, but of the subsidence of the country,—a rival theory which Mr. Pengelly still admits as possible,—the former calculation would fail, and the only means of fixing the date of this severance would be supplied by the remains found in the forests that were carried down by that subsidence, and which are supposed to belong to the mammoth era. This mammoth era, we are told, is anterior to the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, and the [pg 320] kitchenmiddens of Denmark, for in neither of these have any remains of the mammoth been discovered. The mammoth, in fact, did not outlive the age of bronze, and before the end of that age, therefore, St. Michael's Mount must be supposed to have become an island.

In all these discussions it is taken for granted that St. Michael's Mount was at one time unquestionably a “hoar rock in the wood,” and that the land between the Mount and the mainland was once covered by a forest which extended along the whole of the seaboard. That there are submerged forests along that seaboard is attested by sufficient geological evidence; but I have not been able to discover any proof of the unbroken continuity of that shore-forest, still less of the presence of vegetable remains in the exact locality which is of interest to us, namely between the Mount and the mainland. It is true that Dr. Borlase discovered the remains of trunks of trees on the 10th of January, 1757; but he tells us that these forest trees were not found round the Mount, but midway betwixt the piers of St. Michael's Mount and Penzance, that is to say, about one mile distant from the Mount; also, that one of them was a willow-tree with the bark on it, another a hazel-branch with the bark still fat and glossy. The place where these trees were found was three hundred yards below full-sea mark, where the water is twelve feet deep when the tide is in.

Carew, also, at an earlier date, speaks of roots of mighty trees found in the sand about the Mount, but without giving the exact place. Lelant (1533-40) knows of “Spere Heddes, Axis for Warre, and Swerdes of Copper wrapped up in lynist, scant perishid,” that had been found of late years near the [pg 321] Mount, in St. Hilary's parish, in tin works; but he places the land that had been devoured of the sea between Penzance and Mousehole, i.e. more than two miles distant from the Mount.

The value of this kind of geological evidence must of course be determined by geologists. It is quite possible that the remains of trunks of trees may still be found on the very isthmus between the Mount and the mainland; but it is, to say the least, curious that, even in the absence of such stringent evidence, geologists should feel so confident that the Mount once stood on the mainland, and that exactly the same persuasion should have been shared by people long before the name of geology was known. There is a powerful spell in popular traditions, against which even men of science are not always proof, and is just possible that if the tradition of the “hoar rock in the wood” had not existed, no attempts would have been made to explain the causes that severed St. Michael's Mount from the mainland. But even then the question remains, How was it that people quite guiltless of geology should have framed the popular name of the Mount, and the popular tradition of its former connection with the mainland? Leaving, therefore, for the present all geological evidence out of view, it will be an interesting inquiry to find out, if possible, how people that could not have been swayed by any geological theories, should have been led to believe in the gradual insulation of St. Michael's Mount.

The principal argument brought forward by non-geological writers in support of the former existence of a forest surrounding the Mount, is the Cornish name of St. Michael's Mount, Cara clowse in cowse, which in Cornish is said to mean “the hoar rock in the wood.” [pg 322] In his paper read before the British Association at Manchester, Mr. Pengelly adduced that very name as irrefragable evidence that Cornish, i.e. a Celtic language, an Aryan language, was spoken in the extreme west of Europe about 20,000 years ago. In his more recent paper Mr. Pengelly has given up this position, and he considers it improbable that any philologer could now give a trustworthy translation of a language spoken 20,000 years ago. This may be or not; but before we build any hypothesis on that Cornish name, the first question which an historian has to answer is clearly this:—

What authority is there for that name? Where does it occur for the first time? and does it really mean what it is supposed to mean?

Now the first mention of the Cornish name, as far as I am aware, occurs in Richard Carew's “Survey of Cornwall,” which was published in 1602. It is true that Camden's “Britannia” appeared earlier, in 1586, and that Camden (p. 72), too, mentions “the Mons Michaelis, Dinsol olim, ut in libro Landavensi habetur, incolis Careg Cowse,[90] i.e. rupis cana.” But it will be seen that he leaves out the most important part of the old name, nor can there be much doubt that Camden received his information about Cornwall direct from Carew, before Carew's “Survey of Cornwall” was published.

After speaking of “the countrie of Lionesse which the sea hath ravined from Cornwall betweene the lands end and the Isles of Scilley,” Carew continues (p. 3), “Moreover, the ancient name of Saint Michael's Mount was Cara-clowse in Cowse, in English, [pg 323] The hoare Rocke in the Wood; which now is at everie floud incompassed by the Sea, and yet at some low ebbes, rootes of mightie trees are discryed in the sands about it. The like overflowing hath happened in Plymmouth Haven, and divers other places.” Now while in this place Carew gives the name Cara-clowse in Cowse, it is very important to remark that on page 154, he speaks of it again as “Cara Cowz in Clowze, that is, the hoare rock in the wood.”

The original Cornish name, whether it was Cara clowse in Cowse, or Cara Cowz in Clowze, cannot be traced back beyond the end of the sixteenth century, for the Cornish Pilchard song in which the name likewise occurs is much more recent, at least in that form in which we possess it. The tradition, however, that St. Michael's Mount stood in a forest, and even the Saxon designation, “the Hoar rock in the wood,” can be followed up to an earlier date.

At least one hundred and twenty-five years before Carew's time, William of Worcester, though not mentioning the Cornish name, not only gives the Mount the name of “hoar rock of the wood,” but states distinctly that St. Michael's Mount was formerly six miles distant from the sea, and surrounded by a dense forest: “PREDICTUS LOCUS OPACISSIMA PRIMO CLAUDEBATUR SYLVA, AB OCEANO MILIARIBUS DISTANS SEX.” As William of Worcester never mentions the Cornish name, it is not likely that his statement should merely be derived from the supposed meaning of Cara Cowz in Clowze, and it is but fair to admit that he may have drawn from a safer source of information. We must therefore inquire more closely into the credibility of this important witness. He is an important witness, for, if it were not for him, I believe we should never [pg 324] have heard of the insulation of St. Michael's Mount at all. The passage in question occurs in William of Worcester's Itinerary, the original MS. of which is preserved in Corpus Christi College at Cambridge. It was printed at Cambridge by James Nasmith, in the year 1778, from the original MS., but, as it would seem, without much care. William Botoner, or, as he is commonly called, William of Worcester, was born at Bristol in 1415, and educated at Oxford about 1434. He was a member of the Aula Cervina, which at that time belonged to Balliol College. His “Itinerarium” is dated 1478. It hardly deserves the grand title which it bears, “Itinerarium, sive liber memorabilium Will. W. in viagio de Bristol usque ad montem St. Michaelis.” It is not a book of travels in our sense of the word, and it was hardly destined for the public in the form in which we possess it. It is simply a notebook in which William entered anything that interested him during his journey; and it contains not only his own observations, but all sorts of extracts, copies, notices, thrown together without any connecting thread. He hardly tells us that he has arrived at St. Michael's Mount before he begins to copy a notice which he found posted up in the church. This notice informed all comers that Pope Gregory had remitted a third of their penances to all who should visit this church and give to it benefactions and alms. It can be fully proved that this notice, which was intended to attract pilgrims and visitors, repeats ipsissimis verbis the charter of Leofric, Bishop of Exeter, who exempted the church and convent from all episcopal jurisdiction. This was in the year 1088, when St. Michael's Mount was handed over by Robert, Earl of Mortain, half-brother of William the Conqueror, to the Abbey of St. [pg 325] Michel in Normandy. This charter may be seen in Dr. Oliver's “Monasticon Diocesis Exoniensis,” 1846. The passage copied by William of Worcester from a notice in the church of St. Michael's Mount occurs at the end of the original charter: “Et omnibus illis qui illam ecclesiam suis cum beneficiis elemosinis expetierint et visitaverint, tertiam partem penitentiarum condonamus.”

Though it is not quite correct to say that this condonation was granted by Pope Gregory, yet it is perfectly true that it was granted by the Bishop of Exeter at the command and exhortation of the Pope, “Jussione et exhortatione domini reverentissimi Gregorii.” The date also given by William, 1070, cannot be correct, for Gregory occupied the papal throne from 1073-86. It was Gregory VII., not Gregory VI., as printed by Dr. Oliver.

Immediately after this memorandum in William's diary we meet with certain notes on the apparitions of St. Michael. He does not say from what source he takes his information on the subject, but we may suppose that he either repeated what he heard from the monks in conversation, or that he copied from some MS. in their library. In either case it is startling to read that there was an apparition of the Archangel St. Michael in Mount Tumba, formerly called the Horerock in the wodd. St. Michael seems indeed to have paid frequent visits to his worshippers, if we may trust the “Chronicon apparitionum et gestorum S. Michaelis Archangeli,” published by Mich. Naveus, in 1632. Yet his visits were not made at random, and even Naveus finds it difficult to substantiate any apparition of St. Michael so far north as Cornwall, except by invectives against the impudenta et ignorantia of Protestant heretics who dared to doubt such occurrences.

But this short sentence of William contains one word which is of great importance for our purposes. He says that “the Hore-rock in the wodd” was formerly called Tumba. Is there any evidence of this?

The name Tumba, as far as we know, belonged originally to Mont St. Michel in Normandy. There a famous and far better authenticated apparition of St. Michael is related to have taken place in the year 708, which led to the building of a church and monastery by Autbert, Bishop of Avranches. The church was built in close imitation of the Church of St. Michael in Mount Garganus in Apulia, which had been founded as early as 493.[91] If, therefore, William of Worcester relates an apparition of St. Michael in Cornwall at about the same date, in 710, it is clear that Mont St. Michel in Normandy has here been confounded by him with St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall. In order to explain this strange confusion, and the consequences which it entailed, it will be necessary to bear in mind the peculiar relations which existed between the two ecclesiastical establishments, perched the one on the island rock of St. Michel in Normandy, the other on St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall. In physical structure there is a curious resemblance between the two mounts. Both are granite islands, and both so near the coast that at low water a dry passage is open to them from the mainland. The Mount on the Norman coast is larger and more distant from the coast than St. Michael's Mount, yet for all that their general likeness is very striking. Now Mont St. Michel was called Tumba at least as far back as the tenth century. Mabillon, in his “Annales Benedictini” (vol. ii. p. 18), quotes from an ancient author the following explanation [pg 327] of the name. “Now this place, to use the words of an ancient author, is called Tumba by the inhabitants, because, emerging as it were from the sands like a hill, it rises up by the space of two hundred cubits, everywhere surrounded by the ocean; it is six miles distant from the shore, between the mouths of the rivers Segia and Senuna, six miles distant from Avranches, looking westward, and dividing Avranches from Brittany. Here the sea by its recess allows twice a passage to the pious people who proceed to the threshold of St. Michael the Archangel.” “Hic igitur locus, ut verbis antiqui autoris utar, Tumba vocitatur ab incolis, ideo quod in morem tumuli, quasi ab arenis emergens, ad altum SPATIO DUCENTORUM CUBITORUM porrigitur, OCEANO UNDIQUE CINCTUS, SEX MILLIBUS AB ÆSTU OCEANI, inter ostia situs, ubi immergunt se mari flumina Segia (Sée) et Senuna (Selure), ab Abrincatensi urbe (Avranches) sex distans millibus; oceanum prospectans, Abrincatensem pagum dirimit a Britannia. Illic mare suo recessu devotis populis desideratum bis præbet iter petentibus limina beati Michaelis archangeli.”

This fixes Tumba as the name of Mont St. Michel before the tenth century, for the ancient author from whom Mabillon quotes wrote before the middle of the tenth century, and before Duke Richard had replaced the priests of St. Michel by Benedictine monks. Tumba remained, in fact, the recognized name of the Norman Mount, and has survived to the present day. The church and monastery there were called “in monte Tumba,” or “ad duas Tumbas,” there being in reality two islands, the principal one called Tumba, the smaller Tumbella or Tumbellana. This name of Tumbellana was afterwards changed into [pg 328] tumba Helenæ, giving rise to various legends about Elaine, one of the heroines of the Arthurian cycle; nay, the name was cited by learned antiquarians as a proof of the ancient worship of Belus in these northern latitudes.

The history of Mont St. Michel in Normandy is well authenticated, particularly during the period which is of importance to us. Mabillon, quoting from the chronicler who wrote before the middle of the tenth century, relates how Autbert, the Bishop of Avranches, had a vision, and after having been thrice admonished by St. Michael, proceeded to build on the summit of the Mount a church under the patronage of the Archangel. This was in 708, or possibly a few years earlier, if Pagius is right in fixing the dedication of the temple in 707.[92] Mabillon points out that this chronicler says nothing as yet of the miracles related by later writers, particularly of the famous hole in the Bishop's skull, which it was believed St. Michael had made when on exhorting him the third time to build his church, he gently touched him with his archangelic finger. In doing this the finger went through the skull, and left a hole. The perforated skull did not interfere with the Bishop's health, and it was shown after his death as a valuable relic. The new church was dedicated by Autbert himself, and the day of the dedication (xvii. Kalend. Novemb.) was celebrated, not only in France, but also in England, as is shown by a decree of the Synod held at Oxford in 1222. The further history of the church and monastery of St. Michel may be read with all its minute details in Mabillon, or in the “Neustria Pia” (p. 371), or in the “Gallia Christiana” (vol. ix. p. [pg 329] 517 E, 870 A). What is of interest to us is that soon after the Conquest, when the ecclesiastical property of England had fallen into the hands of her Norman conquerors, Robert, Earl of Mortain and Cornwall, the half-brother of William the Conqueror, endowed the Norman with the Cornish Mount. A priory of Benedictine monks had existed on the Cornish Mount for some time, and had been richly endowed in 1044 by Edward the Confessor. Nay, if we may trust the charter of Edward the Confessor, it would seem that, even at that time, the Cornish Mount and its priory had been granted by him to the Norman Abbey, for the charter is witnessed by Norman bishops, and its original is preserved in the Abbey of Mont St. Michel. In that case William the Conqueror or his half-brother Robert would only have restored the Cornish priory to its rightful owners, the monks of Mont St. Michel, who had well deserved the gratitude of the Conqueror by supplying him after the Conquest with six ships and a number of monks, destined to assist in the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline in England. After that time the Cornish priory shared the fate of other so-called alien priories or cells. The prior was bound to visit in person or by proxy the mother-house every year, and to pay sixteen marks of silver as an acknowledgment of dependence. Whenever a war broke out between England and France, the foreign priories were seized, though some, and among them the priory of St. Michael's Mount obtained in time a distinct corporate character, and during the reigns of Henry IV. and Henry V. were exempted from seizure during war.

Under these circumstances we can well understand how in the minds of the monks, who spent their lives [pg 330] partly in the mother-house, partly in its dependencies, there was no very clear perception of any difference between the founders, benefactors, and patrons of these twin establishments. A monk brought up at Mont St. Michel would repeat as an old man the legends he had heard about St. Michel and Bishop Autbert, even though he was ending his days in the priory of the Cornish Mount. Relics and books would likewise travel from one place to the other, and a charter originally belonging to the one might afterwards form part of the archives of another house.

After these preliminary remarks, let us look again at the memoranda which William of Worcester made at St. Michael's Mount, and it will appear that what we anticipated has actually happened, and that a book originally belonging to Mont St. Michel in Normandy, and containing the early history of that monastery, was transferred (either in the original or in a copy) to Cornwall, and there used by William of Worcester in the belief that it contained the early history of the Cornish Mount and the Cornish priory.

The Memorandum of William of Worcester runs thus: “Apparicio Sancti Michaelis in monte Tumba, antea vocata le Hore-rok in the wodd; et fuerunt tam boscus quarn prata et terra arabilis inter dictum montem et insulas Syllye, et fuerunt 140 ecclesias parochiales inter istum montem et Sylly submersse.

“Prima apparicio Sancti Michaelis in monte Gorgon in regno Apuliae fuit anno Christi 391. Secunda apparicio fuit circa annum domini 710 in Tumba in Cornubia juxta mare.

“Tertia apparicio Romæ fuit; tempore Gregorii papæ legitur accidisse: nam tempore magnæ pestilenciæ, etc.

“Quarta apparicio fuit in ierarchiis nostrorum angelorum.

“Spacium loci mentis Sancti Michaelis est DUCENTORUM CUBITORUM UNDIQUE OCEANO CINCTUM, et religiosi monachi dicti loci. Abrincensis antistes Aubertus nomine, ut in honore Sancti Michaelis construeret ... predictus LOCUS OPACISSIMA PRIMO CLAUDEBATUR SYLVA, AB OCEANO MILIARIBUS DISTANS SEX, aptissimam prasbens latebram ferarum, in quo loco olim comperimus MONACHOS domino servientes.”

The text is somewhat corrupt and fragmentary, but may be translated as follows:—

“The apparition of St. Michael in the Mount Tumba, formerly called the Hore-rock in the wodd; and there were a forest and meadows and arable land between the said mount and the Syllye Isles, and there were 140 parochial churches swallowed by the sea between that mount and Sylly.

“The first apparition of St. Michael in Mount Gorgon in the Kingdom of Apulia was in the year 391. The second apparition was about the year 710, in Tumba in Cornwall by the sea.

“The third apparition is said to have happened at Rome in the time of Pope Gregory: for at the time of the great pestilence, etc.

“The fourth apparition was in the hierarchies of our angels.

“The space of St. Michael's Mount is 200 cubits; it is everywhere surrounded by the sea, and there are religious monks of that place. The head of Abrinca, Aubertus by name, that he might erect a church[93] in [pg 332] honor of St. Michael. The aforesaid place was at first enclosed by a very dense forest, six miles distant from the ocean, furnishing a good retreat for wild animals. In which place we heard that formerly monks serving the Lord,” etc.

The only way to explain this jumble is to suppose that William of Worcester made these entries in his diary while walking up and down in the Church of St. Michael's Mount, and listening to one of the monks, reading to him from a MS. which had been brought from Normandy, and referred in reality to the early history of the Norman, but not of the Cornish Mount. The first line, “Apparicio Sancti Michaelis in monte Tumba,” was probably the title or the heading of the MS. Then William himself added, “antea vocata le Hore-rok in the wodd,” a name which he evidently heard on the spot, and which no doubt conveyed to him the impression that the rock had formerly stood in the midst of a wood. For instead of continuing his account of the apparitions of St. Michael, he quotes a tradition in support of the former existence of a forest surrounding the Mount. Only, strange to say, instead of producing the evidence which he produced afterwards in confirmation of St. Michael's Mount having been surrounded by a dense forest, he here gives the tradition about Lionesse, the sunken land between the Land's End and the Scylly Isles. This is evidently a mistake, for no other writer ever supposed the sunken land of Lionesse to have reached as far as St. Michael's Mount.

Then follows the entry about the four apparitions of St. Michael. Here we must read “in monte Gargano” instead of “in monte Gorgon.” Opinions vary as to the exact date of the apparition in Mount Garganus [pg 333] in the South of Italy, but 391 is certainly far too early, and has to be changed into 491 or 493. In the second apparition, all is right, if we leave out “in Cornubia juxta mare,” which was added either by William or by the monk who was showing him the book. It refers to the well-known apparition of St. Michael at Avranches. The third and fourth apparitions are of no consequence to us.

As we read on, we come next to William's own measurements, fixing the extent of St. Michael's Mount at two hundred cubits. After that we are met by a passage which, though it hardly construes, can be understood in one sense only, namely, as giving an account of the Abbey of St. Michel in Normandy. I suppose it is not too bold if I recognize in Aubertus Autbertus, and in Abrincensis antistes, the Abrincatensis episcopus or antistes, the Bishop of Avranches.

Now it is well known that the Mont St. Michel in Normandy was believed to have been originally surrounded by forests and meadows. Du Moustier in the “Neustria Pia” relates (p. 371), “Hæc rupes antiquitus Mons erat cinctus sylvis et saltibus,” “This rock was of old a mount surrounded by forests and meadows.” But this is not all. In the old chronicle of Mont St. Michel, quoted by Mabillon, which was written before the middle of the tenth century, the same account is given; and if we compare that account with the words used by William of Worcester, we can no longer doubt that the old chronicle, or, it may be, a copy of it, had been brought from France to England, and that what was intended for a description of the Norman abbey and its neighborhood was taken, intentionally or unintentionally, as a description of the Cornish Mount. These are the words of the Norman chronicler, as [pg 334] quoted by Mabillon, compared with the passage in William of Worcester:—

Mont St. Michel.	St. Michael's Mount.
“Addit idem auctor hunc locum OPACISSIMA OLIM SILVA CLAUSUM fuisse, et MONACHOS IBIDEM INHABITASSE duasque ad suum usque tempus exstitisse ecclesias quas illi scilicet monachi incolebant.”	“Predictus LOCUS OPACISSIMA OLIM CLAUDEBATUR Sylva ab oceano miliaribus distans sex, aptissimam præbens latebram ferarum, in quo loco olim comperimus MONACHOS DOMINO SERVIENTES”.

“The same author adds that this place was formerly inclosed by a very dense forest, and that monks dwelt there, and that two churches existed there up to his own time, which those monks inhabited.”

The words CLAUSUM OPACISSIMA SILVA are decisive. The phrase AB OCEANO MILIARIBUS DISTANS SEX, too, is taken from an earlier passage of the same author, quoted above, which passage may likewise have supplied the identical phrases OCEANO UNDIQUE CINCTUS, and the SPATIUM DUCENTORUM CUBITORUM, which are hardly applicable to St. Michael's Mount. The “two churches still existing in Mont St. Michel,” had to be left out, for there was no trace of them in St. Michael's Mount. But the monks who lived in them were retained, and to give a little more life, the wild beasts were added. Even the expression of antistes instead of episcopus occurs in the original, where we read, “Hæc loci facies erat ante sancti Michaelis apparitionem hoc anno factam religiosissimo Autberto Abrincatensi episcopo, admonentis se velle ut sibi in ejus montis vertice ecclesia sub ipsius patrocinio erigeretur. Hærenti ANTISTITI tertio idem intimatum,” etc.

Thus vanishes the testimony of William of Worcester, so often quoted by Cornish antiquarians, as to the dense forest by which St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall [pg 335] was once surrounded, and all the evidence that remains to substantiate the former presence of trees on and around the Cornish Mount is reduced to the name “the Hoar rock in the wood,” given by William, and the Cornish names of Cara clowse in Cowse or Cara Cowz in Clowze, given by Carew. How much or how little dependence can be placed on old Cornish names of places and their supposed meaning has been shown before in the case of Marazion. Carew certainly did not understand Cornish, nor did the people with whom he had intercourse; and there is no doubt that he wrote down the Cornish names as best he could, and without any attempt at deciphering their meaning. He was told that “Cara clowse in Cowse” meant the “Hoar rock in the Wood,” and he had no reason to doubt it. Even a very small knowledge of Cornish would have enabled Carew or anybody else at his time to find out that cowz might be meant for the Cornish word for wood, and that careg was rock. Clowse too might easily be taken in the sense of gray, as gray in Cornish was glos. Then why should we hesitate to accept Cara clowse in cowse as the ancient Cornish name of the Mount, and why object to Mr. Pengelly's argument that it must have been given at a time when the Mount was surrounded by a very dense forest, and that a fortiori at that distant period Cornish must have been the spoken language of Cornwall?

The first objection is that the old word for “wood” in Cornish was cuit with a final t, and that the change of a final t into z is a phonetic corruption which takes place only in the later stage of the Cornish language. The ancient Cornish cuit, “wood,” occurs in Welsh as coed, in Armorican as koat and koad, and is supposed to exist in Cornish names of places, such as Penquite, [pg 336] Kilquite, etc. Cowz, therefore, could not have occurred in a Cornish name supposed to have been formed at least 2,000 if not 20,000 years ago.

This thrust might, no doubt, be parried by saying that the name of the Mount would naturally change with the general changes of the Cornish language. Yet this is not always the case with proper names, as may be seen by the names just quoted, Penquite and Kilquite. At all events, we begin to see how uncertain is the ground on which we stand.

If we take the facts, scanty and uncertain as they are, we may admit that, at the time of William of Worcester, the Mount had most likely a Latin, a Cornish, and a Saxon appellation. It is curious that William should say nothing of a Cornish name, but only quote the Saxon one. However, this Saxon name, “the Hoar rock in the Wood” sounds decidedly like a translation, and is far too long and cumbrous for a current name. Michelstow is mentioned by others as the Saxon name of the Mount (Naveus, p. 233). The Latin name given to the Mount, but only after it had become a dependency of Mont St. Michel in Normandy, was, as we saw from William of Worcester's diary, Mons Tumba or Mons Tumba in Cornubia, and after his time the name of St. Michael in Tumbâ or in Monte Tumbâ is certainly used promiscuously for the Cornish and Norman mounts.[94] Now tumba, after [pg 337] meaning hillock, became the recognized name for tomb, and the mediæval Latin tumba, too, was always understood in that sense. If, therefore, the name “Mons in tumba” had to be rendered in Cornish for the benefit of the Cornish-speaking monks of the Benedictine priory, tumba would actually be taken in the sense of tomb. One form of the Cornish name, as preserved by Carew, is Cara cowz in clowze; and this, if interpreted without any preconceived opinion, would mean in Cornish “the old rock of the tomb.” Cara stands for carak, a rock. Cowz is meant for coz, the modern Cornish and Armorican form corresponding to the ancient Cornish coth, old.[95] Clowze is a modern and somewhat corrupt form in Cornish, corresponding to the Welsh clawdh, a tomb. Cladh-va, in Cornish, means a burying-place; and cluddu, to bury, has been preserved as a Cornish verb, corresponding to the Welsh cladhu. In Gaelic, too, cladh is a tomb or burying-place; and in Armorican, which generally follows the same phonetic changes as the Cornish, we actually find kleuz and klôz for tomb or inclosure. (See Le Gonidec, “Dict. Breton-Français,” s. v.) The en might either be the Cornish preposition yn, or it may have been intended for the article in the genitive, an. The old rock in the tomb, i.e. in tumbâ, or the old rock of the tomb, Cornish carag goz an cloz, would be intelligible and natural renderings of the Latin Mons in tumba.

But though this would fully account for the origin of the Cornish name as preserved by Carew, it would still leave the Saxon appellation the “Hore rock in the wodd” unexplained. How could William of Worcester [pg 338] have got hold of this name? Let us remember that William does not mention any Cornish name of the Mount, and that nothing is ever said at his time of the “Hore rock in the wodd” being a translation of an old Cornish name. All we know is that the monks of the Mount used that name, and it is hardly likely that so long and cumbrous a name should ever have been used much by the people in the neighborhood. How the monks of St. Michael's Mount came to call their place the “Hore rock in the wodd” at the time of William of Worcester, and probably long before his time, is, however, not difficult to explain, after we have seen how they transferred the traditions which originally referred to Mont St. Michel to their own monastery. Having told the story of the “sylva opacissima” by which their mount was formerly surrounded to many visitors, as they told it to William of Worcester, the name of the “Hore rock in the wodd” might easily spring up among them, and be kept up within the walls of their priory. Nor is there any evidence that in this peculiar form the name ever spread beyond their walls. But it is possible that here, too, language may have played some tricks. The number of people who used these names and kept them alive can never have been large, and hence they were exposed much more to accidents arising from ignorance and individual caprice than names of villages or towns which are in the keeping of hundreds and thousands of people. The monks of St. Michael's Mount may in time have forgotten the exact purport of “Cara cowz in clowze,” “the old rock of the tomb,” really the “Mons in tumba;” and their minds being full of the old forest by which they believed their island, like Mont St. Michel, to have been formerly surrounded, [pg 339] what wonder if cara cowz in clowze glided away into cara clowse in cowze, and thus came to confirm the old tradition of the forest. For cowz would at once be taken as the modern Cornish word for wood, corresponding to the old Cornish cuit, while clowse might, with a little effort, be identified with the Cornish glos, gray, the Armorican glâz. Carew, it should be observed, sanctions both forms, the original one, cara cowz in clowze, “the old rock of the tomb,” and the other cara clowse in cowze, meaning possibly “the gray rock in the wood.” The sound of the two is so like that, particularly to the people not very familiar with the language, the substitution of one for the other would come very naturally; and as a reason could more easily be given for the latter than for the former name, we need not be surprised if in the few passages where the name occurs after Carew's time, the secondary name, apparently confirming the monkish legend of the dense forest that once surrounded St. Michael's Mount, should have been selected in preference to the former, which, but to a scholar and an antiquarian, sounded vague and meaningless.

If my object had been to establish any new historical fact, or to support any novel theory, I should not have indulged so freely in what to a certain extent may be called mere conjecture. But my object was only to point out the uncertainty of the evidence which Mr. Pengelly has adduced in support of a theory which would completely revolutionize our received views as to the early history of language and the migrations of the Aryan race. At first sight the argument used by Mr. Pengelly seems unanswerable. Here is St. Michael's Mount, which, according to geological evidence, may formerly have been part [pg 340] of the mainland. Here is an old Cornish name for St. Michael's Mount, which means “the gray rock in the wood.” Such a name, it might well be argued, could not have been given to the island after it had ceased to be a gray rock in the wood; therefore it must have been given previous to the date which geological chronology fixes for the insulation of St. Michael's Mount. That date varies from 16,000 to 20,000 years ago. And as the name is Cornish, it follows that Cornish-speaking people must have lived in Cornwall at that early geological period.

Nothing, as I said, could sound more plausible; but before we yield to the argument, we must surely ask, Is there no other way of explaining the names Cara cowz in clowze and Cara clowse in cowze? And here we find—

(1.) That the legend of the dense forest by which the Mount was believed to have been surrounded existed, so far as we know, before the earliest occurrence of the Cornish name, and that it owes its origin entirely to a mistake which can be accounted for by documentary evidence. A legend told of Mont St. Michel had been transferred ipsissimis verbis to St. Michael's Mount, and the monks of that priory repeated the story which they found in their chronicle to all who came to visit their establishment in Cornwall. They told the name, among others, to William of Worcester, and to prevent any incredulity on his part, they gave him chapter and verse from their chronicle, which he carefully jotted down in his diary.[96]

(2.) We find that when the Cornish name first occurs, it lends itself, in one form, to a very natural interpretation, which does not give the meaning of “Hore rock in the wodd,” but shows the name Cara cowz in clowze to have been a literal rendering of the Latin name “Mons in tumba,” originally the name of Mont St. Michel, but at an early date applied in charters to St. Michael's Mount.

(3.) We find that the second form of the Cornish name, namely, cara clowse in cowze, may either be a merely metamorphic corruption of cara cowz in clowze, readily suggested and supported by the new meaning which it yielded of “gray rock in the wood;” or, even if we accept it as an original name, that it would be no more than a name framed by the Cornish-speaking monks of the Mount, in order to embody the same spurious tradition which had given rise to the name of “Hore rock in the wodd.”

I need hardly add that in thus arguing against Mr. Pengelly's conclusions, I do not venture to touch his geological arguments. St. Michael's Mount may have been united with the mainland; it may, for all we know, have been surrounded by a dense forest; and it may be perfectly possible geologically to fix the date when that forest was destroyed, and the Mount severed, so far as it is severed, from the Cornish coast. All I protest against is that any one of these facts could be proved, or even supported, by the Cornish name of the Mount, whether cara cowz in clowze, or cara clowse in cowze, or by the English name, communicated by William of Worcester, “the [pg 342] Hore rock in the wodd,” or finally by the legend which gave rise to these names, and which, as can be proved by irrefragable evidence, was transplanted by mistake from the Norman to the Cornish coast. The only question which, in conclusion, I should like to address to geologists, is this: As geologists are obliged to leave it doubtful whether the insulation of St. Michael's Mount was due to the washing of the sea-shore, or to a general subsidence of the country, may it not have been due to neither of these causes, and may not the Mount have always been that kind of half-island which it certainly was two thousand years ago?

1867.

---

XVI. BUNSEN.[97]

Ours is, no doubt, a forgetful age. Every day brings new events rushing in upon us from all parts of the world; and the hours of real rest, when we might ponder over the past, recall pleasant days, gaze again on the faces of those who are no more, are few indeed. Men and women disappear from this busy stage, and though for a time they had been the radiating centres of social, political, or literary life, their places are soon taken by others,—“the place thereof shall know them no more.” Few only appear again after a time, claiming once more our attention through the memoirs of their lives, and then either flitting away forever among the shades of the departed, or assuming afresh a power of life, a place in history, and an influence on the future often more powerful even than that which they exercised on the world while living in it. To call the great and good thus back from the grave is no easy task; it requires not only the power of a vates sacer, but the heart of a loving friend. Few [pg 344] men live great and good lives; still fewer can write them; nay, often, when they have been lived and have been written, the world passes by unheeding, as crowds will pass without a glance by the portraits of a Titian or a Van Dyke. Now and then, however, a biography takes root, and then acts, as a lesson, as no other lesson can act. Such biographies have all the importance of an Ecce Homo, showing to the world what man can be, and permanently raising the ideal of human life. It was so in England with the life of Dr. Arnold; it was so more lately with the life of Prince Albert; it will be the same with the life of Bunsen.

It seems but yesterday that Bunsen left England; yet it was in 1854 that his house in Carlton Terrace ceased to be the refreshing oasis in London life which many still remember, and that the powerful, thoughtful, beautiful, loving face of the Prussian Ambassador was seen for the last time in London society. Bunsen then retired from public life, and after spending six more years in literary work, struggling with death, yet reveling in life, he died at Bonn on the 28th of November, 1860. His widow has devoted the years of her solitude to the noble work of collecting the materials for a biography of her husband; and we have now in two large volumes all that could be collected, or, at least, all that could be conveniently published, of the sayings and doings of Bunsen, the scholar, the statesman, and, above all, the philosopher and the Christian. Throughout the two volumes the outward events are sketched by the hand of the Baroness Bunsen; but there runs, as between wooded hills, the main stream of Bunsen's mind, the outpourings of his heart, which were given so freely and fully in his letters to his friends. When such materials exist, there can be no more satisfactory [pg 345] kind of biography than that of introducing the man himself, speaking unreservedly to his most intimate friends on the great events of his life. This is an autobiography, in fact, free from all drawbacks. Here and there that process, it is true, entails a greater fullness of detail than is acceptable to ordinary readers, however highly Bunsen's own friends may value every line of his familiar letters. But general readers may easily pass over letters addressed to different persons, or treating of subjects less interesting to themselves, without losing the thread of the story of the whole life; while it is sometimes of great interest to see the same subject discussed by Bunsen in letters addressed to different people. One serious difficulty in these letters is that they are nearly all translations from the German, and in the process of translation some of the original charm is inevitably lost. The translations are very faithful, and they do not sacrifice the peculiar turn of German thought to the requirements of strictly idiomatic English. Even the narrative itself betrays occasionally the German atmosphere in which it was written, but the whole book brings back all the more vividly to those who knew Bunsen the language and the very expressions of his English conversation. The two volumes are too bulky, and one's arms ache while holding them; yet one is loth to put them down, and there will be few readers who do not regret that more could not have been told us of Bunsen's life.

All really great and honest men may be said to live three lives: there is one life which is seen and accepted by the world at large, a man's outward life; there is a second life which is seen by a man's most intimate friends, his household life; and there is a third life, seen only by the man himself and by Him [pg 346] who searcheth the heart, which maybe called the inner or heavenly life. Most biographers are and must be satisfied with giving the two former aspects of their hero's life,—the version of the world, and that of his friends. Both are important, both contain some truth, though neither of them the whole truth. But there is a third life, a life led in communion with God, a life of aspiration rather than of fulfillment,—that life which we see, for instance, in St. Paul, when he says, “The good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.” It is but seldom that we catch a glimpse of those deep springs of human character which cannot rise to the surface even in the most confidential intercourse, which in every-day life are hidden from a man's own sight, but which break forth when he is alone with his God in secret prayer,—aye, in prayers without words. Here lies the charm of Bunsen's life. Not only do we see the man, the father, the husband, the brother, that stands behind the ambassador, but we see behind the man his angel beholding the face of his Father which is in heaven. His prayers, poured forth in the critical moments of his life, have been preserved to us, and they show us what the world ought to know, that our greatest men can also be our best men, and that freedom of thought is not incompatible with sincere religion. Those who knew Bunsen well, know how that deep, religious undercurrent of his soul was constantly bubbling up and breaking forth in his conversations, startling even the mere worldling by an earnestness that frightened away every smile. It was said of him that he could drive out devils, and he certainly could, with his solemn, yet loving voice, soften hearts that would yield to no other appeal, and see with one look through that mask [pg 347] which man wears but too often in the masquerade of the world. Hence his numerous and enduring friendships, of which these volumes contain so many sacred relics. Hence that confidence reposed in him by men and women who had once been brought in contact with him. To those who can see with their eyes only, and not with their hearts, it may seem strange that Sir Robert Peel, shortly before his death, should have uttered the name of Bunsen. To those who know that England once had prime ministers who were found praying on their knees before they delivered their greatest speeches, Sir Robert Peel's recollection, or, it may be, desire of Bunsen in the last moments of his life has nothing strange. Bunsen's life was no ordinary life, and the memoirs of that life are more than an ordinary book. That book will tell in England and in Germany far more than in the Middle Ages the life of a new saint; nor are there many saints whose real life, if sifted as the life of Bunsen has been, would bear comparison with that noble character of the nineteenth century.

Bunsen was born in 1791 at Corbach, a small town in the small principality of Waldeck. His father was poor, but a man of independent spirit, of moral rectitude, and of deep religious convictions. Bunsen, the son of his old age, distinguished himself at school, and was sent to the University of Marburg at the age of seventeen. All he had then to depend on was an exhibition of about £7 a year, and a sum of £15, which his father had saved for him to start him in life. This may seem a small sum; but if we want to know how much of paternal love and self-denial it represented, we ought to read an entry in his father's diary: “Account of cash receipts by God's mercy [pg 348] obtained for transcribing law documents between 1793 and 1814,—sum total 3,020 thalers 23 groschen,” that is to say, about £22 per annum. Did any English Duke ever give his son a more generous allowance,—more than two-thirds of his own annual income? Bunsen began by studying divinity, and actually preached a sermon at Marburg, in the Church of St. Elizabeth. Students in divinity are required in Germany to preach sermons as part of their regular theological training, and before they are actually ordained. Marburg was not then a very efficient university, and, not finding there what he wanted, Bunsen after a year went to Göttingen, chiefly attracted by the fame of Heyne. He soon devoted himself entirely to classical studies: and in order to support himself,—for £7 per annum will not support even a German student,—he accepted the appointment of assistant teacher of Greek and Hebrew at the Göttingen gymnasium, and also became private tutor to a young American, Mr. Astor, the son of the rich American merchant. He was thus learning and teaching at the same time, and he acquired by his daily intercourse with his pupil a practical knowledge of the English language. While at Göttingen he carried off, in 1812, a prize for an essay on “The Athenian Law of Inheritance,” which attracted more than usual attention, and may, in fact, be looked upon as one of the first attempts at Comparative Jurisprudence. In 1713 he writes from Göttingen:—

“Poor and lonely did I arrive in this place. Heyne received me, guided me, bore with me, encouraged me, showed me in himself the example of a high and noble energy and indefatigable activity in a calling which was not that to which his merit entitled him; he might have superintended and administered and maintained an entire kingdom.”

The following passage from the same letter deserves to be quoted as coming from the pen of a young man of twenty-two:—

“Learning annihilates itself, and the most perfect is the first submerged; for the next age scales with ease the height which cost the preceding the full vigor of life.”

After leaving the university Bunsen travelled in Germany with young Astor, and made the acquaintance of Frederic Schlegel at Vienna, of Jacobi, Schelling, and Thiersch at Munich. He was all that time continuing his own philological studies, and we see him at Munich attending lectures on Criminal Law, and making his first beginning in the study of Persian. When on the point of starting for Paris with his American pupil, the news of the glorious battle of Leipzig (October, 1813) disturbed their plans, and he resolved to settle again at Göttingen till peace should have been concluded. Here, while superintending the studies of Mr. Astor, he plunged into reading of the most varied character. He writes (p. 51):—

“I remain firm, and strive after my earliest purpose in life, more felt, perhaps, than already discerned,—namely, to bring over into my own knowledge and into my own Fatherland the language and the spirit of the solemn and distant East. I would for the accomplishment of this object even quit Europe, in order to draw out of the ancient well that which I find not elsewhere.”

This is the first indication of an important element in Bunsen's early life, his longing for the East, and his all but prophetic anticipation of the great results which a study of the ancient language of India would one day yield, and the light it would shed on the darkest pages in the ancient history of Greece, Italy, and Germany. The study of the Athenian law of inheritance seems first to have drawn his attention to the ancient codes of Indian law, and he was deeply [pg 350] impressed by the discovery that the peculiar system of inheritance which in Greece existed only in the petrified form of a primitive custom, sanctioned by law, disclosed in the laws of Manu its original purport and natural meaning. This one spark excited in Bunsen's mind that constant yearning after a knowledge of Eastern and more particularly of Indian literature which very nearly drove him to India in the same adventurous spirit as Anquetil Duperron and Czoma de Körös. We are now familiar with the great results that have been obtained by a study of the ancient languages and religion of the East; but in 1813 neither Bopp nor Grimm had begun to publish, and Frederic Schlegel was the only one who in his little pamphlet, “On the Language and the Wisdom of the Indians” (1808), had ventured to assert a real intellectual relationship between Europe and India. One of Bunsen's earliest friends, Wolrad Schumacher, related that even at school Bunsen's mind was turned towards India. “Sometimes he would let fall a word about India which was unaccountable to me, as at that time I connected only a geographical conception with that name” (p. 17).

While thus engaged in his studies at Göttingen, and working in company with such friends as Brandis, the historian of Greek philosophy; Lachmann, the editor of the New Testament; Lücke, the theologian; Ernst Schulze, the poet, and others,—Bunsen felt the influence of the great events that brought about the regeneration of Germany; nor was he the man to stand aloof, absorbed in literary work, while others were busy doing mischief difficult to remedy. The princes of Germany and their friends, though grateful to the people for having at last shaken off with fearful sacrifices [pg 351] the foreign yoke of Napoleon, were most anxious to maintain for their own benefit that convenient system of police government which for so long had kept the whole of Germany under French control. “It is but too certain,” Bunsen writes, “that either for want of good-will or of intelligence our sovereigns will not grant us freedom such as we deserve.... And I fear that, as before, the much-enduring German will become an object of contempt to all nations who know how to value national spirit.” His first political essays belong to that period. Up to August, 1814, Bunsen continued to act as private tutor to Mr. Astor, though we see him at the same time, with his insatiable thirst after knowledge, attending courses of lectures on astronomy, mineralogy, and other subjects apparently so foreign to the main current of his mind. When Mr. Astor left him to return to America, Bunsen went to Holland to see a sister to whom he was deeply attached, and who seems to have shared with him the same religious convictions which in youth, manhood, and old age formed the foundation of Bunsen's life. Some of Bunsen's detractors have accused him of professing Christian piety in circles where such professions were sure to be well received. Let them read now the annals of his early life, and they will find to their shame how boldly the same Bunsen professed his religious convictions among the students and professors of Göttingen, who either scoffed at Christianity or only tolerated it as a kind of harmless superstition. We shall only quote one instance:—

“Bunsen, when a young student at Göttingen, once suddenly quitted a lecture in indignation at the unworthy manner in which the most sacred subjects were treated by one of the professors. The professor paused at the interruption, and hazarded the remark that ‘some one belonging to the Old Testament [pg 352] had possibly slipped in unrecognized.’ That called forth a burst of laughter from the entire audience, all being as well aware as the lecturer himself who it was that had mortified him.”

During his stay in Holland, Bunsen not only studied the language and literature of that country, but his mind was also much occupied in observing the national and religious character of this small but interesting branch of the Teutonic race. He writes:—

“In all things the German, or, if you will, the Teutonic character is worked out into form in a manner more decidedly national than anywhere else.... This journey has yet more confirmed my decision to become acquainted with the entire Germanic race, and then to proceed with the development of my governing ideas (i.e. the study of Eastern languages in elucidation of Western thought). For this purpose I am about to travel with Brandis to Copenhagen to learn Danish, and, above all, Icelandic.”

And so he did. The young student, as yet without any prospects in life, threw up his position at Göttingen, declined to waste his energies as a schoolmaster, and started, we hardly know how, on his journey to Denmark. There, in company with Brandis, he lived and worked hard at Danish, and then attacked the study of the ancient Icelandic language and literature with a fervor and with a purpose that shrank from no difficulty. He writes (p. 79):—

“The object of my research requires the acquisition of the whole treasures of language, in order to complete my favorite linguistic theories, and to inquire into the poetry and religious conceptions of German-Scandinavian heathenism, and their historical connection with the East.”

When his work in Denmark was finished, and when he had collected materials, some of which, as his copy taken of the “Völuspa,” a poem of the Edda, were not published till forty years later, he started with Brandis for Berlin. “Prussia,” he writes on the [pg 353] 10th of October, 1815, “is the true Germany.” Thither he felt drawn, as well as Brandis, and thither he invited his friends, though, it must be confessed, without suggesting to them any settled plan of how to earn their daily bread. He writes as if he was even then at the head of affairs in Berlin, though he was only the friend of a friend of Niebuhr's, Niebuhr himself being by no means all powerful in Prussia, even in 1815. This hopefulness was a trait in Bunsen's character that remained through life. A plan was no sooner suggested to him and approved by him than he took it for granted that all obstacles must vanish, and many a time did all obstacles vanish, before the joyous confidence of that magician, a fact that should be remembered by those who used to blame him as sanguine and visionary. One of his friends, Lücke, writes to Ernst Schulze, the poet, whom Bunsen had invited to Denmark, and afterwards to Berlin:—

“In the inclosed richly filled letter you will recognize Bunsen's power and splendor of mind, and you will also not fail to perceive his thoughtlessness in making projects. He and Brandis are a pair of most amiable speculators, full of affection; but one must meet them with the ne quid nimis.”

However, Bunsen in his flight was not to be scared by any warning or checked by calculating the chances of success or failure. With Brandis he went to Berlin, spent the glorious winter from 1815 to 1816 in the society of men like Niebuhr and Schleiermacher, and became more and more determined in his own plan of life, which was to study Oriental languages in Paris, London, or Calcutta, and then to settle at Berlin as Professor of Universal History. A full statement of his literary labors, both for the past and for the future, was drawn up by him, to be submitted to Niebuhr, [pg 354] and it will be read even now with interest by those who knew Bunsen when he tried to take up after forty years the threads that had slipped from his hand at the age of four-and-twenty.

Instead of being sent to study at Paris and London by the Prussian government, as he seems to have wished, he was suddenly called to Paris by his old pupil, Mr. Astor, who, after two years' absence, had returned to Europe, and was anxious to renew his relations with Bunsen. Bunsen's object in accepting Astor's invitation to Paris was to study Persian; and great was his disappointment when, on arriving there, Mr. Astor wished him at once to start for Italy. This was too much for Bunsen, to be turned back just as he was going to quench his thirst for Oriental literature in the lectures of Sylvestre de Sacy. A compromise was effected. Bunsen remained for three months in Paris, and promised then to join his friend and pupil in Italy. How he worked at Persian and Arabic during the interval must be read in his own letters:—

“I write from six in the morning till four in the afternoon, only in the course of that time having a walk in the garden of the Luxembourg, where I also often study; from four to six I dine and walk; from six to seven sleep; from seven to eleven work again. I have overtaken in study some of the French students who had begun a year ago. God be thanked for this help! Before I go to bed I read a chapter in the New Testament, in the morning on rising one in the Old Testament; yesterday I began the Psalms from the first.”

As soon as he felt that he could continue his study of Persian without the aid of a master, he left Paris. Though immersed in work, he had made several acquaintances, among others that of Alexander von Humboldt, “who intends in a few years to visit Asia, where I may hope to meet him. He has been beyond [pg 355] measure kind to me, and from him I shall receive the best recommendations for Italy and England, as well as from his brother, now Prussian Minister in London. Lastly, the winter in Rome may become to me, by the presence of Niebuhr, more instructive and fruitful than in any other place. Thus has God ordained all things for me for the best, according to His will, not mine, and far better than I deserve.”

These were the feelings with which the young scholar, then twenty-four years of age, started for Italy, as yet without any position, without having published a single work, without knowing, as we may suppose, where to rest his head. And yet he was full, not only of hope, but of gratitude, and he little dreamt that before seven years had passed he would be in Niebuhr's place; and before twenty-five years had passed in the place of William von Humboldt, the Prussian Ambassador at the Court of St. James.

The immediate future, in fact, had some severe disappointments in store for him. When he arrived at Florence to meet Mr. Astor, the young American had received peremptory orders to return to New York; and as Bunsen declined to follow him, he found himself really stranded at Florence, and all his plans thoroughly upset. Yet, though at that very time full of care and anxiety about his nearest relations, who looked to him for support when he could hardly support himself, his God-trusting spirit did not break down. He remained at Florence, continuing his Persian studies, and making a living by private tuition. A Mr. Cathcart seems to have been his favorite pupil, and through him new prospects of eventually proceeding to India seemed to open. But, at the same time, Bunsen began to feel that the circumstances of his [pg 356] life became critical. “I feel,” he says, “that I am on the point of securing or losing the fruit of my labors for life.” Rome and Niebuhr seemed the only haven in sight, and thither Bunsen now began to steer his frail bark. He arrived in Rome on the 14th of November, 1816. Niebuhr, who was Prussian Minister, received him with great kindness, and entered heartily into the literary plans of his young friend. Brandis, Niebuhr's secretary, renewed in common with his old friend his study of Greek philosophy. A native teacher of Arabic was engaged to help Bunsen in his Oriental studies. The necessary supplies seem to have come partly from Mr. Astor, partly from private lessons for which Bunsen had to make time in the midst of his varied occupations. Plato, Firdusi, the Koran, Dante, Isaiah, the Edda, are mentioned by himself as his daily study.

From an English point of view that young man at Rome, without a status, without a settled prospect in life, would have seemed an amiable dreamer, destined to wake suddenly, and not very pleasantly, to the stern realities of life. If anything seemed unlikely, it was that an English gentleman, a man of good birth and of independent fortune, should give his daughter to this poor young German at Rome. Yet this was the very thing which a kind Providence, that Providence in which Bunsen trusted amid all his troubles and difficulties, brought to pass. Bunsen became acquainted with Mr. Waddington, and was allowed to read German with his daughters. In the most honorable manner he broke off his visits when he became aware of his feelings for Miss Waddington. He writes to his sister:—

“Having, at first, believed myself quite safe (the more so as [pg 357] I cannot think of marrying without impairing my whole scheme of mental development, and, least of all, could I think of pretending to a girl of fortune), I thought there was no danger.”

A little later he writes to Mrs. Waddington to explain to her the reason for his discontinuing his visits. But the mother—and, to judge from her letters, a high-minded mother she must have been—accepted Bunsen on trust; he was allowed to return to the house, and on the 1st of July, 1817, the young German student, then twenty-five years of age, was married at Rome to Miss Waddington. What a truly important event this was for Bunsen, even those who had not the privilege of knowing the partner of his life may learn from the work before us. Though little is said in these memoirs of his wife, the mother of his children, the partner of his joys and sorrows, it is easy to see how Bunsen's whole mode of life became possible only by the unceasing devotion of an ardent soul and a clear head consecrated to one object,—to love and to cherish, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part,—aye, and even after death! With such a wife, the soul of Bunsen could soar on its wings, the small cares of life were removed, an independence was secured, and, though the Indian plans had to be surrendered, the highest ambition of Bunsen's life, a professorship in a German university, seemed now easy of attainment. We should have liked a few more pages describing the joyous life of the young couple in the heyday of their life; we could have wished that he had not declined the wish of his mother-in-law, to have his bust made by Thorwaldsen, at a time when he must have been a model of manly beauty. But if we know less than we could wish of what Bunsen then was in the [pg 358] eyes of the world, we are allowed an insight into that heavenly life which underlay all the outward happiness of that time, and which shows him to us as but one eye could then have seen him. A few weeks after his marriage he writes in his journal:—

“Eternal, omnipresent God! enlighten me with thy Holy Spirit, and fill me with thy heavenly light! What in childhood I felt and yearned after, what throughout the years of youth grew clearer and clearer before my soul, I will now venture to hold fast, to examine, to represent the revelation of Thee in man's energies and efforts: thy firm path through the stream of ages I long to trace and recognize, as far as may be permitted to me even in this body of earth. The song of praise to Thee from the whole of humanity, in times far and near,—the pains and lamentations of men, and their consolations in Thee,—I wish to take in, clear and unhindered. Do Thou send me thy Spirit of Truth, that I may behold things earthly as they are, without veil and without mask, without human trappings and empty adornment, and that in the silent peace of truth I may feel and recognize Thee. Let me not falter, nor slide away from the great end of knowing Thee. Let not the joys, or honors, or vanities of the world enfeeble and darken my spirit; let me ever feel that I can only perceive and know Thee in so far as mine is a living soul, and lives, and moves, and has its being in Thee.”

Here we see Bunsen as the world did not see him, and we may observe how then, as ever, his literary work was to him hallowed by the objects for which it was intended. “The firm path of God through the stream of ages” is but another title for one of his last works, “God in History,” planned with such youthful ardor, and finished under the lengthening shadow of death.

The happiness of Bunsen's life at Rome may easily be imagined. Though anxious to begin his work at a German university, he stipulated for three more years of freedom and preparation. Who could have made the sacrifice of the bright spring of life, of the unclouded [pg 359] days of happiness at Rome with wife and children, and with such friends as Niebuhr and Brandis? Yet this stay at Rome was fraught with fatal consequences. It led the straight current of Bunsen's life, which lay so clear before him, into a new bed, at first very tempting, for a time smooth and sunny, but alas! ending in waste of energy for which no outward splendor could atone. The first false step seemed very natural and harmless. When Brandis went to Germany to begin his professorial work, Bunsen took his place as Niebuhr's secretary at Rome. He was determined, then, that nothing should induce him to remain in the diplomatic career (p. 130), but the current of that mill-stream was too strong even for Bunsen. How he remained as Secretary of Legation, 1818; how the King of Prussia, Frederick William III., came to visit Rome, and took a fancy to the young diplomatist, who could speak to him with a modesty and frankness little known at courts; how, when Niebuhr exchanged his embassy for a professorial chair at Bonn, Bunsen remained as Chargé d'Affaires; how he went to Berlin, 1827-28, and gained the hearts of the old King and of everybody else; how he returned to Rome and was fascinated by the young Crown Prince of Prussia, afterwards Frederick William IV., whom he had to conduct through the antiquities and the modern life of the world city; how he became Prussian Minister, the friend of popes and cardinals, the centre of the best and most brilliant society; how, when the difficulties began between Prussia and the Papal government, chiefly with regard to mixed marriages, Bunsen tried to mediate, and was at last disowned by both parties in 1838,—all this may now be read in the open memoirs of his life. His letters during these twenty years are [pg 360] numerous and full, particularly those addressed to his sister, to whom he was deeply attached. They are the most touching and elevating record of a life spent in important official business, in interesting social intercourse, in literary and antiquarian researches, in the enjoyment of art and nature, and in the blessedness of a prosperous family life, and throughout in an unbroken communion with God. There is hardly a letter without an expression of that religion in common life, that constant consciousness of a Divine Presence, which made his life a life in God. To many readers this free outpouring of a God-loving soul will seem to approach too near to that abuse of religious phraseology which is a sign of superficial rather than of deep-seated piety. But, though through life a sworn enemy of every kind of cant, Bunsen never would surrender the privilege of speaking the language of a Christian, because that language had been profaned by the thoughtless repetition of shallow pietists.

Bunsen has frequently been accused of pietism, particularly in Germany, by men who could not distinguish between pietism and piety, just as in England he was attacked as a freethinker by men who never knew the freedom of the children of God. “Christianity is ours, not theirs,” he would frequently say of those who made religion a mere profession, and imagined they knew Christ because they held a crosier and wore a mitre. We can now watch the deep emotions and firm convictions of that true-hearted man, in letters of undoubted sincerity, addressed to his sister and his friends, and we can only wonder with what feelings they have been perused by those who in England questioned his Christianity or who in Germany suspected his honesty.

From the time of his first meeting with the King of Prussia at Rome, and still more, after his stay at Berlin in 1827, Bunsen's chief interest with regard to Prussia centred in ecclesiastical matters. The King, after effecting the union of the Lutheran and Calvinistic branches of the Protestant Church, was deeply interested in drawing up a new Liturgy for his own national, or, as it was called, Evangelical Church. The introduction of his Liturgy, or Agenda, particularly as it was carried out, like everything else in Prussia, by royal decree, met with considerable resistance. Bunsen, who had been led independently to the study of ancient liturgies, and who had devoted much of his time at Rome to the collection of ancient hymns and hymn tunes, could speak to the King on these favorite topics from the fullness of his heart. The King listened to him, even when Bunsen ventured to express his dissent from some of the royal proposals, and when he, the young attaché, deprecated any authoritative interference with the freedom of the Church. In Prussia the whole movement was unpopular, and Bunsen, though he worked hard to render it less so, was held responsible for much which he himself had disapproved. Of all these turbulent transactions there remains but one bright and precious relic, Bunsen's “Hymn and Prayer Book.”

The Prussian Legation on the Capitol was during Bunsen's day not only the meeting-place of all distinguished Germans, but, in the absence of an English embassy, it also became the recognized centre of the most interesting portion of English society at Rome. Among the Germans, whose presence told on Bunsen's life, either by a continued friendship or by common interests and pursuits, we meet the names of Ludwig, [pg 362] King of Bavaria; Baron von Stein, the great Prussian statesman; Radowitz, the less fortunate predecessor of Bismarck; Schnorr, Overbeck, and Mendelssohn. Among Englishmen, whose friendship with Bunsen dates from the Capitol, we find Thirlwall, Philip Pusey, Arnold, and Julius Hare. The names of Thorwaldsen, too, of Leopardi, Lord Hastings, Champollion, Sir Walter Scott, Chateaubriand, occur again and again in the memoirs of that Roman life which teems with interesting events and anecdotes. The only literary productions of that eventful period are Bunsen's part in Platner's “Description of Rome,” and the “Hymn and Prayer Book.” But much material for later publications had been amassed in the mean time. The study of the Old Testament had been prosecuted at all times, and in 1824 the first beginning was made by Bunsen in the study of hieroglyphics, afterwards continued with Champollion, and later with Lepsius. The Archæological Institute and the German Hospital, both on the Capitol, were the two permanent bequests that Bunsen left behind when he shook off the dust of his feet, and left Rome on the 29th of April, 1838, in search of a new Capitol.

At Berlin, Bunsen was then in disgrace. He had not actually been dismissed the service, but he was prohibited from going to Berlin to justify himself, and he was ordered to proceed to England on leave of absence. To England, therefore, Bunsen now directed his steps with his wife and children, and there, at least, he was certain of a warm welcome, both from his wife's relations and from his own very numerous friends. When we read through the letters of that period, we hardly miss the name of a single man illustrious at that time in England. As if to make up for the injustice [pg 363] done to him in Italy, and for the ingratitude of his country, people of all classes and of the most opposite views vied in doing him honor. Rest he certainly found none, while travelling about from one town to another, and staying at friends' houses, attending meetings, making speeches, writing articles, and, as usual, amassing new information wherever he could find it. He worked at Egyptian with Lepsius; at Welsh while staying with Lady Hall; at Ethnology with Dr. Prichard. He had to draw up two state papers,—one on the Papal aggression, the other on the law of divorce. He plunged, of course, at once into all the ecclesiastical and theological questions that were then agitating people's minds in England, and devoted his few really quiet hours to the preparation of his own “Life of Christ.” With Lord Ashley he attended Bible meetings, with Mrs. Fry he explored the prisons, with Philip Pusey he attended agricultural assemblies, and he spent night after night as an admiring listener in the House of Commons. He was presented to the Queen and the Duke of Wellington, was made a D.C.L. at Oxford, discussed the future with J. H. Newman, the past with Buckland, Sedgwick, and Whewell. Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell invited him to political conferences; Maurice and Keble listened to his fervent addresses; Dr. Arnold consulted the friend of Niebuhr on his own “History of Rome,” and tried to convert him to more liberal opinions with regard to Church reform. Dr. Holland, Mrs. Austin, Ruskin, Carlyle, Macaulay, Gaisford, Dr. Hawkins, and many more, all greeted him, all tried to do him honor, and many of them became attached to him for life. The architectural monuments of England, its castles, parks, and ruins, passed quickly through his field of vision [pg 364] during that short stay. But he soon calls out: “I care not now for all the ruins of England; it is her life that I like.”

Most touching is his admiration, his real love of Gladstone. Thirty years have since passed, and the world at large has found out by this time what England possesses in him. But it was not so in 1838, and few men at that early time could have read Gladstone's heart and mind so truly as Bunsen. Here are a few of his remarks:—

“Last night, when I came home from the Duke, Gladstone's book was on my table, the second edition having come out at seven o'clock. It is the book of the time, a great event,—the first book since Burke that goes to the bottom of the vital question; far above his party and his time. I sat up till after midnight; and this morning I continued until I had read the whole, and almost every sheet bears my marginal glosses, destined for the Prince, to whom I have sent the book with all dispatch. Gladstone is the first man in England as to intellectual powers, and he has heard higher tones than any one else in this island.”

And again (p. 493):—

“Gladstone is by far the first living intellectual power on that side. He has left his schoolmasters far behind him, but we must not wonder if he still walks in their trammels; his genius will soon free itself entirely, and fly towards heaven with its own wings.... I wonder Gladstone should not have the feeling of moving on an inclined plane, or that of sitting down among ruins, as if he were settled in a well-stored house.”

Of Newman, whom he had met at Oxford, Bunsen says:—

“This morning I have had two hours at breakfast with Newman. O! it is sad,—he and his friends are truly intellectual people, but they have lost their ground, going exactly my way, but stopping short in the middle. It is too late. There has been an amicable change of ideas and a Christian understanding. Yesterday he preached a beautiful sermon. A new period of life begins for me; may God's blessing be upon it!”

Oxford made a deep impression on Bunsen's mind. He writes:—

“I am luxuriating in the delights of Oxford. There has never been enough said of this queen of all cities.”

But what as a German he admired and envied most was, after all, the House of Commons:—

“I wish you could form an idea of what I felt. I saw for the first time man, the member of a true Germanic State, in his highest, his proper place, defending the highest interests of humanity with the wonderful power of speech-wrestling, but with the arm of the spirit, boldly grasping at or tenaciously holding fast power, in the presence of his fellow-citizens, submitting to the public conscience the judgment of his cause and of his own uprightness. I saw before me the empire of the world governed, and the rest of the world controlled and judged, by this assembly. I had the feeling that, had I been born in England, I would rather be dead than not sit among and speak among them. I thought of my own country, and was thankful that I could thank God for being a German and being myself. But I felt, also, that we are all children on this field in comparison with the English; how much they, with their discipline of mind, body, and heart, can effect even with but moderate genius, and even with talent alone! I drank in every word from the lips of the speakers, even those I disliked.”

More than a year was thus spent in England in the very fullness of life. “My stay in England in 1838-39,” he writes at a later time, the 22d of September, 1841, “was the poetry of my existence as a man; this is the prose of it. There was a dew upon those fifteen months, which the sun has dried up, and which nothing can restore.” Yet even then Bunsen could not have been free from anxieties for the future. He had a large family growing up, and he was now again, at the age of forty-seven, without any definite prospects in life. In spite, however, of the intrigues of his enemies, the personal feelings of the King and the Crown Prince prevailed at last; and he was appointed [pg 366] in July, 1839, as Prussian Minister in Switzerland, his secret and confidential instructions being “to do nothing.” These instructions were carefully observed by Bunsen, as far as politics were concerned. He passed two years of rest at the Hubel, near Berne, with his family, devoted to his books, receiving visits from his friends, and watching from a distance the coming events in Prussia.

In 1840 the old King died, and it was generally expected that Bunsen would at once receive an influential position at Berlin. Not till April, 1841, however, was he summoned to the court, although, to judge from the correspondence between him and the new King, Frederick William IV., few men could have enjoyed a larger share of royal confidence and love than Bunsen. The King was hungering and thirsting after Bunsen, yet Bunsen was not invited to Berlin. The fact is that the young King had many friends, and those friends were not the friends of Bunsen. They were satisfied with his honorary exile in Switzerland, and thought him best employed at a distance in doing nothing. The King too, who knew Bunsen's character from former years, must have known that Berlin was not large enough for him; and he therefore left him in his Swiss retirement till an employment worthy of him could be found. This was to go on a special mission to England with a view of establishing, in common with the Church of England, a Protestant bishopric at Jerusalem. In Jerusalem the King hoped that the two principal Protestant churches of Europe would, across the grave of the Redeemer, reach to each other the right hand of fellowship. Bunsen entered into this plan with all the energy of his mind and heart. It was a work thoroughly congenial [pg 367] to himself; and if it required diplomatic skill, certainly no one could have achieved it more expeditiously and successfully than Bunsen. He was then a persona grata with bishops and archbishops, and Lord Ashley—not yet Lord Shaftesbury—gave him all the support his party could command. English influence was then so powerful at Constantinople that all difficulties due to Turkish bigotry were quickly removed. At the end of June, 1841, he arrived in London; on the 6th of August he wrote, “All is settled;” and on the 7th of November the new Bishop of Jerusalem was consecrated. Seldom was a more important and more complicated transaction settled in so short a time. Had the discussions been prolonged, had time been given to the leaders of the Romanizing party to recover from their surprise, the bill that had to be passed through both houses would certainly have been defeated. People have hardly yet understood the real bearing of that measure, nor appreciated the germ which it may still contain for the future of the Reformed Church. One man only seems to have seen clearly what a blow this first attempt at a union between the Protestant churches of England and Germany was to his own plans, and to the plans of his friends; and we know now, from Newman's “Apologia,” that the bishopric of Jerusalem drove him to the Church of Rome. This may have been for the time a great loss to the Church of England; it marked, at all events, a great crisis in her history.

In spite, however, of his great and unexpected success, there are traces of weariness in Bunsen's letters of that time, which show that he was longing for more congenial work. “O, how I hate and detest diplomatic life!” he wrote to his wife; “and how [pg 368] little true intellectuality is there in the high society here as soon as you cease to speak of English national subjects and interests; and the eternal hurricanes, whirling, urging, rushing, in this monster of a town! Even with you and the children life would become oppressive under the diplomatic burden. I can pray for our country life, but I cannot pray for a London life, although I dare not pray against it, if it must be.”

Bunsen's observations of character amidst the distractions of his London season are very interesting and striking, particularly at this distance of time. He writes:—

“Mr. Gladstone has been invited to become one of the trustees of the Jerusalem Fund. He is beset with scruples; his heart is with us, but his mind is entangled in a narrow system. He awaits salvation from another code, and by wholly different ways from myself. Yesterday morning I had a letter from him of twenty-four pages, to which I replied early this morning by eight.

“The Bishop of London constantly rises in my estimation. He has replied admirably to Mr. Gladstone, closing with the words, ‘My dear sir, my intention is not to limit and restrict the Church of Christ, but to enlarge it.’ ”

A letter from Sir Robert Peel, too, must here be quoted in full:—

“Whitehall, October 10, 1841.

“My dear Mr. Bunsen,—My note merely conveyed a request that you would be good enough to meet Mr. Cornelius at dinner on Friday last.

“I assure you that I have been amply repaid for any attention I may have shown to that distinguished artist, in the personal satisfaction I have had in the opportunity of making his acquaintance. He is one of a noble people distinguished in every art of war and peace. The union and patriotism of that people, spread over the centre of Europe, will contribute the surest guarantee for the peace of the world, and the most powerful check upon the spread of all pernicious doctrines injurious [pg 369] to the cause of religion and order, and that liberty which respects the rights of others.

“My earnest hope is that every member of this illustrious race, while he may cherish the particular country of his birth as he does his home, will extend his devotion beyond its narrow limits, and exult in the name of a German, and recognize the claim of Germany to the love and affection and patriotic exertions of all her sons.

“I hope I judge the feelings of every German by those which were excited in my own breast (in the breast of a foreigner and a stranger) by a simple ballad, that seemed, however, to concentrate the will of a mighty people, and said emphatically,—

“They shall not have the Rhine.”

“They will not have it: and the Rhine will be protected by a song, if the sentiments which that song embodies pervade, as I hope and trust they do, every German heart.

“You will begin to think that I am a good German myself, and so I am, if hearty wishes for the union and welfare of the German race can constitute one.

“Believe me, most faithfully yours,

“Robert Peel.”

When Bunsen was on the point of leaving London, he received the unexpected and unsolicited appointment of Prussian Envoy in England, an appointment which he could not bring himself to decline, and which again postponed for twelve years his cherished plans of an otium cum dignitate. What the world at large would have called the most fortunate event in Bunsen's life proved indeed a real misfortune. It deprived Bunsen of the last chance of fully realizing the literary plans of his youth, and it deprived the world of services that no one could have rendered so well in the cause of freedom of thought, of practical religion, and in teaching the weighty lessons of antiquity to the youth of the future. It made him waste his precious hours in work that any Prussian baron could have done as well, if not better, and did not set him free [pg 370] until his bodily strength was undermined, and the joyful temper of his mind saddened by sad experiences.

Nothing could have been more brilliant than the beginning of Bunsen's diplomatic career in England. First came the visit of the King of Prussia, whom the Queen had invited to be godfather to the Prince of Wales. Soon after the Prince of Prussia came to England under the guidance of Bunsen. Then followed the return visit of the Queen at Stolzenfels, on the Rhine. All this, no doubt, took up much of Bunsen's time, but it gave him also the pleasantest introduction to the highest society of England; for as Baroness Bunsen shrewdly remarks, “there is nothing like standing within the Bude-light of royalty to make one conspicuous, and sharpen perceptions and recollections.” (II. p. 8.) Bunsen complained, no doubt, now and then, about excessive official work, yet he seemed on the whole reconciled to his position, and up to the year 1847 we hear of no attempts to escape from diplomatic bondage. In a letter to Mrs. Fry he says:—

“I can assure you I never passed a more quiet and truly satisfactory evening in London than the last, in the Queen's house, in the midst of the excitement of the season. I think this is a circumstance for which one ought to be thankful; and it has much reminded me of hours that I have spent at Berlin and Sans Souci with the King and the Queen and the Prince William, and, I am thankful to add, with the Princess of Prussia, mother of the future King. It is a striking and consoling and instructive proof that what is called the world, the great world, is not necessarily worldly in itself, but only by that inward worldliness which, as rebellion against the spirit, creeps into the cottage as well as into the palace, and against which no outward form is any protection. Forms and rules may prevent the outbreak of wrong, but cannot regenerate right, and may quench the spirit and poison inward truth. The Queen gives hours daily to the labor of examining into the claims of the numberless petitions addressed to her, among other duties to which her time of privacy is devoted.”

The Queen's name and that of Prince Albert occur often in these memoirs, and a few of Bunsen's remarks and observations may be of interest, though they contain little that can now be new to the readers of the “Life of the Prince Consort” and of the “Queen's Journal.”

First, a graphic description, from the hand of Baroness Bunsen, of the Queen opening Parliament in 1842:—

“Last, the procession of the Queen's entry, and herself, looking worthy and fit to be the converging point of so many rays of grandeur. It is self-evident that she is not tall; but were she ever so tall, she could not have more grace and dignity, a head better set, a throat more royally and classically arching; and one advantage there is in her not being taller, that when she casts a glance, it is of necessity upwards and not downwards, and thus the effect of the eyes is not thrown away,—the beam and effluence not lost. The composure with which she filled the throne, while awaiting the Commons, was a test of character,—no fidget and no apathy. Then her voice and enunciation could not be more perfect. In short, it could not be said that she did well, but she was the Queen,—she was, and felt herself to be, the acknowledged chief among grand and national realities.” (Vol. II. p. 10.)

The next is an account of the Queen at Windsor Castle on receiving the Princess of Prussia, in 1842:—

“The Queen looked well and rayonnante, with that expression that she always has when thoroughly pleased with all that occupies her mind, which you know I always observe with delight, as fraught with that truth and reality which so essentially belong to her character, and so strongly distinguish her countenance, in all its changes, from the fixed mask only too common in the royal rank of society.” (Vol. II. p. 115.)

After having spent some days at Windsor Castle, Bunsen writes in 1846:—

“The Queen often spoke with me about education, and in particular of religious instruction. Her views are very serious, [pg 372] but at the same time liberal and comprehensive. She (as well as Prince Albert) hates all formalism. The Queen reads a great deal, and has done my book on ‘The Church of the Future’ the honor to read it so attentively, that the other day, when at Cashiobury, seeing the book on the table, she looked out passages which she had approved in order to read them aloud to the Queen-Dowager.” (Vol. II. p. 121.)

And once more:—

“The Queen is a wife and a mother as happy as the happiest in her dominions, and no one can be more careful of her charges. She often speaks to me of the great task before her and the Prince in the education of the royal children, and particularly of the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal.”

Before the troubles of 1847 and 1848, Bunsen was enabled to spend part of his time in the country, away from the turmoil of London, and much of his literary work dates from that time. After his “Church of the Future,” the discovery of the genuine Epistles of Ignatius by the late Dr. Cureton led Bunsen back to the study of the earliest literature of the Christian Church, and the results of these researches were published in his “Ignatius.” Lepsius' stay in England and his expedition to Egypt induced Bunsen to put his own materials in order, and to give to the world his long-matured views on “The Place of Egypt in Universal History.” The later volumes of this work led him into philological studies of a more general character, and at the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, in 1847, he read before the brilliantly attended ethnological section his paper “On the Results of the recent Egyptian Researches in reference to Asiatic and African Ethnology, and the Classification of Languages,” published in the “Transactions” of the Association, and separately under the title, “Three Linguistic Dissertations, by Chevalier Bunsen, Dr. Charles Meyer, and Dr. Max Müller.” “Those three days at Oxford,” [pg 373] he writes, “were a time of great distinction to me, both in my public and private capacity.” Everything important in literature and art attracted not only his notice, but his warmest interest; and no one who wanted encouragement, advice, or help in literary or historical researches, knocked in vain at Bunsen's door. His table at breakfast and dinner was filled by ambassadors and professors, by bishops and missionaries, by dukes and poor scholars, and his evening parties offered a kind of neutral ground, where people could meet who could have met nowhere else, and where English prejudices had no jurisdiction. That Bunsen, holding the position which he held in society, but still more being what he was apart from his social position, should have made his presence felt in England, was not to be wondered at. He would speak out whenever he felt strongly, but he was the last man to meddle or to intrigue. He had no time even if he had had taste for it. But there were men in England who could never forgive him for the Jerusalem bishopric, and who resorted to the usual tactics for making a man unpopular. A cry was soon raised against his supposed influence at court, and doubts were thrown out as to his orthodoxy. Every Liberal bishop that was appointed was said to have been appointed through Bunsen. Dr. Hampden was declared to have been his nominee,—the fact being that Bunsen did not even know of him before he had been made a bishop. As his practical Christianity could not well be questioned, he was accused of holding heretical opinions, because his chronology differed from that of Jewish Rabbis and Bishop Usher. It is extraordinary how little Bunsen himself cared about these attacks, though they caused acute suffering to his family. He was not surprised [pg 374] that he should be hated by those whose theological opinions he considered unsound, and whose ecclesiastical politics he had openly declared to be fraught with danger to the most sacred interests of the Church. Besides, he was the personal friend of such men as Arnold, Hare, Thirlwall, Maurice, Stanley, and Jowett. He had even a kind word to say for Froude's “Nemesis of Faith.” He could sympathize, no doubt, with all that was good and honest, whether among the High Church or Low Church party, and many of his personal friends belonged to the one as well as to the other; but he could also thunder forth with no uncertain sound against everything that seemed to him hypocritical, pharisaical, unchristian. Thus he writes (II. p. 81):—

“I apprehend having given the ill-disposed a pretext for considering me a semi-Pelagian, a contemner of the Sacraments, or denier of the Son, a perverter of the doctrine of justification, and therefore a crypto-Catholic theosophist, heretic, and enthusiast, deserving of all condemnation. I have written it because I felt compelled in conscience to do so.”

Again (II. p. 87):—

“In my letter to Mr. Gladstone, I have maintained the lawfulness and the apostolic character of the German Protestant Church. You will find the style changed in this work, bolder and more free.”

Attacks, indeed, became frequent, and more and more bitter, but Bunsen seldom took any notice of them. He writes:—

“Hare is full of wrath at an attack made upon me in the ‘Christian Remembrancer’—in a very Jesuitical way insinuating that I ought not to have so much influence allowed me. Another article execrates the bishopric of Jerusalem as an abomination. This zeal savors more of hatred than of charity.”

But though Bunsen felt far too firmly grounded in [pg 375] his own Christian faith to be shaken by such attacks upon himself, he too could be roused to wrath and indignation when the poisoned arrows of theological Fijians were shot against his friends. When speaking of the attacks on Arnold, he writes:—

“Truth is nothing in this generation except a means, in the best case, to something good; but never, like virtue, considered as good, as the good,—the object in itself. X dreams away in twilight. Y is sliding into Puseyism. Z (the Evangelicals) go on thrashing the old straw. I wish it were otherwise; but I love England, with all her faults. I write to you, now only to you, all I think. All the errors and blunders which make the Puseyites a stumbling-block to so many,—the rock on which they split is no other than what Rome split upon, self-righteousness, out of want of understanding justification by faith, and hovering about the unholy and blasphemous idea of atoning for our sins, because they feel not, understand not, indeed, believe not, the Atonement, and therefore enjoy not the glorious privileges of the children of God,—the blessed duty of the sacrifice of thanksgiving through Him who atoned for them. Therefore no sacrifice,—therefore no Christian priesthood,—no Church. By our fathers these ideas were fundamentally acknowledged; they were in abeyance in the worship of the Church, but not on the domestic altar and in the hymns of the spirit. With the Puseyites, as with the Romanists, these ideas are cut off at the roots. O when will the Word of God be brought up against them? What a state this country is in! The land of liberty rushing into the worst slavery, the veriest thralldom!”

To many people it might have seemed as if Bunsen during all this time was too much absorbed in English interests, political, theological, and social, that he had ceased to care for what was passing in his own country. His letters, however, tell a different tale. His voluminous correspondence with the King of Prussia, though not yet published, will one day bear witness to Bunsen's devotion to his country, and his enthusiastic attachment to the house of Hohenzollern. From year to year he was urging on the King and his [pg 376] advisers the wisdom of liberal concessions, and the absolute necessity of action. He was working at plans for constitutional reforms; he went to Berlin to rouse the King, to shame his ministers, to insist in season and out of season on the duty of acting before it was too late. His faith in the King is most touching. When he goes to Berlin in 1844, he sees everywhere how unpopular the King is, how even his best intentions are misunderstood and misrepresented. Yet he goes on working and hoping, and he sacrifices his own popularity rather than oppose openly the suicidal policy that might have ruined Prussia, if Prussia could have been ruined. Thus he writes in August, 1845:—

“To act as a statesman at the helm, in the Fatherland, I consider not to be in the least my calling: what I believe to be my calling is to be mounted high before the mast, to observe what land, what breakers, what signs of coming storm there may be, and then to announce them to the wise and practical steersman. It is the same to me whether my own nation shall know in my life-time or after my death how faithfully I have taken to heart its weal and woe, be it in Church or State, and borne it on my heart as my nearest interest, as long as life lasted. I give up the point of making myself understood in the present generation. Here (in London) I consider myself to be upon the right spot. I seek to preserve peace and unity, and to remove dissatisfaction, wherever it is possible.”

Nothing, however, was done. Year after year was thrown away, like a Sibylline leaf, and the penalty for the opportunities that had been lost became heavier and heavier. The King, particularly when he was under the influences of Bunsen's good genius, was ready for any sacrifice. “The commotion,” he exclaimed, in 1845, “can only be met and overcome by freedom, absolute freedom.” But when Bunsen wanted measures, not words, the King himself seemed [pg 377] powerless. Surrounded as he was by men of the most opposite characters and interests, and quite capable of gauging them all,—for his intellect was of no common stamp,—he could agree with all of them to a certain point, but could never bring himself to go the whole length with any one of them. Bunsen writes from Berlin: “My stay will certainly not be a long one; the King's heart is like that of a brother toward me, but our ways diverge. The die is cast, and he reads in my countenance that I deplore the throw. He too fulfills his fate, and we with him.”

When, at last, in 1847, a Constitution was granted by the King, it was too late. Sir Robert Peel seems to have been hopeful, and in a letter of twenty-two pages to Bunsen he expressed an opinion that the Prussian government might still be able to maintain the Constitution if only sincere in desiring its due development, and prepared in mind for that development. To the King, however, and to the party at court, the Constitution, if not actually hateful, was a mere plaything, and the idea of surrendering one particle of his independence never entered the King's mind. Besides, 1848 was at the door, and Bunsen certainly saw the coming storm from a distance, though he could not succeed in opening the eyes of those who stood at the helm in Prussia. Shortly before the hurricane broke loose, Bunsen had once more determined to throw up his official position, and retire to Bonn. But with 1848 all these hopes and plans were scattered to the winds. Bunsen's life became more restless than ever, and his body was gradually giving way under the constant tension of his mind. “I feel,” he writes in 1848 to Archdeacon Hare, “that I have entered into a new period of life. [pg 378] I have given up all private concerns, all studies and researches of my own, and live entirely for the present political emergencies of my country, to stand or to fall by and with it.”

With his love for England he deeply felt the want of sympathy on the part of England for Prussia in her struggle to unite and regenerate the whole of Germany. “It is quite entertaining,” he writes, with a touch of irony very unusual in his letters, “to see the stiff unbelief of the English in the future of Germany. Lord John is merely uninformed. Peel has somewhat staggered the mind of the excellent Prince by his unbelief; yet he has a statesmanlike good-will towards the Germanic nations, and even for the German nation. Aberdeen is the greatest sinner. He believes in God and the Emperor Nicholas!” The Schleswig-Holstein question embittered his feelings still more; and in absence of all determined convictions at Berlin, the want of moral courage and political faith among those in whose hands the destinies of Germany had been placed, roused him to wrath and fury, though he could never be driven to despair of the future of Prussia. For a time, indeed, he seemed to hesitate between Frankfort, then the seat of the German Parliament, and Berlin; and he would have accepted the Premiership at Frankfort if his friend Baron Stockmar had accepted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But very soon he perceived that, however paralyzed for the moment, Prussia was the only possible centre of life for a regeneration of Germany; that Prussia could not be merged in Germany, but that Germany had to be resuscitated and reinvigorated through Prussia. His patriotic nominalism, if we may so call his youthful [pg 379] dreams of a united Germany, had to yield to the force of that political realism which sacrifices names to things, poetry to prose, the ideal to the possible. What made his decision easier than it would otherwise have been to a heart so full of enthusiasm was his personal attachment to the King and to the Prince of Prussia. For a time, indeed, though for a short time only, Bunsen, after his interview with the King in January, 1849, believed that his hopes might still be realized, and he seems actually to have had the King's promise that he would accept the crown of a United Germany, without Austria. But as soon as Bunsen had left Berlin, new influences began to work on the King's brain; and when Bunsen returned, full of hope, he was told by the King himself that he had never repented in such a degree of any step as that which Bunsen had advised him to take; that the course entered upon was a wrong to Austria; that he would have nothing to do with such an abominable line of politics, but would leave that to the Ministry at Frankfort. Whenever the personal question should be addressed to him, then would he reply as one of the Hohenzollern, and thus live and die as an honest man. Bunsen, though mourning over the disappointed hopes that had once centred in Frederick William IV., and freely expressing the divergence of opinion that separated him from his sovereign, remained throughout a faithful servant and a loyal friend. His buoyant spirit, confident that nothing could ruin Prussia, was looking forward to the future, undismayed by the unbroken succession of blunders and failures of Prussian statesmen,—nay, enjoying with a prophetic fervor, at the time of the deepest degradation of Prussia at Olmütz, the final [pg 380] and inevitable triumph of that cause which counted among its heroes and martyrs such names as Stein, Gneisenau, Niebuhr, Arndt, and, we may now add, Bunsen.

After the reaction of 1849 Bunsen's political influence ceased altogether, and as Minister in England he had almost always to carry out instructions of which he disapproved. More and more he longed for rest and freedom, for “leisure for reflection on the Divine which subsists in things human, and for writing, if God enables me to do so. I live as one lamed; the pinions that might have furthered my progress are bound,—yet not broken.” Yet he would not give up his place as long as his enemies at Berlin did all they could to oust him. He would not be beaten by them, nor did he altogether despair of better days. His opinion of the Prince of Prussia (the present King) had been raised very high since he had come to know him more intimately, and he expected much in the hour of need from his soldier-like decision and sense of honor. The negotiations about the Schleswig-Holstein question soon roused again all his German sympathies, and he exerted himself to the utmost to defend the just cause of the Schleswig-Holsteiners, which had been so shamefully misrepresented by unscrupulous partisans. The history of these negotiations cannot yet be written, but it will some day surprise the student of history when he finds out in what way public opinion in England was dosed and stupefied on that simple question. He found himself isolated and opposed by nearly all his English friends. One statesman only, but the greatest of English statesmen, saw clearly where the right and where the wrong was, but even he could only dare to be silent. On the 31st of July, 1850, Bunsen writes:—

“Palmerston had yielded, when in a scrape, first to Russia, then to France; the prize has been the protocol; the victim, Germany. They shall never have my signature to such a piece of iniquity and folly.”

However, on the 8th of May, 1852, Bunsen had to sign that very piece of iniquity. It was done, machine like, at the King's command; yet, if Bunsen had followed his own better judgment, he would not have signed, but sent in his resignation. “The first cannon-shot in Europe,” he used to say, “will tear this Pragmatic Sanction to tatters;” and so it was; but alas! he did not live to see the Nemesis of that iniquity. One thing, however, is certain, that the humiliation inflicted on Prussia by that protocol was never forgotten by one brave soldier, who, though not allowed at that time to draw his royal sword, has ever since been working at the reform of Prussia's army, till on the field of Sadowa the disgrace of the London protocol and the disgrace of Olmütz were wiped out together, and German questions can no longer be settled by the Great Powers of Europe, “with or without the consent of Prussia.”

Bunsen remained in England two years longer, full of literary work, delighted by the success of Prince Albert's Great Exhibition, entering heartily into all that interested and agitated English society, but nevertheless carrying in his breast a heavy heart. Prussia and Germany were not what he wished them to be. At last the complications that led to the Crimean War held out to his mind a last prospect of rescuing Prussia from her Russian thralldom. If Prussia could have been brought over to join England and France, the unity of Northern Germany might have been her reward, as the unity of Italy was the reward of Cavour's alliance with the Western Powers. Bunsen used all his influence [pg 382] to bring this about, but he used it in vain, and in April, 1854, he succumbed, and his resignation was accepted.

Now, at last, Bunsen was free. He writes to a son:—

“You know how I struggled, almost desperately, to retire from public employment in 1850. Now the cord is broken, and the bird is free. The Lord be praised!”

But sixty-two years of his life were gone. The foundations of literary work which he had laid as a young man were difficult to recover; and if anything was to be finished, it had to be finished in haste. Bunsen retired to Heidelberg, hoping there to realize the ideal of his life, and realizing it, too, in a certain degree,—i.e. as long as he was able to forget his sixty-two years, his shaken health, and his blasted hopes. His new edition of “Hippolytus,” under the title of “Christianity and Mankind,” had been finished in seven volumes before he left England. At Heidelberg his principal work was the new translation of the Bible, and his “Life of Christ,” an enormous undertaking, enough to fill a man's life, yet with Bunsen by no means the only work to which he devoted his remaining powers. Egyptian studies continued to interest him while superintending the English translation of his “Egypt.” His anger at the machinations of the Jesuits in Church and State would rouse him suddenly to address the German nation in his “Signs of the Times.” And the prayer of his early youth, “to be allowed to recognize and trace the firm path of God through the stream of ages,” was fulfilled in his last work, “God in History.” There were many blessings in his life at Heidelberg, and no one could have [pg 383] acknowledged them more gratefully than Bunsen. “Yet,” he writes,—

“I miss John Bull, the sea, ‘The Times’ in the morning, and, besides, some dozens of fellow-creatures. The learned class has greatly sunk in Germany, more than I supposed; all behindhand.... Nothing appears of any importance; the most wretched trifles are cried up.”

Though he had bid adieu to politics, yet he could not keep entirely aloof. The Prince of Prussia and the noble Princess of Prussia consulted him frequently, and even from Berlin baits were held out from time to time to catch the escaped eagle. Indeed, once again was Bunsen enticed by the voice of the charmer, and a pressing invitation of the King brought him to Berlin to preside at the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in September, 1857. His hopes revived once more, and his plans of a liberal policy in Church and State were once more pressed on the King,—in vain, as every one knew beforehand, except Bunsen alone, with his loving, trusting heart. However, Bunsen's hopes, too, were soon to be destroyed, and he parted from the King, the broken idol of all his youthful dreams,—not in anger, but in love, “as I wish and pray to depart from this earth, as on the calm, still evening of a long, beautiful summer's day.” This was written on the 1st of October; on the 3d the King's mind gave way, though his bodily suffering lasted longer than that of Bunsen. Little more is to be said of the last years of Bunsen's life. The difficulty of breathing, from which he suffered, became often very distressing, and he was obliged to seek relief by travel in Switzerland, or by spending the winter at Cannes. He recovered from time to time, so as to be able to work hard at the “Biblework,” and even to make short excursions to [pg 384] Paris or Berlin. In the last year of his life he executed the plan that had passed before his mind as the fairest dream of his youth: he took a house at Bonn, and he was not without hope that he might still, like Niebuhr, lecture in the university, and give to the young men the fruits of his studies and the advice founded on the experience of his life. This, however, was not to be, and all who watched him with loving eyes knew but too well that it could not be. The last chapter of his life is painful beyond expression as a chronicle of his bodily sufferings, but it is cheerful also beyond expression as the record of a triumph over death in hope, in faith,—nay, one might almost say, in sight,—such as has seldom been witnessed by human eyes. He died on the 28th of November, 1860, and was buried on the 1st of December in the same churchyard at Bonn where rests the body of his friend and teacher, Niebuhr.

Thoughts crowd in thick upon us when we gaze at that monument, and feel again the presence of that spirit as we so often felt it in the hours of sweet counsel. When we think of the literary works in which, later in life and almost in the presence of death, he hurriedly gathered up the results of his studies and meditations, we feel, as he felt himself when only twenty-two years of age, that “learning annihilates itself, and the most perfect is the first submerged, for the next age scales with ease the height which cost the preceding the full vigor of life.” It has been so, and always will be so. Bunsen's work, particularly in Egyptian philology and in the philosophy of language, was to a great extent the work of a pioneer, and it will be easy for others to advance on the roads which he has opened, and to approach nearer to the goal which [pg 385] he has pointed out. Some of his works, however, will hold their place in the history of scholarship, and particularly of theological scholarship. The question of the genuineness of the original Epistles of Ignatius can hardly be opened again after Bunsen's treatise; and his discovery that the book on “All the Heresies,” ascribed to Origen, could not be the work of that writer, and that most probably it was the work of Hippolytus, will always mark an epoch in the study of early Christian literature. Either of those works would have been enough to make the reputation of a German professor, or to found the fortune of an English bishop. Let it be remembered that they were the outcome of the leisure hours of a hard-worked Prussian diplomatist, who, during the London season, could get up at five in the morning, light his own fire, and thus secure four hours of undisturbed work before breakfast.

Another reason why some of Bunsen's works will prove more mortal than others is their comprehensive character. Bunsen never worked for work's sake, but always for some higher purpose. Special researches with him were a means, a ladder to be thrown away as soon as he had reached his point. The thought of exhibiting his ladders never entered his mind. Occasionally, however, Bunsen would take a jump, and being bent on general results, he would sometimes neglect the objections that were urged against him. It has been easy, even during his life-time, to point out weak points in his arguments, and scholars who have spent the whole of their lives on one Greek classic have found no difficulty in showing to the world that they know more of that particular author than Bunsen. But even those who fully appreciate the real importance [pg 386] of Bunsen's labors—labors that were more like a shower of rain fertilizing large acres than like the artificial irrigation which supports one greenhouse plant—will be first to mourn over the precious time that was lost to the world by Bunsen's official avocations. If he could do what he did in his few hours of rest, what would he have achieved if he had carried out the original plan of his life! It is almost incredible that a man with his clear perception of his calling in life, so fully expressed in his earliest letters, should have allowed himself to be drawn away by the siren voice of diplomatic life. His success, no doubt, was great at first, and the kindness shown him by men like Niebuhr, the King, and the Crown Prince of Prussia was enough to turn a head that sat on the strongest shoulders. It should be remembered, too, that in Germany the diplomatic service has always had far greater charms than in England, and that the higher members of that service enjoy often the same political influence as members of the Cabinet. If we read of the brilliant reception accorded to the young diplomatist during his first stay at Berlin, the favors showered upon him by the old King, the friendship offered him by the Crown Prince, his future King, the hopes of usefulness in his own heart, and the encouragement given him by all his friends, we shall be less surprised at his preferring, in the days of his youth, the brilliant career of a diplomatist to the obscure lot of a professor. And yet what would Bunsen have given later in life if he had remained true to his first love! Again and again his better self bursts forth in complaints about a wasted life, and again and again he is carried along against his will. During his first stay in England he writes (November 18, 1838):—

“I care no more about my external position than about the mountains in the moon; I know God's will will be done, in spite of them all, and to my greatest benefit. What that is He alone knows. Only one thing I think I see clearly. My whole life is without sense and lasting use, if I squander it in affairs of the day, brilliant and important as they may be.”

The longer he remained in that enchanted garden, the more difficult it became to find a way out, even after he had discovered by sad experience how little he was fitted for court life or even for public life in Prussia. When he first appeared at the court of Berlin, he carried everything by storm; but that very triumph was never forgiven him, and his enemies were bent on “showing this young doctor his proper place.” Bunsen had no idea how he was envied, for the lesson that success breeds envy is one that men of real modesty seldom learn until it is too late. And he was hated not only by chamberlains, but, as he discovered with deepest grief, even by those whom he considered his truest friends, who had been working in secret conclave to undermine his influence with his royal friend and master. Whenever he returned to Berlin, later in life, he could not breathe freely in the vitiated air of the court, and the wings of his soul hung down lamed, if not broken. Bunsen was not a courtier. Away from Berlin, among the ruins of Rome, and in the fresh air of English life, he could speak to kings and princes as few men have spoken to them, and pour out his inmost convictions before those whom he revered and loved. But at Berlin, though he might have learnt to bow and to smile and to use Byzantine phraseology, his voice faltered and was drowned by noisy declaimers; the diamond was buried in a heap of beads, and his rays could not shine forth where there was no heavenly sunlight to call them out.

King Frederick William IV. was no ordinary King: that one can see even from the scanty extracts from his letters given in “Bunsen's Memoirs.” Nor was his love of Bunsen a mere passing whim. He loved the man, and those who knew the refreshing and satisfying influence of Bunsen's society will easily understand what the King meant when he said, “I am hungry and thirsty for Bunsen.” But what constitution can resist the daily doses of hyperbolical flattery that are poured into the ears of royalty, and how can we wonder that at last a modest expression of genuine respect does sound like rudeness to royal ears, and to speak the truth becomes synonymous with insolence? In the trickeries and mimicries of court life Bunsen was no adept, and nothing was easier than to outbid him in the price that is paid for royal favors. But if much has thus been lost of a life far too precious to be squandered among royal servants and messengers, this prophet among the Sauls has taught the world some lessons which he could not have taught in the lecture-room of a German university. People who would scarcely have listened to the arguments of a German professor sat humbly at the feet of an ambassador and of a man of the world. That a professor should be learned, and that a bishop should be orthodox, was a matter of course; but that an ambassador should hold forth on hieroglyphics and the antiquity of man rather than on the chronique scandaleuse of Paris; that a Prussian statesman should spend his mornings on the Ignatian Epistles rather than in writing gossiping letters to ladies in waiting at Berlin and Potsdam; that this learned man “who ought to know,” should profess the simple faith of a child and the boldest freedom of a philosopher, was enough to startle society, both high [pg 389] and low. How Bunsen inspired those who knew him with confidence, how he was consulted, and how he was loved, may be seen from some of the letters addressed to him, though few only of such letters have been published in his “Memoirs.” That his influence was great in England we know from the concurrent testimony both of his enemies and his friends, and the seed that he has sown in the minds and hearts of men have borne fruit, and will still bear richer fruit, both in England and in Germany. Nor should it be forgotten how excellent a use he made of his personal influence in helping young men who wanted advice and encouragement. His sympathy, his condescension, his faith when brought in contact with men of promise, were extraordinary: they were not shaken, though they have been abused more than once. In all who loved Bunsen his spirit will live on, imperceptibly, it may be, to themselves, imperceptibly to the world, but not the less really. It is not the chief duty of friends to honor the departed by idle grief, but to remember their designs, and to carry out their mandates. (Tac. Ann. II. 71.)

1868.

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LETTERS FROM BUNSEN TO MAX MÜLLER IN THE YEARS 1848 TO 1859.[98]

After hesitating for a long time, and after consulting both those who had a right to be consulted, and those whose independent judgment I could trust, I have at last decided on publishing the following letters of Baron Bunsen, as an appendix to my article on the Memoirs of his Life. They will, I believe, show to the world one side of his character which in the Memoirs could appear but incidentally,—his ardent love of the higher studies from which his official duties were constantly tearing him away, and his kindness, his sympathy, his condescension in his intercourse with younger scholars who were pursuing different branches of that work to which he himself would gladly have dedicated the whole energy of his mind. Bunsen was by nature a scholar, though not exactly what in England is meant by a German scholar. Scholarship with him was always a means, never in itself an object; and the study of the languages, the laws, the philosophies and religions of antiquity, was in his eyes but a necessary preparation before approaching the problem of all problems, Is there a Providence in the world, or is there not? “To trace the firm path of God through the stream of ages,” this was the dream of his youth, and the toil of his old age; and during all his life, whether he was studying the laws of Rome or the hieroglyphic inscriptions of Egypt, the hymns of the Veda or the Psalms of the Old Testament, he was always collecting materials for that great temple which in his mind towered high above all other temples, the temple of God in history. He was an architect, but he wanted builders; his plans were settled, but there was no time to carry them out. He therefore naturally looked out for younger men who were to take some share of his work. He encouraged them, he helped them, he left them no rest till the work which he wanted was done; and he thus exercised the most salutary influence on a [pg 394] number of young scholars, both in Rome, in London, and in Heidelberg.

When I first came to know Bunsen, he was fifty-six, I twenty-four years of age; he was Prussian ambassador, I was nobody. But from the very beginning of our intercourse, he was to me like a friend and fellow-student; and when standing by his side at the desk in his library, I never saw the ambassador, but only the hard-working scholar, ready to guide, willing to follow, but always pressing forward to a definite goal. He would patiently listen to every objection, and enter readily into the most complicated questions of minute critical scholarship; but he always wanted to see daylight; he could not bear mere groping for groping's sake. When he suspected any scholar of shallowness, pettiness, or professorial conceit, he would sometimes burst forth into rage, and use language the severity of which he was himself the first to regret. But he would never presume on his age, his position, or his authority. In that respect few men remained so young, remained so entirely themselves through life as Bunsen. It is one of the saddest experiences in life to see men lose themselves when they become ministers or judges or bishops or professors. Bunsen never became ambassador, he always remained Bunsen. It has been my good fortune in life to have known many men whom the world calls great,—philosophers, statesmen, scholars, artists, poets; but take it all in all, take the full humanity of the man, I have never seen, and I shall never see his like again.

The rule followed in editing these letters has been a very simple one. I have given them as they were, even though I felt that many could be of interest to scholars only or to Bunsen's personal friends; but I have left out whatever could be supposed to wound the feelings of any one. Unless this rule is most carefully observed, the publication of letters after the death of their writers seems to me simply dishonorable. When Bunsen speaks of public measures and public men, of parties in Church and State, whether in England or in Germany, there was no necessity for suppressing his remarks, for he had spoken his mind as freely on them elsewhere as in these letters. But any personal reflections written on the spur of the moment, in confidence or in jest, have been struck out, however strong the temptation sometimes of leaving them. Many expressions, too, of his kind feelings towards me have been omitted. If some have been left, I hope I may be forgiven for a pride not altogether illegitimate.

[1.]

My dear M.,—I have this moment received your affectionate note of yesterday, and feel as if I must respond to it directly, as one would respond to a friend's shake of the hand. The information was quite new to me, and the success wholly unexpected. You have given a home to a friend who was homeless in the world; may you also have inspired him with that energy and stability, the want of which so evidently depresses him. The idea about Pauli is excellent, but he must decide quickly and send me word, that I may gain over William Hamilton, and his son (the President). The place is much sought after; Pauli would certainly be the man for it. He would not become a Philister here, as most do.

And now, my very dear M., I congratulate you on the courageous frame of mind which this event causes you to evince. It is exactly that which, as a friend, I wish for you for the whole of life, and which I perceived and loved in you from the very first moment. It delights me especially at this time, when your contemporaries are even more dark and confused than mine are sluggish and old-fashioned. The reality of life, as we enter the period of full manhood, destroys the first dream of youth; but with moral earnestness, and genuine faith in eternal providence, and in the sacredness of human destiny in that government of the world which exists for all human souls that honestly seek after good,—with these feelings, the dream of youth is more than realized.

You have undertaken a great work, and have been rescued from the whirlpool and landed on this peaceful island that you might carry it on undisturbed, which you could not have done in the Fatherland. This is the first consideration; but not less highly do I rate the circumstances which have kept you here, [pg 396] and have given you an opportunity of seeing English life in its real strength, with the consistency and stability, and with all the energy and simplicity, that are its distinguishing features. I have known what it is to receive this complement of German life in the years of my training and apprenticeship. When rightly estimated, this knowledge and love of the English element only strengthens the love of the German Fatherland, the home of genius and poetry.

I will only add that I am longing to see you amongst us: you must come to us before long. Meanwhile think of me with as much affection as I shall always think of you. Lepsius has sent me his splendid work “On the Foundations of Egyptian Chronology,” with astounding investigations.

As to Germany, my greatest hopes are based on this,—that the King and Henry von Gagern have met and become real friends.

[2.]

My dear M.,—Having returned home last night, I should like to see you quietly to-day, before the turmoil begins again to-morrow. Can you and Mr. Trithen come to me to-day at five o'clock? I will ask Elze to dinner, but I should first like to read to you two my treatise “On the Classification of Languages,” which is entirely rewritten, and has become my fifth book in nuce.

I will at once tell you that I am convinced that the Lycians were the true Pelasgians, and I shall not give you any rest till you have discovered the Pelasgic language from the monuments existing here. It is a sure discovery. It must be an older form of Greek, much as the Oscan or the Carmen Saliare were of Latin, or even perhaps more so.

[3.]

I landed yesterday, and took refuge here till this afternoon; and my first employment is to thank you for your affectionate and faithful letter, and to tell you that I am not only to be here as hitherto, but that, with the permission of the King, I am to fill the post of confidential accredited minister of the Reichsverweser, formerly held by Baron Andrian. During my stay here, be it long or short, it will always be a pleasure and refreshment [pg 397] to me to see you as often as you can come to us. You know our way of living, which will remain the same, except now and then, when Palmerston may fix his conferences for a Sunday.

Pertz is quite ready to agree to the proposal of a regular completion of the Chambers collection: the best thing would be for you to offer to make the catalogue. He is waiting your proposal. The dark clouds of civil war are lowering over our dear and mighty Fatherland. Prussia will go on its own way quietly as a mediating power.

[4.]

Yesterday evening, and night, and this morning early, I have been reading Froude's “Nemesis of Faith,” and am so moved by it that I must write you a few lines. I cannot describe the power of attraction exercised upon me by this deeply searching, noble spirit: I feel the tragic nature of his position, and long have I foreseen that such tragical combinations await the souls of men in this island-world. Arnold and Carlyle, each in his own way, had seen this long before me. In the general world, no one can understand such a state of mind, except so far as to be enabled to misconstrue it.

In the shortcoming of the English mind in judging of this book, its great alienation from the philosophy of Art is revealed. This book is not comprehended as a work of Art, claiming as such due proportions and relative significance of parts; otherwise many individuals would at least have been moved to a more sparing judgment upon it, and in the first place they would take in the import of the title.

This book shows the fatal result of the renunciation of the Church system of belief. The subject of the tale simply experiences moral annihilation; but the object of his affection, whose mind he had been the means of unsettling in her faith, burst through the boundaries which humanity has placed, and the moral order of the world imposes: they perish both,—each at odds with self, with God, and with human society: only for him there yet remains room for further development. Then the curtain falls,—that is right, according to artistic rule of composition; true and necessary according to the views of those who hold the faith of the Church of England; and from a theological point of view, no other solution could be expected from the book than that which it has given.

But here the author has disclosed the inward disease, the fearful hollowness, the spiritual death, of the nation's philosophical and theological forms, with resistless eloquence; and like the Jews of old, they will exclaim, “That man is a criminal! stone him!”

I wish you could let him know how deeply I feel for him, without ever having seen him; and how I desire to admonish him to accept and endure this fatality, as, in the nature of things, he must surely have anticipated it; and as he has pointed out and defended the freedom of the spirit, so must he now (and I believe he will) show in himself, and make manifest to the world, the courage, active in deed, cheerful in power, of that free spirit.

It is presumptuous to intrude into the fate and mystery of life in the case of any man, and more especially of a man so remarkable; but the consciousness of community of spirits, of knowing, and endeavoring after what is morally good, and true, and perfect, and of the yearning after every real disciple of the inner religion of Christians, impels me to suggest to you to tell him from me, that I believe the spasm of his spiritual efforts would sooner be calmed, and the solution of the great problem would sooner be found, if he were to live for a time among us; I mean, if he resided for a time in one of the German universities. We Germans have been for seventy years working as thinkers, inquirers, poets, seers, also as men of action, to pull down the old and to erect the new Zion; each great man with us has contributed his materials towards the sanctuary, invisible, but firmly fixed in German hearts; the whole nation has neglected and sacrificed political, individual existence and common freedom—to pursue in faith the search after truth. From us something may be learnt, by every spirit of this age. He will experience how truly the divine Plato spoke, when he said, “Seven years of silent inquiry were needful for a man to learn the truth, but fourteen in order to learn how to make it known to his fellow-men.”

Froude must know Schleiermacher's “Discourses on Religion,” and perhaps also his “Dogmatics.” In this series of developments this is perhaps, as far as the form is concerned, the most satisfactory work which immediately concerns religion and its reconciliation with philosophy on the basis of more liberal Christian investigation. But at all events we have not striven and suffered in vain: our philosophy, research, and poetry show [pg 399] this. But men, not books, are needed by such a mind, in order to become conscious of the truth, which (to quote Spinoza) “remoto errore nuda remanet.” He has still much to learn, and he should learn it as a man from man. I should like to propose to him first to go to Bonn. He would there find that most deeply thoughtful and most original of speculative minds among our living theologians, the Hamann of this century, my dear friend R. Rothe; also a noble philosopher and teacher of ethics, Brandis; an honest master of exegesis, Bleek; and young minds would soon attach themselves to him. In Halle he would find Erdmann, almost the only distinguished speculative follower of Hegel, and Tholuck, who has advanced much farther in the philosophical treatment of Christianity than is generally thought. I will gladly give him introductions to all of these. They would all willingly admit him into their world of thought, and enter with sympathy into his. It would be sure to suit him.... The free atmosphere of thought would do him good, as formerly the atmosphere of free England was good for Germans still struggling for political liberty. He certainly needs physical change and invigorating. For this the lovely Rhine is decidedly to be recommended. With £100 he could live there as a prince. Why go off to Van Diemen's Land? I should always be glad to be of the least service to him, still more to make his personal acquaintance. And now, my dear M., you can, if you wish, read out to him what I have written, but do not give the letter out of your own hands.

[5.]

I thank you for two letters. I cannot tell how the first delighted and rejoiced me. The state of things in England is really as you describe it. As to what concerns the second, you will by this time know that I have seen Froude twice. With M., too, personal acquaintance has been made, and the point as to money is touched on. I must see him again alone before I give my opinion. At all events, he is a man of genius, and Germany (especially Bonn) the country for him.

I can well imagine the terrible scenes your dear mother has witnessed in Dresden. However, I believe we have, in the very midst of the storm, reached the harbor. Even in Frankfort every one believes in the complete success of Prussia's negotiations with the four Courts. We shall have the whole constitution [pg 400] of the empire, and now with all necessary improvements. As to matters of form, they must be arranged as between equals. Gagern and his friends are ready for this. The constitution is to be declared at Berlin on the 25th. The disturbances will then be quieted as by magic. George is aux anges over this unexpected turn of affairs. At all events I hope soon to see you.

[6].

“Hurrah for Müller!”—so writes George, and as an answer I send you his note from Frankfort. Hekscher's proposal is quite reasonable. I have since then broken off all negotiations with the Danes. You will soon read the documents in the newspapers.

If the proposal of the parliamentary committee on the directory of the Bund passes, which admits of little doubt, the question of to be or not to be must be immediately decided.

I do not intend going to Frankfort for this, so pray come here; I am alone here with Charles.

[7.]

My dear M.,—I did not thank you immediately for your delightful and instructive letter, because there were many points on which I wished to write fully. The last decisive crisis of the German-European business has at length arrived, and I have had the opportunity of doing my duty in the matter. But I have been doing nothing else since last Saturday, nothing Chinese even. I recommend the inclosed to you. The young man is a good and highly informed German bookseller. He has of course written just what I did not tell him, and omitted what he ought to have said, “that he had been here for five years with the first booksellers, and before that was trained under his father in Bonn; that he understands English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish.” I have only heard what is good of him. How grateful I feel to you for having begun the Index of Egyptian words at once! We wanted one here for a special purpose, so our trouble has not been thrown away. I now perceive how impossible it is to understand the Egyptian language and history thoroughly without Chinese. In the chronology there is still much to be done.

We have as yet held our own in London and Warsaw as against Vienna. But in the Schleswig-Holstein question we have the whole world, and unfortunately our own peace of July 2d, against us. Radowitz has worked most devotedly and honestly. When shall we see you again?

[8.]

By return of post thanks and greetings to my dear M. Your proposal as to Schütz is excellent. Let me know if I am to write to Humboldt. I draw a totally different lesson from your news of the loss of the Veda MS. Wait till a good copy arrives, and in the mean time pursue your philological studies in some other direction, and get on with your Introduction. You can work more in one day in Europe than in a week in India, unless you wish to kill yourself, which I could not allow. So come with bag and baggage here, to 9 Carlton Terrace, to one who longs to see you.

F. must have gone mad, or have been far more so politically than I imagined. The “Leader,” edited by him and N., is (as Mills says) red and raw! and, in addition, badly written. It is a pity for prophets and poets to meddle with realities, instead of devoting themselves to futurity and poetry. George is happy in the intellectual wealth of Paris life, and quite perplexed at the perverseness and follies of the political cliques. He promises to write about the acquaintance of Lamenais and George Sand. I am well, but fully use the right of a convalescent, and hardly go anywhere.

Friend Stockmar sends a report from Erfurt, where the Parliament meets on the 26th to receive the oaths of the Directory and the Ministers of the Union. Usedom, Pertz, and Co. are quite mad in their enthusiasm for the Black and White, as I have openly written to them.

[9.]

Mr. Eastwick, the translator of Bopp's Grammar, tells me that he and Murray wish for an article on this work in the “Quarterly Review” for January, 1851; so it must be sent in in November. Wilson refuses, as he is too busy. I believe you could best write such a review, of about sixteen pages [pg 402] (£16). If you agree to this, write a line to me or direct to Eastwick, who would then get a letter from Lockhart with the commission for you. God help Schleswig-Holstein!

[10.]

You have given me the greatest pleasure, my dear M., by your beautiful present. Already, last night, I read the new “Greek Songs,” and others that were new to me, with the greatest delight. We have, at all events, derived one benefit from the great storm,—that the fetters have been taken off the press. It is a very charming edition, and a beautiful memorial.

As to F——, it seems to me contra rei naturam to arrange anything with the “Quarterly Review.” The channel for such things is now really the “Edinburgh;” in the “Quarterly” everything not English must be run down, at all events in appearance, if it is to be appreciated. And now “Modern German Poetry and F——,” and Liberal politics! I cannot understand how F—— could think of such a thing. I will willingly take charge of it for the “Edinburgh Review.” The editor is my political, theological, personal friend, and sympathizes with me in such things as I consider F——'s beautiful review will be. I have for years wished for such a one; epic-lyric poetry has made much greater advances since Goethe's time than people in Germany (with the one exception of Platen) seem to perceive. It seems to me, though, that one should begin with the flowers of the Romantic school of poetry, with Schenkendorf and Körner,—that is, with the whole romantic German national epoch, which found Goethe already a retired philosopher. The whole development, from that time till now, appears to me as one intimately united whole, even including the present day. Even 1848 to 1850 have furnished their contribution (Arndt's two inspired songs, for instance); and in 1843-44, Geibel shines as a star of the first magnitude. Heine is difficult to treat. In fact, I do not think that F—— has read enough of these poets. He spoke to me lately of an historical work that he had in view, and which he wished to talk over with me; he meant to come up to me from the country, but has not yet appeared. He is always welcome, for he is decidedly a man of genius, and I would willingly help him.

Now to something different. My Chinese work is tolerably [pg 403] far advanced. I have arranged the 214 keys alphabetically, and have examined about 100 of them historically—that is, I have separated the oldest (entirely hieroglyphic and ideographic) signs, and as far as possible fixed the relationship of identical or similarly sounding roots. Then I laid aside the work, and first began a complete list of all those pronominal, adverbial, and particle stems, arranged first alphabetically and then according to matter, in which I found the recognizable corpses of the oldest Chinese words. The result repays me even far more than I expected. I hope to have finished both works before Christmas; and at last, too, the alphabetical examination of the 450 words (of which about 150 are hidden in the 214 keys; the 64 others are similarly sounding roots). Naturally all this is only in reference to ancient Chinese, which is at least as different (grammatically) from modern Chinese as Egyptian is from Coptic.

At the same time, I am reading the translation of the three “Kings,” and transliterate some passages. And now I must ask you to examine the inclosed system of transliteration. I have devised it according to my best powers after yours and Lepsius' system. Secondly, I want you to tell me whether I ought to buy the Leipzig translation of Eichhoff's “Parallèle des Langues Sanscrites.” My own copy of the French edition has disappeared. Pauli works at an Index of the Egyptian hieroglyphics and words, which I can send you by and by.

“The days and times are hard,” says an old song.

[10.]

My dear Friend,—So it seems that I am really not to see you this time. I am truly sorry, and count all the more on your calling on your return, if I am still in England. I should like to have thanked you at once for your affectionate letter for my birthday. But you know, if you altogether trust me, that a lifelong love for you lies deep in my heart.

I had expected more from the great programme of New Oxford. It is not, however, much more unsatisfactory than the article on Plato, the writer of which now avows himself. It is only possible to excuse the milk-and-watery treatment of the subject through the general mental cowardice and ignorance in intellectual matters which is so predominant in this country. I find [pg 404] a comfort in the hope that this article is the prologue to able exegetical works, combined with a concrete statement of the absurdity, the untruth, and untenableness of the present English conception of inspiration. Do not call me to account too sharply for this hope, or it is likely to evaporate simply in pious wishes. Moral earnestness is the only thing that pleases me in this matter; the important thing now is to prove it, in opposition to invincible prejudices. Your plan of publishing your Introduction after you have talked it over with Lassen and Burnouf, and drawn in fresh breath, and just in January too, pleases me very much. If I may, all in the dark, give you some good advice, try to make yourself clear on two points. First, as to the proper limits of language for the investigation of past and prehistoric times. As yet, no one has known how to handle these gigantic materials; what Jacob Grimm has lately attempted with them is child's play. It is no longer of any use, as a Titan in intention, but confused as to aim, and uncertain in method,—it is no longer of any use to put down dazzling examples which demonstrate nothing, or at most only that something ought to be there to be demonstrated. What you have told me entitles one to the highest hopes; and these will be realized, if you in the French, not the Teutonic manner, arrive at full understanding of what is at present a mere instinctive intuition, and thus arrive at the right method. You can do it. Only I have some anxiety as to the second point, the historical proofs of the beginnings of nations. That is the weak side, first of all etymologists and word-masters, and then especially of all “Indologues,” and of the whole Indian past itself. There is an enormous difference between what can have been, nay, according to certain abstract theoretic views must have been, and what has been. That, however, is the distinctive problem for historical investigation. And here, above all, much depends on philological knowledge and sagacity; but still more on that historical tact which understands how inferences should be drawn. This demands much acquaintance with what is real, and with purely historical material; much practice, and, as regards character, much self-denial. In this judicium subactum of the historian lies the difference between Niebuhr and O. Müller. To satisfy these demands, it is only necessary, with your gifts and your character, that you should wish to do so earnestly, and perseveringly wish it. Of course you will not separate the inquiry as to the oldest seat of the Sanskrit language from the [pg 405] surrounding problems. I am perhaps too strongly prejudiced against the idea that the family of which we are speaking must have wandered from the banks of the Upper Indus towards Bactria, and from thence founded Media and Persia. But I have for the present good grounds for this, and views which have long been tested by me. I can well imagine a migration of this family to and fro from the northern to the southern slopes of the Hindu-Kush and back again; in Egypt one sees most plainly how the Semitic, or the family which inclines towards Semitism, migrated frequently from the Mediterranean and the Euphrates to the Red Sea and back again. But this alters nothing in the theory, on the one hand, that it is one and the same family historically, and, on the other hand, that it is not originally African, but Asiatic. You will certainly not adopt Niebuhr's autochthonic theory, where such facts lie before you. But enough. Only receive these remarks as a proof of my lively interest in your researches, and in yourself; and may Minerva be your guide. I rejoice in the prize you have gained at the French Academy in Paris, both for you and the Fatherland.

The King has subscribed for twenty copies of your Veda, and you have received 500 thalers of it beforehand. The rest you will receive, according to the agreement then made, and which was communicated to you, as certainly after the revolution and constitution as before. I cannot have said a word with any other meaning. I may have recommended you not to demand future prepayment: there might have been difficulties. Examine, then, the communication made to you, take twenty copies of your first volume in your pocket, or rather in the ship, and hand them in, writing in any case to Humboldt, and beside him to the minister concerned, therefore to the Minister of Public Instruction. As to what concerns the King personally, ask Humboldt what you have to do. The thing itself is as clear and settled a matter of business as anything can well be; on this very account I have completely forgotten the particulars.

And now, God bless you, my dear friend. Greet all friendly minds and souls, and first, “though I have not the pleasure of her acquaintance,” your mother; and then Humboldt and Lepsius before any one else.

[12.]

I must tell you by return of post that your letter has frightened me by what you tell me respecting your strong impulse to [pg 406] go to Benares or to Bonn. This is the very worst moment for Bonn, and the very best for your publication of the Introduction to the Vedas. The crisis in our country disturbs everything; it will soon be over, and, as I have good reason to believe, without dishonor or bloodshed. They would do everything to make your stay in Bonn pleasant, as soon as they have recovered breath. Still, you must print that English book in England; and I should add, before you settle across the Channel. Or do you only intend to pay Lassen a visit? You knew that some time ago Lassen longed to see you, more than any other man. It would be a good idea if you settle to make an excursion to Germany. You are one of those who always arrange things best personally. At all events, you must come to us the day after to-morrow, and stay till the 9th. We shall have a house full of visitors that day (evening), but till then be quite alone. On the 7th you will give your presence to George as a birthday gift, a proof of great affection. Of Froude I have heard and seen nothing.

Empson has been here twice, without leaving his address. I have advanced as far in the astronomy and chronology of the Chinese as I can without an astronomer. They have begun with the beginning of the Chaldeans. With the language, too, I have reached firm soil and ground, through the 120 words which become particles. More by word of mouth.

The struggle is over. Open conferences will be held at Vienna, where Prussia will represent and securely maintain the principle of free opinion.

The 8,000 Bavarians will return home again. The new constitution of the Bund will include all Austria (except Italy), and will have a diet which has no legislative power in internal German affairs. Will Radowitz stay? Send a line in answer.

[13.]

In spite of the courier, who goes to-day, I must write a few words in answer to your friendly inquiries.

I am more and more convinced that you stake everything if you begin the important affair in Bonn without going there yourself; and on the other hand, that the business cannot fail if you go there; lastly, that you should go there at once, that Lassen and the government may not hit on something else. Once begun, the thing will, I hope, go exactly as you wish. But I [pg 407] should be very sorry if you were to leave Oxford before finishing the printing of the Introduction. That is your farewell to England, your greeting to the professoriate in Germany, both worthy and suited to you.

The Lectures at Oxford appear, by the side of this, as a secondary consideration. I cannot, however, restrain the wish that you should not refuse the thing. It is not expected that a deputy-professor should spend more time than is necessary on the charge committed to him. I should think you could arrange such a course very pleasantly, and feel certain of success, if you only bear in mind Lockhart's advice, to write as for ladies,—“Spartam quam nactus es orna,” as Niebuhr always told me, and I have always found it a good maxim. I await the sending in of your article for the “Edinburgh,” in order to make all preparations at once. I hope you will be back from Bonn by Christmas Eve, or else wait till after Christmas before you go.

As a friend of many years' standing, you will forgive me if I say that if the journey to Bonn is not financially convenient to you just now, I depend upon your thinking of me.

[14.]

Most heartily do I wish you success and happiness in the new year. Stanley will have told you of our negotiations as to your beautiful article. He will have laid before you the sketch of a genuine English prologue and epilogue promised by him, and for which I gave him a few ideas. You can then choose between the “Quarterly” and “Edinburgh Review.”

Pertz has authorized me to pay you £20 on the 1st of January, as you wished. So send your receipt, that I may at once send you the £20 (in four bank-notes), unless you will fetch them yourself. If you can be here on Monday, you are invited to dinner with Macaulay, Mahon, and General Radowitz, otherwise any other day.

P. S. (Wednesday). No, my dear M., I will not send your article, but take it myself. Let me have it soon.

[15.]

It is such a delight to be able at last to write to you, to tell you that few events this year have given me such great pleasure as your noble success in Oxford. The English have shown [pg 408] how gladly they will listen to something good and new, if any one will lay it before them in their own halls and in their “gown.” Morier has faithfully reported everything, and my whole family sympathize in your triumph, as if it concerned ourselves.

I have heard from Empson that he will let your article appear in the third quarter (1st July). All space for the 1st of April had been promised since December. He will have it printed very early, that we may have time to read it comfortably, and see if it really wants a “head and tail.” He seems to think it is not wanted. So much the better, I answered him.

George writes diligently, De Nili fontibus, and revels in the scientific life of Bonn. He is coming at Easter for four weeks, and intends immediately after Whitsuntide to take his degree cum honore.

You have seen that Lachmann was obliged to have his foot amputated, as it was mortifying. The operation was very well performed; but the question is, whether the evil may not still spread. Haupt writes in great anxiety; he hurried off to his friend, to nurse him.

Theodore comes as early as the 7th of April, and goes to the University after Easter.

We have all had something of influenza, but not so that we were obliged to give up our Tuesday evenings, which are very well attended, as many as 300 people, who amuse themselves and us well. When are you coming to us?

I have come to the end of the third volume, in working over “Egypt,” and have already besides a third of the fourth volume ready for press. By the 1st of May the fourth volume must be sent to Gotha.

[16.]

(Olymp. I. i. i.) according to new German Chronology. See tables for “Egypt.”

I must at last take my early morning hour to write to you, instead of writing, or rather preparing, a chapter of my fifth volume. For I find the flood of business which begins with breakfast subsides now only after midnight, and I have many things I must say to you. First, my thanks and good wishes for the sketch of your lectures. You have rightly understood the importance of epic poetry in its historical bearing, and for the [pg 409] first time connected it with the earliest times of the epic nations, namely, the primitive period of their community of language.

This has given me indescribable pleasure, and daily roused a longing to see you again very soon, and to read to you some chapters out of my fifth volume, the writing of which has continued to be an excessive delight to me. I have attempted the restoration of the times of the patriarchs, in the full belief in their real existence and in my own method, and have been surprised at the great results. After I had finished this section I felt inspirited to add the Introduction to the Preface, written at Easter, “The History and Method of the Philosophy of History,” and then, as by a stroke of magic, I found myself again in the lost Paradise of the deepest philosophical and historical convictions of all my life, on the strength of which I consecrated my dim anticipations to definite vows in the holy vigils of 1810-13, and wrote them down in the last weeks of my German life (January, 1816) in Berlin in order to explain myself to Niebuhr. The little book which I then wrote comes back again, after the lapse of quite thirty-five years, into my thoughts. The journey to India has turned out a journey to Egypt, and the journey of life hastens towards its close. But though I, since 1816, never found the means and opportunity to fix my eyes on the first youthful ideal, after I had dedicated my life to investigate, to think, and to live for it; and though all the grand and elevated views had been hidden from me in the narrow valleys of life and of special research, except some blessed moments of intuition, I am now again raised by the flood of Egyptian research, after a quarter of a century, on to the heights of the same Ararat from whence, in the battle of life, I had to descend. I only wished to give an introductory survey of the manner of treating the world's history, and to my astonishment something else appears, to which I yield myself with fear as well as delight, with the old youthful ardor. I believe I owe something of my good fortune this time also to my enemies and enviers. For it is quite true, as the newspaper said, that my removal or recall was demanded from the King, not only by our Camarilla and its tool, the ministry, but by more than “flesh and blood,” that high demoniacal power, which would willingly crush Prussia and Germany in its unholy embrace. It has come to an avowed struggle. As yet the King has held fast to me as king and friend. Such attacks always fill me with courageous indignation and indignant courage, and God has graciously filled my heart [pg 410] with this courage ever since I, on the day of the news of our complete defeat (November 10), determined to finish “Egypt.” Never, since I projected the five books on Egypt, when besieged on the Capitol by the Pope and his followers, and abandoned by the ministry at Berlin, from January 6th till Easter Sunday, 1838,—never have I worked with such success. Even the Great Exhibition and the visit of the Prince and Princess of Prussia have not hindered me. Volume IV. was finished on Sunday evening, April 27; and Tuesday morning, the 29th, I wrote at Dover the first chapter of the “Traditions of Prehistoric Times,” after Easter Sunday had presented me with the above-mentioned Preface. On the 27th of May all that is entailed by the Prince's visit ceases again on the beach at Dover, and on the 1st June I hope to be able to begin with the “Methodology.” I have now arrived at Leibnitz in the historical survey, which is to close with Schelling and Hegel, Goethe and Schiller, and which began with Abraham. Don't be frightened, it will please you.

But now, if Oxford and the gods of the Veda allow it, you should come here. George will, before he returns to Bonn, sail up the waters of the Nile with me; he has written the first sketch of the dissertation, and can get through everything in Bonn in six weeks; I believe he returns at the end of the first week.

Think this over. I do so wish for him to see you before he leaves. Meanwhile I may tell you, sub rosa, that on Saturday morning he, with Colonel Fischer and the charming Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, will go to Oxford from Birmingham (12 o'clock), and, in strictest incognito, show the Benares of Europe to the future King of Prussia, who is enthusiastic about England. He will write to you beforehand; he is now asleep, resting himself, after running about all day yesterday with the Prince, and staying at a ball till morning.

But enough of the outpourings of my heart. I hasten to business.

First, Empson has sent me the proof-sheets of your article. I mean your article for the “Edinburgh Review.” Early this morning I read it through at last, and joyfully and heartily utter my Macte virtute. You have worked up the article since I first read it in MS. far more than I expected; and certainly with good and practical results. Your examples, and particularly your notes, will help and please the English reader very much. The introduction is as excellent (ad hominem and yet [pg 411] dignified) as the end. Many thanks for it. God will bless it. To-night I shall read out the article to my wife, children, and Neukomm, as I long ago promised, and to-morrow I will send it to the printer (with a few corrected misprints), and will write to Empson “what I think about it.” So far, so good.

Secondly, I find I cannot with honor shrink from some sort of comparison of my Egyptian forms and roots with the Semitic and Iranian forms and roots. The facts are so enormously great, that it does not in the least matter whether the proof can be thoroughly given in all its details. I have therefore in my need thought of Rödiger, and have sent a letter to him, of which I inclose a copy. You will see from it that I hold fast to your friendly promise, to stand by me in the matter of Iran. What I said on the certainty and satisfactory completeness of the tools contained in my English edition, is, I am firmly convinced, not too strong. Still, I do not mean to say that a comparison with rich results might not be instituted between such Coptic roots (I do not admit it of the grammatical forms) as have not yet been rediscovered among the hieroglyphics and the ancient Asiatic: some of them may be found again in ancient Egyptian, almost unformed and not yet ground down; but that is mere pedantry in most cases. We have enough in what lies before us in the oldest form in attested documents, to show us the right formula for the equation.

And now for a few words about my family, which is so truly attached to you, and watches your success with real affection. But no, I have something else to say first on the Niebelungen. Your delightful letter awoke a thought which has often crossed my mind, namely, that it does not appear to me that the historical and early national element, which is but thinly veiled under the poetical matter, has ever been sufficiently searched out and distinguished. Grimm hates the historical elements which lie beyond his “Beginnings of Nations,” and my late dear friend Lachmann occupied himself with them most unwillingly. When, in 1825, I wrote that little treatise in French for Chateaubriand, which he printed in his “Mélanges,” I went over what had been said on this point, as far as it concerned me, and I was surprised to see how little had been done in it. Since that time I have heard of no investigations of the kind. But who can now believe that the mention of Gunther and the Burgundians is the one isolated historical fact in the poem? Is it not evident, for instance, that the myth of the contemporaneousness of Attila and the great [pg 412] Theodoric of the Ostrogoths has its historical root in the fact that Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, fell in the great battle of Chalons, 451, fighting against Attila; but his son Thorismund, to revenge his father's death, defeated the barbarians in a last assault, and gained the victory, on which the Franks pursued the Huns even across the Rhine. From this arose the connection of Attila with Theodoric, the great King of the Ostrogoths, who lived forty years later, and was intimately connected with the royal family of the Visigoths, and with the kingdom of the Visigoths, but of course could never have had any dealings with Attila.

If one neglects such intimations, one arrives at last at the Görres and Grimm clairvoyance, where not only everything is everything, but also everything again is nothing. Etzel, though, is not really Attila to Grimm, but the fairy nature of the legend allows of no certain conclusions. But I find that everywhere, where the tools are not wanting, the fermentation and decomposition process of the historical element can be proved; from which organically and by a process exactly analogous to that of the formation of languages in the first ages of the world, the epic legend arises, which the genius of the epic poet lays hold of when the time comes, with a consciousness of an historical destiny; as the tragic poet does in later times.

If you have time, follow up this idea. This is the weak side of your generation and guild. The whole national element has been kept too much in the background in the conceit and high-stiltedness, not to say woodenness, of our critical researches. Instead of saying with the humorists of the eighteenth century, “Since Herman's death nothing new has happened in Germany,” one ought to say “since Siegfried's death.” The genius of the nation which mourned over Herman's fall and murder was the same that in its sorrow gave shape to the legend of Sigurd. Must not the hearts of our ancestors, whose blood flows in our veins, have felt as we do in like circumstances? The princes and their relatives have betrayed and sold and murdered the true prince of the German people, even to this day. And yet were there now but a Siegfried-Herman! “Exsurget aliquando istis ex ossibus ultor.”

I take this opportunity of calling your attention to a pamphlet by Bethman-Hollweg, which has just appeared, “The Ancient Germans before the Migration of Nations.” I send it to you to-day, and you must bring it back when you come. Send me word by George when you can and will come.

The Exhibition is, and will continue to be, the poetical and historical event of the period. “Les Anglais ont fait de la poésie sans s'en douter,” as that excellent Jourdain said of his prose. Come and see it and us as soon as you can.

[17.]

George, in the hurry of his journey, begs you, through me, to be so kind as to be at the Oxford station when the Birmingham train arrives, Saturday (the day after to-morrow) at 12 o'clock, and then kindly to help him in showing Oxford to the princeps juventutis. They leave again at 8 o'clock in the evening. The party will of course want some rooms in the best hotel, to rest themselves. So it might be well to bespeak some rooms for the travellers as a pied à terre. The party travel under the name of Colonel Fischer or George Bunsen.

I talked over the whole plan of the forms and roots with that good Steinschneider yesterday, and requested him to ask you further about it. He willingly undertook to do the work in the course of the summer. Thus we have certainly got one, perhaps two, for the Semitic work. I have given him a copy of my “Egypt.” He seems to be getting tame.

[18.]

I have exactly a quarter of an hour before I must make myself grand for the opening of Parliament, and I will spend it in chatting with you.

I will write to Pococke notwithstanding. I cannot help believing that the German method of etymology, as applied to history by Schlegel, Lassen, and Humboldt, and of which I have endeavored to sketch the outline, is the only safe one.

You have opened my eyes to the danger of their laying such dry and cheap ravings to our account, unless we, “as Germans,” protest against it.

I am rejoiced at your delight with the “Church Poetry.” But Pauli never sent you what I intended; I wanted to send you the first edition of my Hymn Book (no longer to be had at the booksellers'), because it has historical and biographical notices about the composers, and contains in the Preface and Introduction the first attempt to render the features of continuity and the epochs more conspicuous. (It is my only copy, so [pg 414] please for this reason take great care of it.) Also I wish to draw your attention to two translations from my collection. First by Miss Cox (daughter of the Bedell in Oxford), c. 1840, small 8vo. Second by Arnold (Rugby), not Dr. Arnold. This last I can send you. It contains one translation by the great Arnold, first part. You will observe, among other points, that the most animated hymns of praise and thanksgiving were composed amid the sufferings of the Thirty Years' War. My attention has been directed to Hillebrand's “History of German Literature,” three volumes, as the best work, and to Vilmar's ditto, one volume, as the most popular. I myself only possess Gelzer's thoughtful “Lectures” (from Lessing to Goethe), a book which I prefer to Gervinus, as far as a just appreciation of the national character and sentiment is concerned. (With many extracts.) I rejoice at your cheerful spirit. But now be satisfied, and make more use of the Romance languages. Tutius ibis. You have already sufficient materials. We can and will benefit this hospitable land, even without their desiring it; but cautiously! You will laugh at this, and forgive me; but I know what I am about. Next Saturday Volume II., ready bound, will lie on my table. The plan of the doctrine of the Trinity, critical and reconstructive, is a bold undertaking: the restoration of the genuine substance of the Apostolical constitutions and canons (in the second half of Volume II.) will probably have at present more success. But Volume III., The Reconstruction and the Reform! “The two text-books of the Early Church, The Church and House-Book and The Law-Book,” in biblical phraseology and orthography, chiefly derived from documents never yet made known, is my pièce de résistance; the sauce for it, in the Introduction, contains three chapters (The Picture, The Mirror, The Practical Reconstruction) for each section (Baptism, School, Constitution, Worship, Life).

So far I had written everything in English, tant bien que mal, without hesitating a moment for thoughts or words. But here the Muse refused,—not a single idea would flow into my pen. After three days I discovered that the spirit would and could speak German. So I then hastily added the first half of the Introduction; and I hope that the first cast of the whole will be ready this week; and a week later Cottrell will have it for translation, whilst the text-book (about 140 pages) is being printed in slips. I am afraid the English edition will not appear before the end of March; of the second I have already received [pg 415] Volume II. I think you will approve of the offspring. May Apollo and the Muses enlighten people about Bernays. I might then hope that he would again come here to me in the summer.

George has not yet announced his dissertation as “sent in to the faculty:” till then he is wisely silent. He appears to me to be too much there in the fashion and in society. May the devil carry off all fashionable women!

John calls. God bless you.

Wednesday.—Vivat Müller! I am just writing my congratulations to Bernays. Vivat Dean!

Pauli's book appears in English without his doing anything to it.

You may recommend in Oxford, even to the most refined ladies and most Christian evangelicals, “Spiritual Words” from Goethe, by Lancizolle, 120 pages, 12mo (3s. beautifully bound). That is a German Bible.

You know Wackernagel's “Anthology”? It is useful, but gives too much of second rate. I will make my daughters copy out Arndt's German song for his eighty-third birthday for you. Adieu.

[19.]

What in all the world is this undertaking to which Vaux asks my aid, the new edition of Herbelot's “Bibliothéque Orientale”? It might be made a good work, although I hate the form, but everything depends on the management. It is otherwise a mere bookseller's speculation or Jesuit's trick. I have answered provisionally that in case biblical literature is to be taken up (which is highly necessary), Ewald, Freytag, Bernays, Rödiger, Hengstenberg, and Bernstein should be summoned to help. I don't quite trust the thing; but if it is possible to introduce the people to good ideas, I am ready to aid.

When are you coming? I have sent the last MS. to-day to the press, or rather to the translator. I have only now reached the point on which I can really speak in a practical tone. Volume III. will contain 600 pages.

[20.]

Though late, I send you my hearty greetings on your return to England. I heard from Wilson that you were well, and that you had left your mother well for the winter.

Hippolytus lies here ready for you, on purpose that you may fetch it. I hope you will do so on the 18th, for which you have already received the invitation. You will find Morier also here. Is not that furious and ridiculous article in the “Morning Chronicle” on the second volume (the first article, as yet without a continuation) by the same man (of Jesus College?) on whose article in the “Ecclesiastic” on Hippolytus' book I have thrown some degree of light? The leading thought is exactly the same in both; the account of Calixtus' knavery is interpolated (by Novatianus), says the writer in the “Chronicle.” This is a proof that nothing can be said against my argument requiring a serious answer. Gladstone felt ashamed of the review. It has helped the book; but it would be read even without this and the recommendation of the “Guardian”—so Longman says. One circulating library here has taken twenty-five copies, and wants more. So the book cannot be ignored; and that is all I first of all wished for, aculeum reliqui. As the people of this country, with a few exceptions that one can count upon one's fingers, do not understand the book, not even the title, and have never had a conception of what it means, to reproduce the spirit of a century of which men as yet, with the exception of Irenæus, Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Origen, know only the names and enigmas (of which latter Hippolytus was one), their fault-finding with the composition of the book does not affect me at all. In spite of the timidity of nearly all English theologians, inter muros academicos et extra, I have received very many hearty and manly letters from numerous and distinguished people. The King has, on my recommendation, sent Dr. Boetticher to spend two years here and in Paris in order to bring to light the Syriac treasures which have not been laid claim to by Cureton. I see that I have not been mistaken in him in spite of his sporadic many-sidedness. I am free from the 2d of December. There is a letter of mine just printing to Miss Winkworth, “On Niebuhr's Political Character,” with extracts from letters.

[21.]

General von Scharnhorst, the worthy and highly educated son of his great father, intends going to Oxford the day after tomorrow, Thursday, by the morning express, perhaps to stay over the night. I will give him a line for you, begging you to [pg 417] set him a little on his way. As to the collections, geographical charts will be the most interesting to him; he himself possesses the largest known collection (40,000).

As soon as this infernal game is played out in Paris, I hope to have a little leisure again. I have written a warning to Bernays: he is very much out of spirits, and still far behindhand; says he only received the proper appointment (from Gaisford) in February, and without mention of any fixed time. He will write to you, and inclose what is done as a specimen. I am delighted to hear from Lassen that Aufrecht is coming to England. Tell him to call on me. Cura ut valeas. Rawlinson has been preferred to Luynes and Wilson by the Berlin Academy.

[22.]

Tell Aufrecht I will try and arrange the affair for him without his paying any duty; and so at all events there will be a reduction. I was excessively pleased with Aufrecht. Your parcels for Pertz will go safely and quickly if they are here on the 1st or 15th of the month.

P. S. Aufrecht must be courageous, and keep in good spirits. Haupt is called to Berlin, which rather surprises me. Read the “Journal des Débats,” Sunday, December 12, on Hippolytus. Do you know Laboulaye?

[23.]

Please tell me at leisure how Amestris (Herod, ix. 109) is to be explained as the wife of Xerxes? I am convinced that Esther is hidden here, which name, according to the testimony of the Book of Esther, was her Persian name, as she was first called Myrtle, as her Jewish maiden name. Therefore Am must mean “queen,” “mistress,” “lady,” or what you may discover. I find that the idea had occurred to one and the other even about 100 years ago; but was given up, partly on account of its “godlessness;” partly on account of the uncertainty whether Ahasuerus was really Xerxes, as Scaliger declared. The Suabian simpletons (for they are so in historical matters) are the only people who now doubt this, and that the book is historical,—a book with a history on which depends the only great Jewish feast established since the days of Moses (till the Purification of the Temple, after the fall of Epiphanes). So, my dear [pg 418] M., send it to me. There can have been at that same time, in Persia, but one woman so vindictive and clever as Esther is. The first volume of my Prophets (from Abraham to Goethe) is ready, with a popular explanation of the age of the so-called “Great Unknown” (Isaiah) of Daniel, and all the Psalms, etc. I write only German for this, but only for the English, and yet without any reserve.

The most remarkable of the thirteen articles which I have seen on Hippolytus, is by Taylor (a Unitarian in Manchester), in the “Prospective Review” (February). He confesses that I have made the principle of the Trinity, and the national blessing of the Episcopacy and the Liturgy, clear to him. I have never seen him, but he seems to me a deep thinker. I am again in correspondence with Bernays, who promises to work at Lucretius with all diligence. I think he has more leisure, and his health is better.

To-morrow the new African expedition sets sail,—Dr. Vogel, the botanical astronomer, and his army, two volunteers from the sappers and miners. I am fully occupied with this; and but for my curiosity about Esther, you would not have had a line from me before Monday.

[24.]

My best thanks. All hail to the “Great Esther.” She was really called Myrtle, for Hadascha is in Hebrew the myrtle—a name analogous to Susannah (the lily). That Esther is ἁστῆρ has long been generally admitted, also that Xerxes is Ahasverus. The analogy of Achasverosh and Kshayarsha has also been proved. Finally, the chronology is equally decisive. The only thing still wanting is Amestris. What it is still important to know, is, whether Ama, “great,” was a common designation of exalted personages, or specially of queens (in opposition to the Pallakai), or whether the name is to be considered as an adjective to star, magna Stella. The first interpretation would make the Jewish statement more clear. I think decidedly it is the most natural. It is conceivable that Uncle Otanes, like l'oncle de Madame l'Impératrice, should have taken a distinguished name, just as the Hebrew myrtle had been changed into a Persian star. But there is not the least hurry about all this.

I rejoice extremely over your extemporary lectures. You are now on the open sea, and “will go on swimmingly.” Always [pg 419] keep the young men well in mind, and arrange your lectures entirely for them. I should think that the history of Greek literature (with glances backwards and forwards) after O. Müller's “History of Greek Literature,” would be a fine subject. Mure's book gives many an impulse for further thought. In what concerns the Latin inscriptions, you must rely on Gruter's “Thesaurus,” after him on Morelli; of the more recent, only on Borghese and Sarti, and on the little done by my dear Kellermann. There is nothing more rare than the power of copying accurately.

Be patient with ——, if he has an honest mind. I can fancy that such a mind, having been torn, wronged, and bothered, has become very cross-grained. Only patience and love can overcome this.

Overweg has fallen a victim to his noble zeal; he lies buried in the Lake of Tsad. Vogel is happily already on the way to Malta and Tripoli.

[25.]

Mrs. Malcolm and Longman are as delighted as I am that Dr. Thomson will have the great kindness to write a preface to the “Theologia Germanica,” and to look through the last proof-sheets. Longman has informed me this morning that he makes over half the net profits to Mrs. Malcolm, and leaves to her the future arrangements with Dr. Thomson. Mrs. Malcolm wishes for nothing for herself, but will hand over the profits to some religious institution. Will you arrange the matter with Dr. Thomson? Longman wishes to begin on the 15th of May, or even earlier, if everything is ready for press. Of course Dr. Thomson knows the beautiful (though not exhaustive, for it is unfinished) treatment of the history of this school, in the last volume of Neander's “Church History,” published after his death; in which that delightful little book by Dr. C. Schmidt, “Johannes Tauler” (Heidelberg, 1841), is made use of. You know that the author has proved that the famous story of the conversion of Tauler by a layman is real history. The man was called Nicholas of Basle, and was in secret one of the Waldenses, and was afterwards burnt as such in France. I can lend this little book to your excellent friend, as well as Martensen's “Master Eckhardt” (1842), and the authentic copy of the rediscovered South-German MS. of the “Theologia Germanica.”

Master Eckhardt was the deepest thinker of his school. Does Dr. Thomson ever come to London? God bless you.

[26.]

——'s attempt on “St. Hippolytus” is a new proof that he no longer even understands Greek. The critical conjecture about the spuriousness of the tenth book is worthy of the champion of the false Ignatius as against Cureton. Many thanks for your news about Dr. Thomson, which I have imparted to Mrs. Malcolm.

[27.]

I am going to-day to 77 Marina, St. Leonard's-on-Sea (near Hastings), till the 21st or 23d, and do not see why you cannot pay me a visit there. Our hosts, the Wagners, would be delighted to give you a room, and—the sea a bath.

I take refuge there in order to write a new half-volume for the so-called second edition of Hippolytus. The whole will, however, really be a new work in three separate works and six volumes.

I hear that —— has lost his father. In future, when you send such a shy Englishman to me, let me know beforehand that he comes to talk over something with me. I had the greatest wish, and leisure too, to do all he wanted, but discovered only after he was gone that he came to ask me something.

A young friend, Dr. Arnold's son, has translated Wiese's book on schools, and wishes to know whether the translation about which you have written to Wiese, has been or will be really printed; otherwise he will publish his. Or has any other already appeared? I have been turning tables with Brewster. It is purely mechanical, the involuntary motion of the muscles of the hand to right or left, just like the ring on a thread with which one can strike the hour. Every one is mad about it here. Che razza di gente.

Now comes an urgent private request. Bekker wishes to publish a grand work, through the Clarendon Press, in return for a proper honorarium,—a definitive edition of Homer, with every possible commentary that could be wished. This is a great work, worthy of the University and of Bekker. I should like to learn through you what would be the Dean's opinion, who is, I think, favorably inclined to Bekker. It appears to [pg 421] me to be especially needful to guard against the work appearing as a rechauffé of Wolf, a party-work, for which the sanction of the University is desired. The proposal is “To publish a definitive edition of Homer, with Scholia and Commentary, making it as complete and absolutum as is wished.” Please take the first good opportunity. I wanted to speak to the excellent man myself when he was in London, but came too late. Hearty greetings to Aufrecht. Bötticher works famously.

[28.]

I think incessantly of you, though I cannot fancy that you are in any danger. I have written to my brotherly friend Philip Pusey to help you, if needful. If you wish for good advice about the different parties, combined with perfect acquaintance with the place and people, go to him. I know few men so able to give good advice. Besides, he is very much attached to you.

The inclosed has just reached me through George. I will write to Bekker according to your advice. That your intercourse with A. has become so delightful and comfortable fulfills a hope I have cherished ever since I first saw him. I think that you have given him, in all respects, a delightful position. The German cannot easily get over the idea that God's providence shows itself far less in the eternal government of the world, and in the care taken of every soul, than in an appointment to the civil service. There are few such places in England for men of genius. But he cannot fail with us in Germany, if he distinguishes himself in England; only he should in time undertake some important and great work.

The Cologne choir sing here from the 7th to the 21st of June. Eighty voices. It will be a great treat. Arrange so as to hear something of it. Carl is Secretary of Legation and Chargé d'Affaires at Turin. George tills the ground, but not yet his own; but that will come some day, like the kingdom of heaven. Henry is preparing to collate the “Codex Claromontanus,” and has already worked well on the imperfect text. Ernst arranges his garden and house, and has made a bowling-green for me. I am now translating my Hippolytus into historical language, in what I call a second edition. Write soon, as to how it is arranged about your professorship.

[29.]

I received your letter here yesterday, from St. Leonard's, and wrote at once to Pusey. I think it will all go right. In your place, I would go at once to Pusey, after announcing myself the previous day.

Tell me why cannot you help that good A. to the £250 for the best treatise on the Sankhya philosophy? I believe he has the right stuff in him for opposing Pantheism, which is what is desired.

Now for a request. I am writing the second of my five works, which have been called into existence by Hippolytus.

Sketches on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind:—

A. On the Philosophy of Language.

B. On the Philosophy of Religion.

A. is a reproduction and improved arrangement of the lecture in Oxford, which now lies buried in the “Transactions.” In working over the historical part, I have put aside a chapter, “The Primitive Languages in India;” but find out, just as I intended to make you the heros eponymus, that you only dealt in your lecture with Bengali, the Sanskrit affinity of which requires to be demonstrated only to such wrong-headed men as the Buddhists are. Could you not write a little article on this for my book? The original language in India must have been Turanian, not Semitic; but we are bound in honor to prove it.

Monday, May 30.—My letter has been left unsent. I have just received yours. Let me repeat what I wrote and underlined on the first page. It is a great trial of patience, but be patient, that is, wise. One must never allow the toilsome labor of years of quiet reflection and of utmost exertion for the attainment of one's aim to be destroyed by an unpropitious event. It is most probable, and also the best for you, that the affair should not now be hurried through. Your claims are stronger every quarter, and will certainly become more so in the eyes of the English through good temper and patience under trying circumstances. I don't for a moment doubt that you will be elected. Germany would suit you now as little as it would me; and we both should not suit Germany. Spartam quam nactus es orna, your good genius cries to you. So patience, my dear friend, and with a good will.

Bötticher is on the eve of bringing to a successful issue his thesis, “That the triliteral roots have become biliteral, according [pg 423] to an organic law.” He has advanced very much in critical research. I shall write a reductio ad absurdum review on the Rev. —— ——. It is really a book written invita Minerva.

Write soon again to me. With hearty sympathy and true friendship.

Can you do anything for the good man in Naumburg?

[30.]

Good morning, my dear M. You were so good as to promise me a chapter for my “Sketch of the History of the Philosophy of Language;” namely, the results of the latest investigations concerning the unity and Turanian character of the non-Sanskrit languages of India. The printing of my three volumes goes on so fast that I am already revising the Celtic portion, of which Meyer is the Heros.

If, in your researches on the relationship of the Vedic language with Zend, you have hit on new formulas, please gather these results together into a separate chapter. Only one request,—without any delay, for the printing presses. I hope you are satisfied about your future in Oxford. Greet your friend and companion, whom we all liked very much. Again four new men from Dessau among the arrivals! One is a famous actor from Berlin, and has brought a letter from Lepsius. Lucien Bonaparte (brother of Canino) is now writing a book here, “Sur l'Origine des Langues.” No war!

[31.]

A word of explanation, with my best thanks. I do not want the Egyptian-Iranian work before September. I am just printing the treatise on the “Origin of Languages” as a part of my philosophical work, and in it I would gladly have something on you, and from you, on the non-Sanskritic languages. Both chapters can be quite short, only definite. You must help me over these two chapters. I shall soon send you as a reminder the proof-sheets of what goes before, that you may see how I am driven for it. So write away, regardless of consequences. You are by instinct far too cautious for me to feel the least hesitation about saying this.

I am going on rapidly with the printing of my four volumes, and write con amore at the eighth (Hippolytus I.) The court goes on the 12th for a week to Dublin. All right. No war, only uplifted fists!

[32.]

Here follow the sheets, which I have just looked through, and where I wish to have two short chapters interpolated. We have one page for each, as the last leaf remains blank. Besides this, there is room for many additions to the other chapters, which I commend to your critical and sympathizing attention. Your Breslau friend has never called on me. He may have been at the office whilst I was out. He would be welcome. Your opinion about Sidney Pusey has set me at ease. Go soon to Pusey's, to see the old man himself.

[33.]

“What one desired in youth one obtains in old age.” I felt this as I read your chapter yesterday evening. It is exactly what I first wished to know myself, in order to tell it to my readers. You have done it after my own heart,—only a little too briefly, for a concluding sentence on the connection of the language of the Achæmenian Inscriptions with Zend is wanting. Pray write for me at once just such a Turanian chapter. I have introduced that chapter this morning as coming from you, and have placed your name in the list of investigators mentioned in the title, where it belongs. For the Turanian part, however, you must yourself write me such an Introduction as I shall only need to preface by a line. I mean, you should give what you send me as the result of a portion of the investigations with which you have busied yourself in your Oxford Lectures, and which you intend to publish in your “Vestiges.” Never mind space; it will all fit in. You have just hit the right tone and measure, and have written the little chapter just after my own heart, though I first learnt the matter from what you told me. Do you wish to see the list of examples to “Grimm's Law” again, which you made out for my lecture, and which I shall give in my Appendix in order to make any additions? I have as much space as you wish, even for new Appendices, if you [pg 425] will only give me some. This will be a pet book of mine, and a forerunner of my “Philosophy of History.” I do not doubt but that it will be read in England, and indeed before all my other works on Hippolytus; for I give it as a philosophical key to Hippolytus. I find that though at first despised, it has in the last few months become the favorite part of my Hippolytus. Write me a line to say how you are, and what you are about. Again, my dear M., my best thanks.

P. S. Is there anything to be said in the text, or Appendix, or in both, about the real results of Aufrecht's investigations on the Italian languages? I should like to take the opportunity of bringing his name before the English public.

[34.]

This will do, my dear M. To-morrow early I will send you the fifth chapter, printed, for correction, and expect your other chapter. Concerning A., it is clear you must write that chapter, for A. can do it as little as I. So let me have that too. In the Catalogue of the examples for “Grimm's Law,” get everything ready, and I will then send you the sheet, that you may enter the additions and corrections,—or, better still, you can send me the additions and corrections first, and I will have them inserted at once. Please do this.

[35.]

Your MS., my dear friend, is just dispatched to the printer, with the order to send the proof of the whole chapter direct to you at Oxford. Send the Mongolian chapter as soon as you conveniently can, but not sooner; therefore, when your head is more free. The printing goes on, and it cannot be paged till your chapters are ready, and also I hope the Italian one from Aufrecht, to whom I am writing about it to-day. He can send it to me in German. You must give him some help as to the length and form. It is best for him, if I personally introduce him to the English public, amidst which he now lives, and to which he must look for the present. So I hope to receive a real masterpiece from the Oxford Mission of German Science.

Vale. Cura ut valeas. Totus tuus.

[36.]

“As to the language of the Achæmenians, represented to us by the Persian texts of the Cuneiform inscriptions”—so I began this morning, determined to interpolate a paragraph which is wanting in your beautiful chapter, namely, the relationship of the language of the inscriptions to that of the Zend books, including the history of the deciphering with Grotefend in the background, at the same time avoiding the sunken rocks of personal quarrels (Burnouf contra Lassen). My young house-pundit gives the credit to Burnouf (as he first informed Lassen of the idea about the satrapies). However, it seems to me only natural that you should write the conclusion of this chapter yourself. I shall also write a short chapter on Babylon, for which I have still to read Hincks only, an uncomfortable author, as he has no method or clearness, probably also therefore no principles.

Now let us make this little book as attractive and useful to the English as we can; for that is really our mission.

Böticher asks if you do not wish to say something on the two dialects of Zend, discovered by Spiegel,—an inquiry which delights me, as Bötticher and Spiegel are at war, and in German fashion have abused each other.

[37.]

Anything so important, so new, and so excellent, as what you send me can never be too long. Your table is already gone to the printer. With regard to the general arrangement, I would ask you to keep the plan in mind.

1. That all references (as for instance the table of the forty-eight languages) belong to the Appendix or Appendices.

2. The arrangement of the leading ideas and facts to the text (Chapter X.).

3. Nothing must be wanting that is necessary for the establishing a new opinion.

Your tact will in all cases show you what is right. The justification of those principles you will assuredly find with me in the arrangement of all the other chapters, and of the whole work, as also in the aim in view, namely, to attract all educated [pg 427] Englishmen to these inquiries, and show them what empty straw they have hitherto been threshing.

Greet Aufrecht, and thank him for his parcel. I cannot arrange Chapter IV. till I have his whole MS. before me. I can give him till Tuesday morning.

The separate chapters (twelve) I have arranged according to the chronology of the founders of the schools. What is still in embryo comes as a supplement; as Koelle's sixty-seven African Languages, and Dietrich and Bötticher's Investigation of Semitic Roots. If your treatise is not so much a statement of Schott, Castrén, and Co. as your own new work, you shall have the last chapter for yourself.

And now, last but not least, pray send me a transliteration table, in usum Delphini. I will have it printed at the end of the Preface, that everybody may find his way, and I shall turn in future to it, and see that all transliterations in the book accord with it. I must ask for it therefore by return. You understand what we want. “A transliteration alphabet, for explaining the signs employed,” would be a good precursor to yours and Lepsius' scientific work. We shall do well to employ in the text as few technical letters as possible.

To-day I am going to see the “Bride of Messina” for the first time in my life. I have no idea that the piece can possibly produce any effect; and I am afraid that it may fail. But Devrient is of good courage.

[38.]

“What is long delayed must be good when it comes.” So I would be patient till you had really caught your Tartar, did I not fear that my dear friend was suffering again from his wretched headaches. Meanwhile I worked up the Italica, and the summary of the sixty-seven African languages is getting into shape, and the printer's devils are run off their legs. It would be delightful if my dear M. were to send me soon the chapter on the Mongols; only he must not work up a headache. You will have received my Schott last week by book post.

I have not been well. Theodora has had gastric fever, but is quite on the mend since this morning.

At last I have received Lassen III. (2) with the map.

[39.]

My courier occupied me till nine. Since then I have read through your letter with intense delight; and now in a quarter of an hour I must go to the railway for a country party with Grote. I hasten to thank you for this beautiful gem for my Introduction and for my whole book. You shall have the last word. Your treatise is the only one in the collection which extends beyond isolated types of speech and families, although it preserves throughout the scientific method of Indo-Germanic philology. It was a double refreshment to me, as out of conscientiousness I had looked at and skimmed through L.'s perverse books. What determined impudence there is in that man!

Whilst I am looking over my materials, among which Aufrecht's contribution looks very well, I feel very strongly the want of a report of the last results of the Caucasian languages. My two lines on Rosen look too miserable; also new works have appeared on the subject. Samiel help!

I am entirely of your opinion concerning the transliteration, but I maintain that you must send me a table (key) to your own transliteration. For your table of the forty-eight is otherwise not easy for my good English readers, or even for me; and to most it is unintelligible. With the others I shall soon find my way.

I intend to insert a chapter on definite terminology. I think it must be settled from the only tenable hypothesis, namely, the spreading abroad from one central point in mid-Asia,—that is, from the great district which (originally) was bounded towards the north by the open Polar Sea, with the Ural Island or Peninsula; to the west by the Caucasus and Ararat; east by the Altai and Altan Mountains; and south by the continuation of the Taurus Mountains, which stretch in the interior from west east, as far as the Hindu-Kush.

Therefore, for Turanian == Ural-Altaic, or the northeastern branch.

For Semitic == Aramean, from Aram, the Mesopotamian highland.

For Japhetic == Eastern highland, or southeastern branch.

What do you think of this? I must get free from Semitie, [pg 429] etc., because Chamitic appears to be primitive Semitic, just as Turanian leans towards Iranian.

The carriage is there. Best thanks to Aufrecht.

You are indulging in a beautiful dream if you imagine that I have Dietrich here. I have studied his two volumes. I wish I could summon him to help me. He was most anxious to come to England. I am afraid of a young scholar whom I do not know personally.

[40.]

Only a word, my dear friend, to express to you my delight and admiration at your Turanian article. I was so carried away by it that I was occupied with it till far into the night. It is exhaustive, convincing, and succinct.

What do you feel about the present state of the investigations on the Basque? I have convinced myself by my extracts from the grammar and dictionary that Basque is Turanian, but I have nothing fit for printing. I have never seen Rask's work. Do you know it, and can you make anything out of it?

There is only one point on which I do not agree with you. You say there is no purely monosyllabic language. But even that wretched modern Chinese has no dissyllabic word, as that would entail a loss of the accent. Or do you deny this? I have covered the baldness of our German vulgarism, “thief,” “liar,” in Böhtlingk versus Schott, and said, “With an animosity more German than Attic.” Does that please you? Greetings to Aufrecht.

[41.]

(Continuation of our conversation.) Before anything else, finish the Iranian Chapter III. for me, a copy of which I gave you; that is to be printed at once, as the Italic Chapter II. is printed, and needs only revising. You will shake this at once out of your conjuring bag, won't you?

[42.]

It strikes me, my dearest M., that we should be more correct in christening your essay Arian, instead of Iranian. I have always used Iranian as synonymous with Indo-Germanic (which [pg 430] expresses too much and too little) or (which is really a senseless name) Indo-European: Arian for the languages of Aria in the wider sense, for which Bactria may well have been the starting-point. Don't you think we may use Arian, when you confine yourself to Sanskrit, Zend, and Parsi?

I get more and more angry at L.'s perverseness in doubting that the Persians are Aryans. One cannot trace foreign words in Persian, and just these it must have carried off as a stigma, if there were any truth in the thing. One sees it in Pehlevi. But then, what Semitic forms has Persian? The curious position of the words in the status constructus is very striking. Yet you have explained that. Where, then, are the Aramœisms in the Achæmenian Inscriptions, which surely are Persian in the strictest sense? Earlier the Persians may have been tormented by the Turanians, and even subjugated; but the Babylonian rule of Shemites over Persia cannot be of old date. About 2200 B. C., on the contrary, the Bactrians conquered Babylon, and kept it for a long time. But would not totally different corruptions have appeared in Persian, if they had allowed their language to be so entirely ruined? A corruption, and then a later purification through the Medes, sounds Quixotic. Will you not prove this point?

If you can give some chronological landmarks for the epoch of the Veda dialect, pray do so. There is so much in Lassen, that one learns nothing. I fancied the age of the Mahâbhârata and Râmâyana epoch was tolerably settled, and that thus a firm footing had been gained, as the language is that of the same people and the same religion. If you can say anything in the language-chapter about the genealogy of the mythological ideas it would be delightful for you to take possession of it, without encroaching on your own future explanations. And so good luck to you!

[43.]

Your hearty and affectionate words for my birthday added to the happiness of the day, which I spent here in the quiet of the country, with my family. I have long looked on you as one of us; and when I look forward into the future, I see your form as one of the bright points which there present themselves to me. You groan now under the burden of a very heavy mountain, [pg 431] which you have taken on your shoulders as others would take a block; only the further you advance, the more will you be satisfied that it is a part of the edifice which you will yet find time to finish; and at the same time it will stand by itself as a κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί.

George is well, and will be with us to-morrow week; Theodora a week later.

Place your essay where you will. I find the connection with the Gothic by means of “Grimm's Law” most natural. The foundation of my arrangement was the purely external idea of progression from the nearer to the more remote,—from the known to the unknown. I hope that next time Aufrecht's muse will give us an intermediate chapter on the Hellenes, Pelasgians, Thracians, Æolians, Dorians, and Ionians; it is curious enough that these are entirely passed over. I do not know, though, what positive facts have resulted up to now from comparative philology as regards the Hellenic element. An historical insight is needed here, such as Ottfried Müller had just begun to acquire when death robbed us of his noble mind. But Müller really understood nothing of comparative philology, as the Introduction to his Etruscans proves. The Pelasgians must have been a nearly connected people; the Thracians were certainly so. But from the north comes Hellas, and from Hellas the Ionian Asia Minor. However, the history of the language falls infinitely earlier than the present narrow chronologists fancy. The Trojan War, that is the struggle of the Æolian settlers with the Pelasgians, on and around the sea-coast, lies nearer 2000 than 1000 B. C. The synchronisms require it. It is just the same with Crete and Minos, where the early Phœnician period is out of all proportion older than people imagine. Had we but monuments of Greek, like the Fratres Arvales in Latin! Homer is so modern; even though he certainly belongs to the tenth or eleventh century. That was a time in which the Hellenic mind sang the history of the creation in the deep myth of Prometheus, the son of Iapetos, with his three brothers, the emblem of humanity; a poem which Homer no longer understood.

Now cheer up, my dearest friend. The book must come out.

Truly and cheerfully yours.

My wife sends her hearty greetings.

[44.]

My good wishes follow you to Wales, without knowing your address; so for my letter I must apply to Aufrecht. I hope you will speedily send me the linguistic proof that the noble Vedic hymn you sent us belongs to at least 1,000 years—not B. C., but before the language of the epic poets. Still this cannot really be the oldest; for it already contains a perfect reflection of the old poetic age.

Hare thinks the translation excellent, as I do; only one expression, “Poets in their hearts discerned,” we can understand only if we make it “have discerned” (or seen)—for otherwise it is only a continuation of the narrative, which cannot be the meaning. Send it to me in German, for Schelling.

It is cold and rainy here; so don't find fault with Wales, if you are having bad weather there. Cura ut valeas. All the Muses be with you.

[45.]

You have sent me the most beautiful thing you have yet written. I read your Veda essay yesterday, first to myself, and then to my family circle (including Lady Raffles, your great friend in petto), and we were all enchanted with both matter and form. I then packed up the treasure at once; at nine it goes to the printers. I think that the translation of the hymn is really improved; it is not yet quite clear to me whether instead of “poets discerned,” it should not be “poets discern,” or “have discerned,” which is at all events the meaning. And now, I hope the same father of the Muses, with their mother, Mnemosyne, will accompany you into the Turanian wilderness, and give you courage to adopt the poor Malays; that in the next separate edition of this sketch, as Mithridates, we may already have the links for joining on Australia and East Africa. We go on printing valiantly. Dietrich has at once accepted my proposal with true German good-nature, although he has only been married for seven months to a young and charming wife. His good mother-in-law tried to shorten the six months, which he at first offered; but that would neither suit me nor him: so I have written to him to come away at once—to arrive here the 16th of October, instead of in November, that I may dismiss him with my blessing early in April.

J. Mohl is here, and Rosen. Both go on Monday. I give them on Saturday (to-morrow) an evening party of literati, to which I have invited Wilson, Norris, Loftus, Birch, etc., etc. Mohl, as well as Rosen, would like to see you. Could not you by a stroke of genius fly here, rest yourself Sunday, and think on Monday if you really need go back again? Theodore is here, and George is expected. My household all share my wish to see you. Greetings to Aufrecht.

Bötticher has discovered a fragment of Livy (palimpsest), and the Greek translation of Diocles, who, 120 B. C., wrote the “Founding of Rome” (fragment).

Another idea has just struck me. Could one not perhaps make the original unity of Aryans and Europeans clear, if one furnished the hymn written in Latin letters, with an interlinear translation, just as you once gave me an intuition of the first lines, which I have never forgotten. The translation would be best in Latin, with references to the other languages, according as the one or the other of them contains certain radicals with the same meaning as in Sanskrit. If you do not like this, you must prepare for me a Vedic Paternoster, just as Lepsius devised for me a pyramido-Pharaonic, and now prepares a Nubian.

I have announced you as a member of the Assyrian Society, and so saved you three guineas. It is arranged that whoever pays two guineas should receive all reports, transactions, etc. I have therefore inserted your name, with two guineas, and paid it.

Lord Clarendon has, on my recommendation, attached Loftus to the embassy at Constantinople, so that he has a position at Bagdad and Mosul. He leaves on the 1st of October, and we give him a parting entertainment on the 28th of this month. The plan is a secret, but we hope great things from it. I hope to secure the best duplicates for the Berlin Museum.

A Cheruscan countryman, personally unknown to me, Schütz from Bielefeld, the Sanskritist, has asked, with antique confidence, for a bed for his young daughter, on her way to Liverpool as a governess, which we have promised him with real pleasure. This has again shown me how full Germany is of men of research and mind. O! my poor and yet wealthy Fatherland, sacrificed to the Gogym (heathen)!

[46.]

I have already admonished the printer most seriously. You have revised the tables once, but they had to be fresh printed on account of the innumerable alterations. But that is no reason why you should not get them. You would have had them long ago, had I had an idea of it. I am impatiently awaiting yours and Aufrecht's revision of Chapters II., III., and IV., which I sent you myself last week. This presses very much. You have not much to do to them. I will look after the correct English here with Cottrell; but all the rest Aufrecht can shake out of his bag. In your letter you say nothing of having received them. They were taken to the book-post on Monday evening, the 16th, a week ago, and sent off.

Mi raccomanda, Signor Dottore, per il manuscritto. I will arrange the printing as much as possible according to your wishes. Much depends on the manner in which you organize the whole. With short chapters, easily looked through, the whole can be brought forward as a treatise intended for all readers. I have not, however, been so fortunate with my Semitic essay; I have printed a good deal of it in small print, partly to save space (for the volume on the “Philosophy of Religion” must really not be even half as thick as the first), partly on account of the legibility.

I am so sorry to hear from Pertz that you have been suffering from headache. I hope you are quite well and brisk again.

[47.]

All right, my dear friend. I have already sent everything off to the printer. It is certainly better so. Where practicable you should have two chapters instead of one.

Ffoulkes' book shall be taken care of, either on the 1st or 15th. The same with the “Bampton Lectures,” if it is wished. I shall receive Mr. Thomson summo cum honore.

But now, my dear friend, where does the great Turanian essay hide itself? Pray let me soon receive something, not later than Monday or Tuesday; send it as a parcel by parcels' delivery, or, which is the cheapest and quickest, by book-post, which takes MS. (not letters) as well as printed matter, and forwards both for 6d. the lb.

I have sent my most difficult task to the printers, “Origin of the Three Gospels as part of the Second Age, 66-100.” I am longing for the promised addenda from Aufrecht on the Haruspex. The printing is stopped for it, also for the answer about a hieroglyphic which is unintelligible in London, instead of the honest amâ==mother, which is not good enough for him.

[48.]

“It has lightened—on the Danube!”

It is of too much importance to me to have my dear Turanian's thoughts according to his own best way and form, for me not to be ready to wait till the end of November. The entire work, in seven volumes, must come out together, and I can keep back till then the first part of the “Philosophy,” which is entirely printed in slips up to your chapter, and go on with the second. Just look once at that book by the Scotch missionary, “The Karens, or Memoir of Ko-tha-bya,” by Kincaid, on the Karens in Pegu. He maintains the unity of the Karens and Kakhyans, another form of the same, and of all the scattered branches of the same race, starting from Thibet (five millions altogether) as the remnant of a once very powerful people. To judge from the representations the race must be very handsome. Frau von Helfer told me the same, and she knows them. There are extracts given in the “Church Missionary Intelligence,” October, 1853. Prichard says little about it, and has no specimens of the language. I have not got Latham at hand. Haruspex is printing; it waits for the conclusion. I have received Thomson's “Bampton Lectures.” Where does rife come from—Anglo-Saxon ryfe? It means prevalent, abundant.

[49.]

Here is the printer's excuse. It is useless to think of printing at Oxford. You had better now keep the tables, in case you make more alterations, till you have quite finished your work, that nothing more may require alteration, but what you change during your work. I will send you Kincaid, if it is in London. Perhaps by a smile from the Muses you can get the first part ready in November. Is the Dean back? Good-by.

[50.]

Please send me the letter for Humboldt. I will inclose it. Write him (and me) word in English what are the name and object of the Taylor Institution, and the name of the office. You will receive Kincaid from me. I will see after the tables. So courage.

[51.]

I have written to Humboldt to announce your letter and request, so write at once direct to him. I have told Pertz to send me the treatise of Schott by the courier on the 15th. So you will receive it on the 20th of this month. I have again admonished the printer. God bless you.

[52.]

My heartiest congratulations on your well-earned success (Taylorian Professorship). Your position in life now rests on a firm foundation, and a fine sphere of work lies before you; and that in this heaven-blest, secure, free island, and at a moment when it is hard to say whether the thrones of princes or the freedom of nations is in greatest danger. I send you the papers as they are. There is hope that the war may yet be rendered impossible.

With true affection yours.

Thanks for your Schleswig communication.

[53.]

Dearest Friend,—So it is. My father has not up to this moment received a recall, and probably will not, in spite of the efforts of the Russians, within and without Berlin. On the other hand, we expect to-morrow the reply to an answer sent by my father in opposition to a renewed and very impetuous offer of leave of absence. In this answer (of the 4th of this month) my father made his accepting leave of absence dependent on the fulfillment of certain conditions guaranteeing his political honor. If the reply expected to-morrow from Berlin does not contain those conditions, nothing remains but for my father to [pg 437] send in his resignation and leave the Prussian mock negotiations to be fought through by another Prussian ambassador. If they are accorded to him, he will go on long leave of absence. But in either case he will certainly remain provisionally in England. More I cannot tell, but this is enough to give you information confidentially.

Dietrich is gone, and begged me to tell you, that in spite of constant work at it here, he could not finish your commission. He will have leisure in Marburg to make it all clear for you, and will send the packet here by the next courier. I will send you a line to-morrow as to the events of the day. My father does not go into the country before Tuesday.

George Bunsen.

[54.]

My Dear Friend,—The bearer, Herr von Fennenberg from Marburg, has brought me greetings and a little book from Thiersch, and wishes to be introduced to you. He is a philologist, in particular a Sanskritist. He wishes to have a place or employment that would make it possible for him to stay in England. I know no one who could better advise him than you. Before you receive these lines you will hear from George about me. I am determined to fight through the crisis, and am quite calm.

[55.]

Dear Friend,—Of course Dietrich has sent nothing. The affair presses. My summary of the Semitic alphabet (lithographed) gives the summary of the system of transliteration used in this work, and is also in the press. Set aside then what is still wanting, and hurry on the matter for me. My journey to Heidelberg with my family, who at all events go on the 20th, depends on the work being finished. To-day I take refuge at St. Leonard's-on-Sea, 77 Marina, till the telegraph calls me to London to receive my letters of recall. I depend, therefore, on your friendly help in one of the most important parts of the book. All right here; the house is deserted, but the heart rejoices and the soul already spreads its wings. Truly yours.

Just starting. Dear M., pray send the MS. Spottiswoode lays everything on you.

[56.]

Your despairing letter of Thursday has alarmed me very much. You had offered me the alternative of leaving out the Semitic tables, if Dietrich does not send them by the courier. I did not write to him, as the omission of that list really did not seem to me a great misfortune. But now you say something quite new to me, and most dreadful, that you cannot make the corrections without having what I am unable to procure for you. I must own I cannot make this out. Trusting to your goodwill to do the utmost, I wrote to Petermann to send you at once an impression of the Semitic paraphrase put together by me and Bötticher. The courier comes on Friday, only I have given up all dependence on Dietrich, since he could take away the lists with him. He never said a word to me about it.

I must go to Germany on the 16th of June. Yesterday I sent all the rest to Spottiswoode, and at the same time complained about Watts. Only what can they, and what can I do, if you do not enable us to finish the most important book of the three works? I hope you have not worked yourself to death for Trevelyan, and that you will reserve a free hour for London to say good-by. Since last night I am at work at my German “Egypt,” to my inexpressible delight. Friday I return to town, and stay probably (at Ernest's) till my things are sold. Cura ut valeas.

What is the original meaning of glauben, to believe?

[57.]

You have done wonders; and I hope you will rest yourself. A thousand thanks. I have at once sounded an alarm. I go to-day to town; Fanny and her two daughters will embark on Sunday morning: we have taken a house from the 1st of July, on the Neckar. I hope you will soon make your appearance there. George goes into the country to-morrow on business. I stay with Ernest till Hippolytus is out.

The snare is broken, and the bird is free; for which let us bless the Lord. As they once let me out of my cage, they shall not catch me again. My fifth book is ready for printing, down to the general philosophical article. Johannes Brandis, the Assyrian chronologist, arranges for me the synchronistic tables from Menes to Alexander.

Greetings to Aufrecht. I have not yet received the impression of the text, which he restored from the Codex.

[58.]

Your letter came just when wanted, my dearest friend. My wife and children leave the house to-morrow; and I follow them a week later, on account of Spottiswoode. Come here then to-morrow morning, and stay at least till Monday: so my daughter-in-law Elizabeth begs, who herself goes to Upton. George, Brandis, and I help Ernest to keep house this week.

I have to-day sent to press the “Resolutions and Statements on the Alphabet” which you wrote, with Lepsius's not “amendments” but certain explanations on his part, and my now English “recapitulations.” I shall receive the first impression to-morrow evening. Lepsius has sent a long Essay, of which I only print the “Exposition of the System,” with some “specimens of application.”

You should rejoice, as I do, over “Hippolytus VII., Christianity and Mankind, their Beginnings and Prospects,” in seven volumes (also as three separate works).

I shall easily finish it. Also “Egypt II.” is publishing; I have written a new Preface to it. The “Theologia Germanica” is waiting for you; one copy for my dear M., and one for Dr. Thomson, whose address I don't know. Spottiswoode has vowed to have all ready next week. If you could stay here, and revise your sheets at once, I might believe the vow.

We have secured a beautiful house in Heidelberg (Heidt-weiler), on the right bank, opposite the Castle.

[59.]

Immediately saw about Venn: wrote urgently to him to send the order direct to Spottiswoode, and marked this on the sheet. I cannot send Lepsius, because the sheets are being printed; refer the printer to it. You deceiver! the hymn is without the interlineal version for the non-Iranians. Just as if you were a German professor! I personally beg earnestly for it, for myself and for those who are equally benighted. I have everything now at press, except some Latin abuse for M. Your visit refreshed me very much. Fanny had an exceedingly good journey, and will be to-morrow in Heidelberg.

[60.]

Dearest Friend,—All ready for the journey. Your slips come in. Thirty-two men are day and night printing, composing, correcting, etc. I am ready. Venn will print nothing of yours, and will not even send Lepsius' Essay to the missionaries, that they may not be driven mad.

I do not know what books you have of mine: if I can have them by Saturday morning, 9 o'clock, good—if not, you must bring them yourself. George goes with me, instead of Ernest.

[61.]

Dear Max M.,—Allow me, through this note, to recommend to you, in my own name, as well as in the name of the Duke of Coburg and Baron Stockmar, the bearer of this, Dr. Wilhelm Pertsch, who is going to England on Sanskrit business, and needs kind advice and a little assistance in his undertaking. Bunsen, who sends you his heartiest greetings, had at first offered to give him a letter to Wilson, but thought afterwards a word from you was worth more with Wilson than a letter from any one else.

The Bunsens have quite decided now to settle at Heidelberg for at least a year, and are already hoping for a speedy visit from you, by which I hope also to profit. He is studying upstairs with great delight your official and scientific vade mecum on the Turanian languages. Yesterday, by means of a breakfast, I introduced him to most of the scientific and literary celebrities here—such as H. Gagern, Mohl, Dusch, Harper, Jolly, etc., etc. George came with them, and helped in arranging things, but returns to-morrow.

A thousand good wishes. And always keep in friendly remembrance

Your true friend,

K. Meyer.

[62.]

I cannot let George, who took care of me here, return without a token for you of my being alive. I read your book for the English officers partly on the road, and partly here, with real delight and sincere admiration. What an advance from a “Guide Interprête,” or a “Tableau Statistique,” to such an introduction [pg 441] to languages and nationalities. The map, too, is excellent. The excellent Petermann must make us several, just of this kind, for our unborn Mithridates.

I should like to scold your English reviser for several Gallicisms, for which I feel certain you are not to blame. Rawlinson's barbaric débris instead of “ruins,” and fauteuil instead of “chair,” which in French as well as in English is the right expression for a professor's chair; whilst fauteuil is only used in French to denote the “President's chair” (for instance, in the Institute), and is quite inadmissable in English, even by the “Upholsterer.” The third I have forgotten but not forgiven.

I cannot even now give up my habit of using Iranian in opposition to Turanian, in deference to you. He who uses Turanian must use Iranian. Arian is to me something belonging to the land of Aria, therefore Median, part of Bactria and Persia. It is decidedly a great step in advance to separate the Indian from this. That the Indians acknowledge themselves to be Arians, suits me as it does you. But Iranian is a less localized name, and one wants such a name in contradistinction to Turanian and Semitic. It is only despised by the German “Brahmans and Indomaniacs.”

There you have my opinions and criticisms.

I have already written 67 of the 150 pages belonging to the fifth book, and cannot go on till I have my books. I am now occupied with the principles of the method for the historical treatment of mythology, with especial reference to three points in the Egyptian:—

1. Age and relation of the Osiris-worship to the θεοὶ νοητοί and the astronomical gods (Ra, Horus, etc.).

2. History of Seth in Asia and in Egypt, ad vocem Adam.

3. Position and signification of animal worship.

Book IV. goes to press on the 15th of July. Book V. must be ready (D. V.) on the 24th of August.

Both the people and the country here please me. The land is enchantingly beautiful, nay, fairy-like, and our house is in the best situation of all. Fanny is almost more at home in Germany than I am, and the girls revel in the German enjoyment of life. I count on your paying us a visit. Say a good word for us to your mother, and persuade her to come with you to visit us in Heidelberg. We should much like to make her acquaintance, and tell her how dear you are to us all. Meyer is proxenus Anglorum and Anglaram, and does nothing. I hope [pg 442] to form here a little Academia Nicorina. Shall I ever leave Heidelberg? God bless you. Cura ut valeas. Ever yours.

P. S. I have worked through Steinschneider's sheet on the Semitic Roots in Egyptian with great advantage, and have sent it to Dietrich. The analogy of the consonants is unmistakable. Dietrich will certainly be able to fix this. And now you must shake that small specimen Aricum out of your Dessau conjuring sleeve. You need only skim the surface, it is not necessary to dig deep where the gold lies in sight. But we must rub the German nose in Veda butter, that they may find the right track.

We shall have a hard battle to fight at first in the Universities. Were Egypt but firmly established as the primitive Asiatic settlement of the as yet undivided Arian and Semitic families, we should have won the game for the recognition of historical truth.

I hope the “Outlines” and “Egypt” will come over next week. Longman will send them both to you; and also the copy of the Outlines for Aufrecht (to whom I have written an ostensible letter such as he wished for). I wish something could be found in Oxford for that delightful and clever man Johannes Brandis. He would exert an excellent influence, and England would be a good school for him. Will the Universities admit Dissenters to take a degree?

[63.]

My dear vanished Friend,—Where thou art and where thou hast turned since thy fleeting shadow disappeared, I have asked in vain on all sides during my journey through Germany. No one whom I met had seen you, which Ewald particularly deplored very much. At all events you are now in the sanctuary on the Isis, and I have long desired to communicate one thing and another to you. But first I will tell you what at this moment lies heavy on my heart—“Galignani” brought me the news yesterday: my dear friend Pusey lies seriously ill at his brother's house in Oxford; “his life is despaired of.” Unfortunately there is nothing improbable in this sad intelligence. I had already been anxious before this, for ten days, as I had written to him, to Pusey, nearly three weeks ago, on the news of the death of his wife, entreating him most pressingly, for his own and his family's sake, to spend the winter here, and to live as much as possible with us, his old friends. I know he would [pg 443] have answered the letter, were he not ill. Perhaps he was not even able to read it.

Dr. Acland is our mutual friend, and without doubt attends the dear invalid. At all events, he has daily access to him. My request therefore is, if he is not already taken from us, that you will let Acland tell you how it really is with him, and let me hear by return of post, via Paris: if possible also, whether Pusey did receive my letter, and then how Sidney and the two daughters are; who is with them, whether Lady Carnarvon or only the sisters of charity.

Now to other things.

1. Dietrich gave me the inclosed, of course post festum. I have marked at the back what he still wants in your Tables.

2. Greet Dr. Aufrecht, and tell him I am very sorry that Dietrich has found fault with his Paternoster. I was obliged in the hurry to leave the printing of this section to him. I will let A.'s metacritic go to him.

3. I have a letter from Hodgson of Darjeling as an answer to the letter written here by you, very friendly and “in spirits,” otherwise but slightly intelligible. He refers me to a letter forty pages long which he has sent to Mohl in Paris, an improved edition of the one he sent to Wilson. He supposes that I received both; if not, I should ask for the one to Mohl.

Of course I have received neither. But I have sent to Mohl through his niece, to beg he would send the said letter to you, and you would inform me of the particulars. I hope you have already received it. If not, see about it, for we must not lose sight of the man.

The copy of the “Outlines” must now be in his hands. These “Outlines,” the child of our common toil, begin now to be known in Germany. Ewald has already taken a delight in them; he will review them. Meyer is quite enchanted with your Turanians, but would gladly, like many others, know something more of the Basques. For me it is a great event, having made a friendship for life and an alliance with Ewald, over Isaiah's

“No peace with the wicked;”

and on still higher grounds. Those were delightful days which I spent in Göttingen and Bonn, as also with Bethman-Hollweg, Camphausen, and others. I see and feel the misery of our people far more deeply than I expected, only I find more comfort than I hoped in the sympathy of my contemporaries, who willingly give me a place among themselves.

A proposal to enter the Upper House (of which, however, I do not care to speak) I could of course only refuse, with many thanks. I have finished my “Egypt,” Volume. IV., with Bötticher, and sent it for press for the 1st January.

As an intermezzo, I have begun a specimen for a work suggested to me in a wonderful manner from England, America, and Germany (particularly by Ewald and Lücke),—a real Bible for the people, that is, a sensible and sensibly printed text, with a popular statement of the results of the investigations of historical criticism, and whatever the spirit may inspire besides.

I am now working from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Baruch, where, beyond all expectation, I found new light on the road I was treading.

We live in the happiest retirement. Your visit, and that of your mother, of whom we all became very fond, was a great delight to us, though a short one. Fanny and I have a plan to greet her at Christmas by a short letter. Now write me word how it fares with you.

[64.]

My dear Friend,—I think you will not have misunderstood my silence since your last letter. Your heart will have told you that no news could be pleasanter to me than that you would undertake to bring the last sevenfold child of my English love into public notice. This can of course only be during the Parliamentary recess. You know better than any one what is the unity of the seven volumes, and what is the aim and result. Your own is a certainly not unimportant, and an independent part of it. But you have with old affection worked yourself and thought yourself into the whole, even where the particulars were of less interest to you. Lastly, as you have told me to my delight, Jowett has begun to interest himself in the work, and you have therefore one near at hand who, from one point of view, can help you as reflecting English opinion. Ewald told me that I had wished to give a Cosmos of the mind in that work. At all events, this idea has floated before me for many years, and is expressed in the Preface to the “God Consciousness.” Only it is not more than a study for that which floats before me. My two next volumes will give more of it. If I only knew what to do with the work for Germany! My [pg 445] task was arranged for England. It seemed to me important, under the guidance of the rediscovered Hippolytus, whose form first rose clearly before me during the first work, to show the organic development of the leading ideas of Christendom in the teachers and heroes, beginning from the first Pentecostal feast; in order to sift the ground, and show to my readers—

a. That the old system of inspiration and the Theodice of the Middle Ages, that is to say, that of the seventeenth century, has no support in ancient Christianity, but just the contrary. That is now a fact.

b. That we have something infinitely more reassuring to put in its place. Truth instead of delusion; reality instead of child's play and pictures.

c. That it is high time to be in earnest about this.

d. That for this, clear insight and practical purpose, also reasoning and moral earnestness, will be required on the part of the spiritual guides.

e. But that before all things Christianity must be introduced into the reality of the present; and that the corporation of the Church, the life of the community in its worship as in its mutually supporting work, must become the centre whence springs the consciousness of communion,—not a system of theology. Christianity is nothing to me but the restoration of the ideal of humanity, and this will become especially clear through the antecedent forms (præformations) of the development in language and religion. (See “Outlines.”) There is a natural history of both, which rests on laws as sure as those of the visible Cosmos. The rest is professional, philological,—legitimatio ad causam.

How much of this idea can be presented to the English public, and in what manner, you know much better than I. Therefore you know the one as well, and the other better than I do. This is the reason why I believe you would not wait for my answer. Still I should have sent to you, if during this time two passions had not filled my heart. For once the dreadful distress of our condition forced me to try, from the midst of my blessed Patmos, to help by letters as far and wherever I could, through advice and cry of distress and summons to help. Now there is nothing more to be done but to wait the result. Alea jacta esse. Ernest is in Berlin.

My second passion is the carrying out of an idea by means of a Christian philosophical People's Bible, from the historical point of view, to get the lever which the development of the present [pg 446] time in Europe has denied me. That I should begin this greatest of all undertakings in the sixty-fifth year of my age, is, I hope, no sign of my speedy death. But I have felt since as if a magic wall had been broken down between me and reality, and long flowing springs of life stream towards me, giving me the discernment and the prolific germ of that which I desired and still strive after. The Popular Bible will contain in two volumes (of equal thickness), 1st, the corrected and reasonably divided text; and 2d, the key to it. For that purpose I must see whether I shall succeed in executing the most difficult part, Isaiah and Jeremiah. And I have advanced so far with this since yesterday evening, that I see the child can move, it can walk. The outward practicability depends on many things, but I have thoroughly worked through the plan of it.

By the end of 1856 all must be ready. My first letter is to you. Thanks for your affection: it is so exactly like you, breaking away at once from London and going to Oxford, to talk over everything with Acland.

Meyer has once more descended from Pegasus, to our prosaic sphere. I believe he is working at a review of our work for the Munich Literary Journal of the Academy. Laboulaye (Vice-President of the Academy) says I have given him so much that is new to read, that he cannot be ready with his articles before the end of February. We shall appear in the “Débats” the beginning of March.

Holzmann is working at the proofs that the Celts were Germans. Humboldt finds the unity of the Turanians not proved. (Never mind!) Osborn's “Egypt” runs on in one absurdity (the Hyksos period never existed), which the “Athenæum” censures sharply.

What is Aufrecht about? But above all, how are you yourself? God preserve you. My family greet you. Heartily yours in old affection.

[65.]

It was, my dear friend, in expectation of the inclosed that I did not sooner return an answer and my thanks for your affectionate and detailed letter. I wish you would take advantage of my communication to put yourself in correspondence with Benfey. He is well disposed towards you, and has openly spoken of you as “the apostle of German science in England.”

And then he stands infinitely higher than the present learned men of his department. He would also be very glad if you would offer yourself to him for communications suitable for his Oriental Journal from England, to which he always has an eye. (Keep this copy, perhaps Jowett may read it.) Humboldt's letter says in reality two things:—

1. He does not approve of the sharply defined difference between nomadic and agricultural languages; the occupations may change, yet the language remains the same as before. That is against you. The good old man does not consider that the language will or can become another without perishing in the root.

2. He does not agree in opposing one language to all others as inorganic. This is against me. But first, this one language is still almost the half of the human race, and secondly, I have said nothing which his brother has not said as strongly. It is only said as a sign of life, and that “my praise and my admiration may appear honest.”

In the fifth volume of my “Egypt” I call the languages sentence-languages and word-languages; that is without metaphor, and cannot be misunderstood. The distinction itself is right. For organic is (as Kant has already defined it) an unity in parts. A granite mountain is not more thoroughly granite than a square inch of granite, but a man without hands or head is no man.

I am delighted to hear that your Veda gets on. If you would only not allow yourself to be frightened from the attempt to let others work for you in mere handicraft. Even young men have not time for everything. You have now fixed your impress on the work, and any one with the will and with the necessary knowledge of the tools, could not go far wrong under your eye. I should so like to see you free for other work. Only do not leave Oxford. Spartam quam nactus es orna. You would not like Germany, and Germany could offer you no sphere of activity that could be compared ever so distantly with your present position. I have often said to you, Nature and England will not allow themselves to be changed from without, and therein consists exactly their worth in the divine plan of development; but they often alter themselves rapidly from within. Besides, the reform is gone too far to be smothered. Just now the Dons and other Philisters can do what they like, for the people has its eyes on other things. But the war makes the classes who are pressing forwards more powerful than ever.

The old method of government is bankrupt forever. So do not be low-spirited, my dear M., or impatient. It is not so much the fault of England, as of yourself, that you do not feel settled and at home. You have now as good a position as a young man of intellect, and with a future before him, could possibly have anywhere, either in England or in Germany. Make a home for yourself. Since I saw your remarkable mother, I have been convinced that, unlike most mothers, she would not stand in the way of your domestic happiness, even were it contrary to her own views, but that she must be the best addition to your household for any wife who was worthy of you. Oxford is London, and better than London; and London is the world, and is German. How gladly would Pauli, that honest, noble German soul, stay, if he had but an occupation. The subjection of the mind by the government here becomes more vexatious, more apparent, more diabolical. One form of tyranny is that of Augustus, the more thorough, because so sly. They will not succeed in the end, but meanwhile it is horrible to witness. More firmly than ever I settle myself down here in Heidelberg, and will take the whole house, and say, “You must leave me my cottage standing, and my hearth, whose glow you envy me.” We are now on the point of binding ourselves, without binding ourselves; and the prudent man in P(aris) pretends not to observe it—just like the devil, when a soul is making some additional conditions.

Still, it is possible that the desire to aid in the councils of Vienna at any price may carry us so far that we may join in the march against Poland and Finland. After all, the rivers flow according to the laws of gravitation.

I have definitely arranged my “Biblework” in two works:—

A. The Bible (People's Bible), corrected translation, with very short and purely historical notes below the text. One volume, large Bible-octavo.

B. The Key, in three equally large volumes (each like the Bible). I. Introduction; II. The restored documents in the historical books of the Old Testament, and restoration of the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah, and of some of the smaller prophets; III. The New Testament. (The life of Christ is a part of this.)

The work looks well. I have now not only perfectly defined the Exodus and time of the Judges, but have put it so clearly and authentically before the public, that as long as the world [pg 449] of Europe and America lasts, the theologians cannot make the faithful crazy, nor the scoffers lead them astray. It can be finished in three years. I can depend on Ewald and Rothe.

We have got through the winter. I, for the first time for twenty years, without cold or anything of that sort. The delicious air of Spring begins to blow, the almond-trees promise to be in blossom in a week. With true love, yours.

[66.]

(The day when peace or war will be decided.)

My dear M.,—I cannot delay any longer to tell you that your first article announced to us by George, has reached me, and excited the delight and admiration of us all. It is pleasant, as Cicero says, “laudari a viro laudato;” but still sweeter “laudari a viro amato.” And you have so thoroughly adopted the English disguise, that it will not be easy for any one to suspect you of having written this “curious article.” It especially delights me to see how ingeniously you contrive to say what you announce you do not wish to discuss, namely, the purport of the theology. In short, we are all of opinion that your aunt or cousin was right when she said in Paris, to Neukomm, of you, that you ought to be in the diplomatic service. From former experience I have never really believed that the second article would be printed; it would have appeared by last Saturday at the latest, and would then have been already in my hands. But the article as it is has given me great pleasure, and all the greater because it is yours. I only wish you might soon give me the power of shaking your dear old hand, which I so often feel the want of.

Meanwhile I will tell you that Brockhaus writes in a very friendly way, in transmitting Ernst Schulze's biography (the unfortunate poet's journal, with very pleasant affectionate descriptions of his friends, of me especially), to ask if I would not make something out of the new Hippolytus for Germany. This letter reached me just as I had blended my past and future together for a large double work, the finished parts of which are now standing before me in seven large portfolios, with completed Contents, Preface, and Introduction.

“The Bible of the Faithful,” four volumes, large Bible-octavo; Volume I. the Bible; Volumes II.-IV. (separated) Key.

“The Faithful of the Bible.” (A.) The government and the worship of the faithful. Two books, one volume. (B.) The congregational and family book (remodeling of the earlier devotional books for the faithful of the Bible), two volumes.

At the same time “Egypt” was at last ready for press as two volumes; and so I took courage to take up again that old idea, especially that which we had so often discussed. But first I can and will make a pretty little volume from the historical portraits in Hippolytus: “The first seven generations of Christians.” A translation (by Pauli) of the exact text of the first English volume, preceded by the restoration of the line and the chronology of the Roman bishops down to Cornelius, since revised and much approved of by Röstell (quite clearly written out; about ten printed sheets with the documents).

This gives me hardly any trouble, and costs me very little thought. But secondly, to use Ewald's expression: “The Kosmos of Language” (in four volumes). This is your book, if it is to exist. It appears to me before anything else to be necessary to draw proper limits, with a wisdom worthy of Goethe.

I do not think that the time has come for publishing in the German way a complete or uniformly treated book; I think it is much more important to fortify our view of language from within, and launch it forth armed with stings upon these inert and confused times. Therefore method, and satisfactory discussion of that on which everything depends; with a general setting forth of the points which it concerns us now to investigate. I could most easily make you perceive what I mean, by an abstract of the prospectus, which I have written off, in order to discuss it thoroughly with you as soon as you can come here. As you would have to undertake three fourths of the whole, you have only to consider all this as a proposal open to correction, or rather a handle for discussion.

First Volume. (Bunsen.)

General Division.

Introduction. The Science of Language and its Epochs (according to Outlines, 35-60).

1. The Phenomena of Language (according to Outlines, ii. 1-72).

2. The Metaphysics of Language (according to Outlines, ii. 73-122)—manuscript attempt to carry out Kant's Categories, not according to Hegel's method.

3. The Historical Development (Outlines, ii. 123-140; and Outlines of Metaphysics, second volume, in MS.). Müller ad libitum. (With this an ethnographical atlas, colored according to the colors of the three families.)

Second Volume. (Müller:)

First Division. The sentence-languages of Eastern Asia (Chinese).

Second Division. The Turanian word-languages in Asia and Europe.

Third Volume. (Müller and Bunsen.)

First Division. The Hamitic-Semitic languages in Asia and Africa. (Bunsen.)

Second Division. The Iranian languages in Asia and Europe.

Fourth Volume. (Müller.)

The branching off of the Turanians and Hamites in Africa, America, and Polynesia.

a. The colony of East Asiatic Turanians in South Africa (great Kaffir branch).

b. The colony of North Asiatic Turanians (Mongolians) in North America.

c. The Turanian colonies in South America.

d. The older colonies of the East Asiatic Turanians in Polynesia (Papuas).

e. The newer ditto (light-colored Malay branch).

Petermann or Kiepert would make the ethnographical atlas beautifully. I have in the last few months discovered that the three Noachic families were originally named according to the three colors.

1. Ham is clear; it means black.

2. Shem is an honorary name (the glorious, the famous), but the old name is Adam, that is, Edom, which means red, reddish == φοίνιξ: this has given me great light. The Canaanites were formerly called Edomi, and migrated about 2850, after the volcanic disturbance at the Dead Sea (Stagnum Assyrium, Justin, xviii. 3), towards the coast of Phœnicia, where Sidon is the most ancient settlement, the first begotten of Canaan; and the era of Tyre begins as early as 2760 (Herodotus, ii. 44).

3. Japhet is still explained in an incredible way by Ewald according to the national pun of Genesis x. as derived from Patah, “he who opens or spreads.” It is really from Yaphat, “to be shining” == the light, white.

It would certainly be the wisest plan for us to fall back on this for the ethnographical atlas, at least for the choice of the colors; and I believe it could easily be managed. For the Semitic nations red is naturally the prevailing color, of a very deep shade in Abyssinia and Yemen; black in negro Khamites, and a light shade in Palestine and Northern Arabia. For the Turanians, green might be thought of as the prevailing color. For the Iranians there remains white, rising into a bluish tint. But that could be arranged for us by my genial cousin Bunsen, the chemist.

That would be a work, my dearest M.! The genealogy of man, and the first parable, rising out of the infinite. Were you not half Anglicized, as I am, I should not venture to propose anything so “imperfect”—that is, anything to be carried out in such unequal proportions. But this is the only way in which it is possible to us, and, as I think, only thus really useful for our Language-propaganda, whose apostles we must be “in hoc temporis momento.” And now further, I think we should talk this over together. I give you the choice of Heidelberg or Nice. We have resolved (D. V.) to emigrate about the 1st of October, by way of Switzerland and Turin, to the lovely home of the palm-tree, and encamp there till March: then I should like very much to see Sicily, but at all events to run through Naples and Rome in April; and then return here in the end of April by Venice. It is indescribably lovely here now; more enjoyable than I have ever seen it. We shall take a house there, where I could get into the open air four or five times every day. I fancy in the five working months I could do more than in the eight dreary winter months here. Much is already done, the completion is certain. Were not Emma (who has become inexpressibly dear to us) expecting her confinement about the 21st of September we should already at this time break up from here, in order to reach the heavenly Corniche Road (from Genoa to Nice) in the finest weather. Theodore goes in ten days for a year to Paris. Of course Emilia and the other girls go with us. They all help me in a most remarkable way in my work. I thought of inviting Brockhaus here in the summer to discuss with him the edition of the “Biblework.” Now we know what we have in view. Now write soon, how you are and what you have in view. All here send most friendly greetings. Ever yours.

[67.]

My dear Friend,—I think you must now be sitting quietly again in Oxford, behind the Vedas. I send you these lines from George's small but lovely place, where we have christened his child, to stop, if possible, your wrath against Renan. He confesses in his letter that “ma plume m'a trahi;” he has partly not said what he thinks, and partly said what he does not think. But his note is not that of an enemy. He considers his book an homage offered to German science, and had hoped that it would be estimated and acknowledged in the present position of French science, and that it would be received in a friendly way. Though brought up by the Jesuits, he is entirely free from the priestly spirit, and in fact his remarkable essay in the “Revue des Deux Mondes” of the 15th of November on Ewald's “History of the People of Israel” deserves all our thanks in a theological, national, and scientific point of view. We cannot afford to quarrel unnecessarily with such a man. You must deal gently with him. You will do it, will you not, for my sake? I am persuaded it is best.

Brockhaus will bring out the third unaltered edition of my “Signs of the Times,” as the 2,500 and the 1,000 copies are all sent out, and more are constantly asked for. I have, whilst here, got the first half of the “World-Consciousness” (Weltbewusstsein) ready to send off. The whole will appear in May, 1856, as the herald and forerunner of my work on the Bible. I have gone through this with H. Brockhaus, and reduced it to fifteen delightful little volumes in common octavo, six of the People's Bible, with a full Introduction, and nine of the Key with higher criticism. I am now expecting three printed sheets of the Bible, Volume I., the Key, Volumes I. and VII. The fourth and fifth volumes of “Egypt” are being rapidly printed at the same time for May. The chronological tables appear in September. And now be appeased, and write again soon. George sends hearty greetings. Thursday I shall be in Charlottenberg again. Heartily yours.

[68.]

I should long ago have told you, my dearest friend, how much your letter of last September delighted me, had I not been so plunged in the vortex caused by the collision of old and new [pg 454] work, that I have had to deny myself all correspondence. Since then I have heard from you, and of you from Ernst and some travelling friends, and can therefore hope that you continue well. As to what concerns me, I yesterday sent to press the MS. of the last of the three volumes which are to come out almost together. Volumes III. and IV. (thirty-six sheets are printed) on the 1st of May; Volume V. on the 15th of July. I have taken the bold resolution of acquitting myself of this duty before anything else, that I may then live for nothing but the “Biblework,” and the contest with knaves and hypocrites in the interest of the faithful.

In thus concluding “Egypt,” I found it indispensable to give all the investigations on the beginnings of the human race in a compressed form. Therefore SET==YAHVEH and all discoveries connected with this down to Abraham. Also the Bactrian and Indian traditions. I have read on both subjects all that is to be found here; above all Burnouf (for the second time), and Lassen's “Indian Antiquities,” with Diis minorum gentium. I find then in Lassen much which can be well explained by my discoveries in the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Phœnician, but a huge chasm opens out for everything concerning the Vedas. I find in particular nothing analogous to the history of the Deluge, of which you most certainly told me. I therefore throw myself on your friendship, with the request that you will write out for me the most necessary points, so far as they do not exist in Colebrooke and Wilson, which I can order from Berlin. (1.) On the Deluge tradition; (2.) On the Creation of Man, if there is any; (3.) On the Fall of Man; (4.) On recollections of the Primitive Homes on the other side of Meru and Bactria, if such are to be found. I know of course what Lassen says. I do not expect much, as you know, from these enthusiastic emigrants; but all is welcome.

One must oppose with all one's power, and in solemn earnest, such pitiful nihilism and stupid jokes as Schwenk has made of the Persian mythology. I have done this in the “Doctrine of Zoroaster;” I am to-day applying to Haug about some hard nuts in this subject. The number seven predominates here also, of course, and in the symbolism depends on the time of each phase of the moon; but the Amshaspands have as little to do with it as with the moon itself. The Gahanbar resemble the six days of creation, if the Sanskrit translation by Neriosengh (which I don't understand) is more to be trusted than the Vispered. [pg 455] But at all events there is an ideal element here, which has been fitted in with the old nature worship.

The sanctity of the Hom (havam?) must also be ideal, the plant can only be a symbol to Zoroaster. Can it be connected with Om? As to the date, Zoroaster the prophet cannot have lived later than 3000 B. C. (250 years before Abraham therefore), but 6000 or 5000 before Plato may more likely be correct, according to the statements of Aristotle and Eudoxus. Bactria (for that surely is Bakhdi) was the first settlement of the Aryans who escaped from the ice regions towards Sogd. The immigration, therefore, can hardly fall later than 10,000 or 9000 before Christ. Zoroaster himself must be considered as after the migration of the Aryans towards the Punjab, for his demons are your gods.

Now will you please let me have, at latest at Easter, what you can give me, for on the 25th the continuation of the MS. must go off, and of this the Indians form a part.

I do not find the account by Megasthenes of Indian beginnings (Plinius and Arrianus) at all amiss: the Kaliyuga computation of 3102 B. C. is purely humbug, just like the statement about the beginning of the Chinese times, to which Lassen gives credit. How can Herodotus have arrived at a female Mithra, Mylitta? Everything feminine is incompatible with the sun, yet nowhere, as far as I can see, does any deity corresponding to Mater appear among the Persians or Indians. Altogether Mithra is a knotty point in the system of Zoroaster, into which it fits like the fist into the eye.

And now I come to the subject of the inclosed Kuno Fischer has given a most successful lecture in Berlin on Bacon, which has grown into a book, a companion to Spinoza and Leibnitz, but much more attractive through the references to the modern English philosophy and Macaulay's conception of Bacon. The book is admirably written. Brockhaus is printing it, and will let it appear in May or at latest in June, about twenty-five sheets. He reserves the right of translation. And now I must appeal to your friendship and your influence, in order to find, 1st, the right translator, and 2d, the right publisher, who would give the author £50 or £100, for Fischer is dependent on his own resources. The clique opposes his appearance: Raumer has declared to the faculty that “a Privat-docent suspended in any state of the Bund because of his philosophical opinions which were irreconcilable with Christianity, ought not to teach [pg 456] in Berlin.” The faculty defends itself. I have written public and private letters to Humboldt, but what good does that do? Therefore it is now a matter of consequence to enable this very distinguished thinker and writer, and remarkably captivating teacher (he had here 300 pupils in metaphysics), to secure the means of subsistence. Miss Winkworth's publisher offered her £150 when she sent him the first chapter of my “Signs;” Longmans half profits, that is—nothing! I only wish to have the matter set going. The proof-sheets can be sent.

Who wrote the foolish article in the “Quarterly” against Jowett? The book will live and bear fruit. We are well, except that George has had scarlet fever. Frances is nursing him at Rheindorf. Heartily yours.

I have myself undertaken the comparison of the Aryan with the Semitic, on Lassen's plan. Two thirds of the stems can be authenticated. What a scandal is Roth's deciphering of the Cyprian inscriptions. Renan mourns over the “Monthly Review,” but is otherwise very grateful. I have made use of your Alphabet in my “Egypt.”

[69.]

My dearest M.,—You receive at once a postscript. I have since read W.'s essay on the Deluge of the Hindús, in the second volume of the “Indian Studies;” and can really say now that I understand a little Sanskrit, for the essay is written in a Brahmanic jargon, thickly strewn with very many German and French foreign terms. O, what a style! I am still to-day reading Roth (Münchener Gelehrte Anzeigen). I know therefore what is in it; that is, a child's tale which came to India from the Persian Gulf, or at least from Babylonia, about Oannes, the man in the shape of a fish, who gives them their revelation and saves them. Have you really nothing better? It is just like the fable of Deucalion, from the backward-thrown λᾶς, that is, stones! Or was it ἀπὸ δρυὸς ἥ ἀπὸ πέτρας?

Faith in the old beliefs sits very lightly on all the emigrant children of Japhet. Yet many historical events are clearly buried in the myths before the Pândavas. Wilson's statement (Lassen, i. 479 n.) of the contents of a Purâna, shows still a consciousness of those epochs. There must be (1) a dwelling in the primitive country (bordering on the ideal), quite obscure, historically; (2) expulsion, through a change of climate; (3) [pg 457] life in the land of the Aryans (Iran.); (4) migration to and life in the Punjab.

For the western Aryans and for southern Europe, there is another epoch, between 6000 and 5000 B. C. at latest, namely, the march of the Cushite (Turanian) Nimrud (Memnon?) by Susiana, and then across Northern Africa to Spain. The discovery of Curtius, of the Ionians being Asiatics that had migrated from Phrygia, who disputed with the Phœnicians for the world's commerce long before the colonies started from Europe, is very important.

Write me word what you think of Weber's Indian-Semitic Alphabet.

I have to-day written to Miss Winkworth, to speak to the publisher. If he will undertake it and pay Fischer well, both editions would appear at the same time; and she must then come here in April, to make the translation from the proof-sheets. The printing begins at Easter.

[70.]

So there you are, my worthy Don, sitting as a Member of Committees, etc.; and writing reports, and agitating and canvassing in Academicis! This delights me: for you have it in you, and feel the same longing, which seized me at your age—to act and to exert an influence on the God-given realities of life. It inspirits me; for you, like me, will remain what you are—a German, and will not become a “Philister.”

I have missed you here very much, even more than your answers to my questions. No one escapes his fate: so I cannot escape the temptation to try my method and my insight on indirect chronology. I confess that such confusion I have not seen as that of these investigations hitherto beyond Colebrooke and Wilson, Lassen and Duncker. Something can already be made of Megasthenes' accounts in connection with the Brahmanic traditions, in the way cleared up by Lassen (in the “Journal”). I believe in the 153 kings before Sandrokottus and the 6402 years. The older tradition does not dream of ages of the world, the historical traditions begin with the Tretâage, and point back to the life on the Indus; the first period is like the divine dynasties of the Egyptians. The Kaliyuga is 1354 B. C., or 1400 if you like, but not a day older. The so called cataclysms “after [pg 458] the universe had thrice attained to freedom” (what nonsense!) are nothing but the short interregnums of freedom obtained by the poor Indian Aryans between the monarchies. They are 200 + 300 + 120. And I propose to you, master of the Vedas, the riddle, how do I know that the first republican interregnum (anarchy, to the barbarians) was 200 years long? The Indian traditions begin therefore with 7000, and that is the time of Zaradushta. I find many reasons for adopting your opinion on the origin of the Zend books. The Zoroastrians came out of India; but tell me, do you not consider this as a return migration? The schism broke out on the Indus, or on the movement towards the Jumna and lands of the Ganges. The dull, intolerable Zend books may be as late as they will, but they contain in the Vendidad, Fargard I., an (interpolated) record of the oldest movements of our cousins, which reach back further than anything Semitic.

About Uttara-Kuru and the like, you also leave me in the lurch; and so I was obliged to see what Ptolemy and Co., and the books know and mention about them. It seems then to me impossible to deny that the Ὀττοροκοροι is the same, and points out the most eastern land of the old north, now in or near Shen-si, the first home of the Chinese; to me the eastern boundary of Paradise. But how remarkable, not so much that the Aryans, faithful people, have not forgotten their original home, but that the name should be Sanskrit! Therefore Sanskrit in Paradise, in 10,000 or 9000. Explain this to me, my dear friend. But first send me, within half an hour of receiving these lines, in case you have them, as they assume here, Lassen's maps of India (mounted), belonging to my copy of the book, and just now very necessary to me. You can have them again in July on the Righi. Madame Schwabe is gone to console that high-minded afflicted Cobden, or rather his wife, on the death of his only son, whom we have buried here. She passes next Sunday through London, on her return to her children, and will call at Ernst's. Send the maps to him with a couple of lines. If you have anything else new, send it also. I have read with great interest your clever and attractive chapter on the history of the Indian Hellenic mind, called mythology. Does John Bull take it in? With not less pleasure your instructive essay on “Burning and other Funereal Ceremonies.” How noble is all that is really old among the Aryans! Weber sent me the “Mâlavikâ,” a miserable thing, harem stories,—I hope by a dissolute fellow [pg 459] of the tenth century, and surely not by the author of “Sakuntala.” For your just, but sharply expressed and nobly suppressed essay against ——, a thousand thanks. I have to-day received the last sheet of “Egypt,” Book IV., and the last but one of Book V. (a), and the second of Book V. (b). These three volumes will appear on the 1st of June. The second half of Book V. (b) (Illustrations, Chronological Tables, and Index) I furnish subsequently for Easter, 1857, in order to have the last word against my critics.

Meanwhile farewell.

[71.]

It would be a great pleasure to you, my dear friend, if you could see the enthusiasm of my reawakened love for India, which possessed me in the years 1811-14, and which now daily overpowers me. But it is well that you are not here, for I dare not follow the notes of the siren till I have finished the “Signs of the Times,” and have the first volume of my five books of the “Bible” before me. I see clearly, from my point of view, that when one has the right frame, the real facts of the Indian life can be dug out from the exuberant wealth of poetry as surely as your Eros and the Charites, and the deepest thoughts from their ritual and mythology. True Germans and Anglo-Saxons are these Indian worthies. How grateful I am to Lassen for his conscientious investigations; also to Duncker for his representation of the history, made with the insight of a true historian. But all this can aid me but little. I can nowhere find the materials for filling up my frame-work; or, in case this frame-work should not itself be accurate, for destroying it and my whole chapter. Naturally all are ignorant of the time which precedes the great fable,—namely, the time of the Vedas.

And so I turn to you, with a request and adjuration which you cannot set aside. I give you my frame-work, the chronological canon, as it has been shaped by me. It is clear that we cannot depend on anything that stands in the noble Mahâbhârata and the sentimental Râmâyana, as to kings and lines of kings, unless it is confirmed by the Vedas; but they generally say the very opposite. All corruptions of history by our schoolmen and priests are but as child's play compared to the systematic [pg 460] falsifying and destruction of all history by the Brahmans. Three things are possible; (1) you may find my frame-work wrong because facts are against it; (2) you may find it useless because facts are missing; or (3) you may find the plan correct, and discover facts to support and further it. I hope for the last; but every truth is a gain. My scheme is this: The poets of the Veda have no chronological reckoning, the epic poets a false one. There remain the Greeks. To understand the narrative of Megasthenes, one must first restore the corrupted passages, which Lassen unfortunately has so entirely misunderstood.

Arr. Ind. ix., in Didot's “Geographi,” i. p. 320: Ἀπὸ μὲν δὴ Διονύσου (Svayambhû) βασιλέας ἠρίθμεον Ἰνδοὶ ἐς Σανδράκοττον τρεῖς καὶ πεντήκοντα καὶ ἑκατὸν, ἔτεα δὲ δύο καὶ τεσσαρακόσια (instead of πεντήκοντα) καὶ ἑξακισχίλια (6402, according to Pliny's text, confirmed by all MSS., and by Solinus Polyhist. 59; of Arrian we have but copies of one codex, and the lacuna is the same in all).

Ἐν δὲ τούτοισι τρὶς ΙΣΤΑΝΑΙ (instead of τὸ πᾶν εἰς, Arr. writes only ἐς) ἐλευθερίην (ἱστάναι is Herodotean for καθιστάναι, as every rational prose writer would have put).

ΤΗΝ ΜΕΝ ΕΣ ΔΙΑΚΟΣΙΑ.

τὴν δὲ καὶ ἐς τριακόσια,

τὴν δὲ εἴκοσί τε ἐτέων καὶ ἑκατόν.

The restoration is certain, because the omission is explained through the ὁμοιοτέλευτον, and gives a meaning to the καὶ. The sense is made indubitable by Diodorus' rhetorical rendering of the same text of Megasthenes, ii. 38: τὸ δὲ τελευταῖον, πολλαῖς γενεαῖς ὕστερον καταλυθείσης τῆς ἡγεμονίας δημοκρατηθῆναι τὰς πόλεις; cf. 39, ὕστερον δὲ πολλοῖς ἔτεσι τὰς πόλεις δημοκρατηθῆναι.

From this it follows that the monarchy was thrice interrupted by democratic governments, and that there were four periods. This is the Indian tradition. But the whole was conceived as one history, doubtless with a prehistoric ideal beginning, like our Manus and Tuiskon. Therefore, no cosmic periods (Brahmanical imposture), but four generations of Aryan history in India.

The Kaliyuga is a new world, just as much as Teutonic Christendom, but no more. The Indians will probably have commenced it A. D. 410, as friend Kingsley too (in his “Hypatia”). [pg 461] Where is the starting-point? I hold to 1015 years as the chronological computation up to the time of the Nandas.

For the Nandas, I hold to the 22 years.

If they say that Kâlâṣoka and his ten sons reigned 22 years; and Nanda, nine brothers in succession, 22 years; the 22 years is not wrong, either here or there, but the 22 is correct and the ten kingly personages also, for aught I care: but the names are altered (and really to do away with the plebeian Nanda), therefore it is neither 44, nor 88, nor 100 (which is nothing), but

	22
	——
From Parikshit to the year before Sandrakottus	1037
Sandrak's first year 312 (?), 317 (?), 320 (?). I have no opinion on the point, therefore take the middle number about	317
	——
Beginning of the fourth period	1354 B. C.
Interregnum, popular government	120
	——
End of the third period	1475

Nakshatra era 1476? (Weber, “Indian Studies,” ii. 240.)

This fourth period is that of the supremacy of the Brahmans in the beginning, with its recoil in Buddha towards the end.

In the year 1250 B. C. about the one hundredth year of the era, Semiramis invaded India (Dâvpara).

Third period of the royal dynasties, the great empire on the Jumna, not far from the immortal Aliwal. Beginning with the Dynasty of the Kurus. (Here the names of the kings and their works, as canals, etc. Seat of the empire, the Duâb; Hastinapura, Ayodhyâ; or still on the Sarasvatî)

	0 years
Interregnum between III. and II. (Must have left its traces. A pasted up break is surely there.)	300
Second period of royal dynasties (Tretâ)	0 years.

(Is this the historical life in the Punjab, with already existing kingdoms?) N. B. What is the third of the pure flames? Is it the people? Atria, latria, patria?

Interregnum between II. and I.

200 years.

First period. Beginning of the history after first x years, with an ideally filled up unmeasured period.

Beginning: Manu	6402
	317
	——
	6719 B. C.

Deduct from this a mythical beginning: a cycle of 5 × 12 = 60, or 600: at most 60 × 60 = 3600, at least 12 × 60=720. Or about 6 kings of 400 years each. Mean time: 2160.

Total: 4559.

(There remain, deducting 6 from 154 kings (with Dionysos), about 148.)

Length of time: 4559 - 1354 = 3205 ÷ 148 = 21-1/2 mean number of years for each historical government; which is very appropriate.

Zoroaster lived, according to Eudoxus and Aristotle (compared with Hermippos) 6350 or 6300 B. C. This points to a time of Zoroastrians migrating towards India, or having migrated, returning again. Accept the latter, and the beginning of the 6402 years lies very near the first period, and the Indianizing of the Aryans. Those accounts about Zoroaster are (as Eudoxus already proves) pre-Alexandrian, therefore not Indian, but Aryan. Do not the hymns of the Rig-veda, of which several are attributed to the kings of the Tretâ period, contain hints on that schism? If it really occurred in the Punjab some reminiscence would have been left there of it. The Zend books (wretched things) only give negative evidence.

The Brahmans of the most sinful period have of course smothered all that is historical in prodigies, and this wretched taste long appeared to the Germans as wisdom; whilst they despised the (certainly superficial) but still sensible English researches [pg 463] of Sir W. Jones and Co., as philistering! One must oppose this more inflexibly than even that admirable Lassen does. (N. B. Has Colbrooke anything on this? or Wilson?)

There may have been two points of contact between the Aryans and the kingdoms on the Euphrates before the expedition of Semiramis.

a. By means of the Zoroastrian Medo-Babylonian kingdom, which had its capital in Babylon from 2234 B. C. (1903 before Alexander) for about two centuries.

b. In the oldest primitive times, by the Turanian-Cushite or North African kingdom of Nimrod, which cannot be placed later than in the seventh chiliad. The Egyptians had a tradition of this, as is proved according to my interpretation by the historical germ in the story in the Timæos of the great combat of Europe and Asia against the so-called Atlantides: but these are uncertain matters.

That is a general sketch of my frame-work. If you are able to do anything with it, I make you the following proposition: You will send me an open letter in German (only without your Excellency, and as I beg you will always write to me, as friend to friend), in which you will answer my communication. Send me beforehand a few reflections and doubts for my text, which I must send away by the 15th of May. Your open letter must be sent in in June, if possible before the 15th, in order to appear before the 15th of July as an Appendix to my text of Book V. b. (fourth division) first half. I can do nothing in the matter; everything here is wanting. I cannot even find German books here. Therefore keep Lassen's maps, if you have them. I have in the mean time helped myself by means of Ritter and Kiepert to find the old kingdoms and the sacred Sarasvatî. That satisfies me for the present.

Soon a sign of life and love to your sorely tormented but faithful B.

[72.]

I have laid before you my restoration of the text of Megasthenes, and added a few preliminary thoughts on the possibility of the restoration of his traditions, and something of my restoring criticism. I have not however been able to rest since that time, without going to the very ground of the matter, to see if I am on a side-path, or on the right road. I now send you the summary of the two chapters which I have written since then.

I. The restoration of the list of Megasthenes. (153 kings in 6402 years.)

1. The list begins, like the Sanskrit tradition, with the first generation; three interregnums presuppose four periods.

2. The whole fourfold divided chronology is one: three sections of historical recollections lie before the Kali age. Lassen is therefore wrong in saying that Megasthenes began with the Tretâ age. The progress of the gradual extension of the kingdom is organic.

3. The foundation of the whole tradition of the four periods of time are the genealogical registers of the old royal families, which must if possible be localized; of course with special reference to Magadha, which however begins late. As in Egypt, every branch tried somewhere to find its place; we must therefore throw away or mark all names not supported by the legend (that is, the Vedic traditions). The contemporary dynasties must be separated from those that follow each other.

4. Each period was divided from the preceding by an historical fact,—a dissolution followed by a subjugation or a popular government. The first is divided from the second by Herakles—Krishna. The third from the second by Râma, the extirpator of the heroes and royal races (great rising of the people). The fourth from the third by purely historical revolutions, caused or fostered by the Assyrian invasion.

5. The mythical expression for these periods is one thousand years.

6. The historical interregnums are 200, 300, 120.

7. As both are the same, therefore 3 × 1000 years vanish, and there remain but the 620.

8. Therefore Megasthenes' list:

Megasthenes' list	6402
	3000
	——
Kings from the first patriarch to Sandrakottus	3402 years.
Interregnums	620
	——
	4022

First Period.

A. Aryan recollections. Megasthenes' list unites the traditions of the Moon-race (Budha) with that of the Sun-race (direct from Manu).

(1.) Questions. First question. What do the names Ayus and Yayâti mean? Is Nahusha = man?

(2.) I know king Ikshvâku, i.e., the gourd. Who are the Asuras, conquered by Prithu?

(3.) Anu, one of the four sons of Yayâti, is the North, not the Iranian, nor the Turanian, which is Turvasa, but the Semitic, i.e., Assur. Anu is the chief national god of the Assyrians, according to the cuneiform inscriptions. The cradle of the old dynasty was therefore called Telanu==hill of Anu. Salmanassar is called Salem-anu, i.e., face of Anu.

B. Indian primitive times.

1. Manu (primitive time)	1000
2-14. Thirteen human kings in the Punjab, each reigns on an average thirty-six years	468
15. Krishna, destruction	1000

2468 years, representing really only 268 + 200 years, with an unknown quantity representing Aryan migrations and settlements in the Punjab.

(4.) Question. Is Jones' statement correct in his chronology (Works, i. 299), that the fourth Avatâr must be placed between the first and second periods?

Second Period.

The kingdom of the Puru, and the Bharata kings. Royal residence, province of the Sarasvatî. Epos, the Râmâyana.

A. Period from Puru to Dushyanta.

Conquests from the Sarasvati on the north, and to Kalinga (Bengal) on the south. Conquerors: Tansu, Ilina, Bharata, Suhôtra (all Vedic names).

B. Period of destruction through the Pañkâlas.—Agamîdha (Suhôtra's son, according to the unfalsified tradition) is the human Râma, the instrument of destruction.

(5.) Question. Why is he called in Lassen, i. 590, the son of Rikshu? (This is another thousand years.)

Riksha is called in M. Bh. (Lassen, xxiii. note 17) son of Agamîdha, and in another place, wife of Agamîdha, or both times wife!

Third Period.

The Kurus; the Pañkâlas; the Pândavas. Seats in Middle Hindostan. Advance to the Vindhya (Epos, the Mahâbhârata of the third period, as the Râmâyana of the second).

A. Kingdoms of the Kurus.

B. Kingdom of the Pañkâlas. Contemporary lists; but the Pañkâlas outlast the Kurus. Both are followed by—

C. Kingdom of the Pândavas.

Ad. A. From Kuru to Devâpi who retires (that is, is driven away), Sântanu, Bahlîka, the Bactrian (?), there are eleven reigns. Then the three generations to Duryodhana and Arguna.

Parikshit represents the beginning of the Interregnum.

The list in the Vishnu-purâna of twenty-nine kings, from Parikshit to Kshemaka, with whom the race becomes extinct in the Kali age, does not concern us.

They are the lines of the pretenders, who did not again acquire the throne. The oldest list is probably only of six reigns; for the son of Satânîka, the third V. P. king of this list, is also called Udayana (Lassen, xxvi. note 23), and the same is the name of the twenty-fifth king, the son of Satânîka II. Therefore Brihadratha, Vasudâna, and Sudâsa (21, 22, 23) are likewise the last of a Parikshit line. But they do not count chronologically.

Fourth Period.

The kingdom of Magadha. Chronological clews for Megasthenes. The first part of the Magadha list preserved to us (Lassen, xxxi.) from Kuru to Sahadeva is an unchronological list of collateral lines of the third period, therefore of no value for the computation of time. The Kali list of Magadha begins with Somâpi to Ripungaya, 20 kings. The numbers are cooked in so stupid a way that they neither agree with each other nor are possible. One can only find the right number from lower down.

Restoration of the Chronology.

Kali II. Pradyota, five kings with	138 years.
Kali III. Saisunâga, ten kings with	360 years.
Kali IV. Nanda, father with eight or nine sons	22 years.
	——
Kali V. Kandragupta king	317 B. C.
	——
	837 years.

If one deducts these 837 years from 1182, the first year of the Kali age, there remain 345 years for the twenty kings from Somâpi to Ripungaya (First Dynasty), averaging 17-1/2 years. (That will do!) I adopt 1182 years, because 1354 is impossible, [pg 467] but 1181 is the historical chronological beginning of a kingdom in Kashmir. Semiramis invaded India under a Sthavirapati (probably only a title), about 1250. This time must therefore fall in the interregnum (120 years, after Megasthenes). The history of the war with Assyria (Asura?) is smothered by pushing forward the Abhîra, that is, the Naval War on the Indus (Diodorus).

I pass over the approximate restoration of the first three periods. I have given you a scanty abstract of my treatise, which I naturally only look upon as a frame-work. But if the frame-work be right, and of this I feel convinced, if I have discovered the true grooves and the system—then the unfalsified remains of traditions in the Vedas must afford further confirmation. The Kali can be fixed for about 1150/1190 by powerful synchronisms. The three earlier ages can be approximately restored. One thus arrives, by adding 200 + 300 + 120 (=620) to each of the earlier and thus separated periods, to the beginning of the Tretâ (foundation of the Bharata kingdom beginning with Puru). This leads to the following computation.

I. Anarchy before Puru	200 years.
II. From Puru to Bharata's father, 10 reigns of 20 years	200 years.
From Bharata to Agamîdha's son, 6 reigns	120 years.
End of II.	300 years.
	——
III. From Kuru to Bahlika (migration towards Bactria?) 10 reigns	200 years.
(Parikshit) apparently 6-7 reigns	120 years.
	——
End of the oldest Indian kingdom, before Kali	1340 years.
	1182 years.
	——
Beginning of Tretâ = 2522 B. C. (2234 Zoroaster invaded Babylon from Media) Second dynasties in Babylon	1100 years.
	——
	3622 years.

We have still to account for the time of the settlement in the Punjab and formation of kingdoms there. This gives as the beginning approximately = 4339 B. C.

And now I am very anxious to hear what you have made out, or whether you have let the whole matter rest as it is. I have postponed everything, in order to clear up the way as far as I can. I shall try to induce Weber to visit me in the Whitsun holidays, to look into the details for me, that I may not lay myself open to attack. Before that I shall have received Haug's entirely new translation of the first Fargard, which I shall print as an Appendix, with his annotations. My Chinese restoration has turned out most satisfactory.

I may now look forward to telling them: (1.) The rabbinical chronology is false, it is impossible; it has every tradition opposed to it, most of all so the biblical—therefore away with it! (2.) Science has not to turn back, but now first to press really forward, and to restore: the question is not the fixing of abstract speculative formulas, but the employing of speculation and philology for the reconstruction of the history of humanity, of which revelation is only a portion, though certainly the centre if we believe in our moral consciousness of God.

This is about what I shall say, as my last word, in the Preface to the sixth volume of “Egypt.” Volumes IV. and V. are printed. Deo soli gloria.

[73.]

My Dear Friend,—H. R. H. the Prince Regent, who starts for England to-morrow, wishes to see Oxford, and quietly and instructively. I therefore give these lines to his private secretary, Herr Ullmann, that he may by letter, or (if the time allows) by word of mouth, apply to you, to fix a day. Herr Ullmann is the son of the famous Dr. U., the present prelate and chief church-councilor, and a man of good intentions.

I have at last gone in for Vedic and Bactrian chronology, after having had Dr. Haug of Bonn with me for eight days. He translated and read to me many hymns from your two quartos (which he does very fluently), and a little of Sâyana's commentary. By this and by Lassen and Roth, and yours and Weber's communications, I believe I have saved myself from the breakers, and I hold my proofs as established:—

That the oldest Vedas were composed 3000-2500 B. C., and that everything else is written in a learned dead Brahmanical language, a precipitate of the Veda language, and certainly very late: scarcely anything before 800 B. C.

Manu takes his place after Buddha.

The ages of the world are the miserable system of the book of Manu, and nothing more than evaporated historical periods. These epochs can be restored not by the aid, but in spite of the two epics and their chronology.

Petermann sends me a beautiful map. The routes and settlements of the Aryans from their primitive home to the land of the five rivers (or rather seven).

Haug has worked out all the fourteen names. Kabul and Kandahar are hidden amongst them. I hope he will settle in the autumn with me, and for the next few years.

In haste, with hearty thanks for your affectionate and instructive answers. God bless you.

P. S. I shall take the liberty of sending you, about the 1st of July, the first five sheets of my Aryans, before they are printed off, and ten days later the remaining three or four, and beg for your instructive remarks on them.

[74.]

My dearly loved Friend,—Yesterday evening at half-past seven o'clock I wrote off my last chapter of “Egypt's Place” for press, and so the work is finished, the first sheets of which were sent to Gotha from London in 1843, the chief part of which however was written in 1838-39. You will receive the two new volumes (Books IV., V. a) in a fortnight; they will be published to-day. Of the third volume (the sixth of the German editions), or V. (b), twelve sheets are printed, and the other eighteen are ready, except a few sheets already at Gotha, including the index to I. to V. (a). I am in the main satisfied with the work.

You are the first with whom I begin paying off my debts of correspondence; and I rejoice that I can take this opportunity to thank you for all the delightful news which your last dear letter (sent by that most amiable Muir) conveyed to me; especially for the completion of the third big volume of the Rig-veda, and for the happy arrival of your mother and cousin, which has doubtless already taken place. You know it was a letter from the latter, which first told me of you, and made me wish to see you. And then you came yourself; and all that I prophesied of you after the first conversation in London and your first visit in the country, has been richly fulfilled—yes, [pg 470] beyond my boldest hopes. You have won an honorable position in the first English university, not only for yourself but for the Fatherland, and you have richly returned the love which I felt for you from the first moment, and have faithfully reciprocated a friendship which constitutes an essential portion of my happiness. I therefore thank you all the more for all the love and friendship of your last letters. I can only excuse myself by my book for not having sooner thanked you. I soon perceived that you were quite right, that the chronological researches on Indian antiquity have led to nothing more sure than the conviction that the earlier views, with few exceptions, were wrong or without foundation. As soon as I acquired this conviction, through reading the last works on the subject (Lassen and Roth), I grew furious, as it happens to me from time to time, and at the same time reawoke the longing after the researches which I had to lay aside in 1816, and which I now determined to approach again, in the course of my work, which is chronological in the widest sense. After I had read all that is written, I let Haug come to me in the Whitsun holidays. He brought with him the translation I wished for of the First Fargard of the Vendidad; and you can imagine my delight, when in Books XII. and XIII. he discovered for me (purely linguistically) the two countries, the non-appearance of which was the only tenable counter-reason which opposed itself to the intuition to which I had held fast since 1814—namely, that this document, so ancient in its primitive elements, contained nothing less than the history of the gradual invasion, founding of states, and peopling of Asia by the Aryans. How could Kandahar and Kabul be missing if this were true? Without the least suspicion of this historical opinion, Haug proved to me that they are not wanting. Petermann will make the whole clear in a little map, such as I showed him. You will find it in the sixth volume. Then he rejoiced my heart by translating some single hymns of the Rig-veda, especially in Book VII., which I found threw great light on the God-Consciousness, the faith in the moral government of the world. He comes to me: from the 1st of August he is free in Bonn, and goes for the Zend affairs to Paris, marries his bride in Ofterdingen, and comes here to me on the 1st of October for Mithridates and the Old Testament, the printing of which begins in January, 1857, with the Pentateuch. With him (in default of your personal presence) I have now gone through everything at which I arrived with regard to the period [pg 471] of the entry of the Aryans (4000 B. C.) in the Indus country (to which Sarasvatî does not belong—one can as easily count seven as five rivers from the eastern branch of the upper Indus to the west of the Satadru), and with regard to the difficult questions of the connection of these migrations with Zoroaster. That is, I must place Zoroaster before the emigration; on the march (from 5000-4000) the emigrants gradually break off. Three heresies, one after another, are mentioned in the record itself. The not exterminated germs of the nature-worship (with the adoration of fire) spring up again, but the moral life remained. (1.) Therefore the Veda language is to me the precipitate of the Old Bactrian (as the Edda language of the Old Norse). (2.) The Zend language is the second step from the Northern Old Bactrian. (3.) The Sanskrit is one still further advanced from the Southern Old Bactrian, or from the Veda language. (4.) All Indian literature, except the Vedas, is in the New South Bactrian, already become a learned language, which has been named the perfect or Sanskrit language. The epochs of the language are the three great historical catastrophes.

A. Kingdom in the region of the Indus.—4000-3000. The Veda language as a living popular language.

B. Second Period.—On the Sarasvatî and in the Duâb. The Veda tongue becomes the learned language. Sanskrit is the popular language, 3000-2000.

C. Third Period.—Sanskrit begins to be the learned language, at least at the end.

D. Kali=1150 B. C. Sanskrit merely the learned language.

Therefore the oldest Vedas, the purely popular, cannot be younger than 3000; the collection was made in the third period, the tenth book is already in chief part written in a dead language. You see all depends on whether I can authenticate the four periods with their three catastrophes; for a new form of language presupposes a political change. Forms such as Har-aqaiti I can explain just as that the Norwegian names of places are younger than the corresponding Icelandic forms; in the colony the old remains as a fixed form, in the mother country the language progresses.

For what concerns now seriously the Mythology, your spirited essay opening the way was a real godsend, for I had just arrived at the conviction which you will find expressed in the introduction to Book V. (a): That the so-called nature-religion can be nothing but the symbol of the primitive consciousness of [pg 472] God, which only gradually became independent (through misunderstanding) and which already lies prefigured in organic speech. P——, K—— and Co., are on this point in great darkness, or rather in utter error. You have kept yourself perfectly free from this mistake. I however felt that I must proclaim what is positively true far more sharply, and have drawn the outlines of a method which is to me the more convincing, as it has stood the test of the whole history of old religion. For in taking up the Aryan investigations, I closed the circle of my historical mythological inquiry. What will you say to this? For I have written the whole especially for you, to come to an understanding with you. I arrive at the same point which you aim at, but without your roundabout way, which is but a make-shift. But in the fundamental conception of nature-religion, we do certainly agree altogether. If you come to Germany, you will find here with me the proof-sheets of Book V.(b) (about pages 1-200) which treat of this section, as well as the analysis of the table of the Hebrew patriarchs. They will be looked through before Haug's journey to Paris and mine to Geneva (August 1), and will be therefore all struck off when I return here on the 23d August.

Your essay holds a beautiful place in the history of the subject. The work on that section gave me inexpressible delight, and a despaired-of gap in my life is filled up, as far as is necessary for my own knowledge; and I believe too not without advantage to the faithful.

How disgraceful it is that we do not instinctively understand the Veda language, when we read it in respectable Roman letters, with a little previous grammatical practice! Your Veda Grammar will be a closed book to me, as you print in the later Devanagari goose-foot character. Haug shall transliterate for me the grammatical forms into your alphabet. He is a noble Suabian, and much attached to me; also a great admirer of yours.

My “God-Consciousness” is printed (thirty-two sheets), twenty are corrected (and fought through with Bernays). This work, too, will be carried through the second revise before my journey. I wonder myself what will come of the work. Its extent remains unaltered (three volumes in six books), but its contents are ever swelling. I hope it will take. I shall strike the old system dead forever, if we do not go to ruin; of this I am sure; therefore I must all the more lay the foundations of the new structure in the heart, the conscience, and the reason.

O! what a hideous time! God be praised, who made us both free. So also is Carl now, through his official efficiency and his happy marriage. The wedding will take place in Paris between the 9th and 15th October. We shall go there.

I take daily rides, and was never better. Please God I shall finish the “God-Consciousness” (II. and III.) between the 25th August and the end of October (the third volume is nearly ready), and then I shall take up the “Biblework,” the proof-sheets of which lie before me, with undivided energy. The contract with Brockhaus is concluded and exchanged. I shall perhaps come to England in October, 1857; that is to say with the first volume of the Bible, but not without it.

Neukomm and Joachim have been with us for six weeks, which gave us the greatest enjoyment. Neukomm returns here at the end of August.

My children promise me (without saying it) to meet here for the 25th August, to introduce the amiable bride to me. I am rejoicing over it like a child.

Why do you not make a journey to the Neckar valley with your mother and cousin? My people send hearty greetings. With true love, yours.

I am purposely not reading your Anti-Renan all at once, that I may often read it over again before I finish it. I think it is admirably written. Perhaps a distinguished philologist, Dr. Fliedner (nephew of the head of the Deaconesses), may call on you. He has been highly recommended to me, and is worthy of encouragement. What is Aufrecht about? I cannot cease to feel interested about him.

[75.]

Yesterday, my dearest friend, I sent off the close of the last volume of “Egypt,” together with the printed sheets 13-19, and at the same time to Brockhaus the last two revised sheets of the “God in History,” Volume I.; and to-day I have again taken up the translation of the Bible (Exodus), with Haug and Camphausen—that is, Haug arrived the day before yesterday. (Between ourselves, I hope Bernays is coming to me for three years.) How I should have liked to show you these sheets, 13-19 (the Bactrians and Indians and their chronology). You will find in them a thorough discussion of your beautiful essay (which has been admired everywhere as a perfect masterpiece), not without [pg 474] some shakings of the head at K—— and B——. In fact I have gone in for it, and by New Year's Day you shall have it before you. This, with the journey to Switzerland and three weeks of indisposition afterwards, are an excuse for my silence.

It always gives me great and inexpressible pleasure when you talk to me by letter and think aloud. And this time I have been deeply touched by it. I am convinced you have since then yourself examined the considerations which oppose themselves to your bold and noble wish with regard to the Punjab. What would become of your great work? I will not here say what shall we in Europe do without you? Also; do you mean to go alone to Hapta Hendu, or as a married man? There you will never find a wife. And would your intended go with you? And the children? All Englishmen tell me it is just as unbearably hot in Lahore as in Delhi; in Umritsir there is no fresh air. No Sing goes to Cashmir because he who reigns there would soon dispatch him out of the world at the time of the fever.

By the by, what has become of your convert? Does he still smoke without any scruple?

Your gorgeous Rig-veda at Brockhaus' frightens people here because of its extent (they would have given up the Sanhita, satisfied with various readings) and the exorbitant price. Others would willingly have had your own Veda Grammar besides the Indian grammatical treatise, especially on account of the Vedic forms. In fact you are admired, but criticised. You must not allow this to annoy you. I find that Haug thinks about the mythology nearly as I do.

Everything in Germany resolves itself more and more into pettinesses and cliques, and the pitiful question of subsistence. “The many princes are our good fortune, but poverty is our crime.” Had not Brunn offered himself to take Braun's place, giving up his private tutorship, we must have given up the Archæological Institute at Rome! With difficulty Gerhard has found one man in Germany who could undertake the Italian printing of the “Annali” (appearing, as you know, in Gotha). “Resta a vedere se lo può!” All who can, leave Prussia—and only blockheads or hypocrites are let in, with the exception of physical science; whoever can do so turns engineer, or goes into a house of business, or emigrates. My decided advice on this account therefore is, reserve yourself for better times, and stay at present in England, where you have really won a delightful position for yourself.

Now for various things about myself. Every possible thing is done to draw me away from here (my third capitol, the first of my own). The King quite recently (which I could not in the least expect) received me here at the railway station, in the most affectionate way, and demanded a promise from me that I would pay him a visit within a year and a day. But I have once for all declared myself as the “hermit of Charlottenberg,” and hermits and prophets should stay at home. I do not even go to Carlsruhe and Coblentz. Cui bono? What avails good words, without good deeds? But the nation is not dead. Don't imagine that. Before this month is out you will see what I have said on this subject in the Preface to the “God in History.” Within six to ten years the nation will again be fit to act. Palmerston will cut his throat if nothing comes of the Neapolitan business, and just the same if he cannot make “a good case;” the principle of intervention even against Bomba is self-destruction for England, and disgraceful in the highest degree. The fox cannot begin war in Italy at the present moment from want of money, and his accomplices are afraid of losing their stolen booty. So he tries to gain time. He will still live a few years.

I have seen ——: he knows a great deal more than he allows to appear, but is the driest, and most despairing Englishman I have ever seen. He has suffered shipwreck of everything on the Tübingen sand bank. The poor wretches! Religion and theology without philosophy is bad; philosophy without philosophy is a monster! So Comte is a trump-card with many in Oxford! He is so in London. What a fall of intellect! what a decay of life! what an abyss of ignorance! Jowett is a living shoot, and will continue so; but John Bull is my chief comfort, even for my “God in History.” America is my greatest misery after my misery for Germany; but the North will prove itself in the right.

With hearty greetings of truest attachment and love to your mother, truly yours.

We expect George on the 18th. Ernst is here.

[76.]

You have really inflicted it on me! For though I have but one leg to stand upon (I cannot sit at all), as the other has been suffering for four days from sciatica (let Dr. Acland explain [pg 476] that to you, whilst you at the same time thank him heartily for his excellent book on the cholera), still I am obliged to place myself at the desk, to answer my dear friend's letter, received yesterday evening in bed. The last fortnight I have daily thought of you incessantly, and wished to write you a dunning letter, at the same time thanking you for the third volume of the Veda, which already contains some hymns of the seventh book, as the admiring Haug read it out to me. Out of this especially he promises me a great treasure for my Vedic God-Consciousness, without prejudice to what the muse may perhaps prompt you to send me in your beautiful poetical translation; for my young assistant will have nothing to do with that. You will certainly agree with him, after you have read my first volume, that much is to be found in that Veda for the centre of my inquiries; the consciousness in the Indian Iranians of the reality of the divine in human life. I find in all that has yet come before me, almost the same that echoes through the Edda, and that appears in Homer as popular belief; the godhead interferes in human affairs, when crime becomes too wanton, and thus evil is overcome and the good gains more and more the upper hand. Of course that is kept in the background, when despair in realities becomes the keynote of the God-Consciousness, as with the Brahmans, and then with the much-praised apostles of annihilation, the Buddhists. You are quite right; it is a pity that I could not let the work appear all at once, for even you misunderstand me. When I say “we cannot pray with the Vedas and Homer and their heroes, not even with Pindar,” I mean, we as worshippers, as a community; and that you will surely allow. Of course the thoughtful philosopher can well say with Goethe, “worship and liturgy in the name of St. Homer, not to forget Æschylus and Shakespeare.” But that matter is nevertheless true in history without any limitation. I have only tried it with Confucius, but it is more difficult; it is as if an antediluvian armadillo tried to dance.

But what will my Old Testament readers say when I lead them into the glory of the Hellenic God-Consciousness? Crossing and blessing themselves won't help! My expressions therefore in the second volume are carefully considered and cautiously used. But the tragedy of my life will be the fourth book. Yet I write it, I have written it!

You are quite right about the English translation; all the three volumes at once, and the address at the beginning. But [pg 477] you must read the second book for me. It is no good saying you don't understand anything about it. I have made it easy enough for you. I have asserted nothing simply, without making it easy for every educated person to form his own opinion, if he will only reflect seriously about the Bible. The presuppositions are either as good as granted, or where anything peculiar to me comes in, I have in the notes justified everything thoroughly, although apparently very simply. Take the Lent Sundays for this, and you will keep Easter with me, and also your amiable mother (from whom you never send me even a word of greeting).

But now, how does it fare with “Egypt?” The closing volume, which, as you know, I wrote partly out of despair, because you would not help me, and in which I most especially thought of you, and reckoned on your guiding friendship, must surely now be in your hands (the two preceding volumes, of course, some time ago). Why don't you read them?

I am not at all easy at what you tell me about yourself and your feelings; even though I feel deeply that you do not quite withdraw your inmost thoughts from me. But why are you unhappy? You have gained for yourself a delightful position in life. You are getting on with your gigantic work. You (like me) have won a fatherland in England, without losing your German home, the ever excellent. You have a beautiful future before you. You can at any moment give yourself a comfortable and soul-satisfying family circle. If many around you are Philisters, you knew that already; still they are worth something in their own line. Only step boldly forward into life. Then Heidelberg would come again into your itinerary.

One thing more this time. I have not received Wilson's translation. I possess both the first and second volumes. Has he not continued his useful work? What can I do to remind him of the missing part? The third volume, too, must contain much that is interesting for me.

I cannot forget Aufrecht. Is he free from care and contented? The family greet you and your dear mother. We expect Charles and his young wife next week. Ernst is, as you will know, back at Abbey Lodge. With unaltered affection.

[77.]

The month is nearly over, my dear friend, before the close of which I must, according to agreement, deliver up my revised copy of the amendments and additions to the English edition of my “Egypt.” (They are already there.) I hoped that in this interval you would have found a little leisure (as Lepsius and Bernays have done, who sent me the fruits of their reading already at the beginning of the month, in the most friendly way) to communicate to me your criticisms or doubts or thoughts or corrections on that which I have touched on in your own especial territory, as I had expressly and earnestly begged you to do. I have improved the arrangement very much. As you have not done this, I can only entertain one of two disagreeable suppositions, namely, that you are either ill or out of spirits, or that you have only what is disagreeable to say of my book, and would rather spare yourself and me from this. But as from what I know of you, and you know of me, I do not find in either the one or the other supposition a sufficient explanation of your obstinate silence, I should have forced myself to wait patiently, had I not to beg from you alone a small but indispensable gift for my “God in History.”

I have again in this interregnum taken up the interrupted studies of last year on the Aryan God-Consciousness in the Asiatic world, and thanks to Burnouf's, yours, Wilson's, Roth's and Fausböll's books, and Haug's assistance and translations, I have made the way easy to myself for understanding the two great Aryan prophets Zaraduschtra and Sākya, and (so far as that is possible to one of us now) the Veda; and this not without success and with inexpressible delight. My expectations are far exceeded. The Vedic songs are by far the most glorious, which in first going through that fearful translation of Wilson's, seemed to wish to hide themselves entirely from me. The difficulties of making them intelligible, even of a bare translation, are immense; the utter perverseness of Sâyana is only exceeded by that of Wilson, to whom however one can never be grateful enough for his communications. I now first perceive what a difficult but also noble work you have undertaken, and how much still remains doubtful; even after one has got beyond the collectors and near to the original poets. It is as if of the Hebrew traditions we only had the Psalms, and that without an individual personality like David, without, in fact, any one; on the contrary, allusions to Abraham's possible poems and the cosmical [pg 479] dreams of the Aramæans. But yet how strong is the feeling of immediate relation to God and nature, how truly human, and how closely related to our own! What a curious similarity to the Edda, Homer, and Pindar, Hesiod, and the Hellenic primitive times! Nothing however gave me greater delight than the dignity and solemnity of the funeral ceremonies, which you have made so really clear and easy to be understood. This is as yet the only piece of real life of our blood relations in the land of the five rivers. I have naturally taken possession of this treasure with the greatest delight, and perfected the description for my problem by the explanation of Yama (following on the whole Roth, who however overlooks the demiurgic character), of the Ribhus (departing entirely, not only from Nève's mistaken views, but also from what I have read elsewhere, representing them as the three powers which divide and form matter, namely, Air, Water, and Earth, to whom the fourth, Agni, was joined under the guidance of Tvash'ar), and of the funeral ceremonies as the condition of the laws of inheritance; where I return to my own beginning. And here it strikes me at once that in the Vedas, so far as they are accessible to me, there is not a trace to be found of the joining together of the three generations (the departed and his father and grandfather), and making them the unity of the race through the sacrificial oblations. And yet the idea must be older than the Vedas, as this precise, though certainly not accidental limitation is found with Solon and the Twelve Tables, just as clearly as with Manu and all the books of laws, and the commentaries collected by Colebrooke. You would of course have mentioned this in your account if anything of the sort had existed in the tenth book. But even the Pitris, the fathers, are not mentioned, but it passes on straight to Yama the first ancestor. Haug, too, has discovered nothing; if you know anything about it, communicate it to me in the course of May, for my second volume goes to press on the 1st June. I shall read it aloud to George and Miss Wynn here, between the 25th and 31st.

But my real desire is that you should send me one of your melodious and graceful metrical translations of your hymn, “Nor aught nor nought existed.” I must of course give it (it belongs with me to the period of transition, therefore, comparatively speaking, late); and how can I venture to translate it? I have, to be sure, done so with about five poems, which Haug chose for me out of the first nine books, and translated literally [pg 480] and then explained them to me; as well as with those which I worked out of Wilson's two first volumes by the help of Roth and Haug. But that is your hymn, and I have already written my thanks for your communication in my MS. and then left a space. That good Rowland Williams thinks it theistic, or at all events lets one of the speakers say so.

Rowland Williams' “Christ and Hinduism” has been a real refreshment to me, in this investigation of the Indian consciousness of God in the world. The mastery of the Socratic-Platonic dialogue, the delicacy and freedom of the investigation, and the deep Christian and human spirit of this man, have attracted me more than all other new English books, and even filled me with astonishment. Muir, that good man, sent it me through Williams and Norgate, and I have not only thanked him, but Williams himself, in a full letter, and have pressingly invited him for his holidays to our little philosophers' room. It is an especial pleasure to me that Mary and John, whose neighbor he is in summer, have appreciated him, and loved and prized him, and Henry also.

Henry will bring me “Rational Godliness.” This book, English as it is, should be introduced into India, in order to convert the followers of Brahma and the English Christians! One sees what hidden energy lies in the English mind, as soon as it is turned to a worthy object, but for this of course the fructifying influences of the German spirit are required. I have, on the contrary, been much disappointed by G——'s communication contained in Burnouf's classical works, on that most difficult but yet perfectly soluble point of the teaching of Buddha, the twelve points “beginning with ignorance and ending with death.” G—— leaves the rational way even at the first step, and perceives his error himself at the ninth, but so far he finds Buddha's (that is his own) proofs unanswerable. How totally different is Burnouf. He is fresh, self-possessed, and clear. I can better explain why William von Humboldt went astray on this subject. But I have already gossiped too much of my own thoughts to you. Therefore to Anglicis.

What are you about in Oxford? According to Haug's account you have abused me well, or allowed me to be well abused in your “Saturday Review,” which passes as yours and Kingsley's mouthpiece. If it were criticism, however mistaken, but why personal aspersions? Pattison's article on the “Theologia Germanica” in the April number of the “Westminster [pg 481] Review” is very brave, and deserves all thanks. He has learnt to prize Bleek: in all respects he has opened himself more to me in the last few weeks, and I like him. But the man who now writes the survey of foreign literature in the “Westminster Review” might have just read my book: this he cannot have done, or else he is a thorough bungler; for he (1) understands me only as representing the personal God (apparently the one in the clouds, as you once expressed it, a-straddle, riding) and leaving out everything besides; (2) that the last twenty-seven chapters of the book of Isaiah are not, as one has hitherto conceived, written by one man, but by Jeremiah, although he is already the glorified saint of the 53d chapter, and by Baruch. Now thank God that the sheet is finished, and think occasionally in a friendly way of your true friend.

I shall to-day finish the ante-Solonic God-Consciousness of the Hellenes. That does one good.

[78.]

I must at least begin a letter to you to-day, because I feel I must thank you, and express my delight at the letter and article. The letter confirms my fears in the highest degree, namely, that you are not well, not to say that you begin to be a hypochondriacal old bachelor. But that is such a natural consequence of your retired sulky Don's life, and of your spleen, that I can only wonder how you can fight so bravely against it. But both letter and article show me how vigorous are both your mind and heart. It is quite right in you to defend Froude, though no one better knows that the general opinion is (as is even acknowledged by members of the German romantic school) that Shakespeare intentionally counteracted the corrupt instinct and depraved taste of his nation in the matter of Oldcastle. Whatever strange saints there have been in all countries, yet the Wycliffites, true to their great and noble master, were martyrs, and Milman has insisted on this most nobly. To misapprehend Wyeliffe himself, that is, not to recognize him as the first and purest reformer, the man between the Waldenses, Tauler, and Luther, is, however, a heresy more worthy of condemnation than the ignoring of Germany in the Reformation, and doubly deplorable when one sees such blind faith in the bloody sentences of that most miserable court of judgment of Henry VIII. I must therefore invert your formula thus, [pg 482] “L'histoire romanique (romantique) ne vaut pas le Roman historique.” (I am not speaking of “Two Years Ago,” for I only began to read the book yesterday.) But I am very glad that you think so highly of Froude personally, and therefore this matter does not disturb me. On the other hand, I rejoice without any but, that you have taken up Buddha so lovingly and courageously. (Do you know that extracts from the article have found their way into the papers, through “Galignani” as “Signs of the Times.”) You will soon see how nearly we agree together, although I cannot say so much of the humanizing influence of Buddhism: it makes of the Turanians what the Jesuits make of the people of Paraguay, “praying machines.” In China the Buddhists are not generally respected; in India they could not maintain their position, and would with difficulty convert the people, if they tried to regain their lost ground. But Buddha, personally, was a saint, a man who felt for mankind, a profound man. I have said in my section, “Buddha has not only found more millions of followers than Jesus, but is also even more misunderstood than the Son of Mary.” Have you read Dhammapadam? What is the authority for Buddha's “Ten Commandments?” I have always considered this as an invention of Klaproth's, confirmed by Prinsep. I do not find them on Asoka's pillars, nor in that didactic poem; on the contrary, four or five ad libitum. I shall, however, now read the sermons of the (really worthless) convert Asoka at the fountain head, from Sprenger's library.

You have represented the whole as with a magic wand. We really edified ourselves yesterday evening with it. Frances read aloud, and we listened; and this morning early my wife has made it into a beautiful little book in quarto, with which I this afternoon made Trübner very happy for some hours. He is a remarkable man, and is much devoted to you, and I have entered into business relations with him about my “Biblework,” the first volume of which goes to press on the 1st of January; the other six stand before me as far finished as they can be, till I have the printed text of “The People's Bible” in three volumes before me, on which the “Biblical Documents,” three volumes, and the “Life of Jesus and the Eternal Kingdom of God,” one volume, are founded. He appears to me to be the right negotiator between America, England, and Germany. He will before long call on you some Saturday. (Write me word how you think of him as a bookseller.) The duty you pay for [pg 483] your place, by putting together a Chresthomathy, is very fair; whether you are obliged to print your Lectures I cannot decide. I shall curse them both if they prevent you from tearing yourself away from the Donnish atmosphere and bachelor life of Oxford, and from throwing yourself into the fresh mental atmosphere of Germany and of German mind and life. You must take other journeys besides lake excursions and Highland courses. Why don't you go to Switzerland, with an excursion (by Berlin) to Breslau, to the German Oriental Congress? There is nothing like the German spirit, in spite of all its one-sidedness. What a lœta paupertas! What a recognition of the sacerdocy of science! And then the strengthening air, free from fog, of our mountains and valleys! You bad fellow, to tell me nothing of your mother's leaving you, for you ought to know that I am tenderly devoted to her; and it vexes me all the more, as I should long ago have sent her my “God in History,” had I known that she was in Germany. (Query where? Address?) Therefore fetch her, instead of luring her away to the walks under the lime-trees. George is going too at the end of June from here to the Alps; we expect him in a fortnight. He is a great delight to me.

Now something more about Yama. I think you are perfectly right with regard to the origin. It is exactly the same with Osiris, the husband of Isis, the earth, and then the judge of the dead and first man. Only we do not on this account explain Anubis as a symbol of the sun, but as the watchful Dog of Justice, the accuser. So there are features in Yama (and Yima) which are not to be easily explained from the cosmogonic conception, although they can be from the idea of the divine, the first natural representation of which is the astral one. I think, however, that Yama is Geminus, that is “the upper and lower sun,” to speak as an Egyptian. The two dogs must originally have been what their mother the old bitch Saramâ is; but with the God of Death they are something different, and the lord of the dead is to be as little explained by the so-called nature-religion without returning to the eternal factor, as this first phase itself could have arisen without it as cosmical—therefore, as first symbol. How I long for your two translations! The hymn which you give in the article is sublime: the search after the God of the human heart is expressed with indescribable pathos; and how much more will this be the case in your hands in a new Indian translation! For we are most surely now the Indians of [pg 484] the West. I am delighted that you so value Rowland Williams. We must never forget that he has undertaken (as he himself most pointedly wrote to me) the difficult task “to teach Anglican theology (and that to Anglican Cymri).” He has not yet quite promised to pay me a visit,—he is evidently afraid of me as a German and freethinker, and is afraid “to be catechised.” He, like all Englishmen, is wanting in faith. He seems to occupy himself profoundly with the criticism of the Old Testament. Poor fellow! But he will take to Daniel.

The Harfords are determined to keep him there, in which Henry has already encouraged them. I, however, think he ought to go to Cambridge if they offer him a professorship. Muir has written to me again,—an honest man; but he has again taken a useless step, a prize, for which Hoffmann (superintendent-in-general) is to be the arbiter; and the three judges will be named by him, Lehnert as theologian (Neander's unknown successor), H. Ritter as the historian of philosophy (very good,—and who as Orientalist)! No magister will touch his pen, his ducibus and tali auspicio. You should perform the Benares vow by a catechism drawn up for the poor young Brahmans in the style of Rowland Williams, and yet quite different, that is, in your own manner, telling and short. At all events, no one in Germany will write half as good a book for the Brahmans as Williams has done. The Platonic dialogue requires a certain breadth, unless one is able and willing to imitate the Parmenides. At the same time the ordinary missionaries may convert the lower classes through the Gospel and through Christian-English-German life, in which alone they prove their faith. By the by, it seems that Williams hopes for an article from you in the “North British Review.” That you intend to read my “Egypt” is delightful; only not in the Long Vacation, when you ought to travel about. Have you read the friendly article on “God in History” in the “National Review” (April), which however certainly shows an ignorance bordering on impudence. Even the man in the “Westminster Review” pleases me better, although he looked through my book fast asleep, and puts into my mouth the most unbelievable discoveries of his own ignorance,—Isaiah chapters xlix.-lxvi. are written by Jeremiah and Baruch, and similar horrors! When will people learn something? But in four years I hope, with God's help, to state this, in spite of them, and force them at last to learn something through “the help of their masters and mine.” With true love, yours.

[79.]

See there he remains in the centre of Germany for a month, and lets one hear and see nothing of him! Had I not soon after the receipt of your dear and instructive letter gone to Wildbad, and there fallen into indescribable idleness, I should long ago have written to Oxford; for the letter was a great delight to me. The snail had there crept out of his shell and spoke to me as the friend, but now “Your Excellency” appears again; so the snail has drawn his head in again.

Now, my dear friend, you ought to be thanked for the friendly thought of paying me a visit, and writing to me. Therefore you must know that I returned here on the 19th, in order to greet, in his father's native country, Astor, my now sixty-three years old pupil, who proposed himself for the 20th to the 25th, and who for my sake has left his money-bags in order to see me once again. And now Astor is really in Europe, and has called at Abbey Lodge; but his wife and granddaughter have stayed on in Paris or Brussels, and Astor is not yet here. This, however, has no effect on my movements, for I do not accompany him to Switzerland, where, I know, Brockhaus would send a hue and cry after me.

That the Oxford Don should ask him if I would afford him a “few hours,” shows again the English leaven. For you well know that my hermit's life is dear to me for this reason,—that it leaves me at liberty to receive here the Muses and my friends. And what have we not to talk over? The “hours” belong to the Don's gown; for you know very well that we could in a “few hours” only figure to ourselves what we have to discuss by turns. So come as soon as you can, and stay at least a week here. You will find my house to be sure rather lonely, as Henry has robbed me of the womankind, and Sternberg of Theodora; and that excellent princess keeps Emilia from me, who is faithfully nursing her benefactress in an illness that I hope is passing away. We two old people are, however, here and full of old life. Perhaps you will also still find Theodore, who, however, soon after Astor's departure will be hurrying off to Falmouth for sea-bathing, in acceptance of his brother Ernst's invitation. Laboulaye has announced himself for the 8th; Gerhard and his wife for the first or second week in September; therefore, if you do find any one, they will be friends. Besides [pg 486] Meyer, there is Dr. Sprenger, the Arabic scholar, as house friend, whose library I have at last secured for us,—a delightful man, who is my guide in the Arabian desert, so that I may be certain of bringing the children of Israel in thirty months to the Jabbok, namely, in the fifth of the eight volumes.

I can give you no better proof of my longing to see you than by saying that you shall even be welcome without your mother, who is so dear and unforgotten to us all, although we by no means give up the hope that you will bring her with you here. For I must see her again in this life. I ought to have thanked her before this for a charming letter, but I did not know where she had gone from Carlsbad; her son never sent me the address. Should she not come with you, you must pay toll for the delay, which, however, must not be longer than one year, with a photograph, for I must soon see her.

So you have looked at my Genesis! I am pleased at this. But I hope you will look at the chapters once again, when they are set in pages, after my last amendments; also at my discussions on Genesis i. 1-4, ii. 4-7, as i. and ii. of the thirty thorns (in the Appendix, p. cxxxv.) which I have run into the weak side of the Bible dragon, though less than one thirtieth of its heaviest sins. I feel as if I had got over three quarters of the work since I sent the eleven chapters and the thirty thorns into the world. My holidays last till the 21st of October. Haug is in the India House, over Minokhired and Parsi Bundehesh. If you have a moment's time, look at my quiet polemic against you and Burnouf in favor of Buddha, in reference to the Nirvâna. Koeppen has given me much new material, although he is of your opinion. I am quite convinced that Buddha thought on this point like Tauler and the author of the “German Theology;” but he was an Indian and lived in desperate times. A thousand thanks for the dove which you sent me out of the ark of the Rig-Veda. I had sinned against the same hymn by translating it according to Haug, as I had not courage enough to ask you for more. And that leads me to tell you with what deep sympathy and melancholy pleasure your touching idyl has filled me. You will easily believe me that after the first five minutes I saw you vividly behind the mask. I thank you very much for having ordered it to be sent to me. I am very glad that you have written it, for I would far rather see you mixing in the life of the present and future, with your innate freshness and energy. I must end. All love from me and Fanny to your incomparable mother. So to our speedy meeting. Truly yours.

George will have arrived in London yesterday with wife and child; his darling Ella has a serious nervous affection, and they are to try sea air. He is much depressed.

[80.]

Your affectionate letter, my dear friend, has touched me deeply. First your unaltered love and attachment, and that you have perfectly understood me and my conduct in this affair. Naturally my fate will be very much influenced by it. I must be every year in Berlin: this year I shall satisfy myself with the last three weeks after Easter. In 1859 (as I shall spend the winter in Nice) I shall take my seat, when I return in April across the Alps. But later (and perhaps from 1859) I must not only live in Prussia, which is prescribed by good feeling and by the constitution, but I must stay for some time in Berlin. They all wish to have me there. God knows how little effort it costs me not to seek the place of Minister of Instruction, to say nothing of declining it, for everything is daily going more to ruin. But it could only be for a short time, and Bethmann-Hollweg, Usedom, and others can do the right thing just as well, and have time and youth to drag away the heavy cart of a Chinese order of business, which now consumes nine tenths of the time of a Prussian minister (who works twelve hours a day).

What I wish and am doing with my “Biblework,” you will see between the lines of my first volume; other people, twelve months later, when my first volume of the Bible documents “comes out:” and even then they will not see where the concluding volume tends,—the world's history in the Bible, and the Bible in the world's history. Already in the end of 1857 I finished all of the first volume: the stereotyping goes on fearfully slow. You will receive one of the first copies which goes across the Channel; and you will read it at once, will you not? I am delighted that you are absorbed in Eckart: he is the key to Tauler, and there is nothing better, except the Gospel of St. John. For there stands still more clearly than in the other gospel writings, that the object of life in this world is to found the Kingdom of God on earth (as my friends the Taipings understand it also). Of this, Eckart and his scholars had despaired, just as much as Dante and his parody, Reineke Fuchs. You will find already many pious ejaculations of this kind in my two volumes of “God in History;” but I have deferred the closing [pg 488] word till the sixth book, where our tragedy will be revealed, in order to begin boldly with a new epos. I send you to-day four sheets by book-post, “The Aryans in Asia;” for I cannot finish it without your personal help. You will find that you have already furnished a great portion of the matter. The same hymn which I translated with difficulty and trouble from Haug's literal translation (in strophes which you however do not recognize?) (Ps. li.), you have translated for me, in your own graceful manner, on a fly-sheet, and sent to me from Leipzig. Of course I shall use this translation in place of my own. I therefore venture to request that you will do the same with regard to the other examples which I have given. If you wish to add anything new, it will suit perfectly, for everything fits in at the end of the chapter: the number of the pages does not come into consideration in the present stage. You will receive the leaves on Saturday; it would be delightful if you could finish them in the course of the following week, and send them back to me. (We have a contract here with France, which gives us a sort of book-post.) I expect next week the continuation of the Brahmanism and Buddha. I should like to send both to you. The notes and excursus will only be printed at the close of the volume, therefore not before May. The rest (Books V., VI.) will be printed during the summer, to appear before I cross the Alps. In this I develop the tragedy of the Romano-Germanic world, and shall both gain many and lose many friends by it. I have read your brilliant article on Welcker with great delight. I possess it. Have you sent it (if only anonymously) to the noble old man? He has deserved it. The article makes a great noise, and will please him very much. In fact, everything would give me undisturbed pleasure, did I not see (even without your telling me, which, however, you have done, as is the sacred duty between friends) that you are not happy in yourself. Of one thing I am convinced,—you would be just as little so, even less, in Germany, and least of all among the sons of the Brahmans. If you continue to live as you do now, you would everywhere miss England,—perhaps also Oxford, if you went to London. Of this I am not clear: in general a German lives far more freely in the World-city than in the Don-city, where every English idiosyncrasy strengthens itself, and buries itself in coteries. Unfortunately I have neither read “Indophilus” nor “Philindus:” please tell me the numbers of the “Times.” I can get a copy of the “Times” here from [pg 489] the library from month to month. Trevelyan is an excellent man, occasionally unpractical and mistaken, always meaning well and accessible to reason. But does any one study in London? Dubito! But I don't understand the plan of an Oriental College. Perhaps it is possible to undertake London without giving up Oxford entirely. The power of influencing the young men, who after ten or twenty years will govern the land, is far greater in Oxford or Cambridge than in London. I am curious about your “German Reading Book.”

I maintain one thing,—you are not happy; and that comes from your bachelor life. The progress of your Vedic work delights me: but how much in it is still a riddle! Thus, for instance, the long hymn (2 Ashtaka, third Adhyâya, Sûkta viii. CLXIV.) p. 125. The hymn is first of all, as can be proved, beyond verse 41 not genuine; but even this older portion is late, surely already composed on the Sarasvatî. The Veda is already a finished book (verse 39), Brahma and Vishnu are gods (35, 36). The whole is really wearisome, because it wishes to be mysterious without an idea. (See 4 Ashtaka, seventh Adhyâya, vol. iii. p. 463.) Is not Brahma there a god like Indra?

I depend on your marking all egregious blunders with a red pencil. Many such must still have remained, leaving out of view all differences of opinion. Tell me as much as you can on this point in a letter, for on the Continent only notes for press are allowed to go as a packet. (But of these you can bring in as much as you wish: the copy is a duplicate.) At the end I should much like to write something about the present impossibility of enjoying the Rig-Veda, and of the necessity of a spiritual key. But I do not quite know, first of all, whether one can really enter upon the whole: there is much that is conventional and mortal by the side of what is imperishable. An anthology in about two or three volumes would find a rapid sale, and would only benefit a more learned and perfect edition. If you have arrived at the same conclusion, I will blow the trumpet.

George greets you heartily, as do his mother and sisters. Perhaps I shall move in April, 1859, to Bonn; here I shall not stay. Deus providebit. With truest affection, yours.

Best remembrance to your mother. Have you read my preface to “Debit and Credit?” I have poured out my heart about Kingsley in the Introduction to the German “Hypatia,” and told him that everybody must say to himself, sooner or late, “Let the dead bury the dead.”

[81.]

With threefold joy, my loved friend, have I heard the news through your great admirer Mme. Schwabe, of your charming intention of delighting us in August with a visit. First, on account of the plan itself: then because I can now compress into a few lines the endless letter I have so long had in my thoughts, to develop it in conversation according to my heart's desire; thirdly, because really since yesterday the day has come when the one half of the concluding volume (iii.) of “God in History” has gone to press, so that its appearing is secured. A letter to you, and a like debt to Lepsius, therefore open the list. And now before anything else receive my hearty thanks for your friendly and instructive letter, and what accompanied it in Vedicis. It came just at the right time, and you will see what use I made of it in the work.

And now here first come my congratulations. Nothing could be more agreeable and suitable; it is personally and nationally an honor, and an unique acknowledgment. I can only add the wish that you may enjoy the dignity itself as short a time as possible, and take leave as soon as possible of the Fellow-celibates of All Souls'. Your career in England wants nothing but this crowning-point. How prosperous and full of results has it been! Without ceasing to be a German, you have appropriated all that is excellent and superior in English life, and of that there is much, and it will last for life. I imagine you will bring your historical Chrestomathy with you, and propose to you, as you most probably give something out of the Heliand and Ulphilas, to reserve my Woluspa for the next edition, as I have just established the first tenable text of this divine poem, on which the brothers Grimm would never venture. I have had this advantage, of working on the good foundation of my studies (with a Danish translation) of 1815 from Copenhagen. Neither Magnusson, nor Munch, nor Bergmann has given the text of the only MS. (Cod. Regius); one has disfigured it with the latest interpolations, another with unauthorized transpositions. I have at last worked out the unity of the Helgi and the Sigurd songs with each other, and the oldest purely mythological stratum (the solar tragedy) of both, as an important link in the chain of evidence, for the reality of the God-Consciousness of mankind and its organic laws. What people will say to the “results” (Book VI.) which fall into one's hands, I do not know.

I have been obliged to postpone the journey to Italy from September to November. October (the 23d) is the great crisis for Prussia, and I ought not to forsake the Fatherland then, and have willingly agreed not to do so. A brighter, better day is approaching. May God give his blessing. Every one must help; it is the highest time.

But nothing disturbs me from the work of my life. The fourth volume of the “Biblework” goes to press the day after to-morrow; on the 1st of September, the fifth (Documents I. a). I have now finished my preliminary work for the Old Testament in the main points, and only reserved the last word before the stereotyping; so I begin at once on the New Testament and Life of Jesus. The friendly and clever notice of the first volume of the “Biblework” in the “Continental Review” gave me and my whole family great pleasure: and Bernays is here since yesterday (for August and September), which helps the printing of the Pentateuch very much, as I always sent him a last revise, and now all can be worked off here. I finish with Haug in the beginning of September; he will go probably to Poonah with his very sensible bride. Charles and Theodore are well. I expect George this week with Emilia for a visit. My family greet you. Bernays sighs. He has again made some beautiful discoveries; that of Aristotle (about the tragedies) I have carried further philosophically. Suggest to that good Arthur Stanley (to whom I have sent my “Biblework”) to send me his “Palestine.” I cannot get it here, and should like to say something about it.

With most true love, yours.

[82.]

My sons knew too well what delight they would give me through their confidential communication, which has already given us all a foretaste of the delight of your visit with your bride, and meanwhile has brought me your expected and affectionate letter.

I have felt all these years what was the matter with you, and I sympathize with your happiness as if it concerned one of my own children. I therefore now, my loved friend, wish you all the more happiness and blessing in the acquisition of the highest of life's prizes, because your love has already shown the right effect and strength, in that you have acquired courage for [pg 492] finishing at this present time your difficult and great work on the Vedas. The work will also give you further refreshment for the future, whilst the editing of the Veda still hangs on your hands.

Therefore let us all wish you joy most heartily (my wife has received the joyful news in Wildbad), and accept our united thanks beforehand for your kind intention of visiting us shortly with your young wife. By that time we shall all be again united here. Your remarkable mother will alone be wanting. Beg your bride beforehand to feel friendly towards me and towards us all. You know how highly I esteem her two aunts, though without personal acquaintance with them, and how dear to me is the cultivated, noble, Christian circle in which the whole family moves. I have as yet carried out my favorite plan with a good hope of success; six months in Charlottenberg on the true spiritually historical interpretation of the Old Testament, in the first volumes of the second division of the work (the so-called documents); six months of the winter on the “Life of Jesus,” and what in my view immediately joins on to that. The first volume of the Bible documents is printed, the Pentateuch. You will see that I have handled Abraham and Moses as freely here as I did Zoroaster and Buddha in my last work; the explanation of the books and the history from Joram to Zedekiah is as good as finished.

We shall keep peace; Napoleon and Palmerston understand each other, and Palmerston is the only statesman in England and Europe who conceives rightly the Italian question. Russia follows him. I still hope by the autumn to be able to bless the God of free Italy beside Dante's and Machiavelli's graves. With us (Prussia) matters move fairly forwards; here they have been fools, and begin to feel ashamed of themselves. So a speedy and happy meeting.

Your heartily affectionate friend,

Bunsen.

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