Lepsius fortunately escaped this danger, in spite of rather increased than diminished application during the final terms, which were devoted to the completion of his studies.
The journey to Strasburg also took him through Heidelberg. Here he sought out those scholars who had inspired him with interest, and described them to his father in concise and pointed language. Excellent is the likeness which he sketched of Creuzer, the author of the “Symbolism and Mythology of Ancient Nations.” This work was at that time highly esteemed, but was really inaccurate and worthless, in spite of the pains spent upon it, and an imaginative faculty which was unfortunately too easily excited. Not in vain had Lepsius enjoyed the teaching of the author of the “Prologomena to a Scientific Mythology” (O. Müller). “Dr. Hitzig,” he writes, “we did not find at home. We found Creuzer, though, whom I had fancied quite a different sort of person; he left an unpleasant impression upon me, with his peruke and snuff-box. I could not discover a single intellectual trait in the expression of his countenance, nothing in his eye, which could have helped me to excuse his well-known presumptuous and mystifying treatment of mythology. I found in his character a certain frivolous pedantry, and far too much self-confidence. We talked of archaeology; he put on great airs, without manifesting much wisdom; he found fault with O. Müller’s hand-book for having too much in it!”
BERLIN.
After his return from Strasburg, Lepsius went back to Göttingen, and in the spring of 1832 he removed thence to Berlin, there to conclude his studies. The testimonials which he received at his departure did him the highest honor. Otfried Müller said, that he had attended his lectures with remarkable diligence, and an unmistakable love for the subject; that he had participated with “philological intelligence and talent” in the exercises of the school of philology, and had, in general, given to that subject “arduous study, guided by scientific ideas.” Jacob Grimm commended him as having gained a comprehensive survey of philology, and already acquired much well-grounded knowledge of that science. Ewald said he had followed his lectures with praiseworthy diligence and zeal, and had made great progress in the study of Sanscrit. Dahlmann praised his industry warmly, and added that Lepsius had also become known to him as making most laudable progress on the path of scientific and moral culture.
With such testimonials, and thus excellently equipped, he came to Berlin in the beginning of May, 1832. Here he had the pleasure of again meeting his friends and fellow-students of Göttingen—Kreiss and Ehrhardt. The three now clubbed together to keep house.
At first he gave but qualified approval to the leaders of philological life in Berlin, Boeckh and Lachmann, and even to Bopp. With the latter, however, in the course of time he entered into closer relations, and afterwards, in our own presence, called him the founder of his linguistic method. He had been spoiled at Göttingen by Müller, Dahlmann and Heeren, who united the most brilliant eloquence to profound and far-seeing intellects. His reverence for the immortal achievements of Boeckh had been shaken, first in Leipsic by Hermann, who was always glad to give a cut at his Berlin colleagues in his lectures,[8] and afterwards by Dissen. Later, he entirely regained his respect for the great erudition, the sound criticism, the statesmanlike views, the excellent method, and the noble character of this rare scholar and man. Even Schleiermacher did not fully answer his expectations. He only attended the lectures on the History of German Literature because Lachman was dreaded as an examiner in this branch of study, and it was said that he was accustomed to “chaff” those students who were not well prepared. “He reads very disagreeably, but he gives good things, and fortunately I had previously formed a still worse idea of him—from the description of others.” He attended the lectures on the History of Greek Literature by Boeckh, “and because one really misses the best less among bad than among good, I miss our Otfried Müller especially in this course. For I am firmly convinced that Boeckh, although his teacher, does not by any means approach him. Yet they are, as they are reputed to be, good lectures. In the afternoons from four to five I hear Comparative Grammar by Bopp, a lifeless, dull discourse, in which the arrangement of the material is never clear and workmanlike. In many fundamental views however, on the formation of the main stem, I have always been much more of his than of Grimm’s or Müller’s opinion, and on this account he interests me greatly, although Müller’s lectures on the History of the Greek and Latin languages were infinitely more copious and satisfactory than these can ever be. But in his own house Bopp is an agreeable man, by whose vast and profound learning I hope to benefit farther.”
This Lepsius did, and to his great advantage, for at that time Bopp, whose lectures were indeed lifeless and tiresome (we too were among his pupils), was at the acme of his great activity, and had raised comparative philology to the rank of a science. We should rather call him the promoter than, as is commonly done, the father of this branch of study, which had indeed an existence, although an irregular one, before his time. His method, which was determinative for subsequent works in the same field, set aside, as idle pastime, the attractive search for and comparison of accidental resemblances between the sounds in different languages, and taught that the common origin of allied idioms should be sought for in a radical manner by examination of their grammatical construction.
When Lepsius came to Berlin, Bopp was working with his whole energy on his imperishable colossal work, the “Comparative Grammar,” and exercised far greater influence over such well-equipped young scholars as sought personal acquaintance with him, than through his stiff academic discourses. Lepsius first learned to thoroughly appreciate him and to benefit by his exuberant learning after he had entered into intimate private relations with the master, to whom, as far as comparative philology is concerned, young Lepsius’ teacher at Göttingen was also greatly indebted.
From his letters to his father it appears that it was chiefly the lack of that method of exposition to which he had become accustomed in Göttingen, and which was in every respect consummate, that led Richard more than once to undervalue the Berlin professors, and even the excellent Boeckh. He attended Schleiermacher’s lectures on the “Life of Jesus,” in order to have heard at least one theological course, and to learn to know the man. But these lectures too, although for other reasons, found little favor with him. “Schleiermacher,” he writes, “gives in his Life of Jesus nothing but negative dialectics, and to me he is a living contradiction from beginning to end.”
He speaks most unfavorably of the school of philology as it existed at that time in Berlin, under the management of Boeckh and Lachmann. “A frightful confusion is the order of the day here, and it is scarcely to be compared with that at Göttingen. So that it would not have occurred to me to enter, if in spite of all this they did not think so highly of it here. They translate Herodotus (in my opinion a very unsuitable choice for such a school), and the odes of Horace, and hold discussions over papers which are handed in, and difficult passages which are propounded.”