[By Rauch. Bronze. 1819. In the Pleasure Garden near the Palace at Potsdam.]
366. Augustus, Count Herdart de Gneisenau. Field-Marshal.
[Born at Schilda, in Upper Saxony, 1760. Died at Posen, in Prussia, 1832. Aged 72.]
An eminent soldier, who served first under the Margrave of Anspach-Bayreuth; then in the English, then in the Prussian service. On the return of Napoleon from Elba, he was placed at the head of Blucher’s staff, and was mainly instrumental in bringing up the Prussian troops at Waterloo, where he ably conducted the pursuit. In 1831, took the command of the Prussian army on the breaking out of the Polish insurrection, and died of cholera the same year. A great master of strategy.
[By F. Tieck. Bronze. 1821. In the Pleasure Garden near the Palace at Potsdam.]
367. Karl Wilhelm Baron von Humboldt. Statesman and Philologist.
[Born at Potsdam, in Prussia, 1767. Died near Berlin, 1835. Aged 68.]
In William Von Humboldt the highest qualities of a scholar were united to the talents of a statesman and man of the world. He discharged the functions of Ambassador at Vienna and in London, and served his country on more than one grave and diplomatic mission. He was extensively learned in languages dead and living; but that is common in Germany. His originality, as a philologist, lies in a delicacy of abstruse thought—a philosophical vein, as fine as profound, which he brings to bear on all questions of the literary field, from the rigid investigation of grammatical forms and laws, to the most feeling and comprehensive criticisms of taste. A rare power of sifting analysis, a strong impulse to tread, alone and self-guided, unfrequented grounds, and an eye to seek out new truth on ground the most trodden, may be read in his various masterly writings. He was a poet also.
[Modelled by Thorwaldsen, at Rome, in 1807. It has since been executed in marble by order of King Frederic William III., and placed in the Museum at Berlin.]
368. Hermann Von Boyen. Prussian Minister of War.