“Marcus already knows no inconsiderable number of Latin words, and he understands grammar so well that I can now set him to learn parts of the conjunctions without their teasing him like dead matter: he derives many of the forms from his own feeling. I am reading with him selected chapters from Hygin’s Mythologicum—a book which perhaps it is not easy to use for this purpose, and which yet is more suited to it than any other, from the absence of formal periods, and the interest of the narrative. For German, I write fragments of the Greek mythology for him. I began with the history of the Argonauts; I have now got to the history of Hercules. I give everything in a very free and picturesque style, so that it is as exciting as poetry to him: and, in fact, he reads it with such delight that we are often interrupted by his cries of joy. The child is quite devoted to me; but this educating costs me a great deal of time. However, I have had my share of life, and I shall consider it as a reward for my labours if this young life be as fully and richly developed as lies within my power.
“Unexpected thoughts often escape him. Two days ago he was sitting beside me and began, ‘Father, the ancients believed in the old gods; but they must have believed also in the true God. The old gods were just like men.’”
All this time we have said nothing of the political embassy of Niebuhr. He was appointed ambassador to Rome to negotiate a concordat with the Pope. But it appears that several years elapsed before he received his instructions from his own court. We hardly know, therefore, whether to say that the negotiations were prolonged, or that their commencement had been delayed. Niebuhr always speaks in high terms of the Pope, (Pius VII.,) as a man every way estimable. Between them a very friendly feeling seems to have subsisted. There does not appear, therefore, to have been any peculiar or vexatious delay on the part of the Holy See. After Niebuhr had been in Rome more than four years, Count Hardenberg, the Prussian minister, who had been attending the conference at Laybach, made his appearance on the scene. To him, as we gather from the very brief account before us, was attributed with some unfairness the merit of concluding the negotiations. However this might be, the terms of this concordat were at length agreed upon, and Niebuhr had no longer any peculiar mission to detain him at Rome. Shortly afterwards he petitioned for leave of absence, and returned to Germany. He never went back again to Rome, but happily resumed the professor’s chair—this time, however, in the University of Bonn; or rather he delivered lectures at Bonn, for it does not appear that he was an appointed professor.
But before we leave Rome for Bonn, or diplomacy for the professorial duties, we must glance at a little essay given us in the appendix, written by Chevalier Bunsen, and entitled Niebuhr as a Diplomatist in Rome. Bunsen was, during part of this period, secretary to the embassy, and of course in perpetual communication with Niebuhr. The few anecdotes he relates present us with a very distinct picture of this German Cato amongst the modern Romans. Judging by what are popularly understood to be the qualifications of a diplomatist, we should certainly say that our historian was by no means peculiarly fitted for this department of the public service. He was an unbending man, had much of the stoic in his principles, though very little of the stoic in his affections, and was more disposed to check or crush the hollow frivolity about him than to yield to it, or to play with it. He could throw a whole dinner-table into consternation, by solemnly denouncing the tone of levity which the conversation had assumed. At the house of some prince in Rome the events then transpiring in Greece had led Niebuhr to speak with earnestness on the future destiny of the Christian Hellenes. On the first pause that occurred, a fashionable diner-out contrived to turn the conversation, and in a few moments the whole table was alive with a discussion—on this important point, whether a certain compound sold at the Roman coffee-houses, under the slang name of “aurora,” was mostly coffee or mostly chocolate! Niebuhr sat silent for some time; but he, too, took advantage of the next pause to express his indignation and surprise, that “in such times, and with such events occurring around us, we should be entertained with such miserable trifles!” For a short time all were mute. Not a very diplomatic style, we should say, of conversation.
It was very characteristic of such a man, that, on the occasion of giving a grand entertainment in his character of ambassador, he should have the music of the Sistine Chapel performed in his house. He detested the modern Italian operatic music. He thought it becoming his embassadorial position that something national should be selected. He therefore chose that celebrated music which all foreigners make it a point of duty to go and listen to at the Sistine Chapel during Passion Week. When the gay assemblage, after an animated conversation, repaired for the concert to the brilliantly lighted saloon, a choir of sixteen singers from the chapel filled the air with their solemn strains. We do not wonder, as Chevalier Bunsen says, that “the assembly was evidently seized with a peculiar feeling,” or that many of them stole away to something they thought more amusing.
Even his connection with the learned men of Rome was not of long continuance. But this was owing to no want of sympathy in their studies or pursuits on the part of Niebuhr, as the following anecdote will testify—(those who know Leopardi as a poet will read it with peculiar interest):—
“I still remember the day when he (Niebuhr) entered with unwonted vivacity the office in which I was writing, and exclaimed, ‘I must drive out directly to seek out the greatest philological genius of Italy that I have as yet heard of, and make his acquaintance. Just look at the man’s critical remarks upon the Chronicle of Eusebius. What acuteness! What real erudition! I have never seen anything like it before in this country—I must see the man.’
“In two hours he came back. ‘I found him at last with a great deal of trouble, in a garret of the Palazzo Mattei. Instead of a man of mature age, I found a youth of two or three and twenty, deformed, weakly, and who has never had a good teacher, but has fed his intellect upon the books of his grandfather, in his father’s house at Recanati; has read the classics and the Fathers; is, at the same time, as I hear, one of the first poets and writers of his nation, and is withal poor, neglected, and evidently depressed. One sees in him what genius this richly endowed nation possesses.’ Capei has given a pleasing and true description of the astonishment experienced by both the great men at their first meeting; of the tender affection with which Niebuhr regarded Leopardi, and all that he did for him.”
Our diminishing space warns us that we must limit ourselves to the last scene of the life and labours of Niebuhr. After some intervals spent at Berlin, he took up his residence at Bonn, recommenced his lectures, recommenced his History. Before proceeding further in his task, he found it necessary to revise the two volumes already published. In this revision he engaged so zealously that he almost re-wrote them. The third volume, as is well known, was not published in his lifetime: the manuscript was revised for the press by his friend and disciple, Professor Classen.
This and other manuscripts ran the risk of being consumed by the flames; for his new house, in the planning and arrangement of which he had taken much pleasure, was burnt down on the night of the 6th February 1830. It was indeed a misfortune, he said, but he did not feel as he felt “that night when he was near headquarters at the battle of Bautzen, and believed the cause of his country to be, if not lost, in the most imminent peril.” But though much else was destroyed, the books and papers were preserved; and there was great rejoicing when here and there a precious treasure was found again, which had been looked on as lost; and the reappearance of the longed-for manuscript of the second volume of the history (then going through the press) was greeted with hearty cheers.