effect upon the mind of the future historian. He was instructed, by preference, out of English books-encouraged to make himself acquainted with English literature; at nineteen he went to the university of Edinburgh for a year and a half, and passed six months in travelling through England. His profound study of our English institutions may be continually traced in his great work, Young Niebuhr, previous to this time, had become acquainted with commercial affairs during a residence at Hamburgh; and he had studied law for a year at the university of Kiel. On his return from England he was appointed secretary to the Danish minister of finance, Count Bernstorff. Nelson's destruction of the Danish fleet, and the bombardment of Copenhagen, which he witnessed in 1801, did not, it should seem, weaken his admiration of England. We could have wished for more distinct information as to the cause which induced Niebuhr to transfer his allegiance from Denmark to Prussia. In the year 1806 he entered into the Prussian service, and from that time became a German in heart and in mind. Was there any secret indignation at the timid subserviency of his native country to France? The paramount feeling, the passion of his soul, from that time seemed to be an abhorrence of the French domination in Germany. The fatal battle of Jena took place soon after his appointment under the Prussian government. But Niebuhr was one of those subjects of that fallen and oppressed kingdom who looked forward with the most ardent hope to its emancipation from the iron despotism of Buonaparte. There are several striking passages on these subjects in the conversations; we extract one, not merely on account of its allusion to this particular period, but on account of the general moral it contains. If, when it was spoken, it was applicable to the French character, is it much less so now?

'I think matters stand very badly in France; neither the one nor the other party allows of any cheerful prospect. The Royalists sometimes act as if they were mad; and in the Opposition are distinguished men, who have spent their whole life in contradiction to the principles they pretend to avow. Their boldness, at least, must be admired. Men who have driven the people at home and in foreign countries to despair, pretend to be liberals now! But so little are things remembered! I dare say, few people recollect how infamously some, who now figure as the foremost in the Liberal ranks, behaved among us (Germans). You know very well, that there was no greater leech and more oppressive instrument of tyranny among the French than when Intendant de la Mark de Brandenbourg, and now he is a great and noisy Liberal. He has excused himself by the old adage, that it was not he, but his orders that were oppressive: it is not true. Why have other servants of Napoleon, equally strict in executing the ruinous orders of their regardless master, acted differently? Surely they

could

could bring no happy times to our poor people either; but they showed, at least, that they had a heart; and so essentially good-natured is the German, that this was always acknowledged with gratitude. He however, used to say to those who made the most earnest representa tions, "In half a century the country will have recovered, and no trace of suffering be left." in Holland, used to say, " Que fait cela à l'Empereur?" The people were galled to their heart's core. The French have shown a most decided trait during the time of their conquests—viz., avarice. I speak of all, from the highest to the lowest; their greediness for money was disgusting. You were too young at that time to know many details, but I know them. The many contrivances they would resort to, in order to extort money, would appear now almost incredible. Other nations have not shown this trait of meanness during their conquests. They have always levied contributions; and the English in India were certainly not over-delicate, but it was not done in so mean a way, and by every one in his sphere. How much we have often laughed, bitter as the times were, when some of the high-sounding proclamations and bulletins of Napoleon were issued, and all the French were made to appear in them the purest knights, full of honour and devotion to a great cause, and we compared these trumpet-sounds to reality. They were essentially mean, and of course without the slightest shame. There were; as you know, exceptions. How differently have our generals acted in France!"-pp. 95-98.

Yet Niebuhr is by no means ungenerous or uncandid in his judgments on the leading men of France during his day. He seems to have had a singular veneration for Carnot

For Carnot I feel great respect. In some points, he is the greatest man of this century. His virtue is of an exalted kind. When he invents a new system of tactics to oppose the old armies of Europe, hastens to the army, teaches how to be victorious with them, and returns to Paris, he appears great indeed. However I differ from his political views, there is a republican greatness in him which commands respect. My love for him may be an anomaly; yet so it is. Had I nothing in the wide world but a piece of bread left, I would be proud of sharing it with Carnot.'-p. 69.

Carnot invented new tactics, and showed how to fight and conquer with them. While he was engaged in making the giant-plans for the five armies, he wrote a mathematical work of the highest character, and composed at the same time some very agreeable little poems. He was a mighty genius indeed!'-p. 179.

On Napoleon himself we have the following dictum, arising out of an observation of M. Lieber's, which we have before heard from some one else

1

[I had returned from a visit to the Capitol, and remarked how much I had been struck with the resemblance of the mouth, chin, and cheek of the colossal head of Claudius, to the corresponding parts of

Napoleon;

Napoleon; and that it had surprised me how all the Caracallas, Domitians, &c. had the large round chin of Napoleon.]

• Nevertheless, Mr. Niebuhr said, Napoleon was not cruel. He would not indeed hesitate to sacrifice human life in order to obtain his political objects; but he had no pleasure in destroying it, still less in inflicting pain: nor would he inflict death for mere vengeance; though I believe it cost him but little to order any sacrifice if he thought it necessary. In his character there prevailed too much of an iron will to hesitate in such a case.'-p. 138.

Napoleon knew how to break men like dogs. He would trample upon them, and again show them a piece of bread and pat them, so that they came frisking to him: and no monarch ever had so many absolute instruments of his absolute will as Napoleon. I do not speak only of his immediate servants; princes and sovereigns showed themselves equally well broken.'-pp. 139, 140.

Niebuhr had the highest opinion of Count Deserre, keeper of the seals during the administration of M. Decazes. The Count, from another anecdote, appears to have been profoundly versed in German literature

'Count Deserre is the deepest reflecting Frenchman I know. He reminds me of that by-gone French race of grave, thinking men, who seem to have become extinct with the night of St. Bartholomew. I feel a real love for that man.'-p. 124.

"I believe," said Mr. Niebuhr to Count Deserre, "that few things would have a more salutary effect upon the French nation than a return to a very careful and thorough study of philology and antiquity. It would contribute to steady them and make them honour history; and, therefore, to consider themselves more as but one link in the great chain of nations."

"Yes," said the Count, "it would somewhat lead off our minds from eternal schemes, and would induce people not to seek everything in futurity."-p. 127.

The talents and the attachment of Niebuhr to the Prussian court did not remain unrewarded. He was appointed one of the counsellors of public affairs under Prince Hardenberg, until the peace of Tilsit. He then took an active part in the organization of the Prussian states, under the great regenerator of that kingdom, Stein. In 1808, he was employed for fourteen months on a mission to Holland. On his return, he was appointed Privy Counsellor of State, and received a temporary office in the department of finances. In 1810, he first appeared as a man of letters he read lectures on Roman history in the newly established university of Berlin. These lectures formed the groundwork of the first edition of his history

The evil time of Prussia's humiliation had some share in the pro duction of my History. We could do little more than ardently hope

for

for better days, and prepare for them. What was to be done in the mean while? One must do something. I went back to a nation, great, but long passed by, to strengthen my mind and that of my hearers. We felt like Tacitus.'-pp. 90, 91.

Niebuhr, who had watched with unfailing hope the day of deliverance from a foreign yoke, was not inactive when the great struggle took place. Immediately on the revolt of Prussia, he established a journal at Berlin; he was again sent to Holland to negotiate a loan with England; and he put forth in 1815 his work on Great Britain, with the patriotic design thus expressed in his own words:

'He published the work on Great Britain after that unfortunate time when a foreign people ruled over us (Germans) with a cruel sword and a heartless bureaucracy, in order to show what liberty is. Those who oppressed us called themselves all the time the harbingers of liberty, at the very moment they sucked the very heart-blood of our people; and he wanted to show what liberty in reality is.'p. 66.

At the final peace his sovereign rewarded him with the acceptable and appropriate situation of Minister at the Papal Court. This long residence at Rome enabled Niebuhr to mature and to modify his views by the most careful examination of the topography and of the existing antiquities of the city. The new edition of his work, that translated by Messrs. Hare and Thirlwall, contains the results of these inquiries. On his return to Germany, Niebuhr extended the sphere of his literary activity; in conjunction with Professor Brandis, he conducted the Rheinisches Museum, a most valuable collection of papers, chiefly relating to classical and philological subjects, and commenced the new edition of the Byzantine Historians. Those men of letters in England who had taken an interest in the fame of Niebuhr heard with deep regret that his library, and part of his great work, had been consumed by an accidental fire in his house. He died in the fifty-fifth year of his age, at a time when his fame was extending itself throughout Europe, and when just hopes might be entertained of his completing the important task, which had been the object of his whole life.

In the domestic and social relations of life, M. Niebuhr appears to have been a very amiable man. He was twice married; he lost his first wife in 1814, nearly at the time that his father died. She was an uncommon woman, to whom he read everything before publication. I have found him,' says M. Lieber, repeatedly rolling on the ground with his children; nor did he ask the beholders whether they had any children, as that personage did who affords a royal precedent to all fathers that love to play on the

ground

ground with their offspring.' He lived on terms of the closest amity with many distinguished scholars of Germany, particularly Spalding, Savigny, Buttman, and Heindorf. In his youth he had been well acquainted with Klopstock. Klopstock, it seems, anticipated the verdict of his countrymen upon his own work; 'he did not like to speak of the Messiah; he was not satisfied with the poem.'* It was old Coleridge, we believe, who was asked whether Klopstock was not the German Milton-'Yes, Sir; a very German Milton indeed.' Niebuhr, we think, acquiesces in this qualified estimate of his friend's interminable paraphrase on the inimitable simplicity of the genuine Messiah,' the evangelic writings. Niebuhr was likewise acquainted very early in life with Voss he held his name in affectionate reverence. His testimony to the influence of Voss on German literature we willingly extract, not only on this account, but likewise as an example of Niebuhr's fine feeling for the great poet of antiquity. We assent to the justice of Niebuhr's criticism on Pope's Homer, (the Odyssey, let us observe, is, in considerable parts, not Pope's, but by meaner hands,) yet we protest against the word 'ridiculous' as applied to a work so brilliant in language, so exquisite in the melody of its peculiar style of versification, so living, as its lasting popularity with all who do not compare it with the original, has, and we suspect will, prove it to be:

• What wisdom there is in Homer! With a few omissions, it is the very book for children. I know of no story, except Robinson Crusoe, which fascinates a child so much as Homer. It is all natural, simple, and capable of being understood by a child. And then, how well does he not prepare for all the knowledge of antiquity, without which we cannot now get along! How many thousand things and sayings does the child not understand at once by knowing that great poem! The whole Odyssey is the finest story for a child.

'Have you ever read Pope's Odyssey? [I answered in the negative.] Well, he replied, you must read some parts of it at least; it is a ridiculous thing. There is not a breath of antiquity in Pope's translation. He might have changed as much as he liked, and called it a reproduction; but to strip it of its spirit of antiquity, was giving us a corpse instead of a living being. It is a small thing. How totally different is the manner in which the German Voss has handled the subject! He shows at once that he knows and feels the poem is antique, and he means to leave it so. Voss's translation might certainly be improved in various parts, but he has made Homer a German work, now read by every one: he has done a great thing. You do not imagine it, yet it is a fact, that Voss's translation of Homer has had a great influence upon your own education. I say it, well considering what I say, that

*It is amusing enough that some people censured Klopstock's skating as unbecoming the bard of the Messiah.

the