with marked distinction, and at various times employed him on diplomatic missions of honour and importance, especially to Paris. The King took especial pleasure in Humboldt's society, and chose him as his travelling companion on his visit to England in 1841, and to Denmark in 1845. Amid all the honour and respect of this later period of Humboldt's life, there was, however, one exceedingly black spot, which the sage was compelled perforce to contemplate from time to time,-a bitter drop in the cup of his life, which interfered most unfortunately with the flavour of the draught. Thackeray somewhere relates how once, when a housekeeper had shown and expounded to him all the glories of a grand country house, he turned upon the stately dame, after the treasures of various cupboards and cabinets had been displayed and admired, and utterly put her out of countenance with the startling question: "And pray, ma'am, where do you keep the skeleton?" There was a skeleton in Humboldt's cupboard that occasionally thrust itself forth amid all the satisfactions and all the useful labours of his distinguished life, and would not be banished. This skeleton was Debt. Though, at the outset of his career, Humboldt had inherited a considerable fortune, that fortune had been entirely absorbed in the expenses of his travels and of his publications, in which he spared no cost, his one object being to attain the utmost completeness, especially in illustrations. For him money had no value apart from his scientific pursuits, and in distributing to the necessities of others he was generous to a fault. In his later days, accordingly, he found to his dismay that his fortune had not only melted away completely, but that the pension awarded to him by Frederick William III., and continued by that king's successor, was all he had left for his maintenance. It was insufficient, for he was careless of his affairs, and benevolent to a fault, easily imposed on by a fictitious tale of distress, and unable to answer an application with a refusal. Thus his embarrassments increased, and were a source of annoyance to him almost to the end of his long life. It was the brother of the king, afterwards Emperor of North Germany, who, during the time he acted as Regent, relieved the illustrious old man of the load of debt that had long weighed upon him. His activity continued undiminished, and long after he had passed his seventieth year his correspondence amounted to between three and four thousand letters annually.

"COSMOS"; A GREAT END TO A GREAT CAREER

Finis coronat opus; the greatest triumph of his scientific career was still to be achieved in the form of a book that to a certain extent em bodied and summed up the experiences of his long and eminently useful life. This work was his magnificent "Cosmos; "and was left as a legacy in the first instance to his German fellow. countrymen, and then to all searchers after knowledge in every civilized country in the world. In the preface the venerable author teas his readers that the design had been present for nearly fifty years in his mind before it found definite expression in this book. The Greek word Cosmos indicates the scope and intention of the work. The design is to exhibit, as he expressed it, “ the appearance of corporeal things in the relation to each other, for the comprehension of nature as a whole, animated by inner forces" The idea of the universe as exhibiting in its highest development the perfection of order, beauty, and harmony is carried out with wonderful completeness in the Cosmos," a worthy conclusion to a splendid and glorious life-work. The task u uniting the various branches of scientific know. ledge, before isolated and separate, into an orderly and systematic whole, was a gigant effort for a veteran; but Humboldt achieved in a most satisfactory manner. Never had any of his books being welcomed with such entha siasm, never had the appearance of successive volumes been watched for with such im patience of anticipation, as was exhibited in Germany, France and England alike, as the various volumes u the "Cosmos" were issued from the press; to te immediately translated into the principal Ear pean languages, and eagerly studied by all th scientific world. It was not until 1854 that tis concluding volume appeared; and the author wa eighty-five years old, when at length he is down his pen, and felt that his life's work w done. To the last he was a student, anxions. comparing, enquiring, adding fact to fact, an conscious that the scientist, like every oth searcher after truth, after all only "sees throu a glass darkly." It is touching to note th modesty with which he spoke and wrote of Lir self and his attainments, while all Europe w ringing with his praises, extolling what he ba done, and holding him up as the model of votary of science. "I am at once surprised an fattered." he writes to a London publisher: 1831. in reply to a letter proposing an Eng version of the Cosmos," at the interest evine

a your worthy and intelligent country for the work of my late age ;" and in answer to a ctful request that he would indicate another suck suitable for the general public, in an Engat dress, he good-humouredly observes that yes are not good people to consult on such ject; but suggests that the "Ansichten der iar" has been popular in Germany, and might

Te success in England also; but he gives arrestion with a diffidence exceedingly Tefal in one who had done so much, and held a position as he could command in the I main of scientific knowledge.

DEATH OF HUMBOLDT; SPECIMEN OF HIS STYLE.

the age of ninety years, full of days and , Alexander von Humboldt was laid at at in the grave of his family at Tegel, on the

of May, 1859. He was never married. 2 hef possession he left behind him, his rable library, he had bequeathed to his faith2 servant, assistant, and friend, Seiffert, the pation of his travels. It was afterwards red to America.

The following extract, descriptive of the great Lanos or steppes of Venezuela, is taken the Aspects of Nature." It will give an the author's picturesque style in the deon of natural scenes:*Separated by days' journeys from each other,

are found, constructed of bundles of reeds together with thongs, and roofed with ox 12 Countless herds of wild cattle, horses, and warm in the steppes. Forests, thousands ifs old, and an impenetrable gloom cover st region that surrounds the desert; and granitic masses narrow the beds of the Sing rivers. The wood resounds with the

r of falling waters, the roaring of the car, and the dull howling of the apes. Where alow stream leaves a sandbank exposed, etched, motionless as masses of rock, open jaws, and frequently covered with , the clumsy bodies of the crocodiles; its Fed round the branch of a tree, lurks by ak, certain of its prey, the chequered boa. ing suddenly forward, it seizes in the the young bull or the weaker game, and its prey, covered with saliva, down its threat. But when, beneath the peraralar rays of the never-clouded sun, the prassy surface has crumbled into dust, dad ground gapes open, as if shattered a mighty earthqcake; like rushing waterstargring currents of air spring upward in

funnel shape; a dull straw-coloured twilight is spread by the apparently lowering sky over the desert plain; the view suddenly narrows, and as the plain contracts, the heart of the wanderer sinks within him. The hot, dusty sand, floating in the misty, veiled horizon, increases the sultriness of the pestilential air.

At

"As the animals in the icy north grow torpid through cold, so here the crocodile and the boa slumber motionless, buried deep in the dry clay. Everywhere drought signifies death, everywhere the thirsty creature is pursued by the delusive ærial mirage of a waving mirror of waters. With thick clouds of dust whirling round them, and tormented by burning thirst and by hunger, the horses and oxen roam to and fro, the latter with frightened roar, the former with outstretched necks snuffing the wind to detect, by the dampness of the current of air, the proximity of some water-puddle not yet entirely evaporated. When the burning heat of day is succeeded by the coolness of the night of equal length, ever then horses and oxen cannot enjoy their rest. Enormous bats suck their blood in vampire fashion, attaching themselves closely to their backs, where they cause festering wounds, into which swarms of stinging insects penetrate. When at length, after a long drought, the beneficent rainy season succeeds, the scene suddenly changes. The deep blue of the till then unclouded sky becomes at once overcast. night the weak light in the constellation of the Southern Cross can barely be recognized. The soft phosphoric gleam of the magellanic clouds is extinguished, even the constellations of the Eagle and of Ophiucus in the zenith glimmer with a trembling light. Some scattered clouds in the south appear like distant mountains, and the vapours spread like mists over the zenith, and distant thunder announces the vivifying rain.. .. Hardly has the surface of the earth been moistened before the fragrant steppe is covered with the most various kinds of grasses. Excited by the light, herb-like mimosas unfold their slumbering leaves, and welcome the rising sun, together with the morning song of the birds and the opening blossoms of the aquatic plants. Horses and oxen now pasture in the full enjoyment of life. But in the grass that shoots up high lurks the beautifully-spotted jaguar, that springs catlike with airy bound upon the animals as they pass by. . . . Sometimes, on the margin of the swamp, the moistened clay is seen slowly rising upward in clods-with a violent noise, as at the outbreak of the little mud volcanoes, the upheaved earth is hurled high into the air;—

those who understand the meaning of it flee from the appearance, for a gigantic watersnake or a mailed crocodile comes forth from the depths, awakened from a trance by the downpour of rain. . . . As the rivers gradually swell, nature forces the same animals that during the first half of the year were fainting with thirst on the dusty parched earth, to live like amphibious creatures-for a portion of the steppe now appears like an enormous lake. The mares take refuge with their foals on the higher banks, that stand forth like islands above the mirror of waters. Every day the dry space becomes narrower. For want of pasture the crowded animals have to swim about for hours together, cropping a bare subsistence from the blossoming grass that rises above the brown-coloured turbid water. Many foals are drowned; many are caught by the crocodiles, crushed by the pointed teeth, and then devoured. Not unfrequently horses and oxen are seen that have escaped from the jaws of these rapacious lizards, and still carry on their bodies scars from crocodiles' jagged fangs.

'But as in these steppes tigers and crocodiles fight with horses and oxen, so in certain parts of this wilderness we likewise see man in continual combat against his fellow. With unnatural greed the tribes drink the blood of their enemies -others, apparently weaponless, yet equipped for murder, slay their foe with a poisoned thumbnail. The weaker hordes, when they pass along the sandy shore, carefully, with their hands, efface the marks of their timid footsteps, to conceal them from the stronger tribes. Thus man, in the lowest state of brutal savagery, as in the fictitious glory of higher civilization, everywhere prepares unrest for himself in life-thus the wanderer in distant regions, crossing land and ocean, like the historical investigator searching the records of the ages, everywhere encounters the lamentable spectacle of a race divided against itself. And, therefore, he who amid the yet unsettled strife of nations longs for spiritual repose, gladly casts down his eyes to contemplate the peaceful life of plants, and the inner working of the holy power of nature ;-or, following the innate impulse that has glowed for centuries in the human heart, he fixes his gaze upwards, on the distant stars that in undisturbed harmony sweep onward in their ancient unchanging course."

The following is Humboldt's picture of the

nocturnal life of animals on the banks of the great rivers of South America :

"Below the mission of Santa Barbara de Arichuna we passed the night, as usual, in the open air, on a sandy flat on the bank of the Apure, skirted by the impenetrable forest. We had some difficulty in finding dry wood to kindle the fires with which it is here customary to surround the bivouac as a safeguard against the attacks of the jaguar. The air was bland and soft, and the moon shone brightly. Several crocodiles approached the bank; and I have observed that fire attracts these creatures as it does our crabs and other aquatic animals. The oars of our boats were fixed in the ground support our hammocks. Deep stillness prevailed only broken at intervals by the blowing of the fresh-water dolphins, which are peculiar to th river network of the Orinoco, as, according t Colebrooke, they are also to the Ganges, as hig? up the river as Benares; they followed ed other in long rows.

"After eleven o'clock, such a noise began i the adjacent forest, that for the remainder c the night sleep was impossible. The wild cra of animals resounded through the woods. Amer the many voices which echoed together, t Indians could only recognise those which, af short pauses, were heard singly. There was th plaintive, monotonous cry of the howling mx keys, the whining flexible notes of the h sapagous, the grunting murmur of the stripe nocturnal ape, the fitful roar of the great tig (jaguar), the cougar, or maneless American the peccary, the sloth, and a host of parret parraquas, and other birds of the pheasant kin Whenever the tigers approached the edge of t forest, our dog, which before had barked ince santly, came howling to seek protection the hammocks. Sometimes the cry of the ti resounded from the branches of a tree, an was then always accompanied by the plaint piping tones of the apes, which were endeavo: ing to escape from the unwonted pursuit.

"If the Indians are asked why such a c tinuous noise is heard on certain nights, t answer with a smile that the animals are re ing in the beautiful moonlight, and celebrat the return of the full moon. To me the scr seemed rather to be owing to an accidental, los continued, and gradually-increasing cont among the animals."

H. W. D

finding the Greek philosopher's Ideal Man. False standards of respectability are set up, and unreal distinctions are established. It is not that the captain's choleric word is rank blasphemy in the soldier, for that has always been so -but outward appearances are made to pass as equivalent for realities, and the witty French author who declared, Nous sommes au siècle des quasi," was not quite wrong in his description of the century of shams, while some of his sarcasm would have applied excellently well to the British dominions. During the last decades the spread of education, increased facilities of travel, bringing men of various ranks into more frequent contact than in the old days of postchaises and exclusiveness, and, more than all, an improved tone in the public press, have contributed to alter this for the better;-to set up the truth and throw down hypocrisy, and to instal worth and goodness in places of honour, instead of artificial and hollow proprieties. Men are less narrow in their opinions, less apt to jump at conclusions from imperfect data, like the man of whom it was written by the poet two centuries ago, that " Railing and praising were his various themes, And both, to show his judg ment, in extremes." Much of this improvement is due to the works of such writers as the late Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray, who laboured hard to make their readers understand the distinction between the shams and the realities of life,-to inculcate the lesson that wealth, and what is called "position," and a place in society, are not necessary to happiness, or any criterion of the solid worth of the possessor. "We were snobs," wrote Thackeray, in reference to his poorer fellow-students at Cambridge, to refuse to take an honest man's hand because it had a Berlin glove on it ;" and in his inimitable Book of Snobs," that scathing satire on British respectability and wealth-worship, he anatomises and dissects false pretence and the mean admiration of mean things; showing how the coronation robes of George the Magnifi cent, upon which thousands of pounds had been spent, had come down to form part of the attraction of a waxwork show-" Admission only one shilling," says the merciless satirist; "children and snobs sixpence-go and pay sixpence."

A GREAT AND FEARLESS TEACHER OF STERN TRUTHS.

But long before Thackeray had written a line, and while Charles Dickens was still a boy at school, a powerful voice was raised, to proclaim, with no uncertain sound, what true greatness

...

was, and what kind of men they were to whom the epithet "great" might with its true emphasis be applied-what men they are that may be considered the highest specimens and the chiti benefactors of mankind . . . that keep awake the finer parts of our souls; that give us better aims than power or pleasure, and withstand the total sovereignty of Mammon in this earth... the vanguard in the march of mind; the intel lectual backwoodsmen, reclaiming from the d wilderness new territories for the thought an the activity of their happier brethren." Thes are the men of intellect and genius. But no less vehemently was the same voice raised t demand recognition and honour for those wa witle no claim to be considered pioneers, are ye content to be honest labourers in the folde human life, good soldiers serving in the ranks the army of humanity, zealous servants fat over a few things; and above all, this vice pr claimed and enforced in every variety of powe argument the truth embodied in the ne Schiller," Und ein Gott ist! Ein heiliger Wi lebt," that there is no such thing as chance, th "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, roz hew them as we will "--and that in all the var o fortunes and changes of the lives of men and nations, the hand of Divine justice and tnb tion is to be recognized by him who will gently and devoutly seek for the truth. W merciless scorn, and not without a certain gri humour, the owner of that voice would forth some social pretence, or some fav fetish of the times, and divest it piece lyr of its covering of falsehood, as a lecturer unroll a mummy and by thus despoiling a its outward veil of respectability, he sb what a poor pitiful thing many a recogna institution was. The voice that made sta heard, and to good purpose, even amid the and jangle of Vanity Fair, preaching the p manence and ultimate victory of truth and certain overthrow of even the most ingeni constructed and universally-accepted faleb was that of Thomas Carlyle.-one of the tr "Worthies," of the noblest gentlemen the w has ever seen. Speaking of those men of E who have fulfilled their mission, he says: "I is a congruity in their proceedings which loves to contemplate; he who would write in poems should make his whole life like a ha poem." And he was not one of those ungrad pastors who "reck not their own rede." whole career, singularly complete and cons is a great and glorious instance of a man trating in his own life the precepts he incales: