their merits with reference to any system, either of morals or economy, or to the soundness or fallacy of any particular doctrine, than to point out the admirable spirit which animates every part of that system; and those principles to which he always appeals, as the legitimate sources whence alone we can draw the materials of all moral and political institutes. To have done more than this, to have given even a very brief abstract of his system, in either of his two great works, would have far exceeded the limits of the present memoir; would require, and might well deserve, a separate treatise.

What has been attempted, however imperfectly, may not be altogether without its use, at least until propositions in the moral, as in the mathematical sciences, shall admit of demonstration. When that shall be the case, and the results of our reasonings can be submitted to so decisive a test, the sources whence we derive them, and the mode in which they are conducted, may be alike indifferent, and cannot assuredly affect in the slightest degree the truths demonstrated. Till then, however, it must be considered as no unimportant part of that species of philosophy which, in the expressive language of Lord Bacon, comes home to men's business and bosoms, to temper its doctrines by moderation and modesty; to engage the sympathies on our side of those we undertake to teach, and not to repel them; to endeavour to shew, if we can, that the doctrines we inculcate may be traced to a higher wisdom than that of man, by being in conformity with the rules by which nature seems to work, and in furtherance of principles which she has evidently implanted for the accomplishment of her own great ends.

No philosopher has so constantly borne in mind as Dr. Smith, that in the moral, as in the physical constitution and frame of man, nature has made cer

tain provisions for his attainment to virtue and to happiness, which the ignorant may overlook, and the arrogant may disregard, but with which the wise will only study to co-operate. And all the precepts we can put forth will derive their best sanction, and afford the strongest presumption in their favour by their being shewn to be in unison with those simple instincts of our nature, by which alone, as individuals, we are first taught to apprehend a distinction betwixt good and evil,* and which, in the obvious arrangements they suggest for the social union, were equally intended by our great Creator as lights to the economist and the legislator for the framing of those laws and institutions which take place in the wider and more complicated associations of men. It was in this excellent and truly enlightened spirit, that Smith, by applying the ex perimental method of reasoning to moral subjects, attained the vantage ground of that higher philosophy of which it is the glory of Bacon to have pointed out the road;-by which Newton ascended to the discovery of the sublimest truths in physics;-and by the careful cultivation of which alone, if ever, it may be hoped, that the moral and political sciences will be placed on a foundation equally enduring, and when knowledge in them will more surely become power to man, as their reference to his happiness and advancement is more obvious and immediate.

It has become usual of late, even in moral and

political discourses, to regard all reference to authority as marks of a poor and illogical understanding. rest upon mathematics, (as we have said in the text) In the physical sciences, those more especially which the argument from authority is of course out of the question. It is different we conceive in other subjects;-and though we have little respect for an hypothesis, however supported, which appeals from the universal sense and feelings of mankind, an auis entitled to a good deal, and for our parts we thority that appeals to that sense and those feelings should be satisfied to take our chance of error, in a question concerning the principle of moral approbation-for instance, with Hume and Smith, and Stewart and Mackintosh.

Introduction.

THE memoir which we are about to lay before our readers is the life of a man sprung from the ranks of the people, and retaining through life his sympathies with them. At the highest point of elevation to which he attained, favoured by his prince, respected and admired by the learned and eminent of all countries, it was his pride that he was born a peasant of Free Friesland. His manners never lost the simplicity, nor his morals the purity of that singular and estimable class of men. If ever there lived a man who might safely and reasonably be held up to the people as an object of imitation, it was Carsten Niebuhr.Not only was he, a poor man,—an orphan, born in a remote part of a remote province, far from all those facilities for acquiring knowledge, which in this age and country are poured out before the feet of the people;-he was not even gifted in any extraordinary way by nature. He was in no sense of the word a genius. He had, as his eminent biographer remarks, no imagination;-his power of acquiring does not seem to have been extraordinarily rapid, nor his memory singularly retentive. In all cases where the force of that will, at once steady and ardent, which enabled him to master his favourite studies, was not brought to bear, his progress was slow and inconsiderable. It is not, therefore, in any supposed intellectual advantages that we must look for the causes of his rise to eminence. They are to be found rather in the moral qualities which distinguished him, qualities attainable in a greater or less degree by men of the humblest rank, of the most homely intellect, the least favoured by situation or connexion. It will well repay us to look a little more nearly into these qualities; they are the bases of everything which a man of unperverted judgment and taste would respect in others or desire in himself.

He possessed in an eminent degree the distinguishing virtues of his country,— sincerity, unadulterated and faithful love of truth, and honesty. The zeal with which he gave himself to a pursuit which might enable him to be useful to his native district;--the total absence of vanity and of all interested motives which characterized the whole course of his studies and of his journeyings ;— the simplicity of his narrative, in which no more of himself and his individual feelings appears than is just necessary to keep up the thread of the story;the rigorous accuracy and anxiety after truth for which his travels have ever been, and still remain, pre-eminently distinguished among all who preceded, and all who have followed him on the same ground, afford ample evidence of the singleness and the steadiness of the motives which actuated him. The punctilious honour which distinguished his disbursement of the funds entrusted to his care by the Danish government;the exactness with which he abstained from applying a farthing of this money to any object which could be considered by others, or which his own more fastidious delicacy could regard, as a personal gratification, (though connected as all his pleasures were with the interests of science and the scope of his mission, prove that honour is confined to no class, but that its highest refinements are within the reach of the humblest.

His self-command was perfect. He could abstain from what was agreeable, and do what was disagreeable to him. He was, of course, sober, temperate even to abstemiousness, laborious and persevering; neither discouraged nor elated by the incidents which he must have known were inseparable from the career he had chosen.

The more tranquil and uniform course of life which he led from the time of his marriage till his death,-his conduct as a father of a family and a citizen, are marked by the same integrity, active usefulness, and simplicity. It was not one of the smallest benefits he conferred

B

upon his country and society that he imbued his illustrious son with the same fervent and steady zeal for truth and freedom, the same devotion to science, the same respect for all that is beneficent and honourable, which animated his own blameless and useful life. Happy the country which can draw such men as Niebuhr from the ranks of her peasantry to the highest walks of science, and the most important posts in her service!

LIFE OF NIEBUHR.

HADELN, as we are informed by the historical notice at the end of the an. cient Frisian laws, printed at Wittewierum, was a province of Friesland, and formerly, under the name of Hadelre, belonged to the seventh Seeland*, or maritime district. Attne dis solution of the great Frisian federation, it lost its republican freedom, and, after experiencing various fortunes, fell into the hands of the Dukes of Saxelauenburg, and, together with that duchy, devolved to Hanover.

The country consists of marsh, with the exception of three parishes of moorland: the peasantry are, as usual in Friesland, universally free proprietors, every one of whom possesses, inhabits, and cultivates his farm, with the fullest and most perfect enjoyment of the rights of property. Down to the time of the French conquest the local administration was free, in the hands of magistrates chosen by the peasantry ;the taxes were extremely light, and the prosperity and comfort of the peasantry very great.

Friesland, divided into seven Seclanden, or provinces, was exposed to frequent landings of the Normen on their coasts, and on the land-ide attacks from the neighbouring Bishops and Counts. To secure themselves from external assault and from internal disquiet, the seven Seclanden formed themselves into a closely united body. This union was ratified at Upstalsboom in the middle of the 11th ntury, at a general assembly of the people.-W.ARDA.

The peasantry of Friesland enjoy many remarkable rights and liberties rarely to be found in other countries. At one time the Landstandschaft, or right and dignity of legislative landed proprietors, was claimed by the freeholders or hereditary owners of small portions of land. These freeholders are chiefly

to be found in the marshes, and the marshmen are principally distinguished from the moorlanders from the rareness of allodial tenures among them. The freeholders possess the entire property of their land, and are subject to no one but the government, to which alone they pay taxes and render the service attached to the land. Those freemen who possess not considerable farms, but a few acres, are called Cotters (Köther) and generally carry on some other accessary or subordinate business.-WIARDA,

In this country,-among these free men,-himself a free peasant, or yeoman,-was Carsten Niebuhr born. on the 17th of March, 1733, in his father's farm-house, in West Lüdingworth. His father and his ancestors, from his great great grandfather downwards, (higher than whom our accounts do not reach) lived as yeomen on their own marsh farm;-in competence, though not in affluence.

It is a remarkable fact that certain epochs produce men distinguished in the same art, or science, or talent, whilst other epochs are utterly barren of them. This was the case, in the north of Germany, with the contemporaries of Carsten Niebuhr. In or about the same year occurred the births of Count Andrew Peter Bernstorf, of Reimarus, Hensler the father, Behrens, and, at remoter distances of time and place, of many other celebrated men. The men of this time were distinguished for a remarkable activity, a singular earnestness and zeal, and a robust health of body and of mind; they have left behind them the most durable monuments in their works and in their actions. They came after Winkelmann, Kant, and Klopstock, by just such an interval as to be rising up to maturity when the latter had reached it.

It

Carsten Niebuhr lost his mother before he was six weeks old. He grew up under the care of a stepmother in his father's house, where his way of life and his employments, as well as his education, were those common to the peasant boys of his country. was, probably, owing to his own eager desire for knowledge, that his father was induced, only with a view to his being somewhat better instructed than a common peasant, to send him to the Grammar-school in Otterndorf, whence he afterwards went to that at Altenbruch. But the removal of the schoolmaster of that place and the prejudices of his guardians (for his father had died in the interval) put an end to his school studies, before he had gone far enough even to have them sufficiently impressed on his memory, to be of any service to him, when he afterwards resumed them.

The division of his father's property between the surviving children had left him, instead of the farm which had been so long the hereditary possession of the family, only a very small capital,

quite inadequate to the purchase of any land for himself; and necessity would have led him to acquire knowedge as a means of subsistence, even if he had been of a character to endure to live without education and without employment. He was obliged, however, to content himself with such accomplishments as were attainable without school learning; he, therefore, for a year, pursued music with great zeal, and learned to play on several instruments with a view to earn his living as an organist. As this employment, likewise, did not meet the approbation of his guardians, his maternal uncle took him home to his own house, where he passed about four years, during which his life was once more completely that of a peasant. The older he grew, however, the less could he endure the void and dulness of this way of life, which can only be relieved, either, as in old times, by a share in the general deliberations on the affairs of the community, and by cheerfulness and merriment, or, as is the case with the English farmer, by a participation in the advantages of education, and literary amusement. He felt an irresistible impulse to learn, to employ himself, and to render himself generally useful.

The purely accidental circumstances which determine the course of life of distinguished men deserve to be remembered. In the highest degree accidental was that which gave to Niebuhr the direction which he thenceforward followed, until it led him to become the most eminent traveller of modern times. A lawsuit had arisen concerning the superficial contents of a farm, which could only be decided by measurement; and, as there was no landsurveyor in Hadeln, the parties were obliged to send for one to another place. Niebuhr feit for the honour of his native district with all the warmth of old times, and this occurrence appeared to him disgraceful to it: he could now fulfil a duty towards his country by learning the neglected art, which at the same time furnished him with an occupation and an object such as he desired. He was, in the meantime, come of age, and, as he learnt that instruction in practical geometry was to be had in Bremen, he immediately repaired thither. This plan was frustrated; the teacher upon whom he reckoned was dead; but he did not disdain the instructions of a humble practitioner of the

art. He, however, would have been obliged to lodge and board in his house, and here the bashful, strictly decorous and self-distrusting young peasant, found two town-bred young ladies, sisters of his intended teacher, whose attentions appeared to him so singular that he quickly took his departure. He now turned his eyes toward Hamburgh, but there he was destined again to experience disappointment, and to have his perseverance put to the test.

He had passed his two-and-twentieth year when he went to Hamburgh to avail himself of Succow's instructions in mathematics, and, without any false shame on account of his age, te begin his school studies anew. His income was not sufficient to maintain him even with that rigid frugality which was natural to him. He determined, however, to spend just so much of his small capital as would enable him to accomplish his end. He arrived at Hamburgh in the summer of the year, 1755, as we find from his letters to president Beymgraben, the only friend of riper age and judgment he then possessed, by whose family they are reverentially preserved.

But just at this time Succow was called to Jena: the mathematical chair was empty, and was not filled until Büsch was appointed to it. The severest application to private instruction was, therefore, necessary to make the lessons at the gymnasium (or public school) intelligible or profitable to him. A countryman of his, named Witke, who, at that time, lived in Hamburgh as candidate for holy orders, and who afterwards died at Otterndorf, where he was pastor, gave him this private instruction with true cordiality and friendship. Niebuhr always spoke of him as the person who laid the foundation of his education, and, as such, honoured and loved him with grateful piety. Notwithstanding his uncommon exertions, and the strength both of his body and mind, twenty months, eight of which passed in merely preparatory studies, (for the Latin tongue was almost entirely unknown to him,) were quite insufficient for one who began to learn so late in life; to acquire that quantity of learning which more fortunate youths bring with them to the university. Among other things thus unavoidably neglected was Greek, which he always greatly lamented the want of.

Under Büsch he had begun to learn mathematics: he was the earliest and

the most distinguished of all his pupils, and in after-life became his most intimate friend.

To stop half-way in any undertaking was thoroughly repugnant to his whole character. He had gone to Hamburgh solely with a view to acquire a knowledge of geometry, and of some things commonly taught in schools; but as soon as he had become acquainted with the sciences, he could not rest until he was able to embrace them in all their extent and depth, and in the Easter of 1757 he repaired to Göttingen. His pursuit continued to be mathematics: he was more than ever compelled, by the diminution of his little substance, to aim at some employment by which he could maintain himself, and to which his studies would lead. This he now looked to in the Hanoverian engineer corps, in which (as was the case in almost all the military services of Germany) men of efficient mathematical attainments were extremely rare, and might hope to become the makers of their fortunes by merit.

He studied with the steadiness which a fixed, simple, and prudent plan of life ensures, from the Easter of 1757 (when he came to the university,) for more than a year, undisturbed by the war which frequently raged around Göttingen*.

At this time he recollected that an endowment, or fund for exhibitions, existed at this university, and begged his friend to ascertain whether it was only for poor students, in the strict sense of the word; or whether it was endowed without that limitation, as a means of persevering in the study of something

"The studies of Göttingen," says Mr. Niebuhr, "were indeed but little disturbed by this cause. On the one hand, the French were extremely courteous and insinuating in their behaviour to the distinguished men of letters: (though had Richelieu's plan of devastation been carried through, this city would have been burnt to the ground.) On the other, the learned of that place were so utterly devoid of all the spirit of a patriot or a citizen, that one of them boasted that he had not abused the confidence of a French officer, who had biabbed to him the expedition against Brunswick, in 1762; and even that he had refused one of his pupils the use of his horse, which he begged for, that he might carry to the Hanoverian army intelligence which would have enabled it to surprise the enemy; it was against his conscience! My father was otherwiseminded, and ventured into the French camp on purpose to gain intelligence. That such an extinction of all manly feeling in men of letters is fatal to science and literature, may be sufficiently seen in the

works of these denationalized men.

"A far different spirit reigned at Halle, where, so long as the thunder of the cannon re-echoed from Rosbach, the master of the orphan school, and all his boys remained on their knees praying to God for victory for Frederic and Prussia, as if they had been

in a besieged town."

The

At this period Frederic the Fifth reigned in Denmark in enviable tranquillity. Louis the Fourteenth's memory still shone throughout Europe with all that false glitter which had hung around his name during his life, and he was well known to be the model after which the ministers of the Danish monarch endeavoured, as far as it was compatible with the character of a peaceful king, to form their sovereign. Seldom, however, have the aims of a minister been less liable to reproach than those of the then Baron J. H. E. Bernstorf; and among all the statesmen of the continent, there was not, perhaps, one of his time so well informed, so intelligent, and so noble-minded. truth of the charge brought against him, that the then system of administration was not suited to Denmark, was felt by some of his contemporaries, but this feeling was mixed up with personality and exaggeration. It cannot be denied, that for a century the nation had been declining: this was clearly attributable to two causes, namely, a rage for whatever was foreign, and an internal suffocation of the public mind, perfectly analogous to that with which the Jesuit opposers of the Reformation had accomplished the entire demoralization of Bohemia; and it was obvious that the population, both of the country and of towns, must, by political means adapted to their peculiar situations, be assisted in remedying this evil as much as possible. The extraordinary and beneficent qualities and endowments of the second Count Bernstorf will be remembered by a grateful nation, after a period of disaster, not merely with regret, since what he effected remains indestructible, and forms the sole basis for future reforms and improvements; but as having bequeathed an everlasting model in his administration. Posterity will perhaps mention, as among his uncle's noblest actions, the emancipation of his serfs, or slaves of the soil; the leisure which he ensured to Klopstock, and the scientific expedition he sent into Arabia. This enterprise was originally owing to Michaelis, who had represented to the minister of state that many elucidations of the Old Testament might be obtained by personal observation and inquiry in Arabia, which might