method, and willing and able to tranquillize his fears and encourage his diffidence by examining them. It was also a most adverse circumstance for him that Father Hell, who nad been sent to Wardöhuus to observe the transit of Venus in 1769, was then staying in Copenhagen. Father Hell was unquestionably an able astronomer, but prone to depreciate and to thwart the works of all other men. This accounts for his having taken pains to decry the quadrant which Niebuhr had constantly and most ably used, as an imperfect instrument;-a matter upon which he completely altered his tone when he took this very instrument with him to Norway. He was a declared enemy to Mayer's method; and as Niebuhr, with all the humility natural to him, acknowledged his superiority as a scientific astronomer, Father Hell took advantage of this to increase his diffidence as to the value of his observations, and to maintain that the only certain method of ascertaining the longitude was by the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites. Niebuhr had also made some observations of these eclipses. The scientific readers of his travels will recollect that the longitude of Loheia is determined by them, and that he ascribed the calculation to Father Hell. The impression which the crafty jesuit made upon his mind with respect to his lunar observations, was in the highest degree unfortunate. He had not, indeed, lost his own faith in his observations, but he now feared doubly for the reception they would meet with from the public, and thought he should be compelled to abandon them until somebody should be found who would examine and verify them. This was afterwards done by Bürg. He now came to the resolution to work up his materials in the form in which they afterwards appeared. For the publication of these two works, Bernstorf procured him very liberal support from the Danish government. All the copper-plates were executed at its cost, and given to Niebuhr. The rest of the expenses he defrayed, having adopted the unfortunate plan of publishing the works himself. While he was occupied in preparing his description of Arabia, the political circumstances of Denmark changed in a manner the most painful to him. Struensee had got possession of the government, and even of abso lute power, and Count Bernstorf was dismissed. Niebuhr did not think fit to take upon himself the character of a public man; his desire on this, as on other occasions, was not to be conspicuous; but he was far from disowning his warm attachment to Bernstorf at a time when all the timid fell off from the discarded minister: Niebuhr, with a very small number of faithful friends, accompanied him to Roeskilde. He never deigned to pay a visit to Struensee, nor would he appear in any place where he was likely to meet the mischievous despots of that unparalleled epoch. He spoke his mind freely; he rejoiced when the people rose against the enemies of their country, and shared the triumph of their downfall. The Description of Arabia appeared at Michaelmas, 1772. A book of this kind could not become popular; it was, indeed, fitted only for the few. It is, however, difficult to understand how a critic could be found with effrontery enough to write such a review of a book so truly classical, so full of information, and, at the same time, of modesty, as that which appeared in the Lemgo Scientific Journal. It was manifestly dictated by a desire, not to enlighten the public, but to destroy the book. Personal hostility had blinded the writer, or envenomed his mind; he, however, attained his end-he deeply wounded an unpractised author, whom the cool reception of the public had already sufficiently discouraged. Niebuhr expected that his work would excite a more lively interest abroad than in Denmark; and the appearance of the French edition, which he published the following year, seemed well calculated to realize his expectations. In publishing this, however, two great errors were committed, which increased the influence of the adverse star that presided over all his literary undertakings. The translation ought to have appeared at the same time with the original. Time had now been given for a Dutch publisher to make the same speculation, and the two translations came out at the same time. But however bad and impure was the French of Holland, and to however small a portion of praise the translation which appeared there is entitled, it unfortunately happened that the one made at Copenhagen by a refugee priest was much worse. So utterly unreadable, indeed, was it, that nothing but its novelty could have procured it any notice whatever. Niebuhr, who understood only just so much of the lansuage as was necessary to make himself understood, was unhappily no judge of this, and threw away all the money this abortive undertaking cost him. At this time a sort of diplomatic messenger, sent to several of the northern courts of Europe by the Pasha of Tripoli, arrived at Copenhagen. His name was Abderrahman Aga. The object of his mission was to beg those presents for his master, which the feeble government of Tripoli had no longer power to extort. It was also a favour conferred upon the ambassador, who was entertained at the cost of the courts he visited, and received presents for himself. The Danish ministry had assigned him a man as companion and attendant, who had formerly been consul in Barbary, and was supposed of course to understand Arabic. The Tripolitan, who was a very intelligent man, found him extremely dull, and almost entirely ignorant of the language he was employed to interpret. Niebuhr, who cherished the feelings of a countryman towards all orientals, visited Abderrahman. He was delighted with an opportunity of speaking and hearing Arabic, of reviving his already diminished facility in it, and of gaining from a native, information concerning the regions where that language is spoken which he had not visited. From him also he gained much interesting intelligence of Tripoli and Barbary. The details which he gathered concerning middle Africa were of a much more important kind; and are the first calculated to throw any light on those unexplored regions, collected since the time of Johannes Leo Africanus. During two centuries and a half the numerous Europeans who returned from the northern coast of Africa and from Egypt, had not contributed the smallest addition to the stock of knowledge on this subject; and geographers could only, with different degrees of critical acuteness and of intelligence, compare and adapt the accounts given, at an interval of four centuries, by Sherif Edrisi, and by Leo. D'Anville's acuteness in divining the geography of Africa, viewed with reference to the extreme poverty of the data, appears perfectly marvellous. Niebuhr's details were collected sixteen years before that passion arose in England for the discovery of Africa, which has since led so many travellers thither, Their accuracy has been wonderfully confirmed, and they afford one of the most convincing proofs of his talents for geographical research. Abderrahman Aga visited many of the countries and capitals of Europe, but Niebuhr was the only man then to be found who knew how to turn this opportunity to the account of science. His testimony was most valuable. He had not, indeed, crossed the Sahara, or visited Negroland, but he traded thither; and besides the interest which he took in the country as a merchant, he had that ardour for geographical research which is very extensively dif fused among the nations of the east, and is promoted by the paucity of their subjects of conversation. He likewise had some knowledge of the Negro languages: from him, and from one of his black servants, Niebuhr collected various specimens of these dialects. The discovery of two great Mohammedan and civilised kingdoms in central Africa; the Tripolitan's assurance that a traveller, sufficiently acquainted with eastern manners and customs to pass as an Asiatic, would meet with no greater difficulties there than in Arabia, and with less fanaticism than in Egypt; the undoubted good faith and cordiality of Abderrahman's invitation, and of his promise of all possible recommendations and assistance; the consciousness of the knowledge, aptitude, and familiarity which he had acquired, joined to that longing after the deep and solemn tranquillity of Eastern lands, which other Europeans who have been long resident in them have felt ;-all these causes united, awakened in his mind so intense a desire to travel by way of Tripoli and Fezzan to the Niger, that he would probably have set out at his own expense, without any assistance from the government, had he not been withheld by the duty of first finishing the account of his travels. Whatever were the countless dangers which threatened him, we are justified in believing that in all human probability he would have surmounted them. The Moorish merchants, who, through the first injudicious visits of the English expedition, became suspicious and jealous, would have received him without any hostile feelings, and for the difficulties of the journey he was as well prepared as an Asiatic. His talents and fitness for the undertaking were too peculiar and remarkable, and too tho roughly tried, not to promise him results greater than those which any other traveller, excepting only Brown, could expect. But the course of his life was now to be changed. Had he remained single, he would have hastened to finish his work, in order to attempt this attractive adventure; but at this very time he became acquainted with the daughter of the deceased physician Blumenberg, a Thuringian, and was soon betrothed to her. This was his first and only love; and that it was deep and strong is suffici ently proved, by his sacrificing to it the journey of discovery which he had so passionately desired, and the oriental life which was so agreeable to him. He married in 1773. His wife bore him two children, a daughter, and B. G. Niebuhr, the illustrious author of the most learned and valuable researches into the history of Rome which have ever appeared, from whose life of his father this memoir is chiefly taken. The first volume of his travels appeared at the Easter fair of the following year, 1774. This caused him to visit the fair; but, even had he not been led to Leipzig by business, he would have been induced to go by his desire to become personally known to Reiske. If any man in Germany ever experienced the misery of persecuted excellence, it was Reiske, whose cotemporaries could not but admit, that if any imperfection now and then appeared in his learning, it arose only from the extent and fulness of his genius and imagination; and that what was ill natured and unamiable in his writings, was the offspring of his bitter feelings at being trodden underfoot by the ty ranny of literary envy. "It is not without pride," says Mr. Niebuhr, "that I affirm that my father and Lessing were the only men who did honour to him while living: my father publicly bore testimony that, even among the Arabs themselves, he had never met with a man so profoundly versed in their literature." In spite of the very unfavourable experience he had already had of publishing on his own account, he held himself bound by a sacred duty to his departed friend to publish Forskaal's works on natural history. This acquittal of a debt to friendship occasioned him a greater loss than all his other publications, from the unavoidably small sale of the work. It was impossible to print from manuscripts in so confused a state, nor could Niebuhr undertake to arrange them, totally unacquainted as he was with the natural sciences, and little versed in the Latin language. He entrusted the task to a Swedish man of letters, and paid him a very considerable sum for its execution. This Swede was a strange man, and, among other things, importuned Niebuhr to let the preface appear in his name; his compliance with which was afterwards a cause of great regret to him. The extraordinary value of this neglected and forgotten work has been mentioned. Already discouraged by the very considerable sums he had either wholly sunk, or, at least, locked up for a long time, in his literary undertakings, he delayed the publication of the second volume of his Travels, which did not appear till 1778. According to his original plan, this ought to have come down to the termination of his expedition; he broke off, however, at his arrival at Haleb. The remainder of the journey, together with remarks on the Turkish empire, on the Mohammedan religion, details concerning Abyssinia which he had collected at Yemen, and those relating to Sudan which he had obtained from Abderrahman Aga; lastly, the whole of his astronomical cbservations, were to compose the third volume, which he then thought would very soon follow the others, but which never appeared, though he was so often and so earnestly urged to publish it by his friends and admirers. The causes which hindered his complying with their wishes will be stated in the sequel of this narrative. He lived very contentedly at Copenhagen, in the bosom of his family, and of a small circle of friends; but the loss which he sustained from the retirement of Count Bernstorf was never supplied. Misunderstandings and differences some time afterwards troubled his outward comfort; and as he easily took a disgust at a place of residence in which he had experienced vexations, he began to grow averse to this city, although he had lived happily in it for ten years, particularly as he heard that General Huth intended to send him into Norway on a geographical survey of that country. This mission was extremely distasteful to him; he did not like to be separated from his family, and he could not take them with him into the wild mountains of Norway. He therefore endeavoured to quit the military service, and to obtain a post in the civil service of Holstein. The government acceded to his wishes, and gave him the situation of secretary of the district (landschreiber), at Meldorf; an office, the duties of which were not at that time very burthensome. In the summer of 1778, he arrived with his family at that place, in which he remained till his death. Meldorf, the chief town of the old republic of Ditmarschen, formerly rich and populous, is sunk into obscurity and desolation. It was twice taken, plundered and burnt, both in the successful war of subjugation, and in that of vengeance and liberation, which followed it. This, added to the grievous contributions extorted from it in the thirty years' war, and the famine which arose out of the universal decay in which the country languished from the year 1628, till the rise of the price of corn in 1790, completed its ruin. Numercus vestiges of the good old times are, to those acquainted with its history, melancholy memorials of its lost and irrecoverable prosperity. Quiet and deserted as the place was, it may readily be supposed that it was entirely without the sort of society suited to a man of Niebuhr's tastes and character; for he was, unfortunately, little versed in the learned languages, and he remained a stranger to the excellent man who is still the ornament of the place, until he became indebted to him for the philological education of his son. ing and intelligent, but inexperienced, men, as well as on the reckless and inconsiderate; as epidemical complaints attack the strong as well as the weak, During the American war the rage for shares in a joint-stock undertaking prevailed in Copenhagen, and was fostered and heightened by delusive appearances. Niebuhr was one of those who suffered themselves to be tempted to buy Asiatic shares, and wait for a higher and higher premium, till at length they reached a price for which there was no foundation; this ended in their sudden fall, and in the loss of the holders. Many things now conspired to trouble his tranquillity. He himself, as a native marshman, enjoyed very good health in the air of Ditmarschen; but his wife, like all strangers, had to struggle against continual attacks of fever, and her delicate constitution was thoroughly shaken. Niebuhr had employed himself for many years, though of late with considerable interruptions, in arranging and preparing his works. He now entirely laid them aside. With the same view he had read a great deal; he was now in a place in which no book ever met his eye, which he did not himself procure. The void which this occasioned was extremely oppressive to him and disheartened and indisposed him for his labour: the more so, as the dead stagnation of a place in which no day was ever marked by a new occurrence, was contrary to his nature, to that impulse which had driven him out into the wide world, and to the very varied Meanwhile he settled his plan of life; and eventful life to which he had been built himself a house, the massive style accustomed. The void indeed which he of which showed his love for the plain felt was one which no books could fill; and substantial dwellings of his fathers, and, as he did not clearly define it and planted a garden, the fruit of which to himself, it hung upon his spirits as a he was at that time in too delicate silent discontent. The direction of his.nind health to hope to gather. He, however, was exclusively towards the historical outlived mest of the trees in it. In knowledge of things which form a part these employments, and the acquisition of the existing and visible earth. Even of knowledge of the country, several the history of the past ages of the huyears slipped away, during which he man race was for him a merely suborbegan to lose sight of the termination of dinate study. From the same peculiar his work; indeed, this daily became a character of his mind, even astronomy, source of increased pain and mortifica- his own proper pursuit, had no charms tion to him, from an increasing perception for him, except as serving to illusof the pecuniary loss it had caused him, trate geography. When he built his and from the great indifference to it which house, he had fitted up a room as an obthen prevailed in Germany. servatory, and made observations there and in other parts of Holstein for the sake of ascertaining the situations of places: latterly, however, he discontinued this more and more, and the instruments he had used on his travels were preserved only as relics. At this time, too, he sustained a loss 'which rendered him, as father of a family, more thoughtful as to the sacrifice of a part of his remaining property for so unthankful an undertaking. Á passion for speculation seizes on reflect It was a most fortunate and beneficial thing for him that, a few years after he settled at Meldorf, Boie was sent thither as Landvogt, or governor of the province. The editor of the "Deutches Museum" had, of course, very extensive literary connexions, and the intercourse between men of letters was then carried on with a vivacity and interest now wholly unknown. On every account, therefore, he was capable of furnishing various interesting matter about which Niebuhr's mind busied itself. An intimate and daily intercourse, which formed part of the regular routine of their lives, accordingly arose between these two men, and, when Boie married, between the two familles. Through Boie's means Niebuhr also became acquainted with men who would otherwise never have visited this remote and obscure corner. In this manner he obtained the acquaintance and the friendship of the celebrated poet and scholar, Voss. Another and not less considerable advantage which arose out of Boie's residence at Meldorf was, that he possessed a very fine library, which, as editor of the Museum," he was continually increasing. The greater part of the books were, it is true, foreign to Niebuhr's tastes and pursuits, but there were many which interested and occupied him. One consequence of this connexion was, that he was stimulated to write many papers, which circumstances called forth, for the "Museum;" and to give treatises to that periodical, which had been intended to form part of his third volume, and were laid on the shelf. This was, in more than one way, disadvantageous to him. It tended to extinguish all purpose of publishing the deficient volume; it dissolved the connexion in the matter, and destroyed its integrity; and was so much given away out of the newest and most important parts. He seldom wrote for the press without constraint, or without dread of committing errors in style. This anxiety was greatly increased by Boie's fastídious criticism. Niebuhr gave him his manuscript to read through, as he had been in the habit of doing to a friend in Copenhagen. He was not, however, content with erasing a few obvious errors, but corrected it throughout with such rhetorical nicety, that Niebuhr was now more than ever convinced of his entire inability to write. In this he was quite wrong; for the style of those of his essays which had not been touched by any other hand, not only characteristically expresses his peculiar modes of thinking, but is remarkable for the simple beauty it derives from the Low German idoms, which sometimes appear faintly, sometimes in undisguised and primitive plainness. To Northern Germans they have a peculiar charm, and none but a taste, enfeebled and depraved by fastidious refinement, could ever take offence at them. Meanwhile his children grew to an age to require instruction. This he gave them himself. "He instructed both of us," (says his son,)" in geography, and related to us many passages of history. He taught me English and Frenchbetter, at any rate, than they would have been taught by any body else in such a place; and something of mathematics, in which he would have proceeded much farther, had not want of zeal and desire in me unfortunately destroyed all his pleasure in the occupation. One thing indeed was characteristic of his whole system of teaching:- -as he had no idea how any body could have knowledge of any kind placed before him, and not seize it with the greatest delight and avidity, and hold to it with the steadiest perseverance, he became disinclined to teach whenever we appeared inattentive or reluctant to learn. As the first instructions I received in Latin, before I had the good fortune to become a scho lar of the learned and excellent Jäger, were very defective, he helped me, and read with me Cæsar's Commentaries. Here, again, the peculiar bent of his mind shewed itself;-he always called my attention much more strongly to the geography than the history. The map of ancient Gaul by D'Anville, for whom he had the greatest reverence, always lay before us. I was obliged to look out every place as it occurred, and to tell its exact situation. His instructions had no pretension to be grammatical ;-his knowledge of the language, so far as it went, was gained entirely by reading, and by looking at it as a whole. He was of opinion, that a man did not deserve to learn what he had not principally worked out for himself; and that a teacher should be only a helper to assist the pupil out of otherwise inexplicable difficulties. From these causes his attempts to teach me Arabic, when he had already lost that facility in speaking it without which it is impossible to dis |