The Express.
London, England, 1849-09-27 00:00:00

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

(Prom the Frankfort Journal.)
4, What a man ! " ex,•l timed GU he once, after re_
eriving a vinit trona Hombold:. "I know co no mu kt
compere him to ; he resembles a source of ever gushing sweet
motors • he knows everything, and knows th..roughly whathe doe; know."

The poet was right. Alexander von Humboldt. who orma
plated his 80th year on the 14th of September of this yow.
with all she undiminished vigour et his mind, end with,
body still hale, is ore of the greatest and mat commits*.
sine minds that have flourished in any age, and one of the
moat important men of our own. He On ego most spp
steely called the Napoleon of natural science, in aging
convoy the idea that he stands forth without compare foie
amongst ordinary mortals.
There have been perhaps few men so entirely handl he
he has been, for nature endowed him with a sans lady lee
a gigantic u wall as sane mind. It le seldom that s kar►
peas from • northern clime can rove with impunity
palm tiers, but on Humboldt neither the beat of the
nor the fey cold of the Ural and Altai could exert say hew
ful influence. From an early period he was itidependeet os
to fortune, and there was no adverse circumstai ea to proem
him from giving himself to the impulse of his genies. flesh
es a youth he enjoyed the society of the wisest and best in
Germany. To a calm perspicuity of understanding he oaks
• wonderful acuteness of potattratien, and his first hums.
sten is unerring. In powers of combination he has seldom
been equalled, and besides his ouloatel memory, that inn
deserts him, that is equally faithful as it is repid, hie glide
intellect is infused with a rich vatic vein, and 'pia 10 *id
a fancy is ale his own, his tact* is so eatable and fine, t
be throws tho charm of attraction over the very. brie
subject he may happen to treat. Geographers unanimously
recognise him as their mater,historians grateful:, content*
their lore is deepl iedelited to Lim, and paldogists has
received no little light from bim to iliumine whet had lan
hitherto obscure for them in antiquity. Hardy is duteous
single field of scientific inquiry that Hu eboldt has not se.
Ached, he has even enlightened the fathers of the dumb ye
their esthetic side. The Spaniards as well as we Oettemti
so likewise the French and the English enrol this wee*.
lul man among their elessic stylists, for in addition to the
meet securae Latin, Humboldt writes Spanish, Eaglet].(?),
i and French with Willi, precision, and treeseas own native
language. When he gave public lectures thirty years soak
Paris, the French willingly admitted that few of their sea
; great countrymen came up to hint in luxuriance, correcturs,
I, sad clearness. -

This men, in the plenitude of his understanling and will
the clearest consciousness, has lived wi.h and tem* e
period of transition, such as the world hes never seen am
the earliest centuries of Christendom. Born in the mtm
year with Napoleon, he knew the Great Frederick; hk
youth was coeval with the North American coexist for liberty;
hie admired the great Washington ; the drama of toe Flack
revolution that convulsed the world and that reed teamed
blood, he saw, and not remotely, pass betore hien, with ito
martial feats and its giants. But wbile the Ge:man empire
of a thousand years was tumbling into ruin end the Gene*
land was becoming the prey of the peoeut conqoerer, Hue
boldt was wandering through the table. Ise& of the nom
or the low plains near the Orinoco and Rionegr ,; hems
not an immediate witness of the disasters his com&k
men bewailed at Ulm or Jena During the lucg tinsel&
restoration he employed his leisure in the eureperitits of
those literary works that will remain as preteens is al
ages for the natural sciences, for future research is the
antiquities of America. and for re ry breech of geography,
Ho, the man of four scare years, who has s e stirred men by
the living word and to genially promoted study, hes wee
too, in the evening of his infinitely rich life, how rte per.
man people still atruggla for a new conformation, for unity
and freedom. So enlightened a soul, so char a thither, a
brad so incapabie cf a 1 narrow-mindeduns, must be doid
of prejudice, must be favourably inclined from the depths d
that soul to the cause of freedom and moves,. Yet t y say
immediate political activity his mount has been so little die
posed as Goths's was. Humboldt has ever beta mated
with employing his influence preferably is behalf of icing,
which owes an infinite debt of acknowledgmeut to him.
There are very few seentific great individuals of the kit
60 years with whom he had not penes,' relaiiem. If say-
thing in him, in addition to the immense comprequivesesi
of his acquirements, could raise our astoeishment, it weal
he his almost ut.parelleled industry, and that woutiedel
activity that distioguithes this great man. Ho bas enlarged
the science of naviimila, especially enriel iag the history
nauties; geology zoology, botany are co list indebted h
him than the collective physical sciences, mote pirtieljelly
meteorology, magnetism, that science which treata of the
distributiou of heat over the earth ; gemeaphy, the kidney
of nations, and political bietory ; lsdy statistics, serial—
ture, and trade. Almost in every field tßie Garman giguee
mind Mu formed new paths of exploration.
When a young man of twenty, atter he hod completed his
university studies in Gii•tingen and at Frankfort on tie
Oder, we find him in the company of George Fewer &-
emending the Rhine on his way to Holland end England; he
writers his week on the basalts near the Rhine. Immedieely
atter ;this he proceeds to Freiberg, for studying an&
Werner, the founder of geological science, and he writes ea
fossil plants. He then enters for a short time into the Fro
Bien civil service; but the routine of aoministratin
duties not satisfying his ardent mire], he applin
with re loubled ardour to the study of animal clean i%
goes to Vienna, whitee he labours intently on botany, this
travels, accompanied by Leopold von Both, nod to what
is still permitted to behold the light of day, through &le
burg and Styria, but is compelled to renounce the plead
exploring Italy. He, however, repairs with his globose
brother Vilhelm to Paris, where he forms tho acquaintance
of his future travelling companion Boneland ; and in 176
sets out for the court of Madrid to obtain there the poi&
bion of travelling through the Spanish oolonies of America.
In his eighteenth year he had resolved on visiting the Ane-
rime continent, and what he had studied anti laboured en up
to his thirtieth year he considered es a mere prepare
lion for the accomplishment of a greater task. The
youth had, indeed, had his fancy fired at first
by the splendid and luxuriant vegetation of the pleat world,
by the forests of eigantic trees interwoven with limas and the
foliage of countless shrubs, by the prculimity of the lofty
steppes on the Andes, the boundless extent of the Savanashs
of which he subeequentiv traced so vivid a picture in his
" Views of Nature." Gradually, however, with h's Mime
ing knowledge roar the purely scientific interest, and Rs&
boldt commenced his voyage acre& the Atlantic Ocean.
The hardy traveller, so carefully preinstrueted, if:versed&
mounts end plains of moderaVeni zutheescended th• Orizesee
to where It branches off, and thus terms a junction trek
the Amazon, explored Guayana, coucaniog which anothst
German traveller, Schomburgk, has lately given such vales*
contribui ,ns ; he then sailed across the sea to Cobs, fist
pearl of the Antilles, then back to the continent Mt*
whioh he mounted along the valley of Magdalena up to thl
tablee land of the Cordilleras. Thus he scanned the majestic
solitudes of Quito, and navigated the coasts of the Patine;
he ha. conjure d up for us the deputed merle of the state of
the Incas in his life-breathing pictures and true deliese
tions • thus be wandered through Mexico and classical
detcriLed It, returning then by the United States to Ewer.
But while he e as partly editing, partly preparing, his weeks
on the new world, he received is 1829 the summons to In*
accompanied by Role and Ehrenberg, to Northern ithe
and he consequently, at the age of sixty years, visited Siege
and the Altai.
Humboldt's gigantic work on America comprehends •
the large edition 17 volumes in felio and 11 volumes
quarto. It treats of the geograpby of plants, of zoology, ma
comparative anatomy, astronomy end geognoay ; it remit
a physical picture of the tropic regions, and especially owe
also of their climatology. It contains views of tee Cordillera,
and depicts the old Peruvian monuments, gives a politkel
description of Mexico and Cubs as they then wen,
and concludes with a general representation nf those mesh
that formed an epoch in science, and—if we may use thee*
prsesion—which form the point of departure for a ere
"soh of of viatorial description," which likewise hes ob
Mined its worthiest disciples in Germany : for instance Bpfs
and Martha, Poeppig, Scbomburgk, Mayen, Erman, Shrmt
berg, Roes, Eiohwald, and DO many more besides.
Humboldt his described the Asiatic journey is the kir
meats on the climatology of Asi but then wrote a useigh
piece of historical research, the "Critical Invade'
Lions into the historical development of geographical
knowledge respecting the New World, and into the pan'
gross of nautical astronomy in the fiftsente and gizmos*
Centuries," a book with which we, as (arse our limo
knowledge extends, can compare no other fa coreprehatehe
erudition. In the German edition of it we wet with the re-
mark, that one copy of the whole collection of Humboldt%
works on America, in the huge edition, now mete months
10.000 francs, twice as much as the celebrated " Deseripilm
of Egypt," for the publication of which the French gown-
ment advanced 3,000,000 francs; whereas liumboldei
voyages, although the 1,300 copperplates, the printing, sad
paper, cost 840,000 francs, or man than 42,000 gold Fred*
ricks, were brought to completion by the patronage of the
public alone.
At an age of seventy-four years, when other old wars-
pose, Humbo:dt began his last work, the Cosmos, the dutch
of a physical description of the world, and whice is now else
pleted, in the late evening of a busy life—a work, whom*,
lines have been portrayed In the soul of the &utile:flotillas°
half a century. He wished to delinia'e how everythall
that is created on the earth and in celestial specs had to
taken up by him into his conception of a physical orieshiA
description.
With this work, that is also unique in literature, distil*
been translated into the language of all civilised
nations, the powerful mind wishes to close its booth
able scientific career. He has been, we repeat, a
nate man during the whole period of his Lite. So prollw'
has destiny been to him, that it vouchsafed to him she.
ther, who in other departments of genius ail flair', .00"
II great, and in many respect' even still mate coneekiffill
than himself. Both brothers, Alexander and IVININ.
bound by the strictest friendship to each o:her, have tellan
to the perlec.ion of one another. Alexander has sum"'
the other, hut the names of both these heroes in science its
inseparable from each other for all future time. They fart
radiant stars in the bright crown of German science, sag
they have diffused the renown and glory of the German
name over all the world.

DAY OP HUMILIATION.—Yesterday was observed
as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer in Whiter-herb
Mile End, and its vicinity. Every shop ~nd pieced hid'
nem was closed, public and eativor houses esclittd Diem
service was performed in the different churches and citesh
both morning and t 'ening, and the attend nice was sager.
cue. The shops and warehouses in Aldeate, Road!.
ditch, occupied by the Jews, were likewise elm&
being their day ofatonement" or " white far."
Despatches were received yesterday at theColosik
office from the governors of the North American oo,oniev•