[Born at Potsdam, in Prussia, 1767. Died near Berlin, 1835. Aged 68.]
In William Von Humboldt the highest qualities of a scholar were united
to the talents of a statesman and man of the world. He discharged the
functions of Ambassador at Vienna and in London, and served his country
on more than one grave and diplomatic mission. He was extensively
learned in languages dead and living; but that is common in Germany. His
_originality_, as a philologist, lies in a delicacy of abstruse
thought--a philosophical vein, as fine as profound, which he brings to
bear on all questions of the literary field, from the rigid
investigation of grammatical forms and laws, to the most feeling and
comprehensive criticisms of taste. A rare power of sifting analysis, a
strong impulse to tread, alone and self-guided, unfrequented grounds,
and an eye to seek out new truth on ground the most trodden, may be read
in his various masterly writings. He was a poet also.
[Modelled by Thorwaldsen, at Rome, in 1807. It has since been executed
in marble by order of King Frederic William III., and placed in the
Museum at Berlin.]