Ours is, no doubt, a forgetful age. Every day brings new events rushing in
upon us from all parts of the world; and the hours of real rest, when we
might ponder over the past, recall pleasant days, gaze again on the faces
of those who are no more, are few indeed. Men and women disappear from
this busy stage, and though for a time they had been the radiating centres
of social, political, or literary life, their places are soon taken by
others,—“the place thereof shall know them no more.” Few only appear again
after a time, claiming once more our attention through the memoirs of
their lives, and then either flitting away forever among the shades of the
departed, or assuming afresh a power of life, a place in history, and an
influence on the future often more powerful even than that which they
exercised on the world while living in it. To call the great and good thus
back from the grave is no easy task; it requires not only the power of a
_vates sacer_, but the heart of a loving friend. Few men live great and
good lives; still fewer can write them; nay, often, when they have been
lived and have been written, the world passes by unheeding, as crowds will
pass without a glance by the portraits of a Titian or a Van Dyke. Now and
then, however, a biography takes root, and then acts, as a lesson, as no
other lesson can act. Such biographies have all the importance of an _Ecce
Homo_, showing to the world what man can be, and permanently raising the
ideal of human life. It was so in England with the life of Dr. Arnold; it
was so more lately with the life of Prince Albert; it will be the same
with the life of Bunsen.
It seems but yesterday that Bunsen left England; yet it was in 1854 that
his house in Carlton Terrace ceased to be the refreshing oasis in London
life which many still remember, and that the powerful, thoughtful,
beautiful, loving face of the Prussian Ambassador was seen for the last
time in London society. Bunsen then retired from public life, and after
spending six more years in literary work, struggling with death, yet
reveling in life, he died at Bonn on the 28th of November, 1860. His widow
has devoted the years of her solitude to the noble work of collecting the
materials for a biography of her husband; and we have now in two large
volumes all that could be collected, or, at least, all that could be
conveniently published, of the sayings and doings of Bunsen, the scholar,
the statesman, and, above all, the philosopher and the Christian.
Throughout the two volumes the outward events are sketched by the hand of
the Baroness Bunsen; but there runs, as between wooded hills, the main
stream of Bunsen’s mind, the outpourings of his heart, which were given so
freely and fully in his letters to his friends. When such materials exist,
there can be no more satisfactory kind of biography than that of
introducing the man himself, speaking unreservedly to his most intimate
friends on the great events of his life. This is an autobiography, in
fact, free from all drawbacks. Here and there that process, it is true,
entails a greater fullness of detail than is acceptable to ordinary
readers, however highly Bunsen’s own friends may value every line of his
familiar letters. But general readers may easily pass over letters
addressed to different persons, or treating of subjects less interesting
to themselves, without losing the thread of the story of the whole life;
while it is sometimes of great interest to see the same subject discussed
by Bunsen in letters addressed to different people. One serious difficulty
in these letters is that they are nearly all translations from the German,
and in the process of translation some of the original charm is inevitably
lost. The translations are very faithful, and they do not sacrifice the
peculiar turn of German thought to the requirements of strictly idiomatic
English. Even the narrative itself betrays occasionally the German
atmosphere in which it was written, but the whole book brings back all the
more vividly to those who knew Bunsen the language and the very
expressions of his English conversation. The two volumes are too bulky,
and one’s arms ache while holding them; yet one is loth to put them down,
and there will be few readers who do not regret that more could not have
been told us of Bunsen’s life.
All really great and honest men may be said to live three lives: there is
one life which is seen and accepted by the world at large, a man’s outward
life; there is a second life which is seen by a man’s most intimate
friends, his household life; and there is a third life, seen only by the
man himself and by Him who searcheth the heart, which maybe called the
inner or heavenly life. Most biographers are and must be satisfied with
giving the two former aspects of their hero’s life,—the version of the
world, and that of his friends. Both are important, both contain some
truth, though neither of them the whole truth. But there is a third life,
a life led in communion with God, a life of aspiration rather than of
fulfillment,—that life which we see, for instance, in St. Paul, when he
says, “The good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not,
that I do.” It is but seldom that we catch a glimpse of those deep springs
of human character which cannot rise to the surface even in the most
confidential intercourse, which in every-day life are hidden from a man’s
own sight, but which break forth when he is alone with his God in secret
prayer,—aye, in prayers without words. Here lies the charm of Bunsen’s
life. Not only do we see the man, the father, the husband, the brother,
that stands behind the ambassador, but we see behind the man his angel
beholding the face of his Father which is in heaven. His prayers, poured
forth in the critical moments of his life, have been preserved to us, and
they show us what the world ought to know, that our greatest men can also
be our best men, and that freedom of thought is not incompatible with
sincere religion. Those who knew Bunsen well, know how that deep,
religious undercurrent of his soul was constantly bubbling up and breaking
forth in his conversations, startling even the mere worldling by an
earnestness that frightened away every smile. It was said of him that he
could drive out devils, and he certainly could, with his solemn, yet
loving voice, soften hearts that would yield to no other appeal, and see
with one look through that mask which man wears but too often in the
masquerade of the world. Hence his numerous and enduring friendships, of
which these volumes contain so many sacred relics. Hence that confidence
reposed in him by men and women who had once been brought in contact with
him. To those who can see with their eyes only, and not with their hearts,
it may seem strange that Sir Robert Peel, shortly before his death, should
have uttered the name of Bunsen. To those who know that England once had
prime ministers who were found praying on their knees before they
delivered their greatest speeches, Sir Robert Peel’s recollection, or, it
may be, desire of Bunsen in the last moments of his life has nothing
strange. Bunsen’s life was no ordinary life, and the memoirs of that life
are more than an ordinary book. That book will tell in England and in
Germany far more than in the Middle Ages the life of a new saint; nor are
there many saints whose real life, if sifted as the life of Bunsen has
been, would bear comparison with that noble character of the nineteenth
century.
Bunsen was born in 1791 at Corbach, a small town in the small principality
of Waldeck. His father was poor, but a man of independent spirit, of moral
rectitude, and of deep religious convictions. Bunsen, the son of his old
age, distinguished himself at school, and was sent to the University of
Marburg at the age of seventeen. All he had then to depend on was an
exhibition of about £7 a year, and a sum of £15, which his father had
saved for him to start him in life. This may seem a small sum; but if we
want to know how much of paternal love and self-denial it represented, we
ought to read an entry in his father’s diary: “Account of cash receipts by
God’s mercy obtained for transcribing law documents between 1793 and
1814,—sum total 3,020 thalers 23 groschen,” that is to say, about £22 per
annum. Did any English Duke ever give his son a more generous
allowance,—more than two-thirds of his own annual income? Bunsen began by
studying divinity, and actually preached a sermon at Marburg, in the
Church of St. Elizabeth. Students in divinity are required in Germany to
preach sermons as part of their regular theological training, and before
they are actually ordained. Marburg was not then a very efficient
university, and, not finding there what he wanted, Bunsen after a year
went to Göttingen, chiefly attracted by the fame of Heyne. He soon devoted
himself entirely to classical studies: and in order to support
himself,—for £7 per annum will not support even a German student,—he
accepted the appointment of assistant teacher of Greek and Hebrew at the
Göttingen gymnasium, and also became private tutor to a young American,
Mr. Astor, the son of the rich American merchant. He was thus learning and
teaching at the same time, and he acquired by his daily intercourse with
his pupil a practical knowledge of the English language. While at
Göttingen he carried off, in 1812, a prize for an essay on “The Athenian
Law of Inheritance,” which attracted more than usual attention, and may,
in fact, be looked upon as one of the first attempts at Comparative
Jurisprudence. In 1713 he writes from Göttingen:—
“Poor and lonely did I arrive in this place. Heyne received me,
guided me, bore with me, encouraged me, showed me in himself the
example of a high and noble energy and indefatigable activity in a
calling which was not that to which his merit entitled him; he
might have superintended and administered and maintained an entire
kingdom.”
The following passage from the same letter deserves to be quoted as coming
from the pen of a young man of twenty-two:—
“Learning annihilates itself, and the most perfect is the first
submerged; for the next age scales with ease the height which cost
the preceding the full vigor of life.”
After leaving the university Bunsen travelled in Germany with young Astor,
and made the acquaintance of Frederic Schlegel at Vienna, of Jacobi,
Schelling, and Thiersch at Munich. He was all that time continuing his own
philological studies, and we see him at Munich attending lectures on
Criminal Law, and making his first beginning in the study of Persian. When
on the point of starting for Paris with his American pupil, the news of
the glorious battle of Leipzig (October, 1813) disturbed their plans, and
he resolved to settle again at Göttingen till peace should have been
concluded. Here, while superintending the studies of Mr. Astor, he plunged
into reading of the most varied character. He writes (p. 51):—
“I remain firm, and strive after my earliest purpose in life, more
felt, perhaps, than already discerned,—namely, to bring over into
my own knowledge and into my own Fatherland the language and the
spirit of the solemn and distant East. I would for the
accomplishment of this object even quit Europe, in order to draw
out of the ancient well that which I find not elsewhere.”
This is the first indication of an important element in Bunsen’s early
life, his longing for the East, and his all but prophetic anticipation of
the great results which a study of the ancient language of India would one
day yield, and the light it would shed on the darkest pages in the ancient
history of Greece, Italy, and Germany. The study of the Athenian law of
inheritance seems first to have drawn his attention to the ancient codes
of Indian law, and he was deeply impressed by the discovery that the
peculiar system of inheritance which in Greece existed only in the
petrified form of a primitive custom, sanctioned by law, disclosed in the
laws of Manu its original purport and natural meaning. This one spark
excited in Bunsen’s mind that constant yearning after a knowledge of
Eastern and more particularly of Indian literature which very nearly drove
him to India in the same adventurous spirit as Anquetil Duperron and Czoma
de Körös. We are now familiar with the great results that have been
obtained by a study of the ancient languages and religion of the East; but
in 1813 neither Bopp nor Grimm had begun to publish, and Frederic Schlegel
was the only one who in his little pamphlet, “On the Language and the
Wisdom of the Indians” (1808), had ventured to assert a real intellectual
relationship between Europe and India. One of Bunsen’s earliest friends,
Wolrad Schumacher, related that even at school Bunsen’s mind was turned
towards India. “Sometimes he would let fall a word about India which was
unaccountable to me, as at that time I connected only a geographical
conception with that name” (p. 17).
While thus engaged in his studies at Göttingen, and working in company
with such friends as Brandis, the historian of Greek philosophy; Lachmann,
the editor of the New Testament; Lücke, the theologian; Ernst Schulze, the
poet, and others,—Bunsen felt the influence of the great events that
brought about the regeneration of Germany; nor was he the man to stand
aloof, absorbed in literary work, while others were busy doing mischief
difficult to remedy. The princes of Germany and their friends, though
grateful to the people for having at last shaken off with fearful
sacrifices the foreign yoke of Napoleon, were most anxious to maintain for
their own benefit that convenient system of police government which for so
long had kept the whole of Germany under French control. “It is but too
certain,” Bunsen writes, “that either for want of good-will or of
intelligence our sovereigns will not grant us freedom such as we
deserve.... And I fear that, as before, the much-enduring German will
become an object of contempt to all nations who know how to value national
spirit.” His first political essays belong to that period. Up to August,
1814, Bunsen continued to act as private tutor to Mr. Astor, though we see
him at the same time, with his insatiable thirst after knowledge,
attending courses of lectures on astronomy, mineralogy, and other subjects
apparently so foreign to the main current of his mind. When Mr. Astor left
him to return to America, Bunsen went to Holland to see a sister to whom
he was deeply attached, and who seems to have shared with him the same
religious convictions which in youth, manhood, and old age formed the
foundation of Bunsen’s life. Some of Bunsen’s detractors have accused him
of professing Christian piety in circles where such professions were sure
to be well received. Let them read now the annals of his early life, and
they will find to their shame how boldly the same Bunsen professed his
religious convictions among the students and professors of Göttingen, who
either scoffed at Christianity or only tolerated it as a kind of harmless
superstition. We shall only quote one instance:—
“Bunsen, when a young student at Göttingen, once suddenly quitted
a lecture in indignation at the unworthy manner in which the most
sacred subjects were treated by one of the professors. The
professor paused at the interruption, and hazarded the remark that
‘some one belonging to the Old Testament had possibly slipped in
unrecognized.’ That called forth a burst of laughter from the
entire audience, all being as well aware as the lecturer himself
who it was that had mortified him.”
During his stay in Holland, Bunsen not only studied the language and
literature of that country, but his mind was also much occupied in
observing the national and religious character of this small but
interesting branch of the Teutonic race. He writes:—
“In all things the German, or, if you will, the Teutonic character
is worked out into form in a manner more decidedly national than
anywhere else.... This journey has yet more confirmed my decision
to become acquainted with the entire Germanic race, and then to
proceed with the development of my governing ideas (_i.e._ the
study of Eastern languages in elucidation of Western thought). For
this purpose I am about to travel with Brandis to Copenhagen to
learn Danish, and, above all, Icelandic.”
And so he did. The young student, as yet without any prospects in life,
threw up his position at Göttingen, declined to waste his energies as a
schoolmaster, and started, we hardly know how, on his journey to Denmark.
There, in company with Brandis, he lived and worked hard at Danish, and
then attacked the study of the ancient Icelandic language and literature
with a fervor and with a purpose that shrank from no difficulty. He writes
(p. 79):—
“The object of my research requires the acquisition of the whole
treasures of language, in order to complete my favorite linguistic
theories, and to inquire into the poetry and religious conceptions
of German-Scandinavian heathenism, and their historical connection
with the East.”
When his work in Denmark was finished, and when he had collected
materials, some of which, as his copy taken of the “Völuspa,” a poem of
the Edda, were not published till forty years later, he started with
Brandis for Berlin. “Prussia,” he writes on the 10th of October, 1815, “is
_the true_ Germany.” Thither he felt drawn, as well as Brandis, and
thither he invited his friends, though, it must be confessed, without
suggesting to them any settled plan of how to earn their daily bread. He
writes as if he was even then at the head of affairs in Berlin, though he
was only the friend of a friend of Niebuhr’s, Niebuhr himself being by no
means all powerful in Prussia, even in 1815. This hopefulness was a trait
in Bunsen’s character that remained through life. A plan was no sooner
suggested to him and approved by him than he took it for granted that all
obstacles must vanish, and many a time did all obstacles vanish, before
the joyous confidence of that magician, a fact that should be remembered
by those who used to blame him as sanguine and visionary. One of his
friends, Lücke, writes to Ernst Schulze, the poet, whom Bunsen had invited
to Denmark, and afterwards to Berlin:—
“In the inclosed richly filled letter you will recognize Bunsen’s
power and splendor of mind, and you will also not fail to perceive
his thoughtlessness in making projects. He and Brandis are a pair
of most amiable speculators, full of affection; but one must meet
them with the _ne quid nimis_.”
However, Bunsen in his flight was not to be scared by any warning or
checked by calculating the chances of success or failure. With Brandis he
went to Berlin, spent the glorious winter from 1815 to 1816 in the society
of men like Niebuhr and Schleiermacher, and became more and more
determined in his own plan of life, which was to study Oriental languages
in Paris, London, or Calcutta, and then to settle at Berlin as Professor
of Universal History. A full statement of his literary labors, both for
the past and for the future, was drawn up by him, to be submitted to
Niebuhr, and it will be read even now with interest by those who knew
Bunsen when he tried to take up after forty years the threads that had
slipped from his hand at the age of four-and-twenty.
Instead of being sent to study at Paris and London by the Prussian
government, as he seems to have wished, he was suddenly called to Paris by
his old pupil, Mr. Astor, who, after two years’ absence, had returned to
Europe, and was anxious to renew his relations with Bunsen. Bunsen’s
object in accepting Astor’s invitation to Paris was to study Persian; and
great was his disappointment when, on arriving there, Mr. Astor wished him
at once to start for Italy. This was too much for Bunsen, to be turned
back just as he was going to quench his thirst for Oriental literature in
the lectures of Sylvestre de Sacy. A compromise was effected. Bunsen
remained for three months in Paris, and promised then to join his friend
and pupil in Italy. How he worked at Persian and Arabic during the
interval must be read in his own letters:—
“I write from six in the morning till four in the afternoon, only
in the course of that time having a walk in the garden of the
Luxembourg, where I also often study; from four to six I dine and
walk; from six to seven sleep; from seven to eleven work again. I
have overtaken in study some of the French students who had begun
a year ago. God be thanked for this help! Before I go to bed I
read a chapter in the New Testament, in the morning on rising one
in the Old Testament; yesterday I began the Psalms from the
first.”
As soon as he felt that he could continue his study of Persian without the
aid of a master, he left Paris. Though immersed in work, he had made
several acquaintances, among others that of Alexander von Humboldt, “who
intends in a few years to visit Asia, where I may hope to meet him. He has
been beyond measure kind to me, and from him I shall receive the best
recommendations for Italy and England, as well as from his brother, now
Prussian Minister in London. Lastly, the winter in Rome may become to me,
by the presence of Niebuhr, more instructive and fruitful than in any
other place. Thus has God ordained all things for me for the best,
according to His will, not mine, and far better than I deserve.”
These were the feelings with which the young scholar, then twenty-four
years of age, started for Italy, as yet without any position, without
having published a single work, without knowing, as we may suppose, where
to rest his head. And yet he was full, not only of hope, but of gratitude,
and he little dreamt that before seven years had passed he would be in
Niebuhr’s place; and before twenty-five years had passed in the place of
William von Humboldt, the Prussian Ambassador at the Court of St. James.
The immediate future, in fact, had some severe disappointments in store
for him. When he arrived at Florence to meet Mr. Astor, the young American
had received peremptory orders to return to New York; and as Bunsen
declined to follow him, he found himself really stranded at Florence, and
all his plans thoroughly upset. Yet, though at that very time full of care
and anxiety about his nearest relations, who looked to him for support
when he could hardly support himself, his God-trusting spirit did not
break down. He remained at Florence, continuing his Persian studies, and
making a living by private tuition. A Mr. Cathcart seems to have been his
favorite pupil, and through him new prospects of eventually proceeding to
India seemed to open. But, at the same time, Bunsen began to feel that the
circumstances of his life became critical. “I feel,” he says, “that I am
on the point of securing or losing the fruit of my labors for life.” Rome
and Niebuhr seemed the only haven in sight, and thither Bunsen now began
to steer his frail bark. He arrived in Rome on the 14th of November, 1816.
Niebuhr, who was Prussian Minister, received him with great kindness, and
entered heartily into the literary plans of his young friend. Brandis,
Niebuhr’s secretary, renewed in common with his old friend his study of
Greek philosophy. A native teacher of Arabic was engaged to help Bunsen in
his Oriental studies. The necessary supplies seem to have come partly from
Mr. Astor, partly from private lessons for which Bunsen had to make time
in the midst of his varied occupations. Plato, Firdusi, the Koran, Dante,
Isaiah, the Edda, are mentioned by himself as his daily study.
From an English point of view that young man at Rome, without a status,
without a settled prospect in life, would have seemed an amiable dreamer,
destined to wake suddenly, and not very pleasantly, to the stern realities
of life. If anything seemed unlikely, it was that an English gentleman, a
man of good birth and of independent fortune, should give his daughter to
this poor young German at Rome. Yet this was the very thing which a kind
Providence, that Providence in which Bunsen trusted amid all his troubles
and difficulties, brought to pass. Bunsen became acquainted with Mr.
Waddington, and was allowed to read German with his daughters. In the most
honorable manner he broke off his visits when he became aware of his
feelings for Miss Waddington. He writes to his sister:—
“Having, at first, believed myself quite safe (the more so as I
cannot think of marrying without impairing my whole scheme of
mental development, and, least of all, could I think of pretending
to a girl of fortune), I thought there was no danger.”
A little later he writes to Mrs. Waddington to explain to her the reason
for his discontinuing his visits. But the mother—and, to judge from her
letters, a high-minded mother she must have been—accepted Bunsen on trust;
he was allowed to return to the house, and on the 1st of July, 1817, the
young German student, then twenty-five years of age, was married at Rome
to Miss Waddington. What a truly important event this was for Bunsen, even
those who had not the privilege of knowing the partner of his life may
learn from the work before us. Though little is said in these memoirs of
his wife, the mother of his children, the partner of his joys and sorrows,
it is easy to see how Bunsen’s whole mode of life became possible only by
the unceasing devotion of an ardent soul and a clear head consecrated to
one object,—to love and to cherish, for better for worse, for richer for
poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part,—aye, and even
after death! With such a wife, the soul of Bunsen could soar on its wings,
the small cares of life were removed, an independence was secured, and,
though the Indian plans had to be surrendered, the highest ambition of
Bunsen’s life, a professorship in a German university, seemed now easy of
attainment. We should have liked a few more pages describing the joyous
life of the young couple in the heyday of their life; we could have wished
that he had not declined the wish of his mother-in-law, to have his bust
made by Thorwaldsen, at a time when he must have been a model of manly
beauty. But if we know less than we could wish of what Bunsen then was in
the eyes of the world, we are allowed an insight into that heavenly life
which underlay all the outward happiness of that time, and which shows him
to us as but one eye could then have seen him. A few weeks after his
marriage he writes in his journal:—
“Eternal, omnipresent God! enlighten me with thy Holy Spirit, and
fill me with thy heavenly light! What in childhood I felt and
yearned after, what throughout the years of youth grew clearer and
clearer before my soul, I will now venture to hold fast, to
examine, to represent the revelation of Thee in man’s energies and
efforts: thy firm path through the stream of ages I long to trace
and recognize, as far as may be permitted to me even in this body
of earth. The song of praise to Thee from the whole of humanity,
in times far and near,—the pains and lamentations of men, and
their consolations in Thee,—I wish to take in, clear and
unhindered. Do Thou send me thy Spirit of Truth, that I may behold
things earthly as they are, without veil and without mask, without
human trappings and empty adornment, and that in the silent peace
of truth I may feel and recognize Thee. Let me not falter, nor
slide away from the great end of knowing Thee. Let not the joys,
or honors, or vanities of the world enfeeble and darken my spirit;
let me ever feel that I can only perceive and know Thee in so far
as mine is a living soul, and lives, and moves, and has its being
in Thee.”
Here we see Bunsen as the world did not see him, and we may observe how
then, as ever, his literary work was to him hallowed by the objects for
which it was intended. “The firm path of God through the stream of ages”
is but another title for one of his last works, “God in History,” planned
with such youthful ardor, and finished under the lengthening shadow of
death.
The happiness of Bunsen’s life at Rome may easily be imagined. Though
anxious to begin his work at a German university, he stipulated for three
more years of freedom and preparation. Who could have made the sacrifice
of the bright spring of life, of the unclouded days of happiness at Rome
with wife and children, and with such friends as Niebuhr and Brandis? Yet
this stay at Rome was fraught with fatal consequences. It led the straight
current of Bunsen’s life, which lay so clear before him, into a new bed,
at first very tempting, for a time smooth and sunny, but alas! ending in
waste of energy for which no outward splendor could atone. The first false
step seemed very natural and harmless. When Brandis went to Germany to
begin his professorial work, Bunsen took his place as Niebuhr’s secretary
at Rome. He was determined, then, that nothing should induce him to remain
in the diplomatic career (p. 130), but the current of that mill-stream was
too strong even for Bunsen. How he remained as Secretary of Legation,
1818; how the King of Prussia, Frederick William III., came to visit Rome,
and took a fancy to the young diplomatist, who could speak to him with a
modesty and frankness little known at courts; how, when Niebuhr exchanged
his embassy for a professorial chair at Bonn, Bunsen remained as Chargé
d’Affaires; how he went to Berlin, 1827-28, and gained the hearts of the
old King and of everybody else; how he returned to Rome and was fascinated
by the young Crown Prince of Prussia, afterwards Frederick William IV.,
whom he had to conduct through the antiquities and the modern life of the
world city; how he became Prussian Minister, the friend of popes and
cardinals, the centre of the best and most brilliant society; how, when
the difficulties began between Prussia and the Papal government, chiefly
with regard to mixed marriages, Bunsen tried to mediate, and was at last
disowned by both parties in 1838,—all this may now be read in the open
memoirs of his life. His letters during these twenty years are numerous
and full, particularly those addressed to his sister, to whom he was
deeply attached. They are the most touching and elevating record of a life
spent in important official business, in interesting social intercourse,
in literary and antiquarian researches, in the enjoyment of art and
nature, and in the blessedness of a prosperous family life, and throughout
in an unbroken communion with God. There is hardly a letter without an
expression of that religion in common life, that constant consciousness of
a Divine Presence, which made his life a life in God. To many readers this
free outpouring of a God-loving soul will seem to approach too near to
that abuse of religious phraseology which is a sign of superficial rather
than of deep-seated piety. But, though through life a sworn enemy of every
kind of cant, Bunsen never would surrender the privilege of speaking the
language of a Christian, because that language had been profaned by the
thoughtless repetition of shallow pietists.
Bunsen has frequently been accused of pietism, particularly in Germany, by
men who could not distinguish between pietism and piety, just as in
England he was attacked as a freethinker by men who never knew the freedom
of the children of God. “Christianity is ours, not theirs,” he would
frequently say of those who made religion a mere profession, and imagined
they knew Christ because they held a crosier and wore a mitre. We can now
watch the deep emotions and firm convictions of that true-hearted man, in
letters of undoubted sincerity, addressed to his sister and his friends,
and we can only wonder with what feelings they have been perused by those
who in England questioned his Christianity or who in Germany suspected his
honesty.
From the time of his first meeting with the King of Prussia at Rome, and
still more, after his stay at Berlin in 1827, Bunsen’s chief interest with
regard to Prussia centred in ecclesiastical matters. The King, after
effecting the union of the Lutheran and Calvinistic branches of the
Protestant Church, was deeply interested in drawing up a new Liturgy for
his own national, or, as it was called, Evangelical Church. The
introduction of his Liturgy, or _Agenda_, particularly as it was carried
out, like everything else in Prussia, by royal decree, met with
considerable resistance. Bunsen, who had been led independently to the
study of ancient liturgies, and who had devoted much of his time at Rome
to the collection of ancient hymns and hymn tunes, could speak to the King
on these favorite topics from the fullness of his heart. The King listened
to him, even when Bunsen ventured to express his dissent from some of the
royal proposals, and when he, the young attaché, deprecated any
authoritative interference with the freedom of the Church. In Prussia the
whole movement was unpopular, and Bunsen, though he worked hard to render
it less so, was held responsible for much which he himself had
disapproved. Of all these turbulent transactions there remains but one
bright and precious relic, Bunsen’s “Hymn and Prayer Book.”
The Prussian Legation on the Capitol was during Bunsen’s day not only the
meeting-place of all distinguished Germans, but, in the absence of an
English embassy, it also became the recognized centre of the most
interesting portion of English society at Rome. Among the Germans, whose
presence told on Bunsen’s life, either by a continued friendship or by
common interests and pursuits, we meet the names of Ludwig, King of
Bavaria; Baron von Stein, the great Prussian statesman; Radowitz, the less
fortunate predecessor of Bismarck; Schnorr, Overbeck, and Mendelssohn.
Among Englishmen, whose friendship with Bunsen dates from the Capitol, we
find Thirlwall, Philip Pusey, Arnold, and Julius Hare. The names of
Thorwaldsen, too, of Leopardi, Lord Hastings, Champollion, Sir Walter
Scott, Chateaubriand, occur again and again in the memoirs of that Roman
life which teems with interesting events and anecdotes. The only literary
productions of that eventful period are Bunsen’s part in Platner’s
“Description of Rome,” and the “Hymn and Prayer Book.” But much material
for later publications had been amassed in the mean time. The study of the
Old Testament had been prosecuted at all times, and in 1824 the first
beginning was made by Bunsen in the study of hieroglyphics, afterwards
continued with Champollion, and later with Lepsius. The Archæological
Institute and the German Hospital, both on the Capitol, were the two
permanent bequests that Bunsen left behind when he shook off the dust of
his feet, and left Rome on the 29th of April, 1838, in search of a new
Capitol.
At Berlin, Bunsen was then in disgrace. He had not actually been dismissed
the service, but he was prohibited from going to Berlin to justify
himself, and he was ordered to proceed to England on leave of absence. To
England, therefore, Bunsen now directed his steps with his wife and
children, and there, at least, he was certain of a warm welcome, both from
his wife’s relations and from his own very numerous friends. When we read
through the letters of that period, we hardly miss the name of a single
man illustrious at that time in England. As if to make up for the
injustice done to him in Italy, and for the ingratitude of his country,
people of all classes and of the most opposite views vied in doing him
honor. Rest he certainly found none, while travelling about from one town
to another, and staying at friends’ houses, attending meetings, making
speeches, writing articles, and, as usual, amassing new information
wherever he could find it. He worked at Egyptian with Lepsius; at Welsh
while staying with Lady Hall; at Ethnology with Dr. Prichard. He had to
draw up two state papers,—one on the Papal aggression, the other on the
law of divorce. He plunged, of course, at once into all the ecclesiastical
and theological questions that were then agitating people’s minds in
England, and devoted his few really quiet hours to the preparation of his
own “Life of Christ.” With Lord Ashley he attended Bible meetings, with
Mrs. Fry he explored the prisons, with Philip Pusey he attended
agricultural assemblies, and he spent night after night as an admiring
listener in the House of Commons. He was presented to the Queen and the
Duke of Wellington, was made a D.C.L. at Oxford, discussed the future with
J. H. Newman, the past with Buckland, Sedgwick, and Whewell. Lord
Palmerston and Lord John Russell invited him to political conferences;
Maurice and Keble listened to his fervent addresses; Dr. Arnold consulted
the friend of Niebuhr on his own “History of Rome,” and tried to convert
him to more liberal opinions with regard to Church reform. Dr. Holland,
Mrs. Austin, Ruskin, Carlyle, Macaulay, Gaisford, Dr. Hawkins, and many
more, all greeted him, all tried to do him honor, and many of them became
attached to him for life. The architectural monuments of England, its
castles, parks, and ruins, passed quickly through his field of vision
during that short stay. But he soon calls out: “I care not now for all the
ruins of England; it is her life that I like.”
Most touching is his admiration, his real love of Gladstone. Thirty years
have since passed, and the world at large has found out by this time what
England possesses in him. But it was not so in 1838, and few men at that
early time could have read Gladstone’s heart and mind so truly as Bunsen.
Here are a few of his remarks:—
“Last night, when I came home from the Duke, Gladstone’s book was
on my table, the second edition having come out at seven o’clock.
It is the book of the time, a great event,—the first book since
Burke that goes to the bottom of the vital question; far above his
party and his time. I sat up till after midnight; and this morning
I continued until I had read the whole, and almost every sheet
bears my marginal glosses, destined for the Prince, to whom I have
sent the book with all dispatch. Gladstone is the first man in
England as to intellectual powers, and he has heard higher tones
than any one else in this island.”