Frederick William IV. was a man of exceptional talent, nay, a man of genius. I had heard much about him from Bunsen, who was a true friend and confidant of the King, ever since they had met at Rome. I had seen some of the King’s letters to Bunsen; some of them, if I remember rightly, signed, not by the King’s name, but by _Congruentia Incongruentium_, probably from his imagining that the different opinions and counsels of his various friends and advisers would find their solution in him. This idea, if it was entertained by the King, would account for the many conflicting sides of his character, and the frequent changes in his opinions. I presented my volume of the “Rig Veda” to him at a private audience. He knew all about it, and had so much to tell me about the oldest book of mankind, that I had hardly a chance to say anything myself. But it was impossible to listen to him without feeling that one was in the presence of a mind of very considerable grasp and of high and noble ideals. A few days after this audience I received an invitation to dine with the King at Potsdam, and Humboldt wrote to me that he would take me in his carriage. But a curious intermezzo happened. While I was quietly sitting in my room with my mother, a young lieutenant of police entered, and began to ask a number of extremely silly questions—why I had come to Berlin, when I meant to return to England, what had kept me so long at Berlin, etc. After I had fully explained to him that I was collating Sanskrit MSS. at the Royal Library, he became more peremptory, and informed me that the police authorities thought that a fortnight must be amply sufficient for that purpose (how I wished that it had been so), and that they requested me to leave Berlin in twenty-four hours. I produced my passport, perfectly _en règle_; I explained that I wanted but another week to finish my work. It was all of no avail, I was told that I must leave in twenty-four hours. I then collected my thoughts, and said very quietly to the young lieutenant, “Please to tell the police authorities that I shall, of course, obey orders, and leave Berlin at once, but that I must request them to inform His Majesty the King that I shall not be able to dine with him to-night at Potsdam.” The poor young man thought I was laughing at him, but when he saw that I was in earnest he looked thunderstruck, bowed, and went away. All this seems now almost incredible even to myself while I am writing it down, but so it was. Nor was the explanation far to seek. One of my friends, with whom I had been almost every day, was Dr. Goldstücker, a young Sanskrit scholar, who had been mixed up with political intrigues, and had long been under strict surveillance. I was evidently looked upon as an emissary from England, then considered the focus of all political conspiracies; possibly my name had been found in the Black Book as a dangerous man, who, when he was about eighteen, had belonged to a secret society, and had sung