For about three years we now see him in what every one will recognise as his right and legitimate place in the world, and labouring at his true vocation. His lectures excited the keenest interest—he was encouraged to undertake his great work, _The History of Rome_: it is in this interval that both the first and second volumes were published. An extract from his letters will show the pleasant change in his career, and give us some insight into the position he held in the university. “Milly (his wife Amelia) has told you that the number of my hearers was much greater than I had anticipated. But their character, no less than their number, is such as encourages and animates me to pursue my labours with zeal and perseverance. You will feel this when I tell you that Savigny, Schleiermacher, Spalding, Ancillon, Nicolovius, Schmedding, and Süvern were present. Besides the number and selectness of my audience, the general interest evinced in the lecture exceeds my utmost hopes. My introductory lecture produced as strong an impression as an oration could have done; and all the dry erudition that followed it, in the history of the old Italian tribes, which serves as an introduction to that of Rome, has not driven away even my unlearned hearers. The attention with which Savigny honours me, and his declaration that I am opening a new era for Roman history, naturally stimulates my ardent desire to carry out to the full extent the researches which one is apt to leave half finished as soon as one clearly perceives the result to which they tend, in order to turn to something fresh....