believes that he has penetrated the mysteries of all science, and learnt the powers and properties of whatever is contained in the kingdoms of air, earth, fire, and water, but just bring his knowledge to the test; let him, for example, begin with what seems the simplest of all inquiries, and enumerate the plants which grow upon the surface of the globe, and call them by their names, and, when he finds that this is beyond his limits, let him descend to a single class and bring within it all that the unfathomed caves of ocean and the unclimbed mountains bear; and as this is also higher than he can reach, let him go still lower and include only one family, or a particular species, or an individual plant, and mark his points of ignorance upon each, and then, if his pride of knowledge is not humbled enough, let him take but a leaf or the smallest part of the most common flower, and give a satisfactory solution for many of the phenomena they exhibit. But, you will ask, is Göttingen the only place for the acquisition of such learning? No, not the only, but I believe far the best for such learning as it is necessary for Mr. E. to fit him to make Cambridge in some degree a Göttingen, and render it no longer requisite to depend upon the latter for the formation of their scholars: it is true that very few of what the Germans call scholars are needed in America; if there would only be one thorough one to begin with, the number would soon be sufficient for all the uses which could be made of them, and for the literary character of the country. This one, I say, could never be formed there, because, in the first place, there is no one who knows how it is to be done; secondly, there are no books, and then, by the habits of desultory study practiced there, are wholly incompatible with it. A man as a scholar must be completely _upset_, to use a blacksmith’s phrase; he must have learnt to give up his love of society and of social pleasures, his interest in the common occurrences of life, in the political and religious contentions of the country, and in everything not directly connected with his single aim. Is there any one willing to make such a sacrifice? This I cannot answer, but I do assure you that it is the sacrifice made by almost every man of classical learning in Germany, though to be sure the sacrifice of the enjoyments of friendly intercourse with mankind to letters is paying much less dear for fame here than the same thing would be in America. For my own part I am sorry I came here, because I was too old to be _upset_; like a horseshoe worn thin, I shall break as soon as I begin to wear on the other side: it makes me very restless at this period of my life to find that I know nothing. I would not have wished to have made the discovery unless I could at the same time have