Our second visit to England was in the year 1851, and we were in London just at the closing of the first great International Exhibition, at which I remember seeing immense crowds of people standing bare-headed and cheering, as “God save the Queen!” was played. That spectacle made more impression on me than anything in the Exhibition itself, unless it was perhaps the splendid trees, one giant oak-tree in particular, which had been built in with the edifice, completely roofed over by the big glass dome. Other contemporary events I did not witness myself, but only heard of them from our friends,--the funeral of the Duke of Wellington, for instance,--which they described to us passing their house, the Embassy in Carlton Terrace, in an endless procession rolling on for hours, like wave on wave in swift succession, to the mournful strains of the Dead March from the Eroica Symphony. As the sounds of one military band died away in the distance, the next one had already come up in step to the melancholy cadence of the selfsame march. Just like the rising and sinking of ocean waves was the impressive yet monotonous grandeur of the nation’s tribute to its great soldier. The Prussian Embassy was at that time frequented by almost every one of talent or high intellectual culture to be found in London, Bunsen possessing in a remarkable degree the gift of attracting clever people to himself. He was quick too to discern the promise of future eminence in others, and many might relate how in that genial atmosphere their talent was discovered and encouraged and obtained its first recognition. Mendelssohn and Max Müller were amongst those who quite young there found themselves at once prized at their true value. The conversational powers of the master of the house himself, the young people so gifted and versatile, the open hospitality, the excellent music,--all these things were so many magnets, that drew strangers within the charmed sphere. I was of course not capable then of appreciating the depth of Bunsen’s learning or his intellectual worth, but his marvellous command of language and rhetorical facility impressed me greatly. In the fluency of his speech, the ease and elegance with which on all occasions he expressed himself, he resembled his royal friend, Frederick William IV. And his handsome face recalled that of the great Goethe at an advanced age, the likeness being especially striking on his deathbed.