Wittgenstein. Pertz, too, he said, was unjust to Wittgenstein. Stein had not at all been a firm character, no one had changed views and judgments more easily. (Beyme said the same thing, and adduced instances of it.) His early liberal ideas on national economy, civil institutions, commerce, and trades, were a product of the times, which he afterwards entirely renounced and disputed when the current of opinion set in that direction. He surrendered his former sentiments so shamefully that his former friend, Kunth, who remained faithful to them, but also wished to avoid committing Stein, burned more than three hundred of Stein’s letters, because, as he thought, they would bring nothing but disgrace on the revered man, and would show him in the greatest contradiction with himself. Of the Prince of Prussia, Humboldt said that he had told every one in St. Petersburg, as well as here, that the war would have been avoided if Prussia had from the first acted resolutely. The Emperor Nicholas would have yielded. The imperial family he represented as harmonious, including the Grand Duke Constantine, who did not seem so dangerous to him as usually described. The Emperor’s mother used to say they were all mere children, and that she must remain with them in order to keep them together. The war was severely felt, business at a standstill, the country drained of men, the armies not very numerous; Poland, the Baltic countries, and Finland but weakly garrisoned; the greater part of their forces was in the Crimea; the losses immense and irreparable. Gortschakoff reports that the daily combats cost him 180–200 men—a frightful number for a month; that Nesselrode contemplates a renewal of negotiations, but before that heavy blows would first be dealt on one side or on the other. Sebastopol itself was by no means considered out of danger. The Prince has gone from here to Erdmannsdorf to the King; thence he hastens on to Baden. The King has Lieutenant-General von Gerlach, with him in Erdmannsdorf, among others, also Radowitz, in case he is not ‘already tired of him, as happens so easily.’ Humboldt talks of Radowitz decidedly as of a Jesuit, calls him Ignatius, mocks him, and jests on him a long time. ‘The great destinies of Italy’ leave the King very indifferent; but a colored pane of glass, a quaint device on an old monument, a family name, enlist his greatest interest, occupy, and amuse him; and for such trifles Radowitz was the right man! The same is the case with Bunsen, with whom the King corresponds on theological and patristic curiosities. He has asked him to write articles in the papers against the Bishop of Mainz; but Bunsen makes the condition to be allowed to refer in his articles to the command of the King, since otherwise they would possess neither influence nor effect. Humboldt thinks Bunsen would not resist a call hither, even if it was not official, but only a personal one by the King. The Duke of Coburg-Gotha desires an enlargement of his territory