He was properly a man of the world; you could not lose him; you could not detain him; you could not disappoint him, for at any point on land or sea he found the objects of his researches. When he was stopped in Spain and could not get away, he turned round and interpreted their mountain system, explaining the past history of the continent of Europe. He belonged to that wonderful German nation, the foremost scholars in all history, who surpass all others in industry, space and endurance. A German reads a literature whilst we are reading a book. One of their writers warns his countrymen that it is not the Battle of Leipsic, but the Leipsic Fair Catalogue, which raises them above the French. I remember Cuvier tells us of fossil elephants; that Germany has furnished the greatest number;—not because there are more elephants in Germany,—oh no; but because in that empire there is no canton without some well-informed person capable of making researches and publishing interesting results. I know that we have been accustomed to think they were too good scholars, that because they reflect, they never resolve, that “in a crisis no plan-maker was to be found in the empire;” but we have lived to see now, for the second time in the history of Prussia, a statesman of the first class, with a clear head and an inflexible will. XXV WALTER SCOTT REMARKS AT THE CELEBRATION BY THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH, AUGUST 15, 1871 SCOTT, the delight of generous boys. As far as Sir Walter Scott aspired to be known for a fine gentleman, so far our sympathies leave him.... Our concern is only with the residue, where the man Scott was warmed with a divine ray that clad with beauty every sheet of water, every bald hill in the country he looked upon, and so reanimated the well-nigh obsolete feudal history and illustrated every hidden corner of a barren and disagreeable territory. Lecture, “Being and Seeing,” 1838. WALTER SCOTT