With all this purely Egyptological work, and his extensive labors for
the Institute, he did not neglect his old linguistic studies, and
resumed the investigations to which his dissertation on the Eugubian
tablets had given the impulse. The opportunity for the prosecution of
this work had formed no insignificant element of his attraction to
Rome, and we see him make a fine collection of Umbrian and Oscan
inscriptions, and draw up two papers on ancient Etruria, which did not
appear in print until several years later, and formed the extra profits,
as it were, of his sojourn in Italy. It is hard to understand how he
found time so far to complete them that from 1840 to 1842 he only had to
correct them, and to oversee their passage through the press, when we
consider that he in no wise withdrew himself from the social life of
Bunsen’s house, and from intercourse, grave and gay, with eminent
strangers. Lepsius himself calls the years in which he had the good
fortune “to build huts at Rome,” “a great holiday of life, earnest and
serene, instructive and elevating, a determinative period in his
development.”
Under Bunsen’s guidance, he says, he had learned to know life and
science upon classic ground from their highest and noblest sides.
In his intercourse with Bunsen he also acquired the interest in
politics, and especially in ecclesiastical politics, which he cherished
throughout his life, as is proved by his letters to his patron the
statesman, and to his father, as well as his own journals and the
diaries of his wife. In one of his note-books we find the plan, which,
however, was never taken into consideration, for a new episcopal order
for Germany. The seat of the supreme leader of the church and the
counselling authorities was to be Magdeburg.
HOLLAND, ENGLAND, AND THE SEASON OF WAITING, IN GERMANY.
In July, 1838, Lepsius was obliged to take leave of Rome with an
unwilling heart, in order to attend to business of importance for the
Institute, first at Paris and afterwards at London. He had to enroll new
and active members for it, and to organize its connection with the
English literati. Afterwards, by his own wish, he returned to his native
land, released from editorial labors for the Institute, although he
still continued to work for it as a member of the board of directors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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