One sees with what bee-like industry he made use of this time of waiting. This was duly recognized, for before he set out on the Egyptian journey, he was appointed Professor Extraordinary at the University of Berlin, and thus the first chair of Egyptology was founded at that university. There was already a similar one at Leipsic, but the improper course adopted by Seyffarth, for whom it had been founded, gave little encouragement to other universities to extend support to Egyptologic studies. In this way it had happened that Lepsius’ proposition, that a professorship in the Berlin University should be conferred upon him, had been rejected; but Humboldt had recognized the qualifications of the applicant, and in 1841, as soon as he returned home from a protracted stay in Paris, he interested himself in the matter. As usual, he carried through what he desired, and on the twenty-sixth of January, 1842, Lepsius received the appointment as Professor Extraordinary of Egyptology, and in addition, the grant of a small salary. It is true that the newly appointed Professor could not begin to lecture; for the completion and publication of the works mentioned above claimed much of his time, and the preparations for the Egyptian journey still more. Frederick William IV., of Prussia, was a monarch whose unpractical, romantic disposition took the greatest delight, not only in the luxuriant, many-colored, fragrant bloom of Indian civilization, but also in the mysterious and immemorial magic of the Egyptian. He had given willing audience to Humboldt and to Bunsen. The ambassador had been exchanged from Bern to London in 1841, especially in order that he might carry out the wishes of his master regarding the evangelical episcopate in Jerusalem. Both these men were in particularly close relation with the king, and on this account they were more likely than any others to succeed in winning the monarch over to Lepsius’ project of travelling. Already, as Crown Prince, the King had acquired the Passalacqua collection of Egyptian antiquities, as well as negotiated for the purchase of other similar collections.[43] He had taken pains to place this treasure in the Monbijou palace at Berlin, and entrusted the care of it to Passalacqua. In his youth the scientific event of the deciphering of hieroglyphics had excited his special attention, and Bunsen, who had long been in close relations with him, both as a man and as his most eminent statesman, had been assiduous in preserving his interest in Egyptian antiquity. He had kept the monarch informed as to the progress of Egyptology, before his own protégé had even thought of undertaking a voyage on the Nile. Humboldt now joined with Bunsen to induce the king to bestow his powerful support upon the young Prussian, who, even at that time, might be considered the most worthy of Champollion’s successors.