The unwelcome reception which solitary men frequently meet with in the world, becomes, when properly considered, a source of enviable happiness; for to be universally beloved, would prove a great misfortune to him who is meditating in tranquillity the performance of some great and important work: every one would then be anxious to visit him, to solicit his visits in return, and to press for his attendance on all parties. But though philosophers are fortunately not in general the most favored guests in fashionable societies, they have the satisfaction to recollect, that it is not ordinary or common characters against whom the public hatred and disgust are excited. There is always something great in that man against whom the world exclaims, at whom every one throws a stone, and on whose character all attempt to fix a thousand crimes, without being able to prove one. The fate of a man of genius, who lives retired and unknown, is certainly more enviable: for he will then enjoy the pleasure of undisturbed retirement; and naturally imagining the multitude to be ignorant of his character, will not be surprised that they should continually misinterpret and pervert both his words and actions; or that the efforts of his friends to undeceive the public with respect to his merit should prove abortive. Such was, in the mistaken view of the world, the fate of the celebrated count Schaumbourg Lippe, better known by the appellation of count de Buckebourg. No character, throughout Germany, was ever more traduced, or so little understood; and yet he was worthy of being enrolled among the highest names his age or country ever produced. When I first became acquainted with him, he lived in almost total privacy, quite retired from the world, on a small paternal farm, in the management of which consisted all his pleasure and employment. His exterior appearance was I confess, rather forbidding, and prevented superficial observers from perceiving the extraordinary endowments of his brilliant and capacious mind. The count de Lacy, formerly ambassador from the court of Madrid to Petersburgh, related to me during his residence at Hanover, that he led the Spanish army against the Portuguese at the time they were commanded by the count de Buckebourg; and that when the officers discovered him as they were reconnoitering the enemy with their glasses, the singularity of his appearance struck them so forcibly, that they immediately exclaimed, “Are the Portuguese commanded by Don Quixote?” The ambassador, however, who possessed a liberal mind, did justice in the highest terms, to the merit and good conduct of Buckebourg in Portugal; and praised, with enthusiastic admiration, the goodness of his mind, and the greatness of his character. Viewed at a distance, his appearance was certainly romantic; and his heroic countenance, his flowing hair, his tall and meagre figure, and particularly the extraordinary length of his visage,