“A numerous, and as yet unbroken, family circle was assembled around him; and every day in which he was not assailed by some peculiar indisposition he conversed with cheerfulness and cordial enjoyment on the happy change which had taken place in public affairs. We found it very delightful to engage in continued recitals of his travels, which he now related with peculiar fulness and vivacity. In this manner he once spoke much and in great detail of Persepolis, and described the walls on which he had found the inscriptions and bas-reliefs, exactly as one would describe those of a building visited within a few days and familiarly known. We could not conceal our astonishment. He replied, that as he lay in bed, all visible objects shut out, the pictures of what he had beheld in the East continually floated before his mind’s eye, so that it was no wonder he could speak of them as if he had seen them yesterday. With like vividness was the deep intense sky of Asia, with its brilliant and twinkling host of stars, which he had so often gazed at by night, or its lofty vault of blue by day, reflected in the hours of stillness and darkness on his inmost soul; and this was his greatest enjoyment. In the beginning of winter he had another bleeding at the nose, so violent that the bystanders expected his death; but this also he withstood. “About the end of April, 1815, the long obstruction in his chest grew much worse; but his friendly physician alleviated the symptoms, which to those around him appeared rather painful than dangerous. Towards evening on the 26th of April, 1815, he was read to as usual, and asked questions which showed perfect apprehension and intelligence; he then sunk into a slumber, and departed without a struggle.” Niebuhr had attained his eighty-second year. He was a man rather below than above the middle size, but robust in make, and exceedingly oriental in air and gestures. As might be clearly enough inferred from his works, he was no lover of poetry; for, though he is said to have admired Homer in the German translation of Voss, together with the Herman and Dorothea of Goëthe, this might be accounted for upon a different principle. His imagination, however, was liable to be sometimes excited in a very peculiar way. “It is extraordinary,” says his son, “that this man, so remarkably devoid of imagination, so exempt from illusion, waked us on the night in which his brother died, though he was at such a distance that he knew not even of his illness, and told us that his brother was dead. What had appeared to him, waking or dreaming, he never told us.” MARIE GABRIEL AUGUSTE FLORENT, LE COMTE DE CHOISEUL-GOUFFIER. Born 1752.--Died 1817.