present narrative.

Niebuhr is one of those men whose advent forms an era in the history
of human knowledge. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that he was
the first to infuse even into Roman story that element of doubt which
has changed the whole fabric of historical science. If Niebuhr was a
mere sceptic, he would be only the humble follower of Bayle, Lesurgnes
de Pouilly, and other writers of the last century; but his merit lies
in reconstruction--in the jealous care with which he distinguishes
between the true monuments of history and the mass of traditional
rubbish in which they lay entombed. In his Roman history, however,
although by that alone he is known in England, we find only a portion
of the intellectual man: he was learned in the learning of all times,
modern as well as ancient; and yet he was so completely immersed, not
merely as an observer, but as a participator, in the business of the
world and the great events of his own time, that even literature seems
to have been little more than a study indulged in during the pauses of
active life. The history of a mind so vast is by no means, we are
aware, adapted for pages like ours; and yet it seems important--indeed
indispensable--that in a popular journal, flowing on with the spirit
of the age, we should trace some authentic records of the character
and career of the man.

Carsten Niebuhr, the father of the historian, had not the advantages
of early education. He was no more than a free peasant, living on the
marsh-farm in Friesland, which had been possessed by several
generations of his ancestors; but at the age of two-and-twenty he put
himself under mathematical tutorship at Hamburg, and then studied at
Gottingen. He was invited to join a mission which the Danish
government determined to send into Arabia; and the proposal, at first
scarcely made in earnest to the half-educated young farmer, was
accepted by him with eagerness. By a singular fatality, he was the
only one of the travellers sent out on this expedition who returned;
he was absent more than six years, during four of which he was alone,
all his companions being dead. He had added largely to what was
previously known of Egypt; had made scientific observations of great
value in the deserts of Arabia, and undergone prodigious hardships;
but the most remarkable thing was, that his eagerness to fulfil in
some measure the purposes of the expedition, made the whole journey a
work of preparation and s