there were not the mere clods of other
parts of Germany. They were a well-to-do race, and by no means illiterate.
Their sons received at the Gymnasium of Meldorf a classical education, and
they were able to mix with ease and freedom in the society of their
betters. The most hospitable house at Meldorf was that of Boie, the High
Sheriff of Dithmarschen. He had formerly, at Goettingen, been the life and
soul of a circle of friends who have become famous in the history of
German literature, under the name of "Hainbund." That "Hainbund," or
Grove-club, included Buerger, the author of "Lenore;" Voss, the translator
of Homer; the Counts Stolberg, Hoelty, and others. With Goethe, too, Boie
had been on terms of intimacy, and when, in after life, he settled down at
Meldorf, many of his old friends, his brother-in-law Voss, Count Stolberg,
Claudius, and others, came to see him and his illustrious townsman,
Niebuhr. Many a seed was sown there, many small germs began to ripen in
that remote town of Meldorf, which are yielding fruit at the present day,
not in Germany only, but here in England. The sons of Boie, fired by the
descriptions of the old, blind traveller, followed his example, and became
distinguished as explorers and discoverers in natural history. Niebuhr's
son, young Barthold, soon attracted the attention of all who came to see
his father, particularly of Voss; and he was enabled by their help and
advice, to lay, in early youth, that foundation of solid learning which
fitted him, in the intervals of his checkered life, to become the founder
of a new era in the study of Ancient History. And how curious the threads
which bind together the destinies of men! how marvelous the rays of light
which, emanating from the most distant centres, cross each other in their
onward course, and give their own peculiar coloring to characters
apparently original and independent! We have read, of late, in the
Confessions of a modern St. Augustine, how the last stroke that severed
his connection with the Church of England was the establishment of the
Jerusalem bishopric. But for that event, Dr. Newman might now be a bishop,
and his friends a strong party in the Church of England. Well, that
Jerusalem bishopric owes something to Meldorf. The young schoolboy of
Meldorf was afterwards the private tutor and personal friend of the
Crown-Prince of Prussia, and he thus exercised an influence both on the
political and the religious views of King Frede