t England once had
prime ministers who were found praying on their knees before they
delivered their greatest speeches, Sir Robert Peel's recollection, or, it
may be, desire of Bunsen in the last moments of his life has nothing
strange. Bunsen's life was no ordinary life, and the memoirs of that life
are more than an ordinary book. That book will tell in England and in
Germany far more than in the Middle Ages the life of a new saint; nor are
there many saints whose real life, if sifted as the life of Bunsen has
been, would bear comparison with that noble character of the nineteenth
century.

Bunsen was born in 1791 at Corbach, a small town in the small principality
of Waldeck. His father was poor, but a man of independent spirit, of moral
rectitude, and of deep religious convictions. Bunsen, the son of his old
age, distinguished himself at school, and was sent to the University of
Marburg at the age of seventeen. All he had then to depend on was an
exhibition of about L7 a year, and a sum of L15, which his father had
saved for him to start him in life. This may seem a small sum; but if we
want to know how much of paternal love and self-denial it represented, we
ought to read an entry in his father's diary: "Account of cash receipts by
God's mercy obtained for transcribing law documents between 1793 and
1814,--sum total 3,020 thalers 23 groschen," that is to say, about L22 per
annum. Did any English Duke ever give his son a more generous
allowance,--more than two-thirds of his own annual income? Bunsen began by
studying divinity, and actually preached a sermon at Marburg, in the
Church of St. Elizabeth. Students in divinity are required in Germany to
preach sermons as part of their regular theological training, and before
they are actually ordained. Marburg was not then a very efficient
university, and, not finding there what he wanted, Bunsen after a year
went to Goettingen, chiefly attracted by the fame of Heyne. He soon devoted
himself entirely to classical studies: and in order to support
himself,--for L7 per annum will not support even a German student,--he
accepted the appointment of assistant teacher of Greek and Hebrew at the
Goettingen gymnasium, and also became private tutor to a young American,
Mr. Astor, the son of the rich American merchant. He was thus learning and
teaching at the same time, and he acquired by his daily intercourse with
his pupil a practical knowledge of the English language. While at
Goett