_Thursday, May 15, 1851_, 7 A. M.

George, in the hurry of his journey, begs you, through me, to be so kind
as to be at the Oxford station when the Birmingham train arrives, Saturday
(the day after to-morrow) at 12 o'clock, and then kindly to help him in
showing Oxford to the _princeps juventutis_. They leave again at 8 o'clock
in the evening. The party will of course want some rooms in the best
hotel, to rest themselves. So it might be well to bespeak some rooms for
the travellers as a _pied a terre_. The party travel under the name of
Colonel Fischer or George Bunsen.

I talked over the whole plan of the forms and roots with that good
Steinschneider yesterday, and requested him to ask you further about it.
He willingly undertook to do the work in the course of the summer. Thus we
have certainly got one, perhaps two, for the Semitic work. I have given
him a copy of my "Egypt." He seems to be getting _tame_.

[18.]

LONDON, _February 3, 1852._

I have exactly a quarter of an hour before I must make myself grand for
the opening of Parliament, and I will spend it in chatting with you.

I will write to Pococke notwithstanding. I cannot help believing that the
German method of etymology, as applied to history by Schlegel, Lassen, and
Humboldt, and of which I have endeavored to sketch the outline, _is the
only safe one_.

You have opened my eyes to the danger of their laying such dry and cheap
ravings to our account, unless we, "as Germans," protest against it.

I am rejoiced at your delight with the "Church Poetry." But Pauli never
sent you what I intended; I wanted to send you the first edition of my
Hymn Book (no longer to be had at the booksellers'), because it has
historical and biographical notices about the composers, and contains in
the Preface and Introduction the first attempt to render the features of
continuity and the epochs more conspicuous. (It is my only copy, so please
for this reason take great care of it.) Also I wish to draw your attention
to _two translations_ from my collection. First by Miss Cox (daughter of
the Bedell in Oxford), _c._ 1840, small 8vo. Second by Arnold (Rugby), not
Dr. Arnold. This last I can send you. It contains _one_ translation by the
great Arnold, first part. You will observe, among other points, that the
most animated hymns of praise and thanksgiving were composed amid the
sufferings of the Thirty Years' War. My attention has been directed to
Hillebrand's "Hist