The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

[Born at Potsdam, in Prussia, 1767. Died near Berlin, 1835. Aged 68.] In William Von Humboldt the highest qualities of a scholar were united to the talents of a statesman and man of the world. He discharged the functions of Ambassador at Vienna and in London, and served his country on more than one grave and diplomatic mission. He was extensively learned in languages dead and living; but that is common in Germany. His _originality_, as a philologist, lies in a delicacy of abstruse thought--a philosophical vein, as fine as profound, which he brings to bear on all questions of the literary field, from the rigid investigation of grammatical forms and laws, to the most feeling and comprehensive criticisms of taste. A rare power of sifting analysis, a strong impulse to tread, alone and self-guided, unfrequented grounds, and an eye to seek out new truth on ground the most trodden, may be read in his various masterly writings. He was a poet also. [Modelled by Thorwaldsen, at Rome, in 1807. It has since been executed in marble by order of King Frederic William III., and placed in the Museum at Berlin.]