Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 | Page 5

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 study, as well as of actual exploration. In 1773, being then just forty years of age, he married the orphan daughter of Dr Blumenberg, a Thuringian physician, and lived at Copenhagen, with the rank of captain of engineers, till the year 1778. He then removed to Meldorf, a town in the province of Ditmarsch, Holstein, where he settled for life as collector of the revenues of the district.
Barthold George Niebuhr was born in Copenhagen on the 27th of August 1776; but with the little old town of Meldorf--once the capital of an ancient commonwealth--his earliest associations were connected. A kind of rude equality still reigned in the manners of the rustic population, which was not likely to be disturbed by the influx of the world into a bleak and gloomy district remote from the great roads. Here young Niebuhr grew up a studious and solitary boy; instructed by his father in French, the rudiments of Latin, and above all, in geography and history, which the old traveller taught him to illustrate by maps and plans, and by digging regular fortifications in the garden. The sheriff of Meldorf, and editor of the Deutsches Museum, a man of both fancy and learning, assisted in this early education; and the boy--who had never been a child--employed himself, even at seven years of age, in writing down the instructions he received. In future years, he regretted his having thus 'lost the life of a child.' 'I found matter for my childish fancy only in books, engravings, or conversation. I drew into its sphere all I read, and I read without reason and without aim; but the real world was closed to me, and I could not conceive or imagine anything which had not been first conceived or imagined by another.'
From this second-hand world he removed at the age of thirteen, when he was sent to the school at Meldorf, where the principal, Dr J?ger, gave him as much attention as he could spare for a pupil, who, though much the youngest, was the most advanced in the class. Afterwards, finding it was impossible to do for him what this strange child required, Dr J?ger advised his removal, and gave him a private lesson of an hour every day instead. This was continued with only a few months' interruption and unsuccessful trial of a school at Hamburg, till Barthold was eighteen, when he was sent to the university of Kiel.
His interest in politics dated from a very early period. At the age of eleven, he studied the newspapers, English ones especially, which he read with ease; and his knowledge of geography enabled him to follow all the details of a campaign with vivid interest.
His going to the university was an important incident in his life. His particular vocation, indeed, seems to have been clear enough from even an earlier period; for though he was a learned linguist, history especially, and philology, were the pursuits to which his heart was given. The letters he wrote from Kiel to his parents are amiable, full of affectionate outpourings about the new men and women to whom he was introduced, about his studies, and about his theories. He profits by the kindness of the physician, Dr Hensler, whose house and friendly advice were always accessible; but he declines evening-parties; and contemplates the mountain of knowledge, up whose steep sides he has yet to climb, with profound awe and some anxiety. 'My head swims when I survey what I have yet to learn--philosophy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural history. Then, too, I must perfect myself in history, German, and French; study Roman law, and the political constitutions of Europe, as far as I can, &c.; and all this must be done within five years at most.... I must know all these things; but how I shall learn them, Heaven knows!