sages, he is like Bentley, though with a safer judgment. Professor Cobet is the last of the race of medieval scholars in Holland who lectures in Latin. One of his students told me, that though he had studied several years under Dr. Cobet, he had never heard him speak his mothertongue. At the three-hundredth anniver

er his learning is more accurate and profound in the Indian or in the Germanic languages. He was born on the island of Java, and educated at the university which now honors him by making him its head. He became at thirty a professor in the English college of Benares, in India. Here the Brahmins became enthusiastic at the wonderful knowledge which the young scholar possessed of their literature and history. Their reserve and exclusiveness gave way, and they listened with delight to lectures which the foreign scholar gave in their native Sanskrit upon European life and institutions. In person Dr. Kern is short, but erect in figure. In conversation, even upon subjects apparently new, he expresses himself with a clearness and ripeness of view that seems to have been derived from a special study of the questions involved. Even with scholars whose whole lives have been devoted to a specialty, he seems to impart more than he receives. A repose of mind and expression marks all his views, whether discussing English rule in the East, or Buddhism, or Tory government in Eng- sary of the founding of the university, the land. He is at home in Sanskrit, Arabic, foreign delegates were struck with the fluPersian, Ethiopic, Assyrian, Norse, Rus- ency and eloquence with which Dr. Cobet sian, and Hungarian, while the Indian conversed in Latin. Dozy, his colleague, languages and several of the modern the renowned Arabic scholar, apologized tongues of Europe he speaks with great wittily at the banquet for speaking in purity. His lectures embrace not only French: "Il ne reste que deux hommes comparative philology, but Indian an- en Europe qui parlent le Latin; ce sont le tiquities, Sanskrit, and old Persian. He Pape et M. Cobet." When the professor is now preparing a work upon the early began his studies at the university he was history of religion in the East. He wears enrolled as a student of theology. It was the gold cross of the order of St. Stanis- then required that students should pass a laus, conferred upon him by the Emperor preliminary examination in mathematics. of Russia. Having failed in this after several trials, he No scholar of the present day embodies devoted himself to the classics. His repmore nearly the special gifts and acquisi- utation even then was so great, that, occations, which distinguished the great schol- sionally, when his teacher, the celebrated ars who made classic learning famous a Peerlkamp, was prevented from lecturing, few centuries since, than Professor Cobet. the young Cobet was summoned to take He is the worthy successor of Hemster- his place. After receiving his degree, he huis, Ruhnken, and Valcknaer. In wide was sent at the government expense, to range of knowledge, covering the entire Italy, to study the manuscripts in the field of Greek literature, in critical com- great libraries there. While in Florence, prehension of the spirit of an author, and the following incident is said to have ocin sagacious emendations of doubtful pas-curred. As he entered a room, one day,

he found a circle of classical scholars test- | finish my work, but I must go forward, ing each other's knowledge in the follow- and when I am dead some one will be ing game: one repeated a Greek hexame- raised up to carry it on." ter, and the next must follow with a sim- I found everywhere in Holland a uniilar verse beginning with the last letter of versal regard for our countryman Mr. the first. Cobet was invited to join in the Motley, who has done more to make ilgame. His resources triumphed over ev-lustrious the heroic struggle of this little ery effort to defeat him. All were aston-nation for independence than all others. ished at his knowledge of Greek poetry. It He was equally esteemed by the King and was not discovered that when the young the Queen. He often spent a part of the champion failed to recall the needed verse, summer in the House in the Forest,' his ready command of Greek words and near the Hague-the Queen's summer palquantity enabled him to construct in- ace. Mr. Motley was invited by the govstantly the proper verse so skillfully that ernment to visit Holland on the occasion its genuineness was not questioned. Co- of the celebration of the capture of Bribet is so thorough a Hellenist, so filled elle-the first step to victory in the long with the genius of that wonderful lan- Eighty Years' War. The modest scholar guage, that he speaks easily classic Greek. took his seat among the dignitaries of the He is a contributor to the leading philo- whole realm. Professor De Vries, who logical journal of Athens, writing in pure was the orator of the occasion, rose in that ancient Greek? When Cobet returned brilliant assembly, and asking the permisfrom his Italian trip, his reputation was sion of the King, conferred, in the name so great that the professor holding the of the University of Leiden, the degree chair of Greek at Leiden voluntarily with- of Doctor of Letters upon Mr. Motley. drew in order that he might receive the The King signified graciously his approvappointment to it. al, and speaking first in Dutch and then passing into English, expressed his pleasure at the honor shown by the venerable university to the illustrious scholar whose labors had so extended the renown of the nation. Mr. Motley acknowledged, in English, the high honor conferred upon him at that time and in so distinguished a manner.

The founder of the critical study of the Germanic languages in Holland is Professor De Vries, who is noted as a historical scholar as well as a philologist. Thirty years ago he conceived the great purpose to present to his country a dictionary of his native language which should embrace its entire literature. The enterprise was in part like that which Jacob Grimm The theological faculty is at the present undertook for the German language, and time among the most noted in Europe. it is possible that his great friend's exam- Kuenen, Tiele, and Scholten win attention ple led him to commence the task. Never from the world of scholars whenever they is the grand abnegation of a scholar's life speak. The school of criticism represented more nobly illustrated than in such a work by Kuenen and Tiele has succeeded, in theas this. It involves silent, unseen labor, ological thought, that which was known the first-fruits of which can not be known as the Tübingen. Less arbitrary and subfor years. The whole literature of the jective, perhaps, than the latter in its language must be mastered before the act-principles and methods, it is based upon a ual preparation of the work may begin. Our own Allibone undertook a parallel task, and the beautiful words with which he closes his great work are among the most touching in the history of literary achievement. Two pictures hang over the study table of Professor De Vries, one of the brothers Grimm, and the other of Barentz, one of the daring Dutch navigators, who made the first voyage to the icy north. The professor said to me: "Whenever I am tempted to be discouraged, I look at these pictures, the one the emblem of unflagging industry, the other of dauntless courage. I know I can not live to

careful study of ancient records, and an exhaustive comparison of early religions. A more practical and scholarly character pervades it. Hence its conclusions may be fairly met, examined, and answered. Whatever the final and accepted truths of these theories may be, the results will be less barren than in much previous theological discussion. Valuable contributions will have been made to religious history, to the origin and relation of the most ancient documents, and to our knowledge of contemporary religions and the monumental struggles of those early days. The ablest representative of this school is Pro

fessor Abram Kuenen.

His influence over the students is unbounded, and naturally so over religious thought in his own land. He is the intimate personal friend of many English scholars, especially of the Dean of Westminster. His two most important works, The Religion of Israel, and a HistoricoCritical Investigation of the Origin and Arrangement of the Books of the Old Testament, are the most important factors in recent religious literature.

In person he is tall, with a stoop in the shoulders, and with a face at once noble and intellectual. The son of an apothecary, the death of his father called him from his preparatory studies to the work his father had left, that he might support his mother and brothers. When he was enrolled as a student at the university by the rector magnificus, Scholten, his present colleague, he joined so heartily in all recreations and diversions of student life that it is difficult to conceive of him at twenty-three as a doctor of theology, and immediately after a professor. His learning is many-sided: in the Semitic languages and in Greek it is critical and profound. He lectures also on the history and growth of Christian institutions, and upon moral philosophy. His conversation is fresh and suggestive upon almost every branch of modern Continental literature. I university.

The history of the revival of learning and the unfolding of science is written in a large measure in the annals of the University of Leiden. The influence of a single university is shown in the fact that more than seventy thousand students have been educated here. The proportion of foreign students is perhaps not surpassed in the records of any European