‘My dear Rogers,—I dare say you thought me a sad fellow for leaving
England without seeing you, but I assure you it was from misfortune and not
neglect. On the morning of the day which I meant to have devoted to you, I was
asked by a friend if I had got a passport. The thought of such a thing being
necessary had never occurred to my recollection, but my friend had been just
conversing with a Prussian baron, who had mentioned that in the present state
of things it was indispensable. I find that he was right. But the time which I
had allotted to a conversation with you was spent, in the
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‘I reached Rotterdam after a passage of two days, and being struck with a desire of seeing more of Holland, went out of my direct route as far as Amsterdam and Haarlem. The organ at Haarlem was a reward for a longer journey. We heard it for an hour played by a first-rate performer, and were enchanted. It imitates every sound, from that of thunder and the roar of artillery, to the sweetest tones of the human voice, and makes them harmonise with an effect altogether indescribable. We proceeded thence by Utrecht and Cologne to this place, where I had the happiness to find Schlegel.1 The great little man is very gracious. His professorship, to be sure, has made him more of a lecturer in conversation than ever, and he is so vain of his English that he will not listen to mine. He speaks many words not quite so well as a cockatoo, but he accounts to me for his fluency and correctness of pronunciation by describing the early pains which he took with our language. Nevertheless, my Schlegel is a good-hearted and enlightened soul, and I am happy to listen to him. The keeper of the library of the University has been so kind as to give me the freest access to it. So I shall sit down to revise my German here for a month or two. The weather here is wretched, so that I can only see the shape of the country without its beauty. I shall be delighted if you can spare a moment to write to me, and remain,
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1 August Wilhelm von Schlegel, then Professor of History in the University of Bonn. |
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