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[495] own principles. He talked, to be sure, very freely upon political subjects, and I dare say may lecture very freely upon history, which is his principal branch but he seemed so round, easy, and fat, that I should hardly think there could be much that is dangerous in his mitigated radicalism. . . .

May 21.—Mr. Forster having the good-nature to continue our cicerone, we have seen several things this morning very pleasantly. . . . . From the Gewerbe-Institut we were carried to an old building opposite, once the residence of the Margraves of Brandenburg, now containing, among other things, the ateliers of Rauch, Wach, and Tieck. . . . At Rauch's we saw many fine models of works, finished or undertaken,—four beautiful winged Victories in marble, for the King of Bavaria; a beautiful Danaide pouring out water, nearly completed, for the Crown Prince; and several other things,—but we missed seeing himself, as he is gone to Halle for a visit. I recollect both Rauch and Tieck very well, living in the picturesque valley of Carrara, in 1818, and hard at work on the monuments to which they have since trusted their fame. I should have been very glad, however, to see Rauch again; for though, when I saw him, he had already settled his reputation by the statue of the Queen at Charlottenburg, he had not proved the greater compass of his genius now shown in the still more beautiful statue at Potsdam, and the statues of Blucher, Scharnhorst, and Bulow, with their bas-reliefs in the great square in Berlin.

I passed an hour this evening at Miss Solmar's, a well-known maiden lady of pleasant pretensions in conversation, who talks all tongues and keeps open house every evening. I met there, besides the Forsters,—with whom I went,—Varnhagen, formerly Prussian Minister in Bavaria, and more famous as the husband of the famous ‘Rahel,’ many of whose letters, etc., he has published since her death. Quite lately he has printed two volumes of letters addressed to her by Genz, W. von Humboldt, and many more distinguished men, with characters of them by himself, which excite a good deal of remark. Genz, it appears by them, was paid great sums of money by Pitt. The lady, however, under all circumstances, appears to great advantage, and was by common, if not universal consent, a very remarkable person, counting among her correspondents and intellectual admirers a very large number of the most distinguished men in Germany.

May 22.—I dined to-day. . . . with Count Raczynski, a Pole of large fortune, a very handsome man, a man of letters, and given to

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