career as a student of law, in
the antiquities of which he became thoroughly versed. In particular
Justinian and the Roman authorities, among whom he stands as chief,
were the objects of Mommsen's research. From jurisprudence he passed
to the study of general history, and of the most interesting period of
Rome he absorbed into his mind all the lore that has survived. This
he digested and set forth in a monumental work, which, translated into
English, has been, in the English-speaking world of scholars at least,
as familiar as household words. At a still later time he was an active
striver in the political agitations of his day.

I sent in my card to Mommsen with some trepidation and was at
once admitted. I found him sitting at leisure among his books and
Bancroft's introduction brought to pass for me a genial welcome. He
was a man not large in frame with dark eyes, and black hair streaked
with grey. No doubt but that like German scholars in general he could
talk English, but he stuck to German and I was rather glad he did
so; I could take him in better as he discoursed fluently in his
mother-tongue. Mommsen was a man of sharp corners who often in his
political career brought grief to adversaries who tried to handle him
without gloves. I was fortunate in catching him in a softer mood and
witnessed an amiability with which he was not usually credited. His
little daughters were in the room, pretty children with whom
the father played with evident pride and joy, interrupting the
conversation to caress the curly pates, and trotting them on his knee.
He put keen questions to me as regards America, showing that while
busy with Caesar and the on-goings of the ancient forum he had been
wide awake also to modern happenings. He expressed much regard for
Bancroft and praised Grant for selecting as minister to Germany a
personality so agreeable to European scholars. He told me of the
jubilee of Bancroft which was about to be celebrated with marked
honours. Fifty years before Bancroft had "made his doctor" at
Goettingen, one of the earliest Americans to achieve that distinction,
and the German universities meant to show emphatically their
recognition of his merit. The celebration afterwards took place, not
interrupted by the warlike uproar in which the land was about to be
involved. A proud honour indeed for the American minister. It was
a noteworthy occasion to talk thus familiarly with one of the most
illustrious scholars of the t