ral courses of lectures, scientific,
political, miscellaneous, and even some purely literary, which
were well attended. Some lectures on Shakespeare were crowded;
and even I found much indulgence in reading, last winter, some
Biographical Lectures, which were meant for theories or portraits
of Luther, Michelangelo, Milton, George Fox, Burke. These
courses are really given under the auspices of Societies, as
"Natural History Society," "Mechanics' Institutes," "Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge," &c., &c., and the fee to the lecturer is
inconsiderable, usually $20 for each lecture. But in a few
instances individuals have undertaken courses of lectures, and
have been well paid. Dr. Spurzheim* received probably $3,000 in
the few months that he lived here. Mr. Silliman, a Professor of
Yale College, has lately received something more than that for a
course of fifteen or sixteen lectures on Geology. Private
projects of this sort are, however, always attended with a degree
of uncertainty. The favor of my townsmen is often sudden and
spasmodic, and Mr. Silliman, who has had more success than ever
any before him, might not find a handful of hearers another
winter. But it is the opinion of many friends whose judgment I
value, that a person of so many claims upon the ear and
imagination of our fashionable populace as the "author of the
_Life of Schiller,_" "the reviewer of _Burns's Life,_" the live
"contributor to the _Edinburgh_ and _Foreign_ Reviews," nay, the
"worshipful Teufelsdrockh," the "personal friend of Goethe,"
would, for at least one season, batter down opposition, and
command all ears on whatever topic pleased him, and that, quite
independently of the merit of his lectures, merely for so many
names' sake.

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* The memory of Dr. Spurzheim has faded, but his name is still
known to men of science on both sides of the Atlantic as that of
the most ardent and accomplished advocate of the doctrine of
Phrenology. He came to the United States in 1832 to advance the
cause he had at heart, but he had been only a short time in the
country when he died at Boston of a fever.
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But the subject, you say, does not yet define itself. Whilst it
is "gathering to a god," we who wait will only say, that we know
enough here of Goethe and Schiller to have some interest in
German literature. A respectable German here, Dr. Follen, has
given lectures to a good class upon Schiller. I am quite sure
that Goethe'