, were not
without their changes in Bunsen's own views. The man who had come to
Rome, in position a poor and obscure student, had grown into the oracle
of a highly cultivated society, whose acquaintance was eagerly sought
by every one of importance who lived at Rome or visited it, and into
the diplomatic representative of one of the great Powers. The scholar
had come to have, not merely theories, but political and ecclesiastical
aims. The disciple of Niebuhr, who at one time had seen all things very
much as Niebuhr saw them in his sad later days of disgust at revolution
and cynical despair of liberty, had come since under the influence of
Arnold, and, as his letters to Arnold show, had taken into his own mind
much of the more generous and hopeful, though vague, teaching of that
equally fervid teacher of liberalism and of religion. These letters are
of much interest. They show the dreams and the fears and antipathies of
the time; they contain some remarkable anticipations, some equally
remarkable miscalculations, and some ideas and proposals which, with
our experience, excite our wonder that any one could have imagined them
practicable. Every one knows that Bunsen's diplomatic career at Rome
ended unfortunately. He was mixed up with the violent proceedings of
the Prussian Government in the dispute with the Archbishop of Cologne
about marriages between Protestants and Catholics, and he had the
misfortune to offend equally both his own Court and that of Rome. It is
possible that, as is urged in the biography before us, he was
sacrificed to the blunders and the enmities of powers above him. But,
for whatever reason, no clear account is given of the matter by his
biographer, though a good deal is suggested; and in the absence of
intelligible explanations the conclusion is natural that, though he may
have been ill-used, he may also have been unequal to his position.

But his ill-success or his ill-usage at Rome was more than compensated
by the results to which it may be said to have led. Out of it
ultimately came that which gave the decisive character to Bunsen's
life--his settlement in London as Prussian Minister. On leaving Rome he
came straight to England He came full of admiration and enthusiasm to
"his Ithaca, his island fatherland," and he was flattered and delighted
by the welcome he received, and by the power which he perceived in
himself, beyond that of most foreigners, to appreciate and enjoy
everything English. He