Of Dr. Neumann's attainments in Oriental literature I know only what
fame says, nor does it concern us much in this sketch. I once, however,
sat with him in a retiring room of the Munich Museum (a great reading
room), when Baron Tautphoeus, whose accomplished wife is so well known
in this country as authoress of the 'Initials' and 'Quits,' entered, and
asked if we had seen the notice of Dr. Neumann in the last number of the
London _Times_. The doctor had read it; I had not, but immediately did
so. It made him the equal of the greatest orientalists of the past and
present ages, comparing him particularly with Klaproth. The _Times_, it
is true, had a motive for this notice, as always, both in its praises
and its lampoons. It had found views of Dr. Neumann on British India
which it desired to commend, but even in our view this would not cancel
the eulogy. His authorship in connection with Chinese and Armenian
philosophy and history is very considerable, and outside of this field
he won, in 1847, a prize offered by the French Institute for the best
work on the 'Historical Development of the Peoples of Southern Russia.'
What was to be done in the university in Chinese and Armenian, he of
course did; but his lectures took a much wider range, embracing general
history and ethnography.
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