Karl, Grand Duke of Frankfurt, Royal Highness: In a Lecture at the Museum in Frankfurt

MOST WORTHY ARCHBISHOP,

MOST SERENE GRAND DUKE,

Most Gracious Archbishop, Grand Duke

and Lord, Lord!

Most Gracious, highly esteemed and honored Gentlemen of all ranks and dignities!

Not without emotion do I step today into the presence of HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, OUR MOST GRACIOUS, GENERALLY BELOVED AND MOST VENERABLE GRAND DUKE, and before you, gracious, highly esteemed and honored Gentlemen, in this brilliant assembly. Not without emotion regarding the honor conferred upon me, as an honorary member of an institute founded by our MOST PRAISEWORTHY GRAND DUKE KARL, do I appear before you, quite unexpectedly, in person, to treat of a subject in this assembly that deserves our attention, a subject that must interest each one of us and encourage everyone to the liveliest gratitude. In our times, which are unfortunately so indifferent to the arts and sciences, it is a highly rare phenomenon when learned institutes for the reception and spread of the arts and sciences are erected and founded, but all the more honorable, all the more praiseworthy it is for the founder, and all the more great gratitude we must offer him. Among the present great ones of the earth, our MOST SERENE GRAND DUKE KARL stands at the head as one of the most learned, who knows scholars, values them, and also knows how to value them, and to whom the arts and sciences, their promotion, and their spread are equally close at heart, and would deserve imitation if others were imbued with the same love for them; he shines in scholarship and deep insights into the art of government as a star of the first magnitude. KARL THE BELOVED, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE MOST HUMANE GRAND DUKE, whom we have the invaluable good fortune to revere and possess, a PRINCE whom all Germany reveres, is the subject I chose for this lecture. I ask you