GREAT MEN OF SWITZERLAND.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR"] SIR,—In his enumeration of distinguished natives of Switzerland, your correspondent has, to my surprise, omitted the names of . Neckar, Saussure, and Siamondi. I am an Englishman, and have no foreign connections, but I apprehend that the fame and character of Neckar as a financier stood higher than has been the case with any other man before or since. Of the scientific position of Saussure I am not well. qualified to speak, but though not the first man who actually ascended Mont Blanc—for that distinction belongs to a guide who was in his service—he was the second man who ever did so ; and going up with instruments and taki g observations, was the first who took scientific possession of the highest spot in Europe; —at the time, no mean scientific achievement. As an historian, Sismondi, I apprehend, stands higher than any man of Anglo- Saxon race since Gibbon. The names which would stancl highest in competition with his might probably be those of Hallam, Macaulay, and Motley.
And your correspondent has failed to notice, perhaps, the most distinguished woman of modern times, Neckar's daughter, Madame de Stael,—the one person whom, in the height of his power, the First Napoleon not only hated, but feared.—I am,
Previous page
