Bunsen, CHRISTIAN KARL JOSIAS, BARON

Bunsen, CHRISTIAN KARL JOSIAS, BARON, the distinguished German diplomatist and scholar, was born 25th August 1791, at Korbach, in the principality of Waldeck. He first studied theology at Marburg (1808), and then philology under Heyne at Göttingen (1809-13). His prize essay De jure Atheniensium Hereditario appeared in 1813, and in that year he went to Copenhagen to study Icelandic under Finn Magnusson. He spent some months of 1815 in Berlin, and there became acquainted with the historian Niebuhr. In 1816 he went to Paris, and studied Persian and Arabic under Silvestre de Sacy, and in the same year to Rome, where he married Frances Waddington (1817), and was appointed (1818) secretary to the Prussian embassy on the recommendation of Niebuhr, then Prussian ambassador. On Niebuhr's departure from Rome (1824), Bunsen, who during Friedrich-Wilhelm III.'s visit to Rome in 1822 had gained the king's favour by the frank expression of his views on the Prussian ritual and hymn-book question, conducted the embassy provisionally for a time, and was appointed resident minister in 1827. Bunsen employed the years of his Roman sojourn partly in the study of Plato and the constitutions of antiquity; and still more in biblical inquiries, Egyptology, and researches into the history of the Christian church and its liturgies. He contributed largely to the Beschreibung der Stadt Rom (3 vols. Stutt. 1830-43), and wrote the explanatory text to the volume of engravings Die Basiliken des Christlichen Roms (Munich, 1843). The Archaeological Institute, established at Rome in 1828, found in Bunsen its most active supporter, and it was at his instance that Lepsius obtained from the Prussian government the means for his expedition to Egypt in 1842. He founded a Protestant hospital on the Tarpeian Rock, and with the help of Richard Rothe, then chaplain to the embassy, introduced into the services there a remodelled liturgy, the most part of which was afterwards embodied in his anonymous Gesang- und Gebetbuch zum Kirchen- und Hausgebrauch (1846), which has found very great favour in Germany. Becoming involved in the question of mixed marriages, and in the disputes between the Prussian government and the Archbishop of Cologne, he saw his position as Prussian ambassador at the papal court compromised, and, being recalled from Rome in 1838, he was appointed in 1839 Prussian ambassador at Bern. In 1841 he was sent on a special mission to London, to negotiate the erection of an Anglo-Prussian bishopric in Jerusalem, and in the next year was appointed ambassador at the English court. On a visit to Berlin in 1844, he represented the urgency for a deliberative assembly, and also made a complete plan of a constitution for Prussia closely resembling the English. In the Sleswick-Holstein question, Bunsen strongly advocated the German view, in opposition to Denmark, and protested against the London protocol of 1850, but was obliged to sign the treaty of 1852. His views regarding the part that Prussia should act in the Eastern question not being in accordance with those of his court, he ceased in 1854 to represent Prussia at the court of England, and retired to Heidelberg. In 1857 he was created a baron. The last two winters of his life were spent at Cannes, and, settling at Bonn in 1860, he died there on the 28th November of that year. In the estimation of Englishmen, Bunsen must ever hold a high place. No foreigner has ever shown a deeper appreciation of their national characteristics, or a heartier love of their social and political liberty. Bunsen was all his life an ardent student, and all his investigations tended to the one aim which he set before himself at the beginning of his career—'the knowledge of God in man, especially in language and religion.' His eager desire for positive results and his lively imagination led him in many cases to form premature conclusions, and the fresh impulse which he gave to the studies of others has been a still greater service to religion and science than his own researches. His chief works are: Die Verfassung der Kirche der Zukunft (1845; Eng. ed. The Constitution of the Church of the Future, 1847); Die drei ächten und die vier unächtlichen Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien, and Ignatius von Antiochien und seine Zeit (Hamb. 1847); Ägyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte (6 vols. 1844-57), of which the English edition (1847-67), with many additions by Bunsen and Samuel Birch, is the more valuable; Hippolytus and his Age (2 vols. 1852), which was specially written for English readers, and in its second edition formed part of the extensive work, Christianity and Mankind (7 vols. 1854), including 3 vols. of Analecta Ante-Nicæna, with contributions by Lagarde and other scholars, and Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History as applied to Language and Religion (2 vols.), with contributions by Aufrecht and Max Müller; Die Zeichen der Zeit (2 vols. Leip. 1855; Eng. trans. by Susanna Winkworth); Gott in der Geschichte (3 vols. Leip. 1857-58); and the Bibelwerk für die Gemeinde, completed by Kamphausen and Holtzmann in 9 vols. (1858-70). See Bunsen's Memoir (2 vols. 1868) by his widow, Frances Waddington (1791-1876), and her own Life and Letters by Hare (2 vols. 1879). His correspondence with Friedrich-Wilhelm IV. was published by Ranke in 1873. His five sons were Heinrich (1818-85), rector of Donington, Shropshire; Ernst (born 1819), author of Bible Chronology and other works; Georg (1824-96), Prussian statesman; and the diplomats, Karl (1821-87) and Theodor (1832-92).