Ritschl’s character was strongly marked. The spirited element in him was powerful, and to some at times he seemed overbearing, but his nature was noble at the core; and, though intolerant of inefficiency and stupidity, he never asserted his personal claims in any mean or petty way. He was warmly attached to family and friends, and yearned continually after sympathy, yet he established real intimacy with only a few. Both at Breslau and at Bonn he complained of isolation, which (though he was himself unconscious of the fact) was in part the natural fruit of his own superiority. The interests of his pupils were at all times dear, perhaps even too dear, in his eyes. He was far from being a dreamy scholar; his talent for practical affairs would have secured him eminence in almost any walk of life, and he was credited with diplomatic finesse. That Ritschl had a great faculty for organization is shown by his administration of the university library at Bonn, and by the eight years of labour which carried to success a work of infinite complexity, the famous Priscae Latinitatis Monunιenta Epigraphica (Bonn, 1862). This volume presents in admirable facsimile, with prefatory notices and indexes, the Latin inscriptions from the earliest times to the end of the republic. It forms an introductory volume to the Berlin Corpus Iηscriptioηum Latiηamm, the excellence of which is largely due to the precept and example of Ritschl, though he had no hand in the later volumes.

In all that he did Ritschl exhibited rare genius combined with a precision unsurpassed. But to bring out to the full his great powers the zest of discovery was indispensable. When he was on the track of a new idea, he worked with a fiery energy which triumphed over his almost life-long physical weakness, and left him no peace till every difficulty was cleared away. But the toil of carrying his discoveries to their consequences lie was only too apt to leave to feebler hands than his own. He was fertile in great projects, and struck out the main ideas which should guide them, but one only did he pursue to absolute completion, the Priscae Latinitatis Μonumenta,— precisely because, from the nature of this work, he was buoyed up from first to last by the occurrence or the expectation of novelty. The results of RitschΓs life are mainly gathered up in a long series of monographs, for the most part of the highest finish, and rich in ideas which have leavened the scholarship of the time.

As a scholar, Ritschl was of the lineage of Bentley, to whom he looked up, like Hermann, with fervent admiration. His best efforts were spent in studying the languages and literatures of Greece and Rome, rather than the life of the Greeks and Romans. He was sometimes, but most unjustly, charged with taking a narrow view of ‘ ‘ Philologie.” That he keenly appreciated the importance of ancient institutions and ancient art both his published papers and the records of his lectures amply testify. He had in reality no prejudice against any department of learning. He was ever anxious to discern precisely the work for which each pupil was fitted, and he despatched many explorers into fields where he could not labour himself. Ritschl for the most part devoted himself to the study of ancient poetry, and in particular of the early Latin drama. This formed the centre from which his investigations radiated. Starting from this he ranged over the whole remains of pre-Ciceronian Latin, and not only analysed but augmented the sources from which our knowledge of it must come. Before Ritschl the acquaintance of scholars with early Latin was so dim and restricted that it would perhaps be hardly an exaggeration to call him its real discoverer.

To the world in general Ritschl was best known as a student of Plautus. When he began his studies, the text of that author was like some ancient picture, defaced alike by time and by much repainting. He cleared away the accretions of ages, and by efforts of that real genius which goes hand in hand with labour, brought to light many of the true features of the original. It is infinitely to be regretted that Ritschl’s results were never combined to form that monumental edition of Plautus of which he dreamed in his earlier life. For one such palace from the master builder’s hand we could well have sacrificed some of the abundant material which he left for punier architects to handle. RitschΓs examination of the Plautine MSS. was both laborious and brilliant, and greatly extended the knowledge of Plautus and of the ancient Latin drama. Of this two striking examples may be cited. By the aid of the Ambrosian palimpsest he recovered the name T. Maccius Plautus, for the vulgate M. Accius, and proved it correct by strong extraneous arguments. On the margin of the Palatine MSS. the marks C and DV continually recur, and had been variously explained. Ritschl proved that they meant “Canticum” and “Diverbium,” and hence showed that in the Roman comedy only the conversations in iambic senarii were not intended for the singing voice. Thus was brought into strong relief a fact without which there can be no true appreciation of Plautus, viz., that his plays were comic operas rather than comic dramas.

In conjectural criticism Ritschl was inferior not only to his great predecessors but to some of his contemporaries. His emendations do not often present that perfect wedding of art and fortune which we see in the best work of Madvig or Cobet. His imagination was in this field (but in this field only) hampered by erudition, and his judgment was unconsciously warped by the desire to find in his text illustrations of his discoveries. His remedies were often needlessly violent. But still a fair proportion of his textual labours has stood the test of time, and he forged the weapons which are destined to conquer for us the true text of Plautus, so far as an envious fate permits. Ritschl rendered immense service by his study of Plautine metres, a field in which little advance had been made since the time of Bentley. In this matter Ritschl was aided by an accomplishment rare (as he himself lamented) in Germany—the art of writing Latin verse.

In spite of the incompleteness, on many sides, of his work,

Ritschl must be assigned a place in the history of learning among a very select few. His studies are presented principally in his Opuseula collected partly before and partly since his death. The Trinummus (twice edited) was the only specimen of his contemplated edition of Plautus which he completed. The edition has been continued by some of his pupils—Goetz, Loewe, and others— and is still (1885) in progress.

The facts of Ritschl’s life may be best learned from the elaborate biography by Otto Ribbeck (Leipsic, 1879). An interesting and discriminating estimate of Eitschl’s work is that by Lucian Mueller (Berlin, 1877).

The service rendered to geography by Ritter was mainly threefold. His personal influence, due largely to the moral character of the man and partly to the skill of the teacher, was unusually potent on those who came within its range during the long years that he acted as a professor. Had he done nothing more than use this influence in disseminating the geographical ideas of his time he would have stood high with his ow r n generation. But, secondly, his investigations and teaching were informed by a fresh conception of his subject which imparted life to what had been its dry bones and dust. Geography w τ as, to use his own expression, a kind of physiology and comparative anatomy of the earth: rivers, mountains, glaciers, &c., were so many distinct kinds of organs, each w τ ith its own appropriate functions; and, as his physical frame is the basis of the man, determinative to a large extent of his life, so the structure of each country is a leading element in the historic progress of the nation. This naturally led him to attach great importance to the vertical as distinguished from the horizontal development of the earth’s surface, and also to give perhaps quite as much attention to the history of civilization and of the individual animals and plants by which civilization has been affected as to questions of purely physical geography. And, thirdly, he was a scientific compiler of the first rank. Such portions of his universal geography as he completed remain each the standard thesaurus for its territory. This is especially the case with the sections devoted to Palestine and to Central Asia. Among Ritter’s minor works may be mentioned Vorhalle europäischer Volkergeschichten vor Herodot (Berlin, 1820); Die Stupas . . . . an der indobaktrisehen Konigsstrasse u. d. Kolosse von Bamiyan (1838); Einleitung zur allgemeinen vergleichenden Geographie (Berlin, 1852); “Bemerkungen über Veranschaulichungsmittel räumlicher Verhältnisse bei graphischen Darstellungen durch Form u. Zahl,” in the Trans, of the Berlin Academy, 1828. After his death Daniel published selections from bis lectures under the titles Geschichte der Erdkunde (1851), Allgemeine Erdkunde (1862), and Europa (1863). Several of his works (e.g., the “Palestine” volumes of his Erdkunde) have been translated into English.

See Kramer, Carl Ritter, ein Lebensbild (18G4 and 1870, 2d ed. 1875); Gage, The Life of Carl Ritter (Edinburgh, 1867); Guyot, Carl Ritter, an address to the American Geogr. and Stat. Soc. (Princeton, 1860); F. Marthe, “was bedeutet Carl Ritter für die Geographie,” in Zeitsch. der Ges. f. Εrdk., Berlin, 1870.