Wilhelm Benecke, Heidelberg, to Henry Crabb Robinson, [London], 10 February 1833.

Heidelberg febry10 1833

My dear Sir,

             I had great pleasure is receiving your letter, and I should have answered it on the spot, had you not told me, that you were on the eve of making an excursion into the country; but being informed by my son that you are returned some time ago, I will no longer deprive myself of the pleasure of a little conversation with you. I am obliged to you for the explanation you have given me concerning Mrs Wiss’s affairs, I must mention, however, that I was well aware, that the case in question did not at all regard the insurance laws and that Mrs D. must have misunderstood me in this respect, I only observed on that occasion, that if all persons living in foreign countries were under the necessity of proving wills in England before they were able to receive payment of a policy effected there, it was to be wondered at that such insurances should be affected at all, and I thought that the Directors, for their own profit, might be prevailed upon to dispence with that difficulty if they were credibly informed that in this case they would run no risk in paying to the sale and legal heirs and administrators. – Mrs Wiss has since inherited from her late husbands brother abt 750£ and Mr Sinclair, who refuses to be made trustee, advises her to give his consent to have that money invested in shares of the Globe Insurance Cy which, he says, would yield about 5 pr Ct interest. On her asking my advice I told him that I would first request you to give your opinion on the subject, and I hope that you will do me and her that favour. Shares, generally speaking, appear to me a very uncertain kind of property, as the dividend must of course depend on the success of the Company. Should you be able to point out another mode of laying out the money to advantage with security I should be greatly obliged to you if you would inform me of it.

          I fully concur in what you say about our German as well as your English reformers. There are, most undoubtedly among them a great many well meaning and well informed persons, but by far the greater number are led by selfish motives, and if they were to succeed I am confident that the changes effected by them would not be for the better. In times like these, where it is impossible for any man of conscience and wisdom to declare for either party, the only course to pursue, I think, is, to promote, as far as it is in our power, those principles of true wisdom and moderation without which it is impossible that any true reform should ever take place, the first of which is, that every one must begin by reforming himself.

        My commentary on Pauls Ep. to the Rom. is now in your hands and I long to hear what an impression it has made upon you. I do not expect that you will subscribe to all I have said in that book, but I doubt not that you will approve of the Idea of the whole, and that by repeated reading you will find more and more the connexion which exists between its different parts. It is, in fact, a complete system of Natur Philosophie in the nobler sense of the word, but I could not make it appear a system, because, in the quality of a Commentator, I was obliged to follow my author step by step. I hope you have paid due attention to the Preface, which, in my opinion, is the best I ever wrote

               The prospect you hold out to me of spendg a few months of the next summer with us, gives me very great satisfaction and I hope that nothing will prevent you from executing your plan. We shall thus have an opportunity of entering more into the details of this most interesting subject. It is not quite certain yet whether we shall remain here or go to Hombro’ but the former is now probable. If any change should take place I shall take care to inform you of it immediately, and you may take it for granted that we remain here until you hear to the contrary.

             My son wrote me some time ago that the late Lord Parkington in the last edition of his book on the laws of shipping has made a very honourable mention of my book on Insurance and that it has many passages of it. You know that my Germ. work on the same subject is held in great repute by all the german lawyers and is in fact the first authority in mattes of Inse. It has been translated into Italian and spread over all the East, as the < > book is in french. Oberappellations Praesident Heyse in Lübeck, one of our most eminent lawyers, who was formerly Professor at Heidelberg, expresses himself about my English book in the following manner, in Juristische Abhandlungen, mit Entscheidungen des Oberappellations-Gerichts der vier freien Städte Deutschlands, von Heyse und Cropp, 1r Band, Hamburg 1827, p. 583 “Dieses Werk, welches wir bisher weder in unsern gelehrten Blättern angezeigt, noch sonst irgendwo angeführt gesehen haben, verdiehnte wohl größere Aufmerksamkeit als es bisher gefunden hat, da es noch besser und gründlicher ist, als das System des Assekuranzwesens”. (desselben Verfassers)

           Is it not strange under these circumstances that the book should still be so publicly neglected in England? and should it not be advisable to draw the attention of the Publick once more to it by some advertisement? Perhaps you will do me the favor to speak on the subject to Mr Baldwin. I confess that I should be glad to recover at least the money which I have laid out upon that book ^about 200£^; to derive any great benefit from it was never in my contemplation.

Text: Crabb Robinson Correspondence, Dr. Williams's Library, London, 1833, letter 92.