One of the most remarkable of the Italian travellers was Ludovico di Varthema, who left his native land in 1502.
The college to which Hofmann devoted nearly twenty of the best years of his life was starved; the coaltar industry, which was really brought into existence by his work and that of his pupils under his direction at that college, and which with a little intelligent forethought might have been retained in England, was allowed to slip into the hands of Germany, where it is now worth millions of pounds annually; and Hofmann himself was compelled to return to his native land to find due appreciation as one of the foremost chemists of his time.
In 1894 he escorted his father's remains to Hungary, and the following year resolved to settle in his native land and took the oath of allegiance.
Vast entailed estates were the property of a small group of landlords (in Bohemia 37.7%, in Moravia 34.4%, in Silesia 39.9% of all land belonged to owners representing 0.1% of the population), while great masses of the people did not own a single acre of their native land.
The ignorance of the people of the north made it very difficult for Methodism to benefit from these manifestations, until the advent of the Rev. Thomas Charles (1755-1814), who, having spent five years in Somersetshire as curate of several parishes, returned to his native land to marry Sarah Jones of Bala.
