fancy is surely palpable enough. Granted | that the world knows much more now than it did in the time of Galileo, do we therefore necessarily know more than he did? Granted that much that was new and difficult then is easy and familiar now, may there not still be many things which were easy to him and which yet are difficult to us? Surely it is a very baseless and self-complacent delusion to identify ourselves with our age, as if we must needs share in its attainments, know much because it knows much, be profound because it is profound. We might object to calling the knowledge of the present day more profound" than that of former times, merely because it is more advanced, more extended. We might say, that an astronomical lecturer of the present day is not necessarily more profound than Galileo, Kepler, Tycho, merely because he is acquainted with discoveries made since their time. We might reasonably object to a scale of profundity by which the world grows every year deeper and deeper in its knowledge. But grant such a scale. Let it be that the world in the nineteenth century is a very profound world. Let the ocean of its acquirements be deep as well as wide. Is there no such thing as a shallow draught from a deep vessel? Is it not possible that the stream may be shallow though the source be deep? May not a man have a superficial acquaintance with a profound subject? And is not this so with regard to ordinary readers? Do they know astronomy or chemistry profoundly, merely because it is profoundly known in this their day? Do they really know the sciences better than the astronomers and chemists of the sixteenth century? It is easy to laugh at astrologers and alchemists, and to please and amuse ourselves by thinking how far our views and our knowledge elevate us above their absurd projects and fables: but let us recollect that there has been a stage intermediate between them and us, and let us ask if we are equal to the men of that intermediate stage? We know that there are planets which Galileo or Copernicus did not dream of, but have we as exact a knowledge of the motions of Venus, and Mars, and Jupiter, as they had? Can we determine the places of these planets at any given time, as they could do?—as even Ptolemy and the Greek astronomers could do? It is easy to laugh at those who calculated nativities; but have we any right to laugh at those who could calculate eclipses, which probably we could none of us do? And so in other subjects. We know what Glauber's salts are, better than Glauber himself did :-at least, we can give them their systematic name: we can call them sulphate of soda; but do we know as well as he did what will be the effects of mixture in the hot way and in the cold way, upon oil of vitriol and soda ;-how salts are made, and changed, by heat, and solution, and distillation? We can name such things; but do we know anything more than the name? We can laugh at the alchemists and their dreams of finding silver and gold in lead and iron; but can we take a piece of ore, and ascertain what silver and what gold is in it, which men could do three centuries ago? If we do not know what the men of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries did knowknowledge which was true, and which has only been transformed and translated into new language in modern times, not superseded and rejected-what right have we to plume ourselves upon a fancied superiority over them, merely because we have learnt to repeat some of the phrases in which knowledge more recently acquired has been expressed? The great masters in our time may be superior to those who have preceded them in the extent, and, if you please, in the profundity of the knowledge which they possess; but such men are never led by their superiority to think lightly of the discoverers and men of science who have preceded them; and if we, merely because we live among the great men of our age and country, and have the opportunity of hearing their voice and listening to the truths which they utter, are led to despise preceding philosophers for their inferiority, what does this prove, but that we are conceited through the smallness, not the largeness of our knowledge? What does it prove, except precisely what the poet says, that Shallow draughts intoxicate the brain? And does not the very different temper of the most profound men of science in all times show to us, that Drinking deeply sobers us again? All this may be said, granting the truth of Mr. Macaulay's illustration:-allowing that knowledge goes on constantly growing a larger and larger mass, a deeper and deeper well,-allowing that the generations of men are of a constantly increasing stature, so that the intellectual giant of one age is the intellectual pigmy of the next; so that man, in this respect, is like Gulliver, a giant to the Lilliputians who preceded him, a pigmy to the Brobdignagians who follow him. But all this is really quite a delusive view, and the image altogether inappropriate. All this goes upon the supposition that knowledge is a sort of measurable material commodity, that goes on increasing by perpetual additions, like the wall which the bricklayer builds, or the hoard which the miser accumulates. The smallest attention to the history of science shows us how baseless this representation is. Knowledge does not commonly thus grow by repeated addition of parts to parts, but by perpetual transformations. When the house has been built by one man, it is pulled down, and a new one-it is to be hoped, a better-built in its place by another man. We are not, therefore, to expect that the houses built in the nineteenth century shall be nineteen times, or any other number of times as large as those built in the first century. When the hoard has been accumulated to a certain amount, it is put in some new shape,-employed in trade, it may be, and made to bring an increase, and thus the man becomes really rich; not by the addition of coin to coin without spending or changing, so as necessarily to give to each successive generation a larger and larger store. The notion that man's intellectual stature goes on constantly increasing is not a whit more wise than the notion that his corporeal stature goes on dwindling from generation to generation. The notion that the men of our days are giants compared with men of former times is not more philosophical than the notion that there were giants in those days compared with whom we are dwarfs. The old proverbial expression is far truer, that we may see further than they did, because we stand on their shoulders. The truth is, that, compared with the men of other times, we are neither giants nor dwarfs. The relation between the two generations is neither the one nor the other. In both ages, men were men. In our age we have, it may be, better food, both for the body and the mind; but it would be very unwise to suppose that we are on that account better, or stronger, or fairer, than our great-grandfathers. They had not turtle and Southdown mutton; but, perhaps, goat's flesh and mead, or, it may be, acorns and water. But let us not thence conclude that, therefore, they were weak and we are strong; that if we could be brought into comparison with them, their inferiority would forthwith appear. Nobody, we suppose, believes this. And just the same is the case with the results of our intellectual food. We are nour ished from our earliest years with the Copernican system of astronomy, the Newtonian doctrine of attraction, the chemistry which expresses the composition of substances in their nomenclature; but are we really in any material respect superior to those who formerly were taught other systems, which, though they did not explain all facts, explained all that men then knew of fact, and very probably all that we, as individuals, know of fact; or who were taught systems which prevailed then because the ideas in which the newer systems are expressed were not then matured? Granted that we have got the truth free from some of their errors, yet their views included much truth which is incorporated in our views; and it is very possible that they saw their truth more clearly than we see ours. And that some of them did this is plain; for they could use their truth to deduce and predict other truths, as eclipses, and separation of metals, which, as we have said, few of us could do. And if this be the case, was not their knowledge really more profound than ours? and can we be said to know more than they did merely because we can assent to propositions which have been established in more recent times? Is it not, in truth, the fact, that in a great number of cases where we profess to know the scientific discoveries of modern times, we merely repeat the phrases in which these discoveries are expressed, without fully understanding the meaning of the language which we use? And is it not also true, that we are very often prevented from fully understanding the language of modern science because we are ignorant of the previous stages of science? We do not really know that which we despise our predecessors for not knowing we do not know this well,-precisely because we do not know what our predecessors did know. We are perplexed by such terms as right ascension and oblique ascension, because we do not know the manner in which former astronomers studied the circles of the celestial globe. We do not enter into the full import of Bacon's or Newton's great works, because we do not know the ideas which were in the minds of their contemporaries. We talk of the discovery of new metals, but we do not know what we mean by a metal, because we have not traced the previous progress of such inquiries. Here there is certainly a difference between our predecessors and ourselves, but is it so entirely and manifestly to our advantage? They knew what we do not. We know what they did not. If we know well what we know, we have the advantage, because our knowledge then includes theirs; but if our knowledge do not include theirs, the possession of it is no advantage to us, for the knowledge is hollow and verbal merely. If this be so, we, compared with them, are not like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. We are such as Gulliver would have been, if he had become a convert to the Laputan philosophers, and had returned to his home gravely asserting as a recent discovery that sunbeams could be extracted from cucumbers, and that a machine might be constructed which should reason. of knowledge is not fixed for the world; though even for the world the progress of the standard is a perpetual transformation, which makes measurement of relative position far from easy; but with regard to individuals, the standard is fixed. The 'standard of the value, or, if you will, of the profoundness of knowledge, as distinguished from shallowness, is, that it is really knowledge; distinct and clear thoughts, not merely remembered words; knowledge connected with principles, not merely noted as facts. All that complies not with this condition is shallow, is worthless, is intoxicating, and, therefore, dangerous. All that is real knowledge is valuable, even if it be little; so far, the poet's words are too absolute, if rigorously taken: but the little of the first couplet is explained by the shallow of the second. But real knowledge, as it becomes more and more entensive, retaining its reality and its fullness of ideas, and the clear deduction of knowledge from knowledge, becomes profound in a stronger sense; and although, as Mr. Macaulay has very well said, it must always be little, compared with the whole extent of possible and conceivable knowledge, it need not at any stage be shallow, since it may go to the full depth of the thoughts which it professes to combine and express. But, says Mr. Macaulay, if you object to shallow knowledge, tell me what is your standard of shallowness? Is it fixed or changeable? Is not that shallow knowledge now, which would have been deep in the days of Erasmus ?-We have already said that we express the fact much more appropriately, by saying that the knowledge of modern times is more advanced, than by saying that it is "more profound." But with regard to the standard of knowledge, and of its "profoundness," or whatever quality that be, which makes it really valuable, do we ask what is the standard of this value? It is plain, from what has been just said, what the answer must be. Knowledge, to be valuable, must really be knowledge. The man must know, and not merely read books and talk of what they contain. He must have ideas which correspond to the words :-true ideas; ideas made true by a possession of facts and of history, so far as these elements are requisite for the purpose. His knowledge being thus true and real, he may know much or little; but, much or little, his knowledge will be valuable. He may know more or less than a given man of the last age, or the last age but one. But whether he know more or less, he will not despise the man of the former age; because he knows that he himself certainly knows much less than many men of the last age, in a far greater degree than they knew less than the most scientific men of our times. The standard | Moriæ. The remarks which we have made agree, for the most part, with some of those which Professor J. Forbes has urged upon his pupils, and since upon the public, in the little book to which we have referred at the beginning of this article. He has treated the subject in a more profound and methodical manner than we have done, as becomes a learned professor compared with monthly critics. And we are too magnanimous and too consistent to be discontented, if any reader, convinced by our reasons, is still of opinion that a little of such reasoning is a dangerous thing, and should determine to draw from Professor Forbes's page a deeper draught of antidote to the siren strains in which Mr. Macaulay sang his Encomium From Tait's Magazine. WINTER PICTURES OF DENMARK. COPENHAGEN. LET us perfectly understand one another, reader. If you imagine that I am about to give you a full, true, and particular account of all the lions in the city-to enumerate, in guide-book fashion, the thousand-and-one remarkable buildings, and to dwell, with stupefying minuteness, on the contents of museums, churches, palaces, arsenals, and so forth, I give you fair warning that you will be grievously disappointed. Such dreary rule-and-square drudgery would of itself fill a huge quarto volume, and even then the subject would be far from being exhausted. I only profess to notice such striking external objects, and such general traits of manners, as come immediately under my personal observation or inquiry, and can be correctly described by a stranger; for it would be absurd presumption to affect to write aught of higher pretension on the strength of a few weeks' residence. Nothing but a very long sojourn, a perfect familiarity with the manners of the people, and a thorough knowledge of the language, would enable an Englishman to authoritatively and fully depict life in the capital of Denmark, and to pleasingly illustrate it with legendary lore.* My object, so far as Copenhagen is concerned, is to give a tolerably clear and faithful general idea of the place and people, with notices of a few objects of really surpassing interest; and happy shall I be if my humble sketches prove instrumental in creating a desire on the part of the public for a work of the description above spoken of. At the time I pen this, I am familiar with * I know only one gentleman who eminently possesses all these qualifications, and I have strongly and repeatedly urged him to write a work on the subject, which could hardly fail to be replete with interest. I allude to Mr. Charles Beckwith, who has distinguished himself here by his Danish-English works, and is favorably known to the English public, by his admirable translations of his friend, Hans Christian Andersen's, "Bazaar," "Rambles in the Hartz Mountains," "Two Baronesses," &c. But the external features of nearly every part of Copenhagen, and feel sufficiently qualified, therefore, to give one man's humble but honest impressions of its salient features and general characteristics. So sensitive are nearly all men to the first sight of both cities and individuals, that sometimes the most intimate subsequent acquaintance fails to change the original intensely vivid conception, no matter whether it is right or wrong. Undoubtedly, many a traveler who glances for the first time at a landscape bathed in golden sunlight, or who first visits a city when it is unusually prosperous, gay, and splendid, is impressed with a correspondingly exaggerated notion of the beauty of the one, and the attractions of the other. let him first see the same landscape when a black storm is lowering over it, and first see the same city when its commerce is depressed, and its dwellers spiritless-his opinion would be just the reverse. And yet that opinion would, in either case, be an erroFor my own part, I have a singular affection for the road or street by which I may first enter a strange city; and however long I may afterward sojourn there, and however humble or uninteresting in itself the road or street in question may be, I afterward tread it with greater pleasure, and more frequently than any other. It happened that I entered Copenhagen in a way by no means calculated to bias any impressions of it, and yet the very first time I trod its streets I imbibed opinions concerning it which every day's acquaintance only more strongly confirms. neous one. Copenhagen contains about 130,000 inhabitants, and is situated on the Sound, about nine English miles distant from the opposite coast of Sweden. It is as flat a place as can well be conceived, nor are there any elevated grounds very near it. The view of Copenhagen from the sea is very striking, owing to its having on the west side an enormous mass of dockyards, forts, batteries, &c. It is inclosed with ramparts, elevated to a considerable height, and forming delightful walks planted with trees. There are also beautiful promenades in other parts of the city. Many parts of the town are intersected with canals. | the comparatively trifling business traffic in more DANISH LITERATURE AND LITERARY MEN. Copenhagen is emphatically a city of palaces, of museums, of public buildings. This is its grand distinctive feature, and to appreciate it fully nothing but a personal visit will suffice. No person of ordinary intelligence can walk through it without, at every step, exclaiming-THIS IS A CAPITAL! The number of grand edifices belonging to the State are truly astonishing, and yet, taking the city all through, there is not one erection of extraordinary grandeur-not a palace, not a church, not a square, which will bear comparison with those of many other cities. It The booksellers' shops were, of course, a is true that some of the Government build- subject of particular interest to me. They ings are of amazing extent, and are well make very little external show, generally built; but, generally speaking, they are es- having only one or two small windows, a sentially plain in their architecture, and ex- considerable height from the pavement, with hibit little grandeur of conception. Some a few books and prints displayed against the of the churches are very extraordinary ereclower panes. Glazed show-cases, also, contions, and contain paintings and sculptures taining new works, &c., are attached under(especially the latter) of inestimable value. neath the windows, and along the sides of There are theatres, a very grand casino, and the entrance passages. In many instances, many places of exhibition. The generality the shop itself is only accessible by a flight of the streets are narrow, and the people of steps from a side entrance-strongly conare surprisingly mixed up with the carriages, trasting in this, as in other respects, with on the middle of the road, in the narrowest similar concerns in England. Some of the streets; but as no vehicle by law is allowed shops are well stocked with works in various to drive at a greater rate than one Danish languages (especially German and French), mile (about five English) per hour, accidents and the publishers are intelligent men, au rarely occur. The houses have all a sub- courant on literary subjects. They sell stantial and yet a light appearance, owing to English books at the London prices; but the the great number of their windows. Some time occupied in procuring them to order is are lofty, especially those facing the ram- never less than one month, and sometimes parts. Although there is not one truly above three. One striking feature in English grand street in Copenhagen, there are asto- large towns, shops devoted to the sale of nishingly few mean ones. Nearly every weekly literary sheets and periodicals is altostreet throughout the city is at least respect-gether unknown in Copenhagen. There are able. You will search in vain for those dirty, dismal, fetid, sweltering alleys and courts common to all English towns; and you will look equally in vain for any of those repulsive street scenes common in the latter. Beggars are certainly not unknown here, but they are exceedingly few-no miserable objects in rags and tatters ever disgust the eye; and never yet have I met a drunken man in Copenhagen, although I have traversed it at all hours. There is no lack, as I shall hereafter show of indoor gayety in Copenhagen; but the general aspect of the city, to a foreigner accustomed to the stunning bustle of English towns, is decidedly dull. Partly, this arises from the very little show the shops make, no works whatever published in numbers in Denmark, and no magazines, with the exception of one, a literary and critical monthly, entitled "Nord og Syd," (North and South). As to English cheap journals they are utterly unknown; but the English and French monthlies and quarterlies have many subscribers. The number of newspapers of all descriptions issued in Denmark is from seventy to a hundred. In Copenhagen alone there are ten daily and four weekly newspapers, and nearly every little village-under which designation Englishmen would, in fact, class almost all places in the kingdom, excepting the capital-has one or more papers of its own. The largest of the Copenhagen papers is somewhat larger than one leaf only |