Even yet the scars-sees the great furrows still. Not very plain, 'tis true; the tooth of time Has dimmed them somewhat, but has not destroyed. GUIDE. Your Grace is quite poetical in language!

EUROP.

SEC.

You mean that the monsoon, that the great winds,
Which then produced effects so marvellous,
Have not yet wholly ceased, and still continue
To combat with the waves which once they parted.
To me appears that learned hypothesis

Full of great truth, and worthy to be printed.
Therefore I counsel you immediately

To make an entry of it in your diary.

(to his SECRETARY). Under the head "Red Sea," write down these words:

"This was the very place where fled the Jews

[He writes.

When through the sea King Pharaoh followed them,
As by the furrows may be seen, even now."
I will, Sir, note it down immediately.
"This was the very place where fled the Jews
When through the sea King Pharaoh followed them,
As by the furrows may be seen, even now.”

[He returns the book to his pocket.

EUROP. How glorious is it thus to place ourselves 'Mid dim antiquity; to find its traces,

And clearly to perceive its old remains.

Has no one here anything rare to sell?

I understand such things, and gladly buy them
When they are not too dear.

GUIDE. (takes a stone from the ground, blows upon it, rubs it with his garment, and then presents it). "Twas with this stone

That Pharaoh in his holy earnestness,

Struck the great Moses 'mid the deep abyss ;

Here, at this corner is a little redness,

That is blood petrified. It is not dear,

It only costs a baham.

EUROP. (having bought the stone, addresses his SECRETARY.) There,

Secretary,

Put it in your pocket.

SEC.

I am already

EUROP.

As heavily laden as a common waggon
That carries loads of bricks.

That matters nothing.

I must soon buy another ass or two;

In this land are more rare and curious things
Than I expected, and at reasonable prices.
What is a baham for such stone as this,

The stone wherewith the mighty Pharaoh smote
The yet far mightier Moses in the back!

Now lead me farther; it will soon be dark.

The European again appears descending in a balloon into the court of the Sultan. The Sultan, of course, in great amazement, takes the traveller for a wonderful necromancer, and wants to buy the secret of the spell by which men can thus fly; but the European, in condescension, enlightens the Grand Sultan with the information that it is no necromancy, but actual science; that a man in water only weighs four pounds, and of course when a kind of wind much lighter than common air is discovered, he is easily carried by a good bag of it up into the air. The Sultan offers him any money for the secret of this wind, but the European indignantly rejects the idea of selling knowledge for money, but suggests that if the Sultan, in his superfluity of precious stones, has a few surplus diamonds, rubies, sapphires, smaragduses and the like, they would not be an unsuitable present to a philosopher; and in return, he will furnish him with as much wind as he pleases.

But Oehlenschläger's great and serious dramas are, after all, his master-pieces. These are, however, only a small portion of his numerous works. His prose stories and romances fill some volumes, and his smaller poems would of themselves have established almost a greater reputation than that of any Danish poet who went before him. As a lyrical poet, he is not so successful as a

dramatic and heroic one; but even in that department there are numerous compositions that are radiant with beauty and true feeling. In a word, we may cordially subscribe to the declaration of one of his own countrymen, that:

"Oehlenschläger belongs to the heroes who cast a glory over the land which has given them birth. The influence which he has already exerted, and which he will continue to exert, over the younger generation of poets, and even the whole Danish nation, is incalculable; for although his works belong to the world at large, yet for us Danes he has a peculiar value, as the man who, in Hans Christian Oersted's impressive words, 'has called Valhalla forth from the darkness of time, and wedded the fire of the South to the strength of the North.' So long, therefore, as Denmark stands, so long as there remains the slightest trace of Danish literature, will the name of Oehlenschläger be pronounced with love and blessings.

دو

In order to perceive the full extent of what he has accomplished, we should throw back our remembrance to the boy, the son of the Bailiff of Frederiksborg Castle, accidentally met in his rambles by Edward Storm, the poet, and then glance over the splendid array of delightful and imperishable creations with which he has enriched the literature, not merely of the North, but of the whole civilized world.

CHAPTER VI.

NICOLAI FREDERIK SEVERIN GRUNDTVIG.

GRUNDTVIG is one of the giants of the North-a genuine Kämpe, only appearing now instead of a thousand years ago. He has the same astonishing vigour, the same lofty, difficulty-defying nature, the same impetuosity of temperament, even rushing over not infrequently into the Berserker mood. It is one of the most striking facts of Danish literature, that the great burning and shining lights which beam along the course of its national intellectual history, are so different each from the other. Old Arreboe, with his sacred and descriptive poetry; Kingo, with his solemn and simple hymns; Holberg, all comedy and satire, without a spark of the sentimental or the pathetic; Evald, again, all fire, all pathos, and often somewhat swelling and bombastic; Baggesen, all wit and versatility; Oehlenschläger, grave, deep-feeling, and full of profound and manly passion; Grundtvig, burning with religious zeal, while he is heaving up masses of historic labour with the energy of Thor; Ingemann, the master of the historic romance; and Heiberg, the genius of the vaudeville and of inimitable sketches of actual life.

The character and life of Grundtvig have been so well sketched to our hands by Danish writers, that we shall occupy the brief space we have with little more than a literal transcript from these sources. He has stood forth as a totally isolated and original prophet of modern times, and he resembles the last of the ancient prophets in this -that his words have often been like a "voice in the wilderness." With a glance which has penetrated deep into the world of history and spirit; with a heart glowing with Northern and Christian inspiration; with a voice which now resembled the roar of the thunder, and now seemed to breathe forth all the tenderest sweetness of the mother-tongue, he stood forward, "half-Scald, half-bookworm," in the first years of the unhappy war, and to a generation, with all its eloquence and poetry, still in action prosaic and degenerate, he preached return to the living faith and a new birth into the spirit of the ancient times, as the only salvation from intellectual and political perdition. The North, nor scarcely any other land, can name a writer with so burning a patriotism, with so heroic a dauntlessness; who without stopping to look right or left, without caring for benefit or favour, or any temporal advantage, has proclaimed by word and deed all that seemed to him right and true. And not only did Nature endow him with that miraculous power which is called genius, the power of a deeper, clearer, more rapid intention, of feeling more warmly and more nobly than the multitude, but where he has gone wrong-and not seldom has his zeal seemed to carry him too far—he has still always acted and spoken with the most honourable intentions, and from the fulness of an upright heart. And this not merely patriotically Danish, but equally Northern and Christian spirit, has never found him lukewarm, dubious or inactive-he has never allowed the