and its formerly powerful race: how the slightest misunderstanding gave birth to quarrels, how quarrels grew into hatred, and hatred to burning and bloodshed-and all this from the monotonous pressure of time, and the recurrence of the same bitter billow-stroke against the heart. We see it in the Faroe Isles-in those quiet, insane figures which wander about among the rocks and the mist. For if misfortune and adversity come, and the human being has no place to flee to where he can disperse their impressions-no place to go to from these mists and these dark cliffs-his understanding must at length become clouded.'-P. 15.

Our Adam and Eve, on this lonely coast, do not escape the effect of these influences. They are presented to us in afterlife, when the want of objects to divert, and to give a living stimulus to their spirits, had made them discontented, and even doubtful of each other's affections. From this wretched condition they are, however, awakened to a kind of new spring of life; and the manner in which this is brought about is in Miss Bremer's happiest vein, leaving the reader once more in love with the place and the people.

But, as we have said, we regard the second portion of the volume, entitled, Life in the North,' but, literally, life in Denmark, as of higher interest, especially at the present time. The part which Denmark has lately been called on to play, in defence of its territory of Schleswig-Holstein against Germany, and the spirit and bravery with which it has done this, give just now a peculiar interest to any account of the condition of that small but vigorous kingdom-social, moral, and political-which comes from a safe source. We are, therefore, glad to have it in our power to present such a statement from a pen so well known and so impartial as that of Fredrika Bremer. She sets out by remarking on the great spirit of change which is manifest. throughout the civilized world; and assures us that, though less rapid in its operations, this spirit is not the less alive in Denmark. Her general impression of the country and people is highly flattering.

The social changes are first introduced. We have here a beautiful picture :

'On Christmas Eve, 1848, a chill and cloudy winter's evening, I found myself in Copenhagen, in a large hall, where more than a hundred children, boys and girls, sang, danced, and made a joyous clamour, around a lofty Christmas-tree, glittering with lights, flowers, fruits, cakes, and sweetmeats, up to the very ceiling.

But brighter than the lights in the tree shone the gladness in the eyes of the children, and the bloom on their fresh countenances. A handsome, portly, middle-aged lady in black went round amongst the children, with a motherly grace, examining their work in sewing and

handicraft arts, encouraging and rewarding them in an affectionate manner. The children pressed round her, and looked up to her—all seeming to love, none to fear her.

It was a charity-school in which I found myself; it was Denmark's motherly, but childless Queen, Carolina Amalia, whom I here saw surrounded by poor children, whom she had made her own. It was a beautiful scene, and what I saw was also the image of a life-a movement which, at this time, extends through the whole social life of the North. It is the womanly, the motherly movement in society, expanding itself to the comprehension of a wider circle, to the care of the whole race of children, beyond the limits of home, to the enfranchisement, the elevation, of all neglected infancy. It is the maternal advance from the individual life into the general, to the erection of a new home. The asylum is its expanded embrace, and the Christian love makes restitution for the injustice of fortune; here the child seems to escape from the faults and the calamities of its parents, to be preserved for society at large, and to be educated for its benefit. Silently proceeds the maternal power to give a new birth to the human race in its earliest years. And we rely on this power more than upon any other on earth, for the accomplishment of this work, if such a new birth is really to take place. And that the women of the North more clearly seem to accept this mission-and that the Queens of the North, Carolina Amalia, of Denmark, and Josephina, of Sweden, march at the head of this maternal movement-it is only a duty to acknowledge. Nor do these ladies confine themselves to the care of childhood; they extend their beneficent activity through a variety of channels to the children of misfortune; to the solitary, the sick, the old and neglected in society, who are sought out and assisted, or consoled by the more fortunate. One of the most actively useful societies in Copenhagen, is the "Female Association of Nurses," under the patronage of the Queen, and the management of the chief house-stewardess, the universally respected Mrs. Rosenörn. Blessed is maternal help in the huts of the needy, but still more blessed is the intellectual result which is effected by the personal, affectionate sympathy of the rich, whether in intellectual or worldly wealth, for the poor in want.'-Pp. 101-106.

We are glad to see that this benevolence of the ladies is not without its parallel amongst the gentlemen. Copenhagen does not want its Lord Ashleys in the persons of the venerable Minister of State, Collin-in Mr. Drewsen, Mr. Von Osten, Mr. Brink Seidelin, and others :

About thirty years ago, there swarmed in the streets of Copenhagen, a multitude of lads from ten to fifteen years of age, like that still greater number in Stockholm, who are called Hamnbusar, or Harbourraggamuffins-a repulsive race, in filthy garments, and with wild, thievish eyes; the children of crime and misery, and growing up in all wickedness, for ever on the watch for robbery and mischief. A government officer, who about that time received a post in the police, Mr. A. Drewsen, was struck by the prevalence of this class, laid it to

heart, and, with other similarly disposed and philanthropic men, found a plan to extirpate this growing evil by a thorough and searching remedy. When he had matured his scheme, he called on his fellowcitizens for assistance. He did not call in vain. Liberal subscriptions flowed in from all sides; and by their means the young criminals were speedily removed from the capital to the remote provinces, where they were placed in good and orderly familes, chiefly those of farmers. Transplanted into a rich soil, the young shoots of vice almost wholly changed their nature, and became good and serviceable members of society; while ever since this period the amount of crime in the capital has signally decreased. Very rarely, now, is the eye or the mind shocked in the streets of Copenhagen by the sight of mendicant children.'-P, 106.

Turning from the social improvements, Miss Bremer presents us with a picture of the bustle in the streets of Copenhagen, especially in the street called the Oestergade, to which, curiously enough, not even the throng of the Strand, or of Cheapside, seemed to her to be compared. But a still more agreeable contemplation than the external activity of the Danish capital, is that of its religious and intellectual life. Our authoress represents the new life of the North as pervading every department of mind and society. She had heard that she would find the theatres full and the churches empty, and that but little edification was to be found in the places of worship. She assures us that it was quite otherwise. The churches were filled with people, and she heard in them discourses excellent as well on account of their living doctrine as of their admirable delivery. But formerly, and not long since either, the case was different. The religious life of Denmark seemed an extinguished flame, and its theology lay bound in narrow forms; the teachers lacking spirit and the hearers devotion. Much of this auspicious change she attributes to the zeal and talent of Bishop Mynster, and to the pastor Grundtvig. In the commencement of the present century, these popular preachers infused a new spirit into their hearers. They proclaimed, with fervour of conviction and the freshness of genius, the old, eternally new doctrines of the religion of love. Mynster was scientific, harmonious, explicit; Grundtvig, a volcanic nature, with all the spirit and power of the old prophets. Mynster's spiritual discourses soon spread from Denmark to Sweden and Norway. Grundtvig wrote hymns, like those of Ingeman and Boje, giving new life to the church-music of Denmark. To these succeeded many remarkable Christian thinkers and pastors; yet far before them all stood these twoMynster with the fire of youth beneath his snow-white hair, and Grundtvig casting fiery glances over the depths of immortal life. Bishops Mynster, Martensen, and Pauli, Miss Bremer regards as

Christian teachers, whom no one can hear without admiration and delight, and in Vartou, the church in which Sev. Grundtvig preaches with power, every Sunday may be heard singing, often to the old popular melodies, which proves that the people are in heart a congregation.'

The same breath of a new life which has thus regenerated the social and the religious system, has been breathed over the world of intellect and of taste with equally creative energy. In every department of art, science, and literature, Denmark has beheld in the present century, a race of such men spring up as she never possessed before. This part of Miss Bremer's volume will be perused with peculiar interest, for it introduces us to a number of celebrated persons of whom little is known to us in England, and who yet ought to be known to all well-informed minds. We can avail ourselves only of Miss Bremer's graphic review of these things and characters, so far as to name a few of the most prominent artists, literati, and philosophers.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century appeared Evald, the religious poet-Wessel and Baggesen, the humorous ones. But it was not till the nineteenth century that the selfconsciousness of the people, as well as art itself, had their full development. Then came Henry Steffens, full of genius and eloquence; and then Adam Oehlenschläger, their great tragic poet, who died only during the present year, having not long ago published his heroic poem, Regner Lodbrok.' Still more popular even than Oehlenschläger, is Ingeman, the author of Holger the Dane;' for his historical romances have been seized on with avidity by the people, and have inspired a charmed patriotism into the very peasantry. Herz, known in this country by his King Réné's Daughter;' Hauch, a natural philosopher and poet; Paludan Möller, author of the epic poem, Adam Homo;' Christian Winter, who sings the idyllian country-life of Denmark; Heiberg, the critic and novelist; and Hans Christian Andersen, so well known in England; are all held in great esteem in their native land.

In sculpture, besides Thorwaldsen, the Danes reckon amongst their greatest artists Jericho and Bissen, both men of strong and original powers. The former is celebrated for his Christ,' his 'Angel of the Resurrection,' and his group of Adam and Eve;' the latter, for his gods and heroes of the Northern mythology.

In painting, Denmark has a young and promising school of artists, who seek to express the truth of nature, and especially as it presents itself in their native land. We can only name the chief of them, without distinguishing their peculiar walks. They are Marstrand, Simonsen, Sonne, Schleisner, Monnier, Melby, Sörensen, Skovgaard, Kierskow, Rump, Jensen, Ottensen,

anxious eyes have for a while been turned towards Rydal Mount, where this hermit stream was nearly sinking into the ocean of the Infinite. And now, to use his own grand word, used at the death of Scott, a 'trouble' hangs upon Helvellyn's brow, and over the waters of Windermere. The last of the Lakers has departed. That glorious country has become a tomb for its more glorious children. No more is Southey's tall form seen at his library window, confronting Skiddaw-with a port as stately as its own. No more does Coleridge's dim eye look down into the dim tarn, heavy laden, too, under the advancing thunderstorm. And no more is Wordsworth's pale and lofty front shaded into divine twilight, as he plunges at noon-day amidst the quiet woods. A stiller, sterner power than poetry has folded into its strict, yet tender and yearning embrace, those

'Serene creators of immortal things.'

Alas! for the pride and the glory even of the purest products of this strange world! Sin and science, pleasure and poetry, the lowest vices and the highest aspirations, are equally unable to rescue their votaries from the swift ruin which is in chase of us all.

'Golden lads and girls all must

Like chimney-sweepers come to dust.'

But Wordsworth has left for himself an epitaph almost superfluously rich-in the memory of his private virtues of the impulse he gave to our declining poetry-of the sympathies he discovered in all his strains with the poor, the neglected, and the despised-of the version he furnished of Nature, true and beautiful as if it were Nature describing herself-of his lofty and enacted ideal of his art and the artist-of the 'thoughts, too deep for tears,' he has given to meditative and lonely hearts-and, above all, of the support he has lent to the cause of the primal duties and eldest instincts of man-to his hope of immortality, and his fear of God. And now we bid him farewell, in his own words

Blessings be with him, and eternal praise,

The poet, who on earth has made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight, by heavenly lays."

Although, as already remarked, not the poet of the age-it has, in our view, been, on the whole, fortunate for poetry and society that for seven years William Wordsworth has been poet-laureate. We live in a transition state in respect to both. The march and the music are both changing-nor are they yet fully attuned to each other-and, meanwhile, it was desirable that a poet should preside, whose strains formed a fine 'musical confusion,' like that of old in the wood of Crete'-of the old and