Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 374, December, 1846. Various

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      Mr Kohl proceeds in the same easy style to announce the rapid giving way of the Danish language in Denmark and the eager substitution of his own. He asserts this in the teeth of all those Danish writers who have started up within the last fifty years, and who have boldly and wisely discarded the pernicious practice (originating in the German character of the reigning family) of expressing Danish notions in a foreign tongue. He asserts it in the teeth of Mrs Howitt and of the German translators, whom this lady calls to her aid, but who have very feebly represented that rich diction and flexible style so remarkable in the Danish compositions referred to, and so much surpassing the power of any other northern tongue. We should do Mr Kohl injustice if we did not give his reason for regarding the Danish language as a thing doomed. He was credibly informed that many fathers of families were in the habit of promising rewards to their children if they would converse in German and not in Danish! Hear this, Lord Palmerston! and if, on hearing it, you still allow the rising generation, at our seminaries, to ask for du pang and du bur, and to receive them with, it may be, a silver medal for proficiency, the consequences be on your devoted head!

      Denmark has been comparatively but little visited by the stranger. She offers, nevertheless, to the antiquary, the poet, and the artist, materials of interest which cannot be exceeded in any other district of the same extent. Every wood, lake, heath, and down, is rich in historical legends or mythical sagas; every copse and hill, every cave and mound, has been peopled by past superstition with the elf and the sprite, the ellefolk and nissen. Her history, blending with that of her Scandinavian sisters, Norway and Sweden, is romantic in the extreme – whether she is traced to the days of her fabulous sea-kings, or is read of in the records of those who have chronicled the lives of her sovereigns in the middle ages. The country itself, although flat, is picturesque, being thickly interspersed with lakes, skirted by, and embosomed in, luxuriant beech woods; whilst ever and anon the traveller lights upon some ancient ruin of church or tower, palace or hermitage, affecting, if only by reason of the associations it awakens with an age far more prosperous than the present. The existence of the Danish people, as a nation, has been pronounced a miracle. It is hardly less. Small and feeble, and surrounded by the foreigner on every side, Denmark has never been ruled by a conqueror. Amid the rise and fall of other states, she has maintained her independence – now powerful and victorious, now depressed and poor, but never succumbing, never submitting to the stranger's yoke. Her present dynasty is the oldest reigning European family. It dates back to Christian I. – himself descended in a direct female line from the old kings of Scandinavia – who, as Duke of Oldenburg, was chosen king by the states in 1448.

      A good account of Denmark and the Danes is yet wanting. It may be collected by any honest writer, moderately conversant with the language and history of the country. We fear that Mr. Kohl will not supply the literary void, if we are to judge from the one volume before us. Others are, however, to follow; and as our author is immethodical, he may haply return to make good imperfections, and to fill up his hasty sketches. We cannot but regret that he should have passed so rapidly through the Duchy of Holstein. Had he followed the highways and byways of the province, instead of flitting like a swallow – to use his own words – over the ground by means of the newly-opened railroad through Kiel, his "Travels" would surely have been the better for his trouble. Instead of pausing where the most volatile would have been detained, our author satisfies himself with simply expressing his unfeigned regret at being obliged to pursue his journey, consoling his readers and himself with the very paradoxical assertion that we are most struck by the places of which we see least; since, being all of us more or less poetically disposed, we permit the imagination to supply the deficiencies of experience; – an argument which, we need scarcely say, if carried to its fullest limits, brings us to the conviction, that he who stays at home is best fitted to describe the countries the furthest distant from his fireside. Surely, Mr Kohl, you do not speak from knowledge of the fact!

      In his present volumes, Mr Kohl refers only passingly to the subject of education in Denmark. He remarks that the national schools far surpassed his expectations. He might have said more. For the last thirty or forty years, we believe, it has been rare to meet with the commonest peasant who could not read and write; a fact proving, at least, that Denmark is rather in advance than otherwise of her richer neighbours in carrying out the educational measures which, of late years, have so largely occupied the attention of the various governments of Europe. No one in Denmark can enter the army or navy who has not previously received his education at one or other of the military academies of the country. The course of study is well arranged. It embraces, besides the classics, modern languages, drawing, and exercises both equestrian and gymnastic. The academies themselves are under the immediate direction of the best military and naval officers in the service. For the education of the people, two or three schools are provided in every village, the masters receiving a small salary, with a house and certain perquisites. In 1822 the system of Bell was introduced in the elementary public schools, and since that period it has been generally adhered to.

      Our author speaks with natural surprise of the small number of Roman Catholics he encountered in the Danish States. The Papists have no church or chapel throughout the kingdom; indeed, with the exception of the private chapel of the Austrian minister, no place of worship. We were aware that such was the fact a few years ago; we were scarcely prepared to find that Rome, who has been so busy in planting new shoots of her faith in every nook of the known world, is still content to have no recognition in Denmark. Heavy penalties are incurred by all who secede to the Romish church. In Sweden a change to Roman Catholicism is followed by banishment. This severity, we presume, must be ascribed to state policy rather than to a spirit of intolerance, for Jews and Christians of every denomination are permitted the freest exercise of their faith. Since the year 1521, the era of the Reformation in Denmark, the religion of the country has been Lutheran. The Danish church is divided into five dioceses, of which the bishop of Zealand is the metropolitan. His income is about a thousand a-year, whilst that of the other prelates varies from four to six hundred. The funds of the clergy are derived principally from tithes; but the parish ministers receive part of their stipend in the form of offerings at the three great annual festivals. Until lately, there existed much lukewarmness on all religious questions. Within the last ten or fifteen years, however, a new impulse has been given to the spiritual mind by the writing and preaching of several Calvinistic ministers, who have migrated from Switzerland and established themselves in Copenhagen. Their object has been to stop the recreations which, until their arrival, enlivened the Sabbath-day. They have met with more success in the higher classes than amongst the people, who now, as formerly, assemble on the green in front of the village church at the close of service, and pursue their several pastimes.

      Mention is made in Mr Kohl's volume, of the churchyards and cemetries he visited in his hasty progress. Compared with those of his own northern Germany, the Scandinavian places of burial are indeed very beautiful. The government has long since forbidden any new interments to be made within the churches, and many picturesque spots have, in consequence, been converted into cemetries. In the immediate vicinity of Copenhagen there are several; but the essence of Mr Kohl's plan being want of arrangement, he makes no mention of them for the present. One of these cemetries, the Assistenskirkegaard, outside the city, has an unusual number of fine monuments, with no exhibitions of that glaring want of taste so frequently met with elsewhere. The village churchyards are bright, happy-looking spots, which, by their cheerful aspect, seem to rob the homes of the dead of all their natural gloom and desolation. Every peasant's grave is a bed of flowers, planted, watched, and cherished by a sorrowing friend. At either end of the seven or eight feet of mound rises a wooden cross, on which fresh wreaths of flowers appear throughout the summer, giving place only to the "eternals" which adorn the grave when snow mantles its surface. A narrow walk, marked by a line of box, incloses every mound; or, not unfrequently, a trellis-work, tastefully entwined of twigs and boughs. The resting-places of the middle classes are surmounted by a tablet, not, as in our churchyards, rigidly inclosed within impassable palisades, but standing in a little garden, where the fresh-blown flowers, the neatly trimmed beds, and generally the garden-bench, mark that the spot is visited and tended by the friends of those who sleep below. Hither widowed mothers lead their children, on the anniversary of their father's death, СКАЧАТЬ