Emigration, which at one time was carried on to a con siderable extent, has in recent years greatly diminished. Of the 2088 persons who left Denmark in 1875, 1678 emigrated to the United States of America, 329 to Australia, 47 to Canada, and 34 to other parts of America, including the Salt Lake City.

The Danes are a yellow-haired and blue-eyed Teutonic race, of middling stature, and still bearing traces of their kinship with the Northern Scandinavian peoples. Their habits of life resemble those of the North Germans even more than those of their friendly neighbours the Swedes. The independent tenure of the land by a vast number of small farmers, bönder, who are their own masters, gives an air of carelessness, almost of truculence, to the well-to-do Danish peasant. He is thoroughly well satisfied with himself, takes an eager interest in current politics, and is generally a fairly-educated man of extreme democratic principles. The gaiety of the Danes is surprising; they have nothing of the stolidity of the Germans, or the severity of the Norwegians. The townspeople show a bias in favour of French habits and fashions. The separation from the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which were more than half German, has intensified the national character; and there is now no portion of the Danish dominions, except perhaps in the West Indian islands, where a Scandinavian language is not spoken.

History. The original form of the word Denmark is Danmörk, the march or border of the Danir; but whence the name Danir, or Danes, proceeded is undecided, and has given rise to endless antiquarian discussion. A traveller of the name of Pytheas, who lived more than three centuries before the Christian era, is the first to speak of a northern country, under the name of Thule, by which he is believed to have meant Jutland. At this time the inhabitants of Southern Scandinavia are supposed to have been Celts, and it was long after this that what Rask defined as the Sarmatic Invasion (the flooding of the north of Europe by emigrants from Asia) began to take place. These Goths, as they were called, came through Russia into Germany and Denmark, and passed on into Sweden across the Sound. It used to be supposed that they pushed before them the races of the Lapps and Finns, but the latest discoveries of archæology tend to prove that these latter came from Siberia over the north of the Gulf of Bothnia, and met the Goths a little outside the Arctic Circle. The gods anciently worshipped in Denmark were the Æsir, a family of heroic deities in which the characteristics of the leaders of the Sarmatic Invasion are probably enshrined. The language spoken by all the Northern Goths was originally, or very early, called the Dönsk tunga, or Danish tongue, which gave way in the 13th and 14th centuries, when the Danish supremacy was on the decline, to Norræna Mál, or Norse speech. From the earliest historical accounts we possess it appears that Jutland was divided among a great number of petty chieftains, often at war with one another. These smaa-kongar, or "little kings," as they were called, were, however, to some degree banded together, and entirely distinct from the eastern Danes of the islands. These also were ruled by a variety of chiefs, but they all recognized the supremacy of the king of Lejre, a city in Zealand somewhere near the present town of Roeskilde. Western Denmark was known to the Northmen as Bed Gotland, and consisted of all the mainland north of the Elbe, that is, Holstein, Schleswig, and Jutland. Island Gotland consisted of the islands, and of the provinces of Skaania and Bleking, that is, all the south of Sweden. During the rule of the Valdemar kings, the old chronicler, Saxo Grammaticus, recorded in Latin an immense number of mythical and semi-mythical stories concerning the old history of Denmark, and his chronicle

is a treasure-house of truth and falsehood. According to | him, the country takes its name from a King Dan the Famous, who united the smaa-kongar under his sole rule, and he was succeeded by a King Frode, with whom a golden age set in. The question of supremacy among the Scandinavian peoples was settled in favour of Sweden at the battle of Bravalla, which was fought, as is supposed, in the 8th century between Sigurd Ring, king of Sweden, and Harald Hildetand, king of Denmark; with this battle the purely mythic age closes In 823 the gospel was first preached in Denmark by some Frankish monks sent by the emperor Louis le Debonaire. Little was done in the way of actual conversion, but the road was opened for future missionaries. The famous Ansgarius failed to impress the Danes, though he was consoled by his brilliant success among the Swedes. The Christians, however, began by degrees to be tolerated. The first king of all Denmark was Gorm the Old, who flourished between 860 and 936. He was the son of a king of Lejre, and by great administrative and strategical skill managed to absorb into his hereditary dominions not only all that is now included in Denmark, but Schleswig, Holstein, Skaania, and even some provinces in Norway. And besides gaining all this territory, he also pushed his conquests for a while as far as Smolensk and Kieff in Russia, as Aix-la-Chapelle in Germany, and as Sens in France, after besieging Paris.

At the period in question, or rather somewhat later, namely, about the early part of the 10th century, commences the authentic history of the country. As early as the 8th century the Danes were remarkable for their wellplanned predatory expeditions by sea, as was proved by their repeated invasions of England, their occasional descents on Scotland, and their conquest of Normandy. To cross a sea of three or four hundred miles in breadth was a bold undertaking for men unacquainted with the use of the compass; but the number of islands in Denmark early accustomed the inhabitants to navigation, and gave them a practical dexterity in it.

The early establishment of the Danes in England, and the subsequent arrival of bodies of their countrymen, joined to the talents of two of their princes, Sweyn, or Svend, and Canute, enabled the latter to acquire the crown of England. Canute (or Knud) the Great completed the conquest begun by his father, and became king of England as well as of Denmark in the year 1018; he resided generally in the former country, and left the crown to his sons Harald and Harthaknud. On the death of the latter, without male heirs, the Danish dynasty in England came to a close in 1042.

The feudal system was introduced in the 12th century, which, as well as the 13th, was marked in Denmark by contentions between the sovereign and the barons. About the 13th century the population of the towns in Denmark, as in Germany, though still very small, became such as to entitle them to obtain from the Crown charters of incorporation, and an exemption from the control of the barons, in whom was vested almost the whole property of the land. A regular constitution began now to be formed in Denmark, and the towns sent deputies or representatives to the States, or Parliament, which, it was enacted, should meet once a year. It was also ordered that the laws should be uniform throughout the kingdom, and that no tax should be imposed without the authority of Parliament.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate the successive sovereigns of Denmark in the Middle Ages, of whom few were of distinguished ability. The names of most frequent occurrence among them in those early times were Knud, Valdemar, and Erik. Those of Christiern, or Christian, and Frederick were of later date. One of the most remarkable of the sovereigns in the Middle Ages was Valdemar II.. who suc

war and political dissensions from Scandinavia. For a time they were successful, and peace and concord were inaintained during the lifetime of the queen and her two successors. But the union, as regarded the Swedes. was far from being cordial; they submitted reluctantly to & foreign family, and considered themselves as obliged to act in subserviency to the political views of Denmark. At last the severity, or rather the cruelty, of one of the Danish kings, Christian II., and the appearance of an able assertor of Swedish independence in Gustavus Vasa, led to an in

The chief mercantile intercourse of Denmark in those times was with Lübeck and the north-west of Germany. To the Baltic Lübeck was nearly what Venice was to the Mediterranean, the earliest commercial town of consequence. There was also some traffic from Denmark to the mouths of the Vistula,—the name of Dantzic, or Dansvik (Danish town or port), indicating that a Danish colony, aware of the advantages of the situation, had established itself there.

During the same period (the 14th century), the association of the Hanse Towns had acquired considerable strength, and asserted strenuously the freedom of commerce in the north of Europe. Denmark, commanding the entrance into the Baltic, was the power most interested in laying merchant vessels under a toll or regular contribution; and the result was repeated contentions, followed at times by open war, between the Danish Government and this powerful confederacy.

The most important event, however, in the history of Denmark, or indeed of Scandinavia, in the Middle Ages, was the conjunct submission of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway to one sovereign, by the compact or union of Calinar, in the year 1397. Valdemar III., king of Denmark, having died in the year 1378, left two daughters, of whom the second, Margaret, was married to Hakon VI., king of Norway. On the demise of her husband the government of Norway remained in her hands; and after wards, on the death of her son, who had been declared king of Denmark, the States, or Parliament, of that country fixed this princess cn the throne, on her consenting to extend and secure their rights and privileges. The States of Norway followed their example; so that Margaret, finding herself seated on the thrones of Denmark and Norway, directed her attention to that of Sweden, the succession to which would have fallen to her husband Hakon had he survived. The Swedes were divided into two parties-that of Margaret, and that of a duke of Mecklenburg. An appeal to arms took place, and the result was favourable to the cause of the queen, her competitor being defeated and made prisoner. In 1397 the States of the three kingdoms were convoked at Calmar, a town situated in the south of Sweden. There they concurred in passing the Act known as the Union of Calmar, by which the three kingdoms were henceforth to be under one sovereign, who should, however, be bound to govern each according to its respective laws and customs. To guard against their separation, it was enacted that, if a sovereign should leave several sons, one of them only should be the ruler of the three kingdoms, and in the event of the reigning king or queen dying without children, the senators and parliamentary deputies of the three kingdoms should jointly proceed to the election of another joint sovereign.

Such were the precautions taken by Margaret, who has been called the Semiramis of the North, in order to banish

Dalecarlia, extended throughout Sweden, and led to a definitive separation of the two crowns in the year 1523. In 1490 the reigning king of Denmark made a com mercial treaty with Henry VII of England, by which the English engaged to pay the Sound dues on all vessels entering or returning from the Baltic and in return they were allowed to have mercantile consuls in the chief seaports of Denmark and Norway. By this time the extension of trade had given rise in Denmark, as in England, to a middle class, among whom the sovereign found in each country the means of balancing the political weight of the nobility; hence a grant was made by the kings of Denmark of various privileges to traders, and of relief from a number of local imposts on the transit of merchandise.

The rude habits of the age were strongly marked by the difficulty which the Danish Government found in putting a stop to the practice of plundering merchantmen shipwrecked on the coast. The practice was to collect in the vicinity of a wreck such a number of the inhabitants as to prevent the master or mariners from opposing the seizure of the merchandise. Even bishops residing on the coast, though humane in their treatment of the crews, did not scruple to aid in taking forcible possession of the cargo; and it is a remarkable fact, that a law passed by the king, about the year 1521, for the prevention of these practices, was abrogated and publicly burned at the instance of the barons and clergy a few years after, when a new sovereign had succeeded to the crown.

The doctrines of the Reformation found their way into Denmark at an early date. Frederick I., who began to reign in 1525, and had formerly been duke of Holstein, in that year embraced the Protestant religion. The inhabi tants of Denmark being divided between the Catholics and Protestants, Frederick began by an edict for tolerating both religions. An assembly of the States, or Parliament, next passed a solemn Act for the free preaching of the Protestant faith, and for allowing ecclesiastics of any class to marry and reside in any part of the kingdom. The consequence of this was a reduction of the number of the inmates of abbeys, monasteries, and convents, along with the general diffusion of the Lutheran faith throughout the kingdom. This rapid progress enabled the succeeding sovereign, Christian III., to act like Henry VIII. of England, by annexing the church-lands to the Crown, and strengthening the power of the sovereign at the expense of that of the clergy.

The great religious war which broke out in 1618 for the first time fixed the attention of Europe on Denmark. The victories of the imperial general Tilly, and of Maximilian of Bavaria, over the Protestants, appeared to make the Emperor Ferdinand, who was the head of the Catholic party, complete master of Germany, when Christian IV. of Denmark, encouraged by England and France, determined to take up the Protestant cause as a principal in the general contest. But being weakly supported by his allies, the Danish king, after one year's campaign, was obliged to flee before the victorious army of Wallenstein (1626), and to sue for peace, which was concluded at Lübeck in 1629. By the stipulations of this peace Denmark bound itself never

to interfere in the affairs of Germany, and was besides compelled to acknowledge Wallenstein as duke of Mecklenburg. This peace would have been still more humiliating for Denmark, if France, already influenced by the counsels of Richelieu, had not interposed its efforts on behalf of the vanquished. The emperor now thought of nothing less than the entire subjection of Germany to his will. A new adversary, however, arose in Gustavus Adolphus the king of Sweden. The short and glorious career of this king will be found described in its proper place. But this much must be here observed, that despite the fall of Adolphus in the battle of Lützen in 1632, the power of Sweden was becoming continually more considerable, and consequently an object of real envy to all its neighbours, but especially to Denmark. Thus it happened that besides the general religious war, repeated hostilities were being carried on between Sweden and Denmark separately.

The first contest lasted from 1637 to 1645, and the treaty concluded in the latter year proved rather a truce than a peace.

The Danish Government formed an alliance

with Holland, and aided that republic in its sanguinary contest in 1652 with England, then under the authority of Cromwell. The king of Sweden at that time was Charles Gustavus, a prince in the vigour of life, and actuated by all the ambition and enterprise of the house of Vasa. He had carried his military operations into Poland, which then, as at other times, seemed to invite the presence of foreigners by its internal dissensions. But on learning the hostile disposition of the Danish Government, Charles withdrew his troops from Poland, entered Holstein, and overran the whole province. As soon as the winter had advanced, and it had become practicable to cross on the ice the arms of the sea separating the Danish islands from the mainland, the Swedish army traversed in that manner the Little Belt, took Odense, the capital of the island of Funen, and even invested Copenhagen. That capital was not without a military force, but its walls were weak, nor was it adequately supplied with provisions or military stores. On this occasion the Danes, with their king Frederick III. at their head, displayed great firmness, and resisted the efforts of the Swedes, until, under the mediation of the English envoy at the court of Copenhagen, hostilities were suspended, and a treaty signed. This treaty, however, was only partly carried into execution. Dissatisfied at the delay which took place, Charles Gustavus made a second attempt on Copenhagen in the autumn of 1658; but he found it impracticable to prevent the introduction of supplies into the city by sea, as the Dutch now came to the assistance of their Danish allies. Still the Swedes persisted in the siege, and in the depth of winter (in February 1659) made an attempt to take Copenhagen by storm. The attacks were made on three points; each was headed by an able commander, but all were unsuccessful, and the siege was necessarily converted into a blockade. Soon afterwards the king of Sweden died, and the sanguinary contest was brought to a close by the treaty of Copenhagen in 1660. This peace ceded to the Swedish Crown Skaania, Aland, several places on the island of Rügen, and a free passage through the Sound.

In the following year, 1660, the vicissitudes of war were succeeded by a remarkable revolution in domestic politics. The reigning king of Denmark had gained great popularity, as well by his spirit and firmness in the field, as by resist ing the claims made by the nobility to the disadvantage of the other orders of the state. He was thus assured of the support of the middle classes in any attempt to reduce the power of the nobility. On the assembling of the States, or Parliament, the representatives of the different towns were found sufficiently strong, when united with the clergy and strengthened by the power of the Crown, to outweigh the

influence of the nobility, and the court determined to act with vigour in extending its prerogative. The political contest began about the crown lands, which had hitherto been let to nobles only, and at very low rents. It was proposed and carried in the Parliament, that men of any class or station might henceforth be candidates for them, and that they should be let to the highest bidder. The next proposition of the clergy and commons was, that the crown, hitherto in some degree elective, should be so no longer, but should devolve, as a matter of right, on the lawful heir, whether male or female. Henceforth, in Denmark, whatever power could be shown to have belonged to any ruler in any country, was now forthwith to be understood as belonging to the king.

This remarkable change in the form of the government is to be explained chiefly by the repugnance of the people of Denmark to the ascendency of the nobility. The French Revolution proceeded from causes somewhat similar; but in Denmark the control possessed by the privileged class was not tempered, as in France, by civilized and refined habits. The direct authority of the nobles was also greater, for they possessed the power of life and death over their vassals. Frederick lived ten years after this singular revolution,—a period which enabled him to consolidate it, and to reinstate in peace the trade and finances of his country.

His successor, led away by the ardour of youth, abandoned the pacific policy of his father, and ventured to make war against Sweden. He relied on the aid of the elector of Brandenburg, commonly called the Great Elector, the possession of so extensive a country as Prussia placing him quite at the head of the princes of the empire. Swedish Pomerania was chosen as the scene of operations, from being open to attack by the Prussians. The Swedes were overmatched in force, but being well commanded, they made a firm and spirited resistance. By sea the Danes had the advantage, having the aid of a Dutch squadron commanded by Van Tromp. This enabled them to convey an invading force to Skaania, or Scania, the southern and most fertile province of Sweden. Here the forces of the Swedes were brought to bear against their opponents, with the advantage of vicinity to their supplies. The result was that the Danes were obliged to retreat from Skaania, and, after several alternations of success, peace was signed between the two kingdoms in 1679, the year after the treaty of Nimeguen had suspended the war in the central part of Europe. As usual, after much bloodshed and many vicissitudes of fortune, the adverse states were placed by the treaty in nearly the same situation as at the commencement of the war; but hopes of peace for the future were justified by the marriage of the young king of Sweden, Charles XI., with a princess of Denmark.

These hopes were realized during twenty years; and peace continued until 1699, when, Charles XI. having died, the reigning king of Denmark, Frederick IV., was tempted by the youth of Charles XII. of Sweden to invade the dominions of his ally the duke of Holstein. Frederick was little aware of the spirit of his opponent, who became afterwards so well known in the wars of the north of Europe. Charles, determined to strike at once at his enemy's capital, lost no time in crossing the narrow sea between Sweden and Denmark, and in investing the city of Copenhagen. The inhabitants in alarm appealed to the humanity of the young monarch; and the result was the speedy conclusion of peace, with the payment of a sum of money to the Swedes. Taught by this lesson, the Danish Government remained neutral in the following years, when the course of events led Charles and his army into Poland and Saxony, where for a time success attended his arms. After the defeat of Charles at the battle of