Krogh and Schlepegrell, was at the battle of Idsted (July 23). Near this small village, protected by lakes and bogs, Willisen lay encamped with his centre, his right wing at Wedelspung, extending along the Lake Langsö, his left spreading along the Arnholtz lake. The Danes, approaching on the high road from Flensburg to Schleswig, attacked the enemy on all sides; and, after having been repeatedly repulsed, they succeeded in driving the SchleswigHolsteiners from all their positions. The forces engaged on each side were about 30,000; the number of killed and wounded on both sides was upwards of 7000.

After the victory of Idsted, the Danes could hardly expect to meet with any serious resistance, and the confidence of the court of Copenhagen was further increased by the peace which was concluded with Prussia (July 1850), by which the latter abandoned the duchies to their own fate, and soon afterwards aided in their subjection. The sole question of importance which now awaited its solution was the order of succession, which the European powers thought to be of such importance as to delay its final settle

ment till 1852.

The extinction of the male line in King Frederick was an event foreseen by the king, the people, and the foreign powers. After protracted negotiations between the differeat courts, the representatives of England, France, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Sweden, a treaty relative to the succession was signed in London, May 8, 1852. According to this protocol, in case of default of male issue in the direct line of Frederick VII, the crown was to pass to Prince Christian of Glücksburg, and his wife the Princess Louisa of Hesse, who, through her mother, Princess Charlotte of Denmark, was the niece of King Christian VIII.

The treaty of London did not fulfil the expectations of the signitaries as to a settlement of the agitation in the duchies. The duke of Augustenburg had accepted the pardon held out to him on condition that his family resigned all claim to the sovereignty of the duchies, but he continued to stir up foreign nations about his rights, and when he died his son Frederick maintained the family pretensions. At last, in the autumn of 1863, Frederick VII died very suddenly at the castle of Glücksburg, in Schleswig, the seat of his appointed successor. As soon as the ministry in Copenhagen received news of his death, Prince Christian of Glücksburg was proclaimed king as Christian IX., and the young duke of Augustenburg appeared in Schleswig, assuming the title of Frederick VIII. The claims of the pretender were supported by Prussia, Austria, and other German states, and before the year was out Generals Gablenz and Wrangel occupied the duchies in command of Austrian and Prussian troops. The attitude of Germany was in the highest degree peremptory, and Denmark, was called upon to give up Schleswig-Holstein to military occupation by Prussia and Austria until the claims of the duke of Augustenburg were settled. In its dilemma the Danish Government applied to England and to France, and receiving from these powers what it rightly or wrongly considered as encouragement, it declared war with Germany in the early part of 1864. The Danes sent their general, De Meza, with 40,000 men to defend the Dannewerk, the ancient line of defences stretching right across the peninsula from the North Sea to the Baltic. The movements of General De Meza were not, however, successful; the Dannewerk, popularly supposed to be impregnable, was first outflanked and then stormed, and the Danish army fell back on the heights of Dybbol, near Flensborg, which was strongly fortified, and took up a position behind it, across the Little Belt, in the island of Alsen. This defeat caused almost a panic in the country, and, finding

that England and France had no intention of aiding thom, the Danes felt the danger of annihilation close upon them. The courage of the little nation, however, was heroic, aud they made a splendid stand against their countless opponents. General Gerlach was sent to replace the unlucky De Meza; the heights of Dybbol were harder to take than the Germans had supposed, but they fell at last, and with them the strong position of Sonderburg, in the island of Alsen. The Germans pushed northwards until they overran every part of the mainland, as far as the extreme north of Jutland. It seemed as though Denmark must cease to exist anong the nations of Europe; but the Danes at last gave way, and were content to accept the terms of the Peace of Vienna, in October 1864, by which Christian IX. renounced all claim to Lauenburg, Holstein, and Schleswig, and agreed to have no voice in the final disposal of those provinces.

For the next two years Europe waited to see Prussia restore North Schleswig and Alsen, in which Danish is the popular language, and which Austria had demanded should be restored to Denmark in case the inhabitants should express that as their wish by a plébiscite. When the war broke out between Austria and Prussia in 1866, and resulted in the humiliation of Austria, the chances of restoration passed away; and the duchies have remained an integral part of Prussia. Notwithstanding her dismemberment, Denmark has prospered to an astonishing degree, and her material fortunes have been constantly in the ascendant. Her only trouble within the last decade has arisen from the dissensions in the two houses of assembly, and in the spread of dangerous communistic opinions.

The following is a list of the monarchs of Denmark since the unification of the kingdom under Gorm the Old, with the dates of their accession:

The present language of Denmark is derived directly from the same source as that of Sweden, and the parent of both is the old Scandinavian, or Icelandic. In Ice land this original tongue, with some modifications, has remained in use, and until about 1100 it was the literary language of the whole of Scandinavia. The influence of Low German first, and High German afterwards, has had the effect of drawing modern Danish constantly further from this early type. The difference began to show itself in the 12th century. Rask, and after him Petersen, have distin.

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guished four periods in the development of the language. | The first, which has been called Oldest Danish, dating from about 1100 and 1250, shows a slightly changed character, mainly depending on the system of inflections. In the second period, that of Old Danish, bringing us down to 1400, the change of the system of vowels begins to be settled, and masculine and feminine are mingled in a common gender. An indefinite article has been formed, and in the conjugation of the verb a great simplicity sets in. In the third period, 1400-1530, the influence of German upon the language is supreme, and culminates in the Reformation. The fourth period, from 1530 to about 1680, completes the work of development, and leaves the language as we at present find it.

It was not till the fourth of these periods set in that literature began to be generally practised in the vernacular in Denmark. The oldest laws which are still preserved are written in Danish of the second period. A single work detains us in the 13th century, a treatise on medicine by Henrik Harpestring, who died in 1244. The first royal edict written in Danish is dated 1386; and the Act of Union at Calmar, written in 1397, is the most important piece of the vernacular of the 14th century. Between 1300 and 1500, however, it is supposed that the Kjæmpeviser, or Danish ballads, a large collection of about 500 epical and lyrical poems, were originally composed, and these form the most precious legacy of the Middle Ages, whether judged historically or poetically. We know nothing of the authors of these poems, which treat of the heroic adventures of the great warriors and lovely ladies of the chivalric age in strains of artless but often exquisite beauty. The language in which we receive these ballads, however, is as late as the 16th or even the 17th century, but it is believed that they have become gradually modernized in the course of oral tradition. The first attempt to collect the ballads was made in 1591 by A. G. Vedel, who published 100 of them. Peder Syv printed 100 more in 1695. In 1812-14 an elaborate collection in five volumes appeared, edited by Abrahamson, Nyerup, and Rahbek. Finally, Svend Grundtvig has lately been at work on an exhaustive edition, of which six thick volumes have appeared.

In 1490, the first printing press was set up at Copenhagen, by Gottfried of Ghemen, who had brought it from Westphalia; and five years later the first Danish book was printed. This was the famous Riimkrönike, a history of Denmark in rhymed Danish verse, attributed to Niels, a monk of the monastery of Sorö. It extends to the death of Christian I., in 1481, which may be supposed to be approximately the date of the poem. In 1479 the university of Copenhagen had been founded. In 1506 the same Gottfried of Ghemen published a famous collection of proverbs, attributed to Peder Lolle. Mikkel, priest of St Alban's Church in Odense, wrote three sacred poems, The Rose-Garland of Maiden Mary, The Creation, and Human Life, which came out together in 1514, shortly before his death. These few productions appeared along with innumerable works in Latin, and dimly heralded a Danish literature. It was the Reformation that first awoke the living spirit in the popular tongue. Christian Pedersen (1480-1554) was the first man of letters produced in Denmark. He edited and published, at Paris in 1514, the Latin text of the old chronicler, Saxo Grammaticus; he worked up in their present form the beautiful half-mythical stories of Karl Magnus and Holger Danske (Ogier the Dane). He further translated the Psalms of David and the New Testament, printed in 1525, and finally-in conjunction with Bishop Peder Paladius--the Bible, which appeared in 1550. Hans Tausen, the bishop of Ribe (1494-1561), continued Pedersen's work, but with far less talent. But Vedel (1542-1616), whose edition of the

Kjæmpeviser we have already considered, gave an immense stimulus to the progress of literature. He published an excellent translation of Saxo Grammaticus in 1575. The first edition of a Danish Reinecke Fuchs appeared in 1555, and the first authorized Psalter in 1559. Arild Hvitfeld founded the practice of history by his Chronicle of the Kingdom of Denmark, printed in 10 vols. between 1595 and 1604. Hieronymus Rauch, who died in 1607, wrote some biblical tragedies, and is the first original Danish dramatist. Peder Claussen (1545-1623), a Norwegian by birth and education, wrote a Description of Norway, as well as an admirable translation of Snorre Sturlesen's Heimskringla, published ten years after Claussen's death. The father of Danish poetry, Anders Arrebo (1587-1637), was bishop of Trondhjem, but was deprived of his see for immorality. He was a poet of considerable genius, which is most brilliantly shown in Hexaemeron, a poem on the creation, in six books, which did not appear till 1641. He was followed by Anders Bording (1619-1677), a cheerful occasional versifier, and by Töger Reenberg (1656-1742), a poet of somewhat higher gifts, who lived on into a later age. Among prose writers should be mentioned Peder Syv (1631-1702); Bishop Erik Pontoppidan (1616-1678), whose Grammatica Danica, published in 1668, is the first systematic analysis of the language; and Brigitta Thott, a lady who translated Seneca and Epictetus.

In two spiritual poets the advancement of the literature of Denmark took a further step. Thomas Kingo (16341703) was the first who wrote Danish with perfect ease and grace. He was Scotch by descent, and retained the vital energy of his ancestors as a birthright. His Winter Psalter, 1689, and the so-called Kingo's Psalter, 1699, contained brilliant examples of lyrical writing, and an employment of language at once original and national. Kingo had a charming fancy, a clear sense of form, and great rapidity and variety of utterance. Some of his very best hymns are in the little volume he published in 1681, and hence the old period of semi-articulate Danish may be said to close with this eventful decade, which also witnessed the birth of Holberg. The other great hymn-writer was Hans Adol Brorson (1694-1764), who published in 1740 a great psalm-book at the king's command, in which he added his own to the best of Kingo's. Both these men held high posts in the church, one being bishop of Funen and the other of Ribe; but Brorson was much inferior to Kingo in genius. With those names the introductory period of Danish literature ends. The language was now formed, and was being employed for almost all the uses of science and philosophy.

Holberg.-Ludvig Holberg was born at Bergen, in Norway, in 1684. He commenced his literary career in 1711 by writing A History of the World, which attracted notice from its style, rather than its matter, and gained him a professorial chair at the university of Copenhagen. In 1719 he published his inimitable serio-comic epic of Peder Paars, under the pseudonym of Hans Mikkelsen. In 1721 the first Danish play house was opened in Copenhagen, and in four years Holberg wrote for it his first 20 comedies. He may be said to have founded the Danish literature; and his various works have still the same freshness and vital attraction that they had a century and a half ago. As an historian his style was terse and brilliant, his spirit philosophical, and his data singularly accurate. He united two unusual gifts, being at the same time the most cultured man of his day, and also in the highest degree a practical person, who clearly perceived what would most rapidly educate and interest the uncultivated. In his 33 dramas, sparkling comedies in prose, more or less in imitation of Molière, he has left his most important

Holberg founded no school of immediate imitators, but his stimulating influence was rapid and general. After the great conflagration, the university of Copenhagen was reopened in 1742, and under the auspices of the historian Gram, who founded the Society of Sciences, it recommended an active intellectual life. In 1744 Langebek founded the Society for the Improvement of the Danish Language, which opened the field of philology. In jurisprudence Andreas Höier represented the new impulse, and in zoology Erik Pontoppidan, the younger. This last name represents a life-long activity in many branches of literature. From Holberg's college of Sorö, two learned professors, Sneedorff and Kraft, disseminated the seeds of a wider culture. All these men were aided by the generous and enlightened patronage of Frederick V. A little later on, the German poet Klopstock settled in Copenhagen, bringing with him the prestige of his great reputation, and he had a strong influence in Germanizing Denmark. He founded, however, the Society for the Fine Arts, and had it richly endowed. The first prize offered was won by C. B. Tullin (1728-1765) for his beautiful poem of May day. Tullin, a Norwegian by birth, represents the first accession of a study of external nature in Danish poetry; he was an ardent disciple of the English poet Thomson. Ambrosius Stub (1707-1758) was a lyrist of great sweetness, born before his due time, whose poems, not published till 1782, belong to a later age than their author.

The Lyrical Revival.-Between 1742 and 1749, that is to say, at the very climax of the personal activity of Holberg, eight poets were born, who were destined to enrich the language with its first group of lyrical blossoms. Of these the two eldest, Wessel and Ewald, were men of extraordinary genius, and destined to fascinate the attention of posterity, not only by the brilliance of their productions, bat by the suffering and brevity of their lives. Joannes Ewald (1743-1781) was not only the greatest Danish lyrist of the 18th century, but he had few rivals in the whole of Europe. As a dramatist, pure and simple, his bird-like instinct of song carried him too often into a sphere too exalted for the stage; but he has written nothing that is not stamped with the exquisite quality of distinction. In The Fishers, which contains the Danish national song, Kong Kristian stod, the lyrical element is most full and charming; in Rolf Krage, and Balder's Death, Ewald was the first to foresee the revival of a taste for Scandinavian history and mythology; The Brutal Clappers, a polemical drama, shows that he also possessed a keen sense of humour. Wessel (1742-1785) excited even greater hopes in his contemporaries, but left less that is immortal behind him. After the death of Holberg, the affectation of Gallicism had reappeared in Denmark; and the tragedies of Voltaire, with their stilted rhetoric, were the most popular dramas of the day. Nordahl Brun (17451816), a young writer who did better things later on, gave the finishing touch to the exotic absurdity by bringing out a wretched piece called Zarina, which was hailed by the press as the first original Danish tragedy, although Ewald's exquisite Rolf Krage, which truly merited that title, had appeared two years before. Wessel, who up to that time had only been known as the president of a club of wits, immediately wrote Love without Stockings, in which a plot of the most abject triviality is worked out in strict accordance with the rules of French treedy, and in most pompous and pathetic Alexandrines. The effect of this piece was magical; the Royal Theatre ejected its cuckoo-brood of French plays, and even the Italian opera. It was now essential that every performance should be national, and in

native musicians, and especially Hartmann, set the dramas of Ewald and others, and thus the Danish school of music originated. Of the other poets of the revival the most important were born in Norway. Nordahl Brun, Claus Frimann (1746-1829), Claus Fasting (1746-1791), C. H. Pram (1756-1821), and Edvard Storm (1749-1794) were associates and mainly fellow-students at Copenhagen, where they introduced a style peculiar to themselves, and distinct from that of the true Danes. Their lyrics celebrated the mountains and rivers of the magnificent country they had left; and, while introducing images and scenery unfamiliar to the inhabitants of the monotonous Denmark, they enriched the language with new words and phrases. This group of writers are now claimed by the Norwegians as the founders of a Norwegian literature; but their true place is certainly among the Danes, to whom they primarily appealed. They added nothing to the development of the drama, except in the person of N. K. Bredal (1733–1778), who became director of the Royal Danish Theatre, and the writer of some mediocre plays.

To the same period belong a few prose writers of eminence. Werner Abrahamson (1744–1812) was the first aesthetic critic Denmark produced. Johan Clemens Tode (1736-1806) was eminent in many branches of science, but especially as a medical writer. Ove Malling (1748-1829) was an untiring collector of historical data, which he annotated in a lively style. Two historians of more definite claim on our attention are Peter Frederik Suhm (1728-98) and Ove Guldberg (1731-1808). In theology Bastholm (1740-1819) and Balle (1744-1816) demand a reference. But the only really great prose-writer of the period was the Norwegian Niels Treschow (1751-1833), whose philosophical works are composed in an admirably lucid style, and are distinguished for their depth and originality.

The poetical revival sunk in the next generation to a more mechanical level. The number of writers of some talent was very great, but genius was wanting. Two intimate friends, Rein (1760-1821) and Zetlitz (1761-1821), attempted, with indifferent success, to continue the tradition of the Norwegian group. Thomas Thaarup (17491821) was a fluent and eloquent writer of occasional poems. The early death of Ole Samsöe (1759-1796) prevented the development of a dramatic talent that gave rare promise. But while poetry languished, prose, for the first time, began to flourish in Denmark. Knud Lyne Rahbek (1760-1830) was a pleasing novelist, a dramatist of some merit, a pathetic elegist, and a witty song-writer; he was also a man full of the literary instinct, and through a long life he never ceased to busy himself with editing the works of the older poets, and spreading among the people a knowledge of Danish literature. Peter Andreas Heiberg (1758-1841) is best, known as the husband and the father of two of the greatest Danish writers, but he was himself a political and æsthetic critic of note. He was exiled from Denmark in company with Malte Conrad Brun (1775-1826), who settled in Paris, and attained a world-wide reputation as a geographer. O. C. Olufsen (1764-1827) was a writer on geography, zoology, and political economy Rasmus Nyrup (1759-1829) expended an immense energy in the compilation of admirable works on the history of language and literature. From 1778 to his death he exercised a great power in the statistical and critical departments of letters. The best historian of this period, however, was Engelstoft (1774-1850), and the most brilliant theologian Bishop Mynster (1775-1854). In the annals of modern science Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851) is a name uni versally honoured. He explained his inventions and described his discoveries in language so lucid and so char

We pause on the threshold of the romantic movement to record the name of a man of great genius, whose work was entirely independent of the influences around him. Jens Baggesen (1764-1826) is the greatest comic poet that Denmark has produced. As a dramatist he failed; as a philosophic and critical writer he has not retained the attention he once commanded; but as a satirist and witty lyrist he has no rival among the Danes. In his hands the difficulties of the language disappear; he performs with the utmost ease extraordinary tours de force of style. His astonishing talents were wasted on trifling themes and in a fruitless resistance to the modern spirit in literature.

Romanticism.-With the beginning of the 19th century the new light in philosophy and poetry, which radiated from Germany through all parts of Europe, found its way into Denmark also. In scarcely any country was the result so rapid or so brilliant. There arose in Denmark a school of poets who created for themselves a reputation in all parts of Europe, and would have done honour to any nation or any age. The splendid cultivation of metrical art threw other branches into the shade; and the epoch of which we are about to speak is eminent above all for mastery over verse. The swallow who heralded the summer was a German by birth, Adolph Schack-Staffeldt (1769-1826), who came over to Copenhagen from Pomerania, and prepared the way for the new movement. Since Ewald no one had written Dauish lyrical verse so exquisitely as Schack-Staffeldt, and the depth and scientific precision of his thought won him a title which he has preserved, of being the first philosophic poet of Denmark. The writings of this man are the deepest and most serious which Denmark has produced, and at his best he yields to no one in choice and skilful use of expression. This sweet song of Schack-Steffeldt's, however, was early silenced by the louder choir that one by one broke into music around him. It was Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger (1779-1850), the greatest poet of Denmark, who was to bring about the new romantic movement. Oehlenschläger had already written a great many verses in the old semi-didactic, semi-rhetorical style, when in 1802 he happened to meet the young Norwegian Henrik Steffens (1773-1845), who had just returned from a scientific tour in Germany, full of the doctrines of Schelling. Under the immediate direction of Steffens, Oehlenschläger commenced an entirely new poetic style, and destroyed all his earlier verses. A new epoch in the language began, and the rapidity and matchless facility of the new poetry was the wonder of Steffens himself. The old Scandinavian mythology lived in the hands of Oehlenschläger exactly as the classical Greek religion was born again in Keats. After twelve years of ceaseless labour, and the creation of a whole library of great works, the vigour of Oehlenschläger somewhat suddenly waned. and he lived for nearly forty years longer, completely superseded by younger men, and producing few and mainly inferior works. Since and except Holberg no author has possessed so great an influence on Danish letters as Oehlenschläger. He aroused in his people the slumbering sense of their Scandinavian nationality.

The retirement of Oehlenschläger comparatively early fn life, left the way open for the development of his younger contemporaries, among whom several had genius little inferior to his own. Steen Steensen Blicher (17821848) was a Jutlander, and preserved all through life the characteristics of his sterile and sombre fatherland. After a struggling youth of great poverty, he at length, in 1814, published a volume of lyrical poems; and in 1817 he attracted considerable attention by his descriptive poem of

Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783-1872), like Oehlenschläger, learned the principles of the German romanticism from the lips of Steffens. He adopted the idea of introducing the Old Scandinavian element into art, and even into life, still more earnestly than the older poet. There was scarcely any branch of letters in which Grundtvig did not distinguish himself; he was equally influential as a politician, a theologian, a poet, and a social economist.

Bernhard Severin Ingemann (1789-1862) was a man in every way unlike the last-mentioned poet. A mild, idyllic mind, delicately appreciative of the gentler manifestations of nature, and shrinking from violent expression of any sort, distinguished the amiable Ingemann. His greatest contributions to Danish literature are the historical romances which he published in middle life, strongly under the influence of the novels of Sir Walter Scott. Several of these, particularly Faldemar Seier and Prince Otto of Denmark, have enjoyed and still enjoy a boundless popularity. He is remarkable as the first importer into Scandinavia of the historical novel, since very generally cultivated.

Johannes Carsten Hauch (1790-1872) first distinguished himself as a disciple of Oehlenschläger, and fought under him in the strife against the old school and Baggesen. But the master misunderstood the disciple; and the harsh repulse of Oehlenschläger silenced Hauch for many years. He possessed, however, a strong and fluent genius, which eventually made itself heard in a multitude of volumes, poems, dramas, and novels. All that Hauch wrote is marked by great qualities, and by distinction; he had a native bias towards the mystical, which, however, he learned to keep in abeyance.

Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1791-1860) as a critic ruled the world of Danish taste for many years, and his lyrical and dramatic works were signally successful. He had the genius of good taste, and his witty and delicate productions stand almost unique in the literature of his country.

The mother of J. L. Heiberg, the Countess Gyllembourg (1773-1856), was the greatest authoress which Denmark has possessed. She wrote a large number of anonymous novels, which began to appear in 1828 in her son's journal, The Flying Post. Her knowledge of life, her sparkling wit, and her almost faultless style, make these short stories, the authorship of which remained unknown until her death, master-pieces of their kind.

Ludvig Adolf Bödtcher (1793-1874) wrote only one single volume of lyrical poems, which he gradually enlarged in succeeding editions. He was a consummate artist in verse, and his impressions are given with the most delicate exactitude of phrase, and in a very fine strain of imagination. Most of his poems deal with Italian life, which he learned to know thoroughly during a long residence in Rome. He was the secretary of Thorwaldsen for a considerable time.

Christian Winther (1796-1876) made the island of Zealand his loving study, and that province of Denmark belongs to him no less thoroughly than the Cumberland lakes belong to Wordsworth. Between the latter poet and Winther there was much resemblance. He was, without compeer, the greatest pastoral lyrist of Denmark.

His ex