open and young men and girls crowded into the room with noise and laughter. They shouted in one breath that the game was now happily at an end, and that the new-married couple had met at the bride's house without any interruption from the men and women; and now, therefore, we must accompany them thither.

I offered Theresa my arm; but she proposed that we should first change our dress.

"By no means," replied I, "the illusion shall continue as long as possible; besides," added I, in a lower voice, "it makes me so happy."

She silently took my arm. We went out, and the crowd, singing and shouting, followed after.

When we entered the eating-room, we found the young couple seated at the upper end of the table, both in their masquerade dresses; he looking very conceited, with my hat, which was a little too small, stuck over one ear; and she somewhat abashed, attired in Theresa's elegant dress, and with her rosy-red countenance half overshadowed and half hidden by her broad-brimmed straw hat. The Baron received us with a constrained smile, conducted us in, bade us take seats, and insisted upon our dining in costume. He himself took a seat opposite to us next to the bride; and the rest of the table was filled in fraternizing union with the grandees from Solholm and peasant men and

women.

"Here have we already a foretaste of the approaching Liberty and Equality!" exclaimed Hiarum, the steward.

"You mean when Counts and Barons shall have their heads cut off," said Bang; "but then neither will they need stewards."

The peasants who sate near laughed with all their hearts. The steward laughed too, but said: "We take the gentlemen clergy under the arm, and follow in the dance."

They were soon in the midst of the French Revolution, which just then was at its height. Hiarum was a regular sans-culotte, and Bang, who always attacked him in the flank, contradicted him in everything. I, however, listened with only half an ear to this war of words, my thoughts being occupied with my beautiful neighbour. Our conversation was scanty enough; it consisted mostly in stolen glances, and once our hands met under the table; she replied by a timid pressure, but the lace upon her bosom heaved with a quickened movement. By this I knew that she loved me.

*

CHAPTER VIII.

BERNHARD SEVERIN INGEMANN.

INGEMANN is again one of the most voluminous writers of Denmark. To give a full account of his works only, would require as much space as we can afford to give to all the remaining authors of this little country, so affluent in its literature. He has poured forth works of many totally different kinds, with a prodigality which is astonishing. Poems, great and small; psalms, hymns and other religious lyrics; lyrical poems of sundry kinds, epic poems, dramatic poems, tragedies, small stories, great historic romances, satiric comedies and satiric prose compositions; besides Greenland stories and stories and poems for children. Amongst all these stand preeminent his historical romances: these give him his distinctive character amongst the leading authors of his nation, by these will he be most known and estimated beyond the boundaries of his own country; and it is in this character that we principally regard him. His reputation, based on these romances, is of a kind which must be most dear to a man who values, beyond the mere fame which his writings produce, that genuine affection which he awakes towards himself in the hearts of his country

men, and the impulse which he gives to the spirit of patriotism in his native land. The historic romances of Ingemann are the universal possession of the Danish people. Throughout the country, the peasantry have their village libraries, and in these take a pre-eminent place the romances of Ingemann. They read them as they read their national history. They find in them their most popular monarchs of the olden time-they whose fame has come down to them in all the wild splendour of their ancient Sagas and Viser. They see them again, clear and strong, as in actual life, playing their parts in the towns, the forests, on the bold sea-coasts, in the castles now fallen to ruin, and on the hills and by the rivers, where they themselves follow their daily avocations. All these places are familiar to them, and hence the enthusiasm with which they listen to these spiritstirring narratives. That is a glory worth of itself more than all other possible triumphs of a long life. It is a glory fraught with eternal benefit to his country; and with ages of the purest happiness to the myriad firesides of his countrymen. What prouder thought can arise in a generous heart, than that now, and henceforward for centuries-now, and when also the head of the writer shall have mingled with the dust of his fatherland in indistinguishable amalgamation-by the winter firesides throughout the North, amid the wildest mountains and the vastest snow-barricaded woods, in the huts of the peasant, the hunter and the fisherman-thousands and tens of thousands shall be listening to his pages, forgetting in them every outward inconvenience, and filling their hearts with noble and patriotic resolves. That is the fame of Ingemann.

Ingemann was born in 1789, at Torkildstrup, in the Island of Faltster, where his father was parish priest,

His father died when

and dean of the northern district. he was ten years of age; and his mother removed to Slagelse, where, the youngest of eight children, he was placed in the Latin School in which Baggesen had studied, and under the same kind old master, B. Wöldike, or rather the well-known Jens Möller, who now, on account of the failing powers of the chief master, was the real instructor. In his seventeenth year, Ingemann was sent to the University of Copenhagen; and the following year, 1807, witnesed the bombardment of the city by the British. In January, 1811, he became Alumnus of Walkendorf College; and in the same year he published his first volume of poems. In the following year, he published a second volume of them, and also won the University's gold medal for his essay on the relation in which Poetry and Eloquence stand to each other. The poetical field which Oehlenschläger had opened, had prepared the way for other young writers; and Ingemann was unquestionably influenced and inspired by this great poet's fame and views. He won a sudden and great popularity. In these volumes of his poems appeared his first dramatic poem, "Mythridates," and his first epic one, "Parizade and Gangergriffen." The next year, 1813, he produced a third collection, under the title of "Procne," including the tragedy of "Turnus," and a romantic poem, called “Varner's Poetic Wanderings." With these terminated what he calls his first poetical period, or rather this terminated in 1814 with another romantic poem, "The Black Knights," in six books. This period is characterized by an excess of romance and sentimentality; still his popularity was so great, as in some degree to overshadow the solid renown of Oehlenschläger.

He now passed over into an equally rapid production of