Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/92

  at Palgrave School, near Diss, in Norfolk, at that time conducted by Mrs Barbauld. At ten years of age he was sent to Eton, and he afterwards was entered at St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1800. He took only an ordinary degree, having a positive distaste for mathematics. Soon after leaving Cambridge he married; and in 1806 he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, and at once entered upon practice. His success was rapid, and in a few years he attained a position at the bar second only to that of Brougham and Scarlett. He distinguished himself by his eloquent defence of the Luddites; but his most brilliant appearance was as one of the counsel for Queen Caroline. His speech before the Lords was very powerful, and some competent judges even considered it not inferior to Brougham's. It contained one or two daring passages, which made the king his bitter enemy, and retarded his legal promotion. At the general election of 1818 he was returned M.P. for Wareham, and at once took his seat with the Whig opposition. In the following year he was returned for Nottingham, for which place he continued to sit till his elevation to the bench in 1832. His liberal principles had caused his exclusion from office till in 1822 he was appointed common serjeant by the corporation of London. In 1830 he was made attorney-general under Lord Grey's administration. Two years later he was made lord chief-justice of the King's Bench, and in 1834 he was raised to the peerage. As a judge he is most celebrated for his decision in the important privilege case of Stockdale v. Hansard; but he was never ranked as a profound lawyer. In 1850 he resigned the chief-justiceship of the Queen's Bench and retired into private life. He died September 26, 1854.



DENMARK. The kingdom of Denmark, once a considerable power in Europe, but now confined within very narrow limits, comprises the peninsula of Jutland on the European continent and a group of islands in the Baltic. It lies between 54° 34′ and 57° 44′ 52″ N. lat., and between 8° 4′ and 12° 34′ E. long., with the exception of the Island of Bornholm, which lies between 14° 42′ and 15° 10′ E. long. It is bounded N. by the Skagerrack; E. by the Cattegat, the Sound, and the Baltic; S. by the Baltic, the Little Belt, and the German duchy of Schleswig; and W. by the North Sea. Its area amounts to 14,553 English square miles. With the exception of Bornholm, which is situated considerably to the east between Pomerania and Sweden, the islands all lie close to one another, and form a cluster that almost closes the entrance to the Baltic. The largest island, and the nearest to Sweden, is Zealand, or Sjælland; the next in size, Funen, or Fyen, is divided from Jutland by only a minute channel; Lolland, Bornholm, Falster, Langeland, Möen, Samsö, Ærö, Læsö, Taasinge, Anholt, are, in order of their importance, the other noticeable islands. 

Coast and Surface.—The coasts of Denmark is generally low and sandy; the whole western shore of Jutland is a succession of sand-ridges and shallow lagoons, very dangerous to shipping. Skagen, or the Scaw, a long, low, sandy point, stretches far into the northern sea, dividing the Skagerrack from the Cattegat. On the eastern side the coast is not so inhospitable; on the contrary there are several excellent havens, especially on the islands. Nowhere, however, is the coast very high, except at one or two points in Jutland, and at the eastern extremity of Möen, where limestone cliffs exist. The long fjords, or firths, into which the proximity of the islands divides the coast, form a distinguishing feature. There is little variety in the surface of Denmark. It is uniformly low, the highest point in the whole country, Himmelbjerget in

Jutland, being only 550 feet above the sea. Denmark, however, is nowhere low in the sense in which Holland is; the country is pleasantly diversified, and rises a little at the coast even though it remains flat inland. The landscape of the islands and the southeastern part of Jutland is rich in beech-woods, corn-fields, and meadows, and even the minute islets are green and fertile. In the western and northern districts of Jutland this gives place to a wide expanse of moorland, covered with heather, and ending at the sea in low, whitish-grey cliffs. There is a melancholy charm even about these monotonous tracts, and it cannot be said that Denmark is wanting in natural beauty, though of a quiet order. It is obvious that in such a country there can exist no rivers. The Gudenaa, the longest of the Danish streams, is little more than a brook. Nor are there any large lakes. Pieces of water of considerable size, however, are numerous; of these the largest are the Arresö and the Esromsö in Zealand, and the chain of lakes of various names near Silkeborg in Jutland. Many of these meres, overhung with thick beech-woods, are extremely beautiful.

The climate presents no remarkable features. The country lies at the division between Eastern and Western Europe, and partakes of the characteristics of both. Its climate differs from that of Scotland (which is in the same latitude) less in the nature of the seasons than in the rapidity of their transitions. The following are the mean annual temperature (Fahr.):—

Snow falls on an average on thirty days in the year, and westerly winds are more prevalent than easterly in the ratio of 16 to 10. Storms of wind and rain are exceedingly frequent, particularly in July and August. In the district of Aalborg, in the north of Jutland, a cold and dry N.W. wind called skai prevails in May and June, and is exceedingly destructive to vegetation; while along the west coast of the peninsula similar effects are produced by a salt mist, which carries its influence from 15 to 30 miles inland.

The fauna of Denmark presents no peculiarity. The wild animals and birds are those of the rest of Central Europe. The larger quadrupeds are all extinct; even the red deer—which was formerly so abundant that in a single hunt in Jutland in August 1593 no less than 1600 head of deer were killed—is now only to be met with in preserves. In the kjökken-möddings and elsewhere, however, are found vestiges which prove that the urochs, the wild boar, the beaver, the bear, and the wolf have all existed since the arrival of man. The usual domestic animals are abundantly found in the Denmark of to-day, with the exception of the goat, which is very uncommon.

In her flora, Denmark presents greater variety than would have been anticipated from so low and monotonous a country. The ordinary forms of the north of Europe grow with great luxuriance in the mild air and protected soil of the islands and the eastern coast; while on the heaths and along the sandhills on the Atlantic side there flourish a great variety of unusual species.

The Danish forest is almost exclusively made up of beech, a tree which thrives better in Denmark than in any other country of Europe. The oak and ash are now rare, though in ancient times both took a prominent place in clothing the Danish islands. The almost universal predominance of the beech dates from about two centuries ago. In the reign of Christian IV. the oak was still the characteristic Danish tree. No conifer grows in Denmark, except under careful