Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/248

230 themselves indelibly on the lad’s imagination. He read everything that he could lay his hands on, folk-lore, tales, novels, plays, indiscriminately, yet while his fancy was thus incessantly receiving nourishment from the most various sources, but very little was done to develop the other faculties of his mind until an accidental circumstance brought him to the poet Edward Storm. The latter was inspector of a school, in which he procured the boy free tuition. When he had left school it was decided that he should become a merchant, but before this was brought about, his long-cherished desire to devote himself to study ripened into maturity. But for one reason and another he did not make much progress in his studies. Instead of occupying himself with the ancient classics he read novels and descriptions of travel, and instead of the essays which he was required to write, he composed tales and dramas which he played with his friends. This suggested to him the thought of becoming an actor. His lively, imaginative nature had long been drawing him to the stage, and he believed that this was the right road by which to attain his object. Accordingly, he made his début, but he soon found that he had made a mistake, and left the theatre in order to take up his studies again. In this resolve he was strengthened by the brothers, and, who, notwithstanding their youth, had already distinguished themselves by the publication of valuable scientific works, and with whom he happened to be on very friendly terms. In his twenty-first year he entered the Copenhagen University, where he at first devoted himself very assiduously to the study of jurisprudence, but he soon turned again to occupations which had more attraction for him. He had already begun to take a deep interest in northern antiquities, and wrote a prize essay on the question whether Norse mythology furnished suitable materials for sculpture, a standpoint which he advocated with much warmth. The naval engagement in the Copenhagen roadstead on April 2, 1801, the cannon-thunder of which made a powerful impression on the young