Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/61

5, 1862.] face wore an angry scowl, the train came to a stop, the guard shouted the name of a small station and opened the door, and our fellow-traveller, gathering his moveables in a hurry, left us. He was a Dane, a fair-haired Dane, such as Mons. Fechter’s Hamlet, only not so handsome, though quite as good-looking as the Laertes with whom that gentleman fences at the Princess’s Theatre in our own Oxford Street. Our anticipations were considerably roused by the answers of the enthusiastic Dane, and we soon forgot, in hearing from our other fellow-travellers of the various lions of the City of Harbours, the cushionless state of a Holstein third-class carriage. About 9.30, p.m., in the dark streets of Kiel, we had our first experience of the Danish coinage: for though we had, like experienced travellers, studied the subject beforehand, still it is only practice that can make you perfect; and when an inhabitant of the new country startles you with an assertion that the value of the dollar is a third less than what the books tell you, you are at first, I would say, just a little flabberghasted, and we were too: but we soon rallied, and being really “up” in the intricacies of the coinage, we entered at once into a noisy discussion with the droski-driver and stood out boldly, and the discomfited droskier “crawled” away, muttering his disappointment. We had heard that the Baltic was one of those seas “where sleep young Cyclads on a sunnier deep,” and where the storm god is unknown. Now as we had but second-class tickets, and on reaching the boat, we found all the berths taken, it would have been well for us, who had to pass the night on deck, if the Baltic had preserved that poetic serenity. But we were doomed to be disappointed, for it blew hard all the night, and with morning came damp fog, which nearly pierced through our Inverness capes as we lay extended on a bench on the after deck. At five o’clock a fair-haired Dane, with large, brilliant, blue eyes, brought us each a cup of coffee, and we shook ourselves, drank it gratefully, and looked around us. There were many young “Cyclads” about just visible in the mist, the largest of these was “Rügen.”

The grey dawn, streaked with red, was slowly clearing away the mist as we steamed into the little harbour of Korsör. From thence a train—one of, perhaps, the slowest in Europe, for they are not very rapid in Denmark in travelling—bore us, willingly enough, for we were gluttonously thinking of breakfasting on our arrival. We passed through the famous Baltic corn-country—flat and hedgeless as our own dear Cambridgeshire fens—and where for miles a vast expanse of corn waves like a sea of gold and amber. This continual yellow and gold, with its infinite varieties of tint, seemed to us a peculiar feature in our trip; our crew on board the boat were all yellow-haired—the skipper, the helmsman, and the mate,—all tints of hair were there, from pale straw-colour to bright golden cowslip. In Copenhagen everyone was fair-haired, and we saw not even one dark-haired Dane. Our first impression was, that the City of Harbours was collectively asleep; but it was a false one, for at mid-day it was the same—a city in its decline—with large, white, hideous palaces, all uninhabited (for the king, who is not the most popular, lives in Holstein); a city, plain and cheap-looking, where art external, at least, is an expensive luxury. Thorwaldsen’s sculptures are, of course, a glorious exception. Copenhagen began to attain importance in the twelfth century: it was originally called Axelstad, from a Bishop of Roskilda (the ancient capital of Denmark), who erected a castle here in 1168, on the site of the present Christianborg, as a protection against pirates; later it was called Kiobmaendhorn—the haven of merchants—and latterly Kjobenhaven, or Copenhagen. Thorwaldsen’s sculptures are contained in a painted stucco building, which was partly designed by Thorwaldsen himself. It is one of the noblest collections in the world! Barthelemy or Bertel Albert von Thorwaldsen, like Canova, who was the son of a stonemason, was a man sprung from the people. His father made figure-heads, and Bertel, showing early signs of skill, was sent to the art-schools of Copenhagen, where he gained the silver medal at the age of seventeen, in the year 1787. In 1793, by the patronage of Reventlow, the prime minister, he obtained the pension, and went to Rome to study, but remained for four years in obscurity, and it is said that on the eve of his departure home again in despair, Thomas Hope, a Dutch banker, caused him to change his plans by giving him his first commission to execute his model of “Jason” in marble, for 500 sequins, after which his fame and fortune rose rapidly. His inexhaustible fertility of invention led to his making an enormous number of models, a third of which were executed in marble. Among those most known to Englishmen are the “Christ,” copies of which are so often seen in Parian china, and which formed the principal figure to the group of the Twelve Apostles, and is now in a church in Copenhagen; the “Night and Morning” bas reliefs (fac similes of which are in possession of Lord Lucan); the famous “Lord Byron” at Cambridge, in Trinity Library; and the “Lion” at Lucerne. One of his famous pieces is the “Triumph of Alexander,” ordered by Napoleon—the modern Alexander—to decorate the Quirinal Palace at Monte Carvallo, but which is now in the palace of Christianborg. This man, whose grand and calm purity of style caused him to contrast with the burning genius of Michael Angelo and Canova, never executed any design until matured by deep study and reflection, and all his works bear this character. There are three portraits of him—one by Gazzoli, engraved at Rome in 1831, another by Kitzler, at the age of sixty-six, and a third by Horace Vernet. On his return to Copenhagen he was received by the whole people, rich and poor, coming down to meet him disembarking; this scene is depicted in fresco on the outside of his museum, so deeply had his kind-heartedness and generosity endeared him to everyone. His last works were a bust of Luther and a “Hercules.” He died of apoplexy at the theatre one evening, just before the play began, and his funeral was attended by the whole people of Copenhagen.

The Castle of Rosenberg, with grey walls and quaint zinc roofs, is a picturesque building, and