Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/268

Rh Woman-Hater;" "Kjeltringliv," "Rascal Life,"—a curious title. Blicher commences it with, "I have two things to apologise for, the title and the tale. The former is plain and coarse and perhaps will be distasteful to delicate and refined tastes; the latter equally so. It is true, that the portraitures of rascals among the great always form the most interesting portions of histories and romances; but then they are not called by that name; besides, such piquant characters look very different when they appertain to the higher ranks than when they belong to the peasantry, who do not dine upon dainties. Who can deny that Claudius and Messalina, Pope Sergius and Marozia, Front de Bœuf and Ulrica, lived right rascally lives? But it is true, they lived in palaces, not amidst shepherds' huts. What sits well on princely personages, holy prelates, roving knights, is not pardonable in Jutland gipsies; Nero was a great monster, Jens Longknife a vulgar rascal." In speaking further of these Jutland gipsies, he quotes, with some humour, a passage from a French tourist, which, he says, has more truth in it than the Frenchman thought, "En Dannemarc il y a une nation qui s'apelle Kieltrings (rascals), elle n'est pas si bien cultivée que les autres Danois." A Danish traveller might make the same sage observation in regard to the "gamins" of Paris. Blicher’s tales are difficult to translate, because they are much interlarded with provincialisms and cant phrases in use among the inferior classes of society.

Johan Ludwig Heiberg, born in 1791, a son of the P. A. Heiberg who was banished in 1800, is one of the leading authors of Denmark. He is extremely clever, and does not excel in lighter literature alone, although he is best known as a writer of novels and vaudevilles. Professor Heiberg has introduced a new style of drama on the Danish stage. His pieces are neither tragedies, comedies, nor farces, but they have generally dramatic effect, witty dialogue, and amusing incidents. Most of them are written with a view of showing off the powers of his talented wife, Fru Heiberg, who is one of the first of living actresses, and a groat favourite in Copenhagen. Among his vaudevilles there are "Et Eventyr i Rosenberg Have," "An Adventure in Rosenberg Garden;" "De Uadskillelige," "The Inseparables;" "De Danske i Paris," "The Danes in Paris;" "Nei," "No;" "Nina;" "Fata Morgana," and several others. To give some idea of Heiberg's style, we shall take an extract from the little one-act vaudeville "No," in which the heroine of the piece refuses one admirer, and accepts the other, with the same monosyllable, "no." There are only four individuals introduced, Justice Gamstrup. a testy old gentleman; Sophia, his niece; Hammer, her admirer, a student of law, who lodges in the house with the uncle and niece; and Link, a parish clerk, formerly a schoolmaster, who has been selected by Gamstrup as a husband for his niece. Link arrives by invitation from the uncle, and stumbles upon Hammer, in whom he discovers a former pupil. Sophia has her uncle's orders to receive this elderly admirer; and at the same time Hammer makes her promise that she will not utter one word but no to anything and everything he may