Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/271

264 Hammer (kneeling). And now, when I lay my hand and my heart at your feet, when I vow eternal love and fidelity to yon, you will not disbelive me?

Sophia. No.

Hammer. You will not forsake me?

Sophia. No.

Hammer. Nor deny me this dear hand?

Sophia. No.

Hammer. You will never repent of your engagement to me?

Sophia. No.

Hammer. Never cease to love me?

Sophia. No.

Gamstrup and Link rush from their hiding-place, and Gamstrup exclaims, "Hold—stop! This is more than enough!" But matters are speedily set to rights by Hammer's telling that he has just come into a fortune; upon which Link withdraws his suit, and the uncle his opposition. The vaudeville is wound up with a song and chorus, the last verse of which Sophia addresses to the audience. It ends with,

Heiberg's "Elverhoi," "Fairy Mount," a graceful opera in five acts, is founded on an old superstition, and its music introduces some of the ancient Scandinavian airs. The air of.

is a wild and beautiful melody; originally a Swedish peasant song and dance, called "Redens Polska." It is somewhat surprising that no manager of an English theatre has yet been found enterprising enough to try some of these northern novelties—all pertinaciously adhering to the old beaten track of adaptations from the French stage.

Johan Ludwig Heiberg is also the author, in most instances, and editor in others, of some tales which are extremely popular. Among these are "En Hverdags Historic," "An Every-day History;" "De Lyse Nætter," "Bright Nights;" "Mesalliance," "To Tidsaldre," "The Two Ages," "Forlæggerjagt," "The Hunt for a Publisher," "The Young and the Old Heart," and many others. Heiberg publishes all his novels as merely edited by himself. Some of them are attributed to his mother, the Countess Gyllenborg. This lady, formerly the wife of Heiberg's father, the banished dramatical writer, was divorced from him, and married afterwards a Swedish nobleman, who, for political faults, also, was exiled from his own country, and took up his abode in Denmark. To English people, the mention of a divorce suggests the idea of some flagrant misconduct; but it is not necessarily connected with guilt in Denmark. Divorces are much more easily obtained there than in Great Britain. If two people live unhappily together, and wish to dissolve their marriage, the Danish laws admit the possibility of their doing so; and so entirely