Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/276

Rh places in the most vivid manner before his readers the stirring scenes which he describes. One can fancy one sees the thick cold mist hanging over the field, which is so soon to become the theatre of the fearful battle; that, as the wind occasionally scatters the fog, a glimpse is caught of the enemy's martial columns, with their bayonets glancing even in that uncertain light. Then come the hasty movement in the camp—the trumpets' blasts:

Again—

He tells how—

And how—

The whole poem is original in its conception, and well wrought up in its execution; and if Holst had never written another line, would have entitled him to a distinguished niche among his country's best authors.

An extremely clever writer, of another stamp, is M. Goldschmidt, a Jew. He was born, according to bis own statement, in October, 1819, at Vordingborg, on the Baltic, near Nestved, in Zealand. He received his education at the university of Copenhagen, where he was remarked for his talents, and his success in all his studies. Ho was for some time the editor of Corsaren—The Corsair—a weekly, and, under Goldschmidt's management, a clever periodical; something between Punch and the Athenæum. It noticed new books, and musical and theatrical matters, and it likewise ridiculed men and manners. The illustrations, however (of those numbers that we have seen at least), were by no means so good as those which are found in Punch. The Corsair has fallen off since Goldschmidt withdrew from conducting it. He is now the editor of a monthly magazine—the best in Copenhagen—entitled Norg og Syd—North and South. Goldschmidt is the author of a tale in which much light is thrown on the manners, habits, and religious ceremonies of the Jews. It is still more interesting, as it describes the feelings, towards Christians, of a well educated, intellectual, and sensitive Jew. The battle, in his own mind, between his inclination for the society of his Christian fellow-creatures and his shrinking from their real or apprehended coldness and disdain. The galling consciousness that a brand had been set upon him from his cradle, that to imbibe and cherish a prejudice—as he would call it—against himself and all his race, is made a point of duty and religion among the beings who, in all other respects, are like himself—all this is painted with a masterly hand, with the hand of one who has studied the workings of the human heart. One charm of Goldschmidt's very original and striking tale is, that he has copied or