He made acquaintance with nobler and cleaner spirits, and profited largely therefrom. They are too numerous to mention, but they were all of the supreme class, of gigantic intellect, fired divinely, and irresistibly firing others. He caught up the torch, and felt the inspiration, too. He published his "Gospel of the Seasons" and gained the ear of his public: he wove the tuneful lines of his "Aladdin," and forthwith gained their hearts. He might now have looked around at his Danish brethren of the song, and said, "I, too, in Arcadia!" The envious still denied the promise of his greatness, and a company once in his presence mourned the irrevocable death of the poesy of Denmark. He started to his feet like one commissioned to give utterance upon what he spoke; and he swore, with a solemnity which appeared to him warrantable, that a harp worthy of Denmark should sound again and that realization of the prophecy should follow speedily on the prediction.

His intercourse now, although he had some gay associates, was chiefly with men renowned for their intellectual attainments. With Steffens, particularly, he maintained an intimacy that was honourable to both, especially profitable to Oehlenschläger, and not without advantage for either. Steffens gave him good counsel; and, among the rest, advised him to secure a wider national renown by composing in the German as well as in the Danish languages. This advice he followed by writing a ballad to which the deities of the Teutonic Helicon nodded warm praise. The praise, with other circumstances combined, helped to fix his destiny. He professed openly his utter distaste for the law, and the inclination, which he was determined to encourage by all means available, of his devoting himself to poetry. He was modest, for he felt the deficiencies by which something, for the present, stood between him and greatness. But he was resolute, and resolution is no trifle towards success : moreover, his resolution was rendered easier of accomplishment by the cheering smiles from the azure eyes of his Christiana, and the only remaining question to be solved was with regard to the special course to be taken whereby he might secure subsequent fame and demonstrate his worthiness to exercise the mission to which he aspired.

His first great desire was for foreign travel. He knew, for his favourite author had told him, that "home-keeping youths have ever homely wits," and he hoped to improve his own by studying those of other men. The desire was accomplished after surmounting some preliminary difficulties. The paternal purse furnished him with a hundred thalers (some fifteen pounds sterling) towards achieving the "grand tour." The modest

contribution would have been nothing but for the more princely aid rendered by the heir to the Danish throne. The aid, more strictly speaking, came from the people. There was a fund, raised from the taxes, and devoted solely to uses promising advantage to the public. From this fund he was made the recipient of an annual stipend to continue for four years, and with a quarter's payment in advance he took leave of Copenhagen and of Christiana, and on an August morning, in 1805, issued forth to perform his pilgrimage and reap its profits.

He travelled like a man who respected the donors of the gift which afforded him the means of wayfaring: he never abused their generosity by squandering their bounty: he husbanded it frugally, not caring to save it, but to expend it wisely. He proceeded direct from Copenhagen to learned and collegiate Halle. That quaint locality was then the abiding place of more than the moiety of German celebrity. Goethe, majestic sovereign of varied realms of literature, was there enthroned; and around him stood Steffens of the acute mind, Von Reaumur of crowded memories, Schleiermacher with eyes and understanding only for heavenly things, and a hundred others besides-all with proffered hands to welcome and to speed the author of "Aladdin." When we say that Schleiermacher had vision and intellect only for things divine, we must be understood to speak "with a difference." His great objects of attraction were on matters connected with heaven and the guiding of men there; but he also devoted much time to the consideration of Greek prosody, and in its mysteries he gave instruction to the young Dane, the application of which was largely manifested in his subsequently-written and high-phrased tragedy of "Baldur the Good."

From Halle, the natural and adopted course was to Berlin. The spirit of the great Frederick was still supreme in the sand. girt city the leading men were half soldiers, half sages. The French were then walking over Europe from victory to victory; and the Prussians, puffed up with the memories of their warlike King and his triumphs, prophesied that, when the Gauls met the old warriors of the Mark of Brandenburgh, the latter, with nothing but their canes, would flog them back again to the bowers of their ladies by the Seine ! The wisest of the professors fell into this grievous error. Fichte, among them, put down a thesis on the matter which none might dispute, and upon the maxims of his own peculiar philosophy proved that the French were little invincible, and must be categorically overcome. But the most martial of all was jovial and juvenile Ernest Arndt-not the dirty sage from Altona, but a rosy professor, clean of body and cheerful of heart, pouring forth Tyr

tæan songs to rouse his crotchetted German-land to rise and annihilate the foe of mankind, and to strike a blow that should secure for ever German liberty. Arndt in one thing has resembled Cassandra-nobody has ever believed his prophecies, and, indeed, they were less trustworthy than those of the Homeric lady. Their non-fulfilment has in nowise troubled Arndt. Still jovial, but by no means juvenile, he sits slippered in his collegiate chair at Bonn, and rhymes unreasonably upon SchleswigHolstein. He is such a hearty hater of the Danes that we doubt whether the very name of Oehlenschläger does not sound unmusically in his ears, as, indeed, it might for reasons independent of national sympathies and antipathies. However this may be, nearly half a century ago he loved Denmark for the sake of this her promising son, and the latter was fully sensible of the advantages of being prized a laudato viro.

From Berlin our literary pilgrim pursued his course to refined and learned Weimar, where his leisure was nobly spent in converse with the gentle yet giant intellects that gave renown to the ducal court. Thence to quiet Dresden, the Florence of northern Germany, in the glorious gallery of which pleasant city he learned to love Corregio. The love sprung out of contemplation of the noble productions of the great artist which Dresden possesses and prizes above all the jewels in the Grüne Gewölbe. Tieck did the honours of the place, and further gratified the young poet by praising his "Gospel of the Seasons" and his "Hakon Jarl," and those portions of his " Aladdin" to which the German author had time to lend a listening ear. Ere proceeding to the sunny south, he turned back once more to visit Weimar. Friendship took him thither, and, once there, war locked him in. His memoirs present a most graphic description of the terrors and glories of the scene. He witnessed the entry of the French troops when Weimar gave them compelled hospitality; and he beheld the Emperor calmly riding to insult a grand duchess after shattering the Prussian Monarchy on the bloody field of Jena. From such a scene he was too happy to escape: he betook himself from the district where war was raging to that where its triumphs were being celebrated, and he spent eighteen months of profitable observation, study, and activity, in the capital of France. That he was not idle is proved by his tragedy of "Palnatoke," which he wrote in Paris: he also produced German translations of some of his other pieces, originally written in Danish. He was ever a welcome visitor at the house of Madame de Stael, both in Paris and in Switzerland. It will be remembered that many of the portraits of this lady represent her as holding a twig of some evergreen plant in her hand.

Ochlenschläger unconsciously explains to us the reason, in the passage where he informs us that her servant was always accustomed to place some such object at her side, as without it she was unable to carry on an argument. In Paris, too, he, for the last time, met his old tutor Arndt-him of the dirty celebrity. Not long after, the unclean phantom wandered through Russia in search of some ancient literary prize; but death smote him on the way and there left him. He was found stiff dead in a very dirty ditch on the outskirts of Moscow; but the professor was dirtier than his couch, and, dying in such a bed, must have been to this son of filthiness very much, indeed, like dying at home.

In Switzerland, the Dane felt his inward heart touched by the mountain scenery, and he felt that when abroad with nature he was then enriching his mind, and laying up treasure that should render costly usury to Denmark for the benevolence which had provided him with the means to travel. With the spring of 1809 he entered Italy, and the influences of the old land, which was the birth-place of so many children of song, were strong upon his mind, and strong for good. To the very whispering of the soft Italian air he listened curiously, and in them seemed to recognize most musical messages. To the tangible delights of the favoured land he delivered himself unreservedly, and the course of his training was such that Italia accomplished what Scandinavia had so well begun. The tuneful rhymer of the Baltic had developed into the philosophic poet; and he who had solemnly promised that Denmark should yet have a tuneful son to be proud of, now gave realization to his engagement. In Italy he wrote his touching yet majestic tragedy of " Corregio," and, had he effected nought else, he would have done enough to have secured a golden reputation. Through his further course we have not space to follow him. We can but briefly state that he saw Rome, embraced his great countryman Thorwaldsen, and then hurried to Copenhagen, where he was awaited with loving impatience by Christiana, and welcomed by the Danish public, who did honour to his coming by playing in his presence his new and stirring tragedy, called " Axel und Walburg." The royal family invited him to read his "Corregio" at court, and the University of Copenhagen conferred on him an "extraordinary" Professorship of Esthetics. But greater delight than any experienced by him from other sources was found in the gift of her hand, now unreluctantly and prettily made, by Christiana. The betrothed pair were sojourning at the country-house of Count Schimmermann at Christiansholm. Near it were the tranquil lake, the little village, and the quaint

church of Gjentofti. Thither, one spring morning, the lovers repaired on foot, with no one to mar their excellent company. The young couple returned from the church to Christiansholm, lovers still, but married lovers. Their hearth was soon established, and by it there tabernacled as many household virtues as ever made home happy.

That home knew little sorrow for the greater portion of half a century. It was not till January last that it was rendered for ever desolate, and that the matron and her numerous children had to deplore the temporal loss of their earthly crown of glory. In the meantime, fame and honour and felicity had attended his career. The King had made him a knight; and Tegner, the renowned bishop-poet of Sweden, had crowned him in the catheral of Lund sole and indisputable poet-king of Scandinavia. His works from the time of his marriage to that of his death affirm his industry and proclaim his powers. Denmark did honour to the septagenarian by a glorious banquet in November last. He was then a hale old man, strong as a rock. The lightning of death blasted the strength in the twinkling of an eye, and at the beginning of the present year Oehlenschläger was stricken helpless by apoplexy. As he lay dying, his son William (so named after Shakspeare) repeated a passage from the "Socrates" of his scarcely conscious father, affirming the immortality of the soul. The dying poet rallied at the words; and, after giving feeble yet emphatic utterance to his belief in the cheering doctrine of the resurrection and the life to come, he fell gently back and was thenceforth fast locked in the sleep of death.

Till he was followed by countless thousands to the grave, the capital wore the aspect of a house wherein the inevitable angel has just descended-so hushed and horror-stricken seemed all around. There was cause, for Denmark had lost the foremost of her sons; and, when the grave closed over him, each man felt that in it lay the poetic greatness of imperial Scandinavia.

ART. IX.-God and Man: being Outlines of Religious and Moral Truth, according to Scripture and the Church. By the Rev. ROBERT MONTGOMERY, M.A., Oxon. Author of" The Christian Life," "The Gospel in Advance of the Age," &c. London: Longmans. 1850,

IN this noisy, greedy, pushing age of ours, amidst the conflicting cries which arise on all sides, boasting human infallibility and prophesying a golden time to come; or, on the contrary, proclaiming the hopelessness of the public mind