the palace of Fredericksberg; but as his limited means did not permit him to educate his son in the way he wished, Edward Storm, the Norwegian poet, kindly placed young Adam at a public school in Copenhagen. After completing his education there, the youth made an attempt, which fortunately proved unsuccessful, to gain his livelihood on the stage; and then, abandoning every thought of the theatrical profession, began the study of law under the guidance of Anders Oersted. But Oehlenschläger's innate love of poetry soon gained the victory over jurisprudence. His first poetical efforts, indeed, gave no promise of the extraordinary genius he possessed. All the greater was the astonishment awakened by a volume of poems published in 1803, and which achieved for him a place of note in Danish literature. There followed from his pen a succession of works, each of which would have made the fame of any ordinary author—"Vaulunders Saga," "Langelandsreise," and "Aladdin." By this last production his renown as the greatest poet of northern Europe was already established. Having obtained a travelling salary from the government, he went abroad in 1805, completed his first celebrated tragedy, "Hakon Jarl," in Germany; wrote "Palnatoke" in Paris; and then, passing through Switzerland, visited Italy, spending some time at Rome, where he composed "Correggio." On returning after an absence of several years to Denmark, he found himself in universal favour with his countrymen. Of the works sent home by him during his travels, "Hakon Jarl," "Thor's Journey to Jotunheim," and "Baldur hin Gode," had been received with tumultuous applause; "Palnatoke" was rather admired than properly appreciated; but the greatest sensation was produced by another tragedy, "Axel and Valborg," numerous manuscript copies of which were privately circulated, before it appeared in print. Shortly after his return, on the 17th of May, 1810, Oehlenschläger married Christiana Heger, sister of Camma Heger, the wife of the celebrated Rahbek. He now delivered lectures at the university (to the chair of æsthetics in which institution he had been appointed), wrote new operas, dramas, and tragedies, and led a life of literary repose, from which he was rudely aroused by the envious attacks of the poet Baggesen, which were, however, regarded with general disapprobation by the public. In 1816 Oehlenschläger undertook another journey, when he visited Munich; and in 1819 he published his "Nordens Guder" (the Northern Gods), an epic poem of great power and beauty. The year after he wrote "Erik and Abel," considered one of his most successful tragedies. His literary activity was truly marvellous; and to the end he continued to pour forth poetry in ample and rich profusion. The familiar friendship of King Christian VIII. gladdened and beautified the closing years of his existence; and through that monarch's kindness he was privileged to pay in 1844 a last visit to Paris, where he received all the marks of respect to which his wide-spread fame entitled him. After his return he published the epic of "Regnar Lodbrog," which deserves to be named among his finer works; and his last dramas, "Amleth" and "Kiartan and Gudrun," possess many striking merits. Honours were showered upon him; a visit he paid to Norway and another to Sweden, seemed like the triumphal progress of a sovereign in literature; and on his seventieth birthday, 14th November, 1849, a grand national festival was given in his honour. Little more than two months after he was seized with his mortal illness, and tranquilly expired on Sunday the 20th January, 1850. His funeral was solemnized by the entire nation. Oehlenschläger's genius was chiefly epic and lyric; and his dramas are therefore—at least in our estimation—inferior to his other works. His imagination was opulent and regal in the extreme; and some of his lyric and epic productions are among the most exquisite that any literature can boast. He wrote much in the German language; but it is in his purely Danish poems that we find the highest and noblest development of his wonderful poetic gift; and it is mainly these Danish poems that have given him his true place in the ranks of the immortals.—J. J.
OERNHIELM. See Arrhenius.
OERSTED, Anders Sandöe, a distinguished Danish jurist and statesman, was born at Rudkjöbing in the island of Langeland, where his father was an apothecary, on the 21st of December, 1778. He and his elder brother, Hans Christian, were in due course sent to study at the university of Copenhagen, where they formed a close intimacy with Oehlenschläger, whose sister Sophia became the wife of Anders Oersted in 1802. Young Oersted devoted himself to the study of jurisprudence, adopting it as the business of his life, and subsequently attaining remarkable eminence in the profession he had chosen. We cannot here enumerate the many treatises with which he enriched the juridical literature of Denmark; but it is the unanimous opinion of those qualified to pronounce on the subject, that no one has surpassed him, either as regards philosophic investigation into the fundamental principles of all law, or as regards the successful treatment of individual legal questions, however difficult and complicated. He was less fortunate in his public career as a statesman. Appointed to various important offices, he ultimately received a place in the Danish cabinet in 1841, which he resigned in 1848, strong suspicions having been excited that he was a foe to popular rights, and a supporter of the privileges of the crown. But in 1853 he was recalled to power, and made prime minister of Denmark. Here he carried matters with so high a hand, pursuing what was generally deemed a reactionary policy, that public indignation was aroused, and the two chambers in 1854 demanded the dismissal of the Oersted ministry. After some delay, the king complied with their request; and advancing a step further, the diet in March, 1855, decreed the impeachment of Oersted and his colleagues. A commission of sixteen persons was appointed to try them, which pronounced its verdict in 1856; and, as eight members voted guilty and eight took the opposite view, this equality, in accordance with the Danish laws, resulted in a sentence of acquittal. Oersted died in 1860.—J. J.
OERSTED, Hans Christian, the elder brother of the preceding, was born at Rudkjöbing, on the 14th of August, 1777. Like Anders, he studied at the university of Copenhagen, where he took the degree of doctor of philosophy in 1800. Dedicating himself with great zeal and assiduity to scientific pursuits, he reaped his reward in being appointed to the chair of physics in 1806. During a visit to Germany in 1812, he wrote his remarkable essay on the identity of chemical and electrical forces, which paved the way "for the subsequent identification of the forces of magnetism, electricity, and galvanism." It was in 1819, however, that he announced the great discovery which has chiefly made his name illustrious—we mean the close relation existing between magnetism and electricity. From that discovery sprang the new science of electro-magnetism; and from this again, the greatest marvel of the age, the electric telegraph. He demonstrated that "there is always a magnetic circulation round the electric conductor, and that the electric element, in accordance with a certain law, always exercises determined and similar impressions on the direction of the magnetic needle, even when it does not pass through the needle, but near it." For this discovery, so pregnant with grand results, he received a valuable prize from the French Institute, and the Copley medal of the Royal Society of London. Yet the field of electro-magnetic investigation was not the only one in which Oersted was destined to acquire celebrity. Many other departments of natural philosophy have been greatly benefited by his labours and researches. Oersted was in truth one of those original and creative geniuses in science who are pre-eminently pioneers of progress, wherever for the time being they select their part. In 1822-23 he visited France and England, the latter of which countries he also revisited in 1846, during the meeting of the British Association at Southampton. An unwearied labourer, he was perpetually writing, lecturing, or experimenting; and had withal this end constantly in view—to popularize science, and make its leading truths familiar to the mass of his countrymen. With general literature, likewise, he was thoroughly conversant, and abstruser studies were in his case beautified by the spirit of a ripe and genial culture. Honours were justly and increasingly bestowed upon him: he was appointed secretary to the Royal Society of Copenhagen, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in the French Institute, and director of the polytechnic school in the Danish metropolis, an institution which he had himself founded. On the 9th of November, 1850, the fiftieth anniversary of his services in connection with the university, a jubilee was celebrated in his honour, when he received the universal homage due to his scientific renown. The following March he was seized with inflammation of the lungs, of which he died on the 9th day of the same month, 1851. Thus closed the existence of one of the noblest philosophers and most gifted men of the present century.—J. J.
OESER, Adam Friedrich, an eminent German painter and engraver, was born at Presburg in 1717, and studied in the Vienna Art-academy, where, at the age of eighteen, he carried off
