NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE
A SURVEY OF DANISH LITERATURE, FROM THE EARLIEST
PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME.
BY MRS. BUSHBY.
Part IV.
In the previous parts of this slight survey of Danish literature, all those authors have been mentioned who, having taken the highest standin their own country, from an early date up to a recent period, were the best entitled to be brought before the notice of the reading public of a foreign nation. There have been others, perhaps very meritorious, but whose claims wore not of that lasting nature to warrant their being classed among the supporters of the literary renown of their native land. If it has been a matter of some difficulty to make a selection from the writer's of past centuries, and from those of a more recent date who are now no more, there is still greater difficulty in choosing from among the writers of the present day those to whom to assign—not indeed the leading place—but their due position in the ranks of living Danish authors.
Time, that great leveller, though it may enhance the merits, and soften the demerits of those who have flourished in very remote ages, around whom is cost the venerable halo of antiquity, divests the bygone of a later creation of all that prestige with which it was surrounded by the passions, or the enthusiasm, of contemporary judges, and by the fashion of the day. So that, aided also by unprejudiced critics and biographers, those of succeeding generations are enabled to form a tolerably correct estimate of the labours of such as have passed away at no very distant period. But living authors are not generally made the subjects of biography, and though critics do not spare them, criticisms vary so much, and opinions arc often so conflicting, that it is infinitely more difficult to do strict justice to living authors than to dead ones.
Among the living authors of Denmark, Nicolai Frederik Sevorin Grundtvig takes a high stand. He was born at Udby, in Zealand, in 1783, and is much admired by many in his native country as a preacher, a poet, and an historian. He is also celebrated as a theological writer, and for his knowledge of Anglo-Saxon. As a preacher and theologian he is eloquent, but bigoted and intolerant. There can be no doubt that Grundtvig is a pious man, though he carries his zeal too far; nor can there be a doubt of his learning, though his acquirements in Anglo-Saxon, and other old languages, make him rather pedantic. Among his works may be mentioned, "Bjowulfs Drape," a Gothic
