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A SURVEY OF DANISH LITERATURE, FROM THE EARLIEST
PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME.
BY MRS. BUSHBY.
Part II.
The literary regeneration of Denmark may be said to have commenced under Christian IV. That accomplished monarch was fond of study, was extremely well informed, and was a good mathematician and good linguist, as well as being skilled in painting and music. All the well-educated gentlemen of his day not only understood but spoke Latin; and it is probable that Denmark would from that time have taken a high stand in the world of letters, had Christian been able to have devoted his talents and energies entirely to the improvement of his subjects, and the internal welfare of his dominions. But he became involved in harassing wars; and though he won some laurels, and was created chief of the Protestant League in Lower Saxony, which fought against the celebrated generals Tilly and Walstein, yet these honours were obtained by the sacrifice at home of what would have been more beneficial to his people. Still he had struck the spark, which, though smothered for a time, was never entirely extinguished, and which began to revive under the fostering care of Frederick V, and his successors.
Frederick was very liberal in patronising learned foreigners, in inviting them to Denmark, and in employing them on scientific missions. Among those so employed by him was Karsten Niebuhr, a German, the father of the celebrated historian, Niebuhr, who was born in Copenhagen, in 1776. Karsten Niebuhr was sent on an expedition to the East—to Constantinople and Arabia—along with four other naturalists, geographers, and historians. Their expenses were paid by the treasury, as were also those of all the other scientific and literary envoys. About this time, too, the booksellers of Denmark began to cater more for the public; and the increase of publishers gave a spur to the exertions of authors.
Not even the restraints on the liberty of the press, which had caused the banishment of Malte-Brun and the elder Heiberg, had the power to annihilate the literature of Denmark, at the end of the last and beginning of the present century. Nor, indeed, was this intended by the excellent prince, afterwards Frederick VI., who then governed the country on behalf of his father, Christian VII, the husband of the unfortunate English princess, Caroline Matilda, who, as well as the prime minister, Struensee, had been the victim of the ambition and jealousy of the malignant quecn-dowager, Juliana Maria. Frederick may be thought to have erred in his judgment in regard to this decree; but these restraints on the freedom of publication were imposed principally with a view of preventing the wild tenets of the French revolutionists from spreading their disastrous influence among a people who were tranquil and contented, and whose position, neither in a political or social point of view, would have been improved by the importation of Gallican turbulence, disaffection, and vice.
