Frederik Sneedorff, whose father and elder brother were also authors, was a professor at the Copenhagen university, where he obtained much distinction as a lecturer on history. He was born in 1761. An unfortunate casualty occasioned his death in his thirty-second year. He was travelling in England, and the coach in which he was going from Liverpool towards the north having met with some accident near Penrith, the Danish professor either jumped or was thrown out; he fell on his head, and was so severely hurt that he died within a few hours at an inn at Penrith. Mr. Sneedorff was well received by the literati of England and Scotland; and the celebrated Mr. Roscoe, of Liverpool, was particularly attentive to him. Sneedorff was equally admired for his literary attainments, and beloved for the excellence of his private character. After his death, which was universally regretted in Denmark, his lectures and other works were published: these comprised a History of Denmark, and a General History of Europe; and letters descriptive of Germany, France, Switzerland and England—all of which are much esteemed.
Jonas Rein, Jens Zetlitz, Christian Lund, Frankenau, Smidth, and Schmidt, may all be classed among the minor poets—the poets of the clubs and of society; their productions being principally songs, romances, elegies, and short poems of different descriptions—pretty, lively, sentimental, or pleasing, but nothing beyond that. Christian Brauman Tullin, who was born in Christiana, was a popular poet in his day. Although he had received a university education, he did not follow any of the learned professions, but became the proprietor and manager of a manufactory in his native town. He also enjoyed some civic honours. A poem of his, entitled "Maidagen" (May-day), was much admired for its melodious versification and its livfulde, as the Danes say—literally, ""life-full" (an adjective which lively does not exactly express )—descriptions of natural objects.
Novels, whether historical or otherwise, were scarcely in vogue in Denmark before the commencement of this present century. Fables there were, indeed—mythological allegories, tales of fairy-land, and stories of mermaids, dwarfs, magicians, and ghosts; but, except these, the only works of light literature or of imagination were poems and plays.
There is, perhaps, no language more abounding in dramatic compositions than the Danish. The Danes have a very large theatrical repertoire, consisting of tragedies, comedies, operas, farces, melodramas, vaudevilles, &c. We have lying before us at this moment a catalogue of between seven and eight hundred original skuespil (plays), and there are others not included in this list. In addition to these dramas by Danish writers, there are translations from the dramatic authors of England, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, as well as from the authors of antiquity; so that there is no lack of this branch of literature in Denmark.
This short survey of the literature of the eighteenth century would be very incomplete without some notice of Samsöe, who, having died in 1796, cannot be included among the authors of the nineteenth century.
Ole Johan Samsöe was born at Nestved, a place which is remarkable as being also the birthplace of a genius of more modern times, M. Goldschmidt, the clever author of a work descriptive of the manners, habits, and feelings of the Jews. Rahbek, a popular writer, both in prose and verse, and the editor of the political and literary periodical called the
