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gardens abound in artichokes, cauliflowers, asparagus, and melons, of an excellent quality. These plants are cultivated also in the fields, but less extensively than in France and Germany. The grape does not ripen except in hothouses, but in the orchards, if peaches and apricots are rarer than in France, the inhabitants find an ample compensation in the culture of the plumb, the cherry, the pear, and especially the apple: the apples of Gravenstien in Sleswick are much famed; fruits form an article of considerable export, especially to Sweden and Russia.

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CXLIX.

mals.

In losing their vast forests, the Danish territory and its Wild aniisles have witnessed the extinction of the tribes of the larger wild animals: the wolf, which formerly ravaged this country, has cutirely disappeared; the wild boar has become very rare; the stag and the fallow deer exist only in parks; the fox, the martin, the polecat, the rat, and various other small quadrupeds, are the only ones that do injury to property, existing in great numbers. Game is everywhere abundant on the coasts of Jutland; hares are in demand as agreeable food; wild geese and ducks, partridges, snipes, and thrushes, people the marshes and the fields; swans live at freedom in the gulf of Lym-Fiord and on the Islands of Amack and Bornholm, which they do not quit till compelled by the severity of the frost; the duck known under the name of eider-duck, covers with his soft down the nests which he maks in the cleffs of the rocks and promontories: the eagle and the other large birds of prey are seldom seen, and seem to despise a country, which has no heights sufficiently elevated for their dwelling.

animals.

Domestic animals form the principal riches of Denmark; Domestic geese and other fowl afford a considerable profit to those who breed them. Danish horses are of two kinds: the one, small but vigorous, abounds in the islands; the other, large, strong, and elegantly shaped, is confined to Jutland and Holstein and sought after by strangers. Horned cattle are also smaller in the isles than on the mainland; their great number, as well as the number of sheep, whose breed has undergone the most important amelioration during the last twenty years, by crossing them with the breeds of Spain and England, attest the progress of agriculture.

The

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swine of Jutland, sent in considerable herds into Holstein, CXLIX. form, in that dutchy, a double branch of industry; being fattened and salted for foreign export. In fine, Denmark has long supplied the Continent with that race of dogs called Danish, renowned for their strength and their fidelity, and the small black-muzzled dog called by the French carlin, so much sought after in France during the last twenty-five years.

Fish.

Commerce.

Although not so well supplied with fish as those of Norway, yet the seas that wash Denmark amply reward the active fisherman. They not only supply the greater part of the inhabitants with food, but afford a surplus for exportation: the plaice (pleuronectes platessa), which is taken in the neighbourhood of Cape Skagen, is sold in a dried state to the Lubeckers, who pack it up neatly and send it as far as Italy; the western coast of Sleswick and Jutland is supplied with beds of oysters; on the borders of the Cattegat they catch abundance of Lobsters; porpoises and sea-dogs are frequently caught in the nets which they at same time injure by their size; the small river of Slie in Sleswick furnishes a species of herring which is in some estimation, and that of Guden-Aa, the most considerable in Jutland, excellent salmon.

The Dane thus finds a certain means of subsistence in the produce of the soil, in the animals which he rears, and the fish of his lakes, rivers, and seas. He exports grain, cheese, wool, salted provisions, tallow, horse and cow-hides, feathers, and fish. His industry supplies besides, as articles of trade, coarse pottery, hosiery, lace, and cotton stuffs; but the greater part of these exports have diminished for several years back, owing, in part at least, to the fetters which custom-house duties throw around trade, and to the obstacles which indirect taxes present to the developement of industry. Government ought to encourage the culture of hops, wood, and oleaginous plants, the rearing of bees, the improvement of wool, and the making of cheese.* With the exception of a few thousand Jews, the greater

See the work of J. Collin, counsellor of state, intituled For historie og statistik isoer Foedrelandets,' tom. ii, Copenhagen, 1825.

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Language

part of whom are established at Altona and Copenhagen, the inhabitants of Denmark descend, as has been already CXLIX. said, from one of those ancient nations, whose union together forms the Germanic stock. The idiom which is spoken in Jutland, Sleswick, and the Danish archipelago, is a dialect of the Scaldic or Scandinavian language; that of Holstein, and the small archipelago lying near the western coast of Sleswick, are two dialects of the old Saxon. It is in these idioms we find the signification of the names given to the islands and provinces which compose Denmark. This name signifies low lands ;* Fionia, a beautiful country; Laaland, low country; Zealand, a country surrounded with water. Bolt means a girdle; and, in point of fact, the two Belts are long and narrow. The name Jutland appears to be merely a corruption of the word Gothland: it was a country of the Goths. Holstein, which the Hibernian chronicles call Holsaturland, is Holsatia or woody Saxony.‡ The Danish language, as spoken by persons of education, is soft and harmonious: what distinguishes it chiefly from the Swedish, is the substitution of the e in place of a in the greater part of words.

character,

The climate of Denmark is not injurious to the health of the inhabitants, as is proved by the proportion which the population bears to the surface of the country. Possibly, however, the humidity of the atmosphere, and the quantity of salted meat and fish used by the Danes, may have contributed to render their character dull, patient, and difficult to move. Formerly an insatiable conqueror, now brave Danish but pacific; of little enterprise, but laborious and persevering; diffident but proud, hospitable but not officious; cheerful and open with his countrymen, but somewhat cold and ceremonious towards strangers; loving his case more than show, more economical than industrious; sometimes from vanity, and sometimes from laziness, an imitator of others; a judicious observer, a profound thinker,

From dažm, low, and mark, fields.

The ancient name of this island was Sia-lund, which means a forest in the sea; from sia, sea, and lund, forest,

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CXLIX.

The Holsteiner.

Education.

but slow and minute; indued with an imagination more strong than rich; constant, romantic, and jealous in his affections; capable of great enthusiasm, but rarely of those flashes of intellect, or sallies of wit, which, by their unexpectedness, demand and obtain victory and applause; strongly attached to his native soil, and to the interests of his country, but caring little about national glory; accustomed to the calm of monarchy, but the enemy of slavery and arbitrary power; such is the portrait of the Dane.' The inhabitant of Holstein would not recognise himself in this potrait; because in effect he differs in many respects from the inhabitant of Denmark: he is economical and industrious like the Hollander, and not less bold in his commercial views. The Dane is generally middle-sized, well-made, fair, and of a gentle and agreeable physiognomy; the Holsteiner rarely displays in his features the nobleness and delicacy of northern countenances. In both nations, private virtues, morals more severe in reality than in appearance, manners polished rather than refined, distinguish the higher ranks; among the lower ranks, the love of order is not a rare quality, excepting with the seaman, who, by his kind of life, is led to adopt the vices of different nations. The peasant is laborious; he dresses himself with neatness; loves to sing and to dance, and appears to be happier than in the rest of Europe, and especially than in France. He has become a proprietor, as in this last country, by the advantage which the disposal of seignorial lands in small portions offers to the proprietors. The personal services due by the peasantry to their landlords have been long since abolished, or an annual payment substituted in their place; and many farms are let on perpetual leases a circumstance which has contributed not a little to the advancement of agriculture.

There is much more education in Denmark than in France. It is rare to meet a peasant, or any other of the lower class, who cannot read. In 1822, government permitted the introduction of the system of mutual instruction in the elementary public schools: the succeeding year,

* See Geographie, Mathématique, physique et Politique, &c, tom. ii.

the number of schools which had adopted this method amounted to 244, and in the beginning of 1829, it was about 2500. At this date there were reckoned in all more than 4500 primary schools, of which 400 were private. This rapid progress is due to the zeal of the Society for Elementary Instruction, established at Copenhagen. In Denmark, this instruction is not confined, as in France, to reading, writing, arithmetic, and religious instruction; it comprehends also history, geography, and natural history.* The higher studies enjoy the same favour as the early branches of education.

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CXLIX.

men.

Distinguished writers and learned men have added cele- Learned brity to the Danish nation. Holberg, a comic author, has enriched the national literature with a heroi-comic poem, regarded as classical by his countrymen ; his comedies have procured to him the surname of the Plautus of the North. Pram has made himself known by a fine epic poem, and by some good tragedies. Thormodus-Torfæus, GramLangebeck, Schjonning, and some others, have carried the information of a vast erudition into the study of the history and antiquities of the north. Malling, among the historians, has distinguished himself by the elegance of his style. We are indebted for several philosophical treatises to Boye, Gamborg, and Treschow, the last of whom has refuted the opinions of Kant. Among the men who have cultivated with success the physical and natural sciences, Laurensberg Steno, and Gaspard Thomas, have left valuable works on mineralogy; Erasmus Bartholin discovered the double refraction of the carbonated lime, called spath of Ireland; Pontoppidan, bishop of Bergen, in Norway, has made us acquainted with the minerals of Denmark and Norway; Brünich first composed in Danish a manual of mineralogy; Abildgaard, a learned physician, wrote on minerals and animals; Winslow passes for the founder of descriptive anatomy; Borch, at once physician, chymist, and philologist, has left numerous writings: Thomas Bartholin, the author

See extract from report to the king of Denmark, inserted in the Revue Ency clopedique for April 1828.

It is intituled, Peders Pors.

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