CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY.




LETTERS
WRITTEN
_DURING A SHORT RESIDENCE_
IN
SWEDEN, NORWAY, AND
DENMARK


BY
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
_LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
1889.




INTRODUCTION.


Mary Wollstonecraft was born on the 27th of April, 1759. Her father--a
quick-tempered and unsettled man, capable of beating wife, or child, or
dog--was the son of a manufacturer who made money in Spitalfields, when
Spitalfields was prosperous. Her mother was a rigorous Irishwoman, of
the Dixons of Ballyshannon. Edward John Wollstonecraft--of whose
children, besides Mary, the second child, three sons and two daughters
lived to be men and women--in course of time got rid of about ten
thousand pounds, which had been left him by his father. He began to get
rid of it by farming. Mary Wollstonecraft's first-remembered home was in
a farm at Epping. When she was five years old the family moved to
another farm, by the Chelmsford Road. When she was between six and seven
years old they moved again, to the neighbourhood of Barking. There they
remained three years before the next move, which was to a farm near
Beverley, in Yorkshire. In Yorkshire they remained six years, and Mary
Wollstonecraft had there what education fell to her lot between the ages
of ten and sixteen. Edward John Wollstonecraft then gave up farming to
venture upon a commercial speculation. This caused him to live for a
year and a half at Queen's Row, Hoxton. His daughter Mary was then
sixteen; and while at Hoxton she had her education advanced by the
friendly care of a deformed clergyman--a Mr. Clare--who lived next door,
and stayed so much at home that his one pair of shoes had lasted him for
fourteen years.

But Mary Wollstonecraft's chief friend at this time was an accomplished
girl only two years older than herself, who maintained her father,
mother, and family by skill in drawing. Her name was Frances Blood, and
she especially, by her example and direct instruction, drew out her
young friend's powers. In 1776, Mary Wollstonecraft's father, a rolling
stone, rolled into Wales. Again he was a farmer. Next year again he was
a Londoner; and Mary had influence enough to persuade him to choose a
house at Walworth, where she would be near to her friend Fanny. Then,
however, the conditions of her home life caused her to be often on the
point of going away to earn a living for herself. In 1778, when she was
nineteen, Mary Wollstonecraft did leave home, to take a situation as
companion with a rich tradesman's widow at Bath, of whom it was said
that none of her companions could stay with her. Mary Wollstonecraft,
nevertheless, stayed two years with the difficult widow, and made
herself respected. Her mother's failing health then caused Mary to
return to her. The father was then living at Enfield, and trying to save
the small remainder of his means by not venturing upon any business at
all. The mother died after long suffering, wholly dependent on her
daughter Mary's constant care. The mother's last words were often quoted
by Mary Wollstonecraft in her own last years of distress--"A little
patience, and all will be over."

After the mother's death, Mary Wollstonecraft left home again, to live
with her friend, Fanny Blood, who was at Walham Green. In 1782 she went
to nurse a married sister through a dangerous illness. The father's need
of support next pressed upon her. He had spent not only his own money,
but also the little that had been specially reserved for his children.
It is said to be the privilege of a passionate man that he always gets
what he wants; he gets to be avoided, and they never find a convenient
corner of their own who shut themselves out from the kindly fellowship
of life.

In 1783 Mary Wollstonecraft--aged twenty-four--with two of her sisters,
joined Fanny Blood in setting up a day school at Islington, which was
removed in a few months to Newington Green. Early in 1785 Fanny Blood,
far gone in consumption, sailed for Lisbon to marry an Irish surgeon who
was settled there. After her marriage it was evident that she had but a
few months to live; Mary Wollstonecraft, deaf to all opposing counsel,
then left her school, and, with help of money from a friendly woman, she
went out to nurse her, and was by her when she died. Mary Wollstonecraft
remembered her loss ten years afterwards in these "Letters from Sweden
and Norway," when she wrote: "The grave has closed over a dear friend,
the friend of my youth; still she is present with me, and I hear her
soft voice warbling as I stray over the heath."

Mary Wollstonecraft left Lisbon for England late in December, 1785. When
she came back she found Fanny's poor parents anxious to go back to
Ireland; and as she had been often told that she could earn by writing,
she wrote a pamphlet of 162 small pages--"Thoughts on the Education of
Daughters"--and got ten pounds for it. This she gave to her friend's
parents to enable them to go back to their kindred. In all she did there
is clear evidence of an ardent, generous, impulsive nature. One day her
friend Fanny Blood had repined at the unhappy surroundings in the home
she was maintaining for her father and mother, and longed for a little
home of her own to do her work in. Her friend quietly found rooms, got
furniture together, and told her that her little home was ready; she had
only to walk into it. Then it seemed strange to Mary Wollstonecraft that
Fanny Blood was withheld by thoughts that had not been uppermost in the
mood of complaint. She thought her friend irresolute, where she had
herself been generously rash. Her end would have been happier had she
been helped, as many are, by that calm influence of home in which some
knowledge of the world passes from father and mother to son and
daughter, without visible teaching and preaching, in easiest
companionship of young and old from day to day.

The little payment for her pamphlet on the "Education of Daughters"
caused Mary Wollstonecraft to think more seriously of earning by her
pen. The pamphlet seems also to have advanced her credit as a teacher.
After giving up her day school, she spent some weeks at Eton with the
Rev. Mr. Prior, one of the masters there, who recommended her as
governess to the daughters of Lord Kingsborough, an Irish viscount,
eldest son of the Earl of Kingston. Her way of teaching was by winning
love, and she obtained the warm affection of the eldest of her pupils,
who became afterwards Countess Mount-Cashel. In the summer of 1787, Lord
Kingsborough's family, including Mary Wollstonecraft, was at Bristol
Hot-wells, before going to the Continent. While there, Mary
Wollstonecraft wrote her little tale published as "Mary, a Fiction,"
wherein there was much based on the memory of her own friendship for
Fanny Blood.

The publisher of Mary Wollstonecraft's "Thoughts on the Education of
Daughters" was the same Joseph Johnson who in 1785 was the publisher of
Cowper's "Task."  With her little story written and a little money
saved, the resolve to live by her pen could now be carried out. Mary
Wollstonecraft, therefore, parted from her friends at Bristol, went to
London, saw her publisher, and frankly told him her determination. He
met her with fatherly kindness, and received her as a guest in his house
while she was making her arrangements. At Michaelmas, 1787, she settled
in a house in George Street, on the Surrey side of Blackfriars Bridge.
There she produced a little book for children, of "Original Stories from
Real Life," and earned by drudgery for Joseph Johnson. She translated,
she abridged, she made a volume of Selections, and she wrote for an
"Analytical Review," which Mr. Johnson founded in the middle of the year
1788. Among the books translated by her was Necker "On the Importance of
Religious Opinions."  Among the books abridged by her was Salzmann's
"Elements of Morality."  With all this hard work she lived as sparely as
she could, that she might help her family. She supported her father.
That she might enable her sisters to earn their living as teachers, she
sent one of them to Paris, and maintained her there for two years; the
other she placed in a school near London as parlour-boarder until she
was admitted into it as a paid teacher. She placed one brother at
Woolwich to qualify for the Navy, and he obtained a lieutenant's
commission. For another brother, articled to an attorney whom he did not
like, she obtained a transfer of indentures; and when it became clear
that his quarrel was more with law than with the lawyers, she placed him
with a farmer before fitting him out for emigration to America. She then
sent him, so well prepared for his work there that he prospered well.
She tried even to disentangle her father's affairs; but the confusion in
them was beyond her powers of arrangement. Added to all this faithful
work, she took upon herself the charge of an orphan child, seven years
old, whose mother had been in the number of her friends. That was the
life of Mary Wollstonecraft, thirty years old, in 1789, the year of the
Fall of the Bastille; the noble life now to be touched in its
enthusiasms by the spirit of the Revolution, to be caught in the great
storm, shattered, and lost among its wrecks.

To Burke's attack on the French Revolution Mary Wollstonecraft wrote an
Answer--one of many answers provoked by it--that attracted much
attention. This was followed by her "Vindication of the Rights of
Woman," while the air was full of declamation on the "Rights of Man."
The claims made in this little book were in advance of the opinion of
that day, but they are claims that have in our day been conceded. They
are certainly not revolutionary in the opinion of the world that has
become a hundred years older since the book was written.

At this time Mary Wollstonecraft had moved to rooms in Store Street,
Bedford Square. She was fascinated by Fuseli the painter, and he was a
married man. She felt herself to be too strongly drawn towards him, and
she went to Paris at the close of the year 1792, to break the spell. She
felt lonely and sad, and was not the happier for being in a mansion lent
to her, from which the owner was away, and in which she lived surrounded
by his servants. Strong womanly instincts were astir within her, and
they were not all wise folk who had been drawn around her by her
generous enthusiasm for the new hopes of the world, that made it then,
as Wordsworth felt, a very heaven to the young.

Four months after she had gone to Paris, Mary Wollstonecraft met at the
house of a merchant, with whose wife she had become intimate, an
American named Gilbert Imlay. He won her affections. That was in April,
1793. He had no means, and she had home embarrassments, for which she
was unwilling that he should become in any way responsible. A part of
the new dream in some minds then was of a love too pure to need or bear
the bondage of authority. The mere forced union of marriage ties
implied, it was said, a distrust of fidelity. When Gilbert Imlay would
have married Mary Wollstonecraft, she herself refused to bind him; she
would keep him legally exempt from her responsibilities towards the
father, sisters, brothers, whom she was supporting. She took his name
and called herself his wife, when the French Convention, indignant at
the conduct of the British Government, issued a decree from the effects
of which she would escape as the wife of a citizen of the United States.
But she did not marry. She witnessed many of the horrors that came of
the loosened passions of an untaught populace. A child was born to
her--a girl whom she named after the dead friend of her own girlhood.
And then she found that she had leant upon a reed. She was neglected;
and was at last forsaken. Having sent her to London, Imlay there visited
her, to explain himself away. She resolved on suicide, and in dissuading
her from that he gave her hope again. He needed somebody who had good
judgment, and who cared for his interests, to represent him in some
business affairs in Norway. She undertook to act for him, and set out on
the voyage only a week after she had determined to destroy herself.

The interest of this book which describes her travel is quickened by a
knowledge of the heart-sorrow that underlies it all. Gilbert Imlay had
promised to meet her upon her return, and go with her to Switzerland.
But the letters she had from him in Sweden and Norway were cold, and she
came back to find that she was wholly forsaken for an actress from a
strolling company of players. Then she went up the river to drown
herself. She paced the road at Putney on an October night, in 1795, in
heavy rain, until her clothes were drenched, that she might sink more
surely, and then threw herself from the top of Putney Bridge.

She was rescued, and lived on with deadened spirit. In 1796 these
"Letters from Sweden and Norway" were published. Early in 1797 she was
married to William Godwin. On the 10th of September in the same year, at
the age of thirty-eight, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin died, after the
birth of the daughter who lived to become the wife of Shelley. The
mother also would have lived, if a womanly feeling, in itself to be
respected, had not led her also to unwise departure from the customs of
the world. Peace be to her memory. None but kind thoughts can dwell upon
the life of this too faithful disciple of Rousseau.

H. M.




LETTER I.


Eleven days of weariness on board a vessel not intended for the
accommodation of passengers have so exhausted my spirits, to say nothing
of the other causes, with which you are already sufficiently acquainted,
that it is with some difficulty I adhere to my determination of giving
you my observations, as I travel through new scenes, whilst warmed with
the impression they have made on me.

The captain, as I mentioned to you, promised to put me on shore at
Arendall or Gothenburg in his way to Elsineur, but contrary winds
obliged us to pass both places during the night. In the morning,
however, after we had lost sight of the entrance of the latter bay, the
vessel was becalmed; and the captain, to oblige me, hanging out a signal
for a pilot, bore down towards the shore.

My attention was particularly directed to the lighthouse, and you can
scarcely imagine with what anxiety I watched two long hours for a boat
to emancipate me; still no one appeared. Every cloud that flitted on the
horizon was hailed as a liberator, till approaching nearer, like most of
the prospects sketched by hope, it dissolved under the eye into
disappointment.

Weary of expectation, I then began to converse with the captain on the
subject, and from the tenor of the information my questions drew forth I
soon concluded that if I waited for a boat I had little chance of
getting on shore at this place. Despotism, as is usually the case, I
found had here cramped the industry of man. The pilots being paid by
the king, and scantily, they will not run into any danger, or even quit
their hovels, if they can possibly avoid it, only to fulfil what is
termed their duty. How different is it on the English coast, where, in
the most stormy weather, boats immediately hail you, brought out by the
expectation of extraordinary profit.

Disliking to sail for Elsineur, and still more to lie at anchor or
cruise about the coast for several days, I exerted all my rhetoric to
prevail on the captain to let me have the ship's boat, and though I
added the most forcible of arguments, I for a long time addressed him in
vain.

It is a kind of rule at sea not to send out a boat. The captain was a
good-natured man; but men with common minds seldom break through general
rules. Prudence is ever the resort of weakness, and they rarely go as
far as they may in any undertaking who are determined not to go beyond
it on any account. If, however, I had some trouble with the captain, I
did not lose much time with the sailors, for they, all alacrity, hoisted
out the boat the moment I obtained permission, and promised to row me to
the lighthouse.

I did not once allow myself to doubt of obtaining a conveyance from
thence round the rocks--and then away for Gothenburg--confinement is so
unpleasant.

The day was fine, and I enjoyed the water till, approaching the little
island, poor Marguerite, whose timidity always acts as a feeler before
her adventuring spirit, began to wonder at our not seeing any
inhabitants. I did not listen to her. But when, on landing, the same
silence prevailed, I caught the alarm, which was not lessened by the
sight of two old men whom we forced out of their wretched hut. Scarcely
human in their appearance, we with difficulty obtained an intelligible
reply to our questions, the result of which was that they had no boat,
and were not allowed to quit their post on any pretence. But they
informed us that there was at the other side, eight or ten miles over, a
pilot's dwelling. Two guineas tempted the sailors to risk the captain's
displeasure, and once more embark to row me over.

The weather was pleasant, and the appearance of the shore so grand that
I should have enjoyed the two hours it took to reach it, but for the
fatigue which was too visible in the countenances of the sailors, who,
instead of uttering a complaint, were, with the thoughtless hilarity
peculiar to them, joking about the possibility of the captain's taking
advantage of a slight westerly breeze, which was springing up, to sail
without them. Yet, in spite of their good humour, I could not help
growing uneasy when the shore, receding, as it were, as we advanced,
seemed to promise no end to their toil. This anxiety increased when,
turning into the most picturesque bay I ever saw, my eyes sought in vain
for the vestige of a human habitation. Before I could determine what
step to take in such a dilemma (for I could not bear to think of
returning to the ship), the sight of a barge relieved me, and we
hastened towards it for information. We were immediately directed to
pass some jutting rocks, when we should see a pilot's hut.

There was a solemn silence in this scene which made itself be felt. The
sunbeams that played on the ocean, scarcely ruffled by the lightest
breeze, contrasted with the huge dark rocks, that looked like the rude
materials of creation forming the barrier of unwrought space, forcibly
struck me, but I should not have been sorry if the cottage had not
appeared equally tranquil. Approaching a retreat where strangers,
especially women, so seldom appeared, I wondered that curiosity did not
bring the beings who inhabited it to the windows or door. I did not
immediately recollect that men who remain so near the brute creation, as
only to exert themselves to find the food necessary to sustain life,
have little or no imagination to call forth the curiosity necessary to
fructify the faint glimmerings of mind which entitle them to rank as
lords of the creation. Had they either they could not contentedly remain
rooted in the clods they so indolently cultivate.

Whilst the sailors went to seek for the sluggish inhabitants, these
conclusions occurred to me; and, recollecting the extreme fondness which
the Parisians ever testify for novelty, their very curiosity appeared to
me a proof of the progress they had made in refinement. Yes, in the art
of living--in the art of escaping from the cares which embarrass the
first steps towards the attainment of the pleasures of social life.

The pilots informed the sailors that they were under the direction of a
lieutenant retired from the service, who spoke English; adding that they
could do nothing without his orders, and even the offer of money could
hardly conquer their laziness and prevail on them to accompany us to his
dwelling. They would not go with me alone, which I wanted them to have
done, because I wished to dismiss the sailors as soon as possible. Once
more we rowed off, they following tardily, till, turning round another
bold protuberance of the rocks, we saw a boat making towards us, and
soon learnt that it was the lieutenant himself, coming with some
earnestness to see who we were.

To save the sailors any further toil, I had my baggage instantly removed
into his boat; for, as he could speak English, a previous parley was not
necessary, though Marguerite's respect for me could hardly keep her from
expressing the fear, strongly marked on her countenance, which my
putting ourselves into the power of a strange man excited. He pointed
out his cottage; and, drawing near to it, I was not sorry to see a
female figure, though I had not, like Marguerite, been thinking of
robberies, murders, or the other evil which instantly, as the sailors
would have said, runs foul of a woman's imagination.

On entering I was still better pleased to find a clean house, with some
degree of rural elegance. The beds were of muslin, coarse it is true,
but dazzlingly white; and the floor was strewed over with little sprigs
of juniper (the custom, as I afterwards found, of the country), which
formed a contrast with the curtains, and produced an agreeable sensation
of freshness, to soften the ardour of noon. Still nothing was so
pleasing as the alacrity of hospitality--all that the house afforded was
quickly spread on the whitest linen. Remember, I had just left the
vessel, where, without being fastidious, I had continually been
disgusted. Fish, milk, butter, and cheese, and, I am sorry to add,
brandy, the bane of this country, were spread on the board. After we had
dined hospitality made them, with some degree of mystery, bring us some
excellent coffee. I did not then know that it was prohibited.

The good man of the house apologised for coming in continually, but
declared that he was so glad to speak English he could not stay out. He
need not have apologised; I was equally glad of his company. With the
wife I could only exchange smiles, and she was employed observing the
make of our clothes. My hands, I found, had first led her to discover
that I was the lady. I had, of course, my quantum of reverences; for the
politeness of the north seems to partake of the coldness of the climate
and the rigidity of its iron-sinewed rocks. Amongst the peasantry there
is, however, so much of the simplicity of the golden age in this land of
flint--so much overflowing of heart and fellow-feeling, that only
benevolence and the honest sympathy of nature diffused smiles over my
countenance when they kept me standing, regardless of my fatigue, whilst
they dropped courtesy after courtesy.

The situation of this house was beautiful, though chosen for
convenience. The master being the officer who commanded all the pilots
on the coast, and the person appointed to guard wrecks, it was necessary
for him to fix on a spot that would overlook the whole bay. As he had
seen some service, he wore, not without a pride I thought becoming, a
badge to prove that he had merited well of his country. It was happy, I
thought, that he had been paid in honour, for the stipend he received
was little more than twelve pounds a year. I do not trouble myself or
you with the calculation of Swedish ducats. Thus, my friend, you
perceive the necessity of perquisites. This same narrow policy runs
through everything. I shall have occasion further to animadvert on it.

Though my host amused me with an account of himself, which gave me an
idea of the manners of the people I was about to visit, I was eager to
climb the rocks to view the country, and see whether the honest tars had
regained their ship. With the help of the lieutenant's telescope, I saw
the vessel under way with a fair though gentle gale. The sea was calm,
playful even as the most shallow stream, and on the vast basin I did not
see a dark speck to indicate the boat. My conductors were consequently
arrived.

Straying further, my eye was attracted by the sight of some heartsease
that peeped through the rocks. I caught at it as a good omen, and going
to preserve it in a letter that had not conveyed balm to my heart, a
cruel remembrance suffused my eyes; but it passed away like an April
shower. If you are deep read in Shakespeare, you will recollect that
this was the little western flower tinged by love's dart, which "maidens
call love in idleness."  The gaiety of my babe was unmixed; regardless
of omens or sentiments, she found a few wild strawberries more grateful
than flowers or fancies.

The lieutenant informed me that this was a commodious bay. Of that I
could not judge, though I felt its picturesque beauty. Rocks were piled
on rocks, forming a suitable bulwark to the ocean. "Come no further,"
they emphatically said, turning their dark sides to the waves to augment
the idle roar. The view was sterile; still little patches of earth of
the most exquisite verdure, enamelled with the sweetest wild flowers,
seemed to promise the goats and a few straggling cows luxurious herbage.
How silent and peaceful was the scene!  I gazed around with rapture, and
felt more of that spontaneous pleasure which gives credibility to our
expectation of happiness than I had for a long, long time before. I
forgot the horrors I had witnessed in France, which had cast a gloom
over all nature, and suffering the enthusiasm of my character--too
often, gracious God! damped by the tears of disappointed affection--to
be lighted up afresh, care took wing while simple fellow-feeling
expanded my heart.

To prolong this enjoyment, I readily assented to the proposal of our
host to pay a visit to a family, the master of which spoke English, who
was the drollest dog in the country, he added, repeating some of his
stories with a hearty laugh.

I walked on, still delighted with the rude beauties of the scene; for
the sublime often gave place imperceptibly to the beautiful, dilating
the emotions which were painfully concentrated.

When we entered this abode, the largest I had yet seen, I was introduced
to a numerous family; but the father, from whom I was led to expect so
much entertainment, was absent. The lieutenant consequently was obliged
to be the interpreter of our reciprocal compliments. The phrases were
awkwardly transmitted, it is true; but looks and gestures were
sufficient to make them intelligible and interesting. The girls were all
vivacity, and respect for me could scarcely keep them from romping with
my host, who, asking for a pinch of snuff, was presented with a box, out
of which an artificial mouse, fastened to the bottom, sprang. Though
this trick had doubtless been played time out of mind, yet the laughter
it excited was not less genuine.

They were overflowing with civility; but, to prevent their almost
killing my babe with kindness, I was obliged to shorten my visit; and
two or three of the girls accompanied us, bringing with them a part of
whatever the house afforded to contribute towards rendering my supper
more plentiful; and plentiful in fact it was, though I with difficulty
did honour to some of the dishes, not relishing the quantity of sugar
and spices put into everything. At supper my host told me bluntly that I
was a woman of observation, for I asked him _men's questions_.

The arrangements for my journey were quickly made. I could only have a
car with post-horses, as I did not choose to wait till a carriage could
be sent for to Gothenburg. The expense of my journey (about one or two
and twenty English miles) I found would not amount to more than eleven
or twelve shillings, paying, he assured me, generously. I gave him a
guinea and a half. But it was with the greatest difficulty that I could
make him take so much--indeed anything--for my lodging and fare. He
declared that it was next to robbing me, explaining how much I ought to
pay on the road. However, as I was positive, he took the guinea for
himself; but, as a condition, insisted on accompanying me, to prevent my
meeting with any trouble or imposition on the way.

I then retired to my apartment with regret. The night was so fine that I
would gladly have rambled about much longer, yet, recollecting that I
must rise very early, I reluctantly went to bed; but my senses had been
so awake, and my imagination still continued so busy, that I sought for
rest in vain. Rising before six, I scented the sweet morning air; I had
long before heard the birds twittering to hail the dawning day, though
it could scarcely have been allowed to have departed.

Nothing, in fact, can equal the beauty of the northern summer's evening
and night, if night it may be called that only wants the glare of day,
the full light which frequently seems so impertinent, for I could write
at midnight very well without a candle. I contemplated all Nature at
rest; the rocks, even grown darker in their appearance, looked as if
they partook of the general repose, and reclined more heavily on their
foundation. "What," I exclaimed, "is this active principle which keeps
me still awake?  Why fly my thoughts abroad, when everything around me
appears at home?"  My child was sleeping with equal calmness--innocent
and sweet as the closing flowers. Some recollections, attached to the
idea of home, mingled with reflections respecting the state of society I
had been contemplating that evening, made a tear drop on the rosy cheek
I had just kissed, and emotions that trembled on the brink of ecstasy
and agony gave a poignancy to my sensations which made me feel more
alive than usual.

What are these imperious sympathies?  How frequently has melancholy and
even misanthropy taken possession of me, when the world has disgusted
me, and friends have proved unkind. I have then considered myself as a
particle broken off from the grand mass of mankind; I was alone, till
some involuntary sympathetic emotion, like the attraction of adhesion,
made me feel that I was still a part of a mighty whole, from which I
could not sever myself--not, perhaps, for the reflection has been
carried very far, by snapping the thread of an existence, which loses
its charms in proportion as the cruel experience of life stops or
poisons the current of the heart. Futurity, what hast thou not to give
to those who know that there is such a thing as happiness!  I speak not
of philosophical contentment, though pain has afforded them the
strongest conviction of it.

After our coffee and milk--for the mistress of the house had been roused
long before us by her hospitality--my baggage was taken forward in a
boat by my host, because the car could not safely have been brought to
the house.

The road at first was very rocky and troublesome, but our driver was
careful, and the horses accustomed to the frequent and sudden
acclivities and descents; so that, not apprehending any danger, I played
with my girl, whom I would not leave to Marguerite's care, on account of
her timidity.

Stopping at a little inn to bait the horses, I saw the first countenance
in Sweden that displeased me, though the man was better dressed than any
one who had as yet fallen in my way. An altercation took place between
him and my host, the purport of which I could not guess, excepting that
I was the occasion of it, be it what it would. The sequel was his
leaving the house angrily; and I was immediately informed that he was
the custom-house officer. The professional had indeed effaced the
national character, for, living as he did within these frank hospitable
people, still only the exciseman appeared, the counterpart of some I had
met with in England and France. I was unprovided with a passport, not
having entered any great town. At Gothenburg I knew I could immediately
obtain one, and only the trouble made me object to the searching my
trunks. He blustered for money; but the lieutenant was determined to
guard me, according to promise, from imposition.

To avoid being interrogated at the town-gate, and obliged to go in the
rain to give an account of myself (merely a form) before we could get
the refreshment we stood in need of, he requested us to descend--I might
have said step--from our car, and walk into town.

I expected to have found a tolerable inn, but was ushered into a most
comfortless one; and, because it was about five o'clock, three or four
hours after their dining hour, I could not prevail on them to give me
anything warm to eat.

The appearance of the accommodations obliged me to deliver one of my
recommendatory letters, and the gentleman to whom it was addressed sent
to look out for a lodging for me whilst I partook of his supper. As
nothing passed at this supper to characterise the country, I shall here
close my letter.

Yours truly.




LETTER II.


Gothenburg is a clean airy town, and, having been built by the Dutch,
has canals running through each street; and in some of them there are
rows of trees that would render it very pleasant were it not for the
pavement, which is intolerably bad.

There are several rich commercial houses--Scotch, French, and Swedish;
but the Scotch, I believe, have been the most successful. The commerce
and commission business with France since the war has been very
lucrative, and enriched the merchants I am afraid at the expense of the
other inhabitants, by raising the price of the necessaries of life.

As all the men of consequence--I mean men of the largest fortune--are
merchants, their principal enjoyment is a relaxation from business at
the table, which is spread at, I think, too early an hour (between one
and two) for men who have letters to write and accounts to settle after
paying due respect to the bottle.

However, when numerous circles are to be brought together, and when
neither literature nor public amusements furnish topics for
conversation, a good dinner appears to be the only centre to rally
round, especially as scandal, the zest of more select parties, can only
be whispered. As for politics, I have seldom found it a subject of
continual discussion in a country town in any part of the world. The
politics of the place, being on a smaller scale, suits better with the
size of their faculties; for, generally speaking, the sphere of
observation determines the extent of the mind.

The more I see of the world, the more I am convinced that civilisation
is a blessing not sufficiently estimated by those who have not traced
its progress; for it not only refines our enjoyments, but produces a
variety which enables us to retain the primitive delicacy of our
sensations. Without the aid of the imagination all the pleasures of the
senses must sink into grossness, unless continual novelty serve as a
substitute for the imagination, which, being impossible, it was to this
weariness, I suppose, that Solomon alluded when he declared that there
was nothing new under the sun!--nothing for the common sensations
excited by the senses. Yet who will deny that the imagination and
understanding have made many, very many discoveries since those days,
which only seem harbingers of others still more noble and beneficial?  I
never met with much imagination amongst people who had not acquired a
habit of reflection; and in that state of society in which the judgment
and taste are not called forth, and formed by the cultivation of the
arts and sciences, little of that delicacy of feeling and thinking is to
be found characterised by the word sentiment. The want of scientific
pursuits perhaps accounts for the hospitality, as well as for the
cordial reception which strangers receive from the inhabitants of small
towns.

Hospitality has, I think, been too much praised by travellers as a proof
of goodness of heart, when, in my opinion, indiscriminate hospitality is
rather a criterion by which you may form a tolerable estimate of the
indolence or vacancy of a head; or, in other words, a fondness for
social pleasures in which the mind not having its proportion of
exercise, the bottle must be pushed about.

These remarks are equally applicable to Dublin, the most hospitable city
I ever passed through. But I will try to confine my observations more
particularly to Sweden.

It is true I have only had a glance over a small part of it; yet of its
present state of manners and acquirements I think I have formed a
distinct idea, without having visited the capital--where, in fact, less
of a national character is to be found than in the remote parts of the
country.

The Swedes pique themselves on their politeness; but far from being the
polish of a cultivated mind, it consists merely of tiresome forms and
ceremonies. So far, indeed, from entering immediately into your
character, and making you feel instantly at your ease, like the
well-bred French, their over-acted civility is a continual restraint on
all your actions. The sort of superiority which a fortune gives when
there is no superiority of education, excepting what consists in the
observance of senseless forms, has a contrary effect than what is
intended; so that I could not help reckoning the peasantry the politest
people of Sweden, who, only aiming at pleasing you, never think of being
admired for their behaviour.

Their tables, like their compliments, seem equally a caricature of the
French. The dishes are composed, as well as theirs, of a variety of
mixtures to destroy the native taste of the food without being as
relishing. Spices and sugar are put into everything, even into the
bread; and the only way I can account for their partiality to
high-seasoned dishes is the constant use of salted provisions. Necessity
obliges them to lay up a store of dried fish and salted meat for the
winter; and in summer, fresh meat and fish taste insipid after them. To
which may be added the constant use of spirits. Every day, before dinner
and supper, even whilst the dishes are cooling on the table, men and
women repair to a side-table; and to obtain an appetite eat bread-and-
butter, cheese, raw salmon, or anchovies, drinking a glass of brandy.
Salt fish or meat then immediately follows, to give a further whet to
the stomach. As the dinner advances, pardon me for taking up a few
minutes to describe what, alas! has detained me two or three hours on
the stretch observing, dish after dish is changed, in endless rotation,
and handed round with solemn pace to each guest; but should you happen
not to like the first dishes, which was often my case, it is a gross
breach of politeness to ask for part of any other till its turn comes.
But have patience, and there will be eating enough. Allow me to run over
the acts of a visiting day, not overlooking the interludes.

Prelude a luncheon--then a succession of fish, flesh, and fowl for two
hours, during which time the dessert--I was sorry for the strawberries
and cream--rests on the table to be impregnated by the fumes of the
viands. Coffee immediately follows in the drawing-room, but does not
preclude punch, ale, tea and cakes, raw salmon, &c. A supper brings up
the rear, not forgetting the introductory luncheon, almost equalling in
removes the dinner. A day of this kind you would imagine sufficient; but
a to-morrow and a to-morrow--A never-ending, still-beginning feast may
be bearable, perhaps, when stern winter frowns, shaking with chilling
aspect his hoary locks; but during a summer, sweet as fleeting, let me,
my kind strangers, escape sometimes into your fir groves, wander on the
margin of your beautiful lakes, or climb your rocks, to view still
others in endless perspective, which, piled by more than giant's hand,
scale the heavens to intercept its rays, or to receive the parting tinge
of lingering day--day that, scarcely softened unto twilight, allows the
freshening breeze to wake, and the moon to burst forth in all her glory
to glide with solemn elegance through the azure expanse.

The cow's bell has ceased to tinkle the herd to rest; they have all
paced across the heath. Is not this the witching time of night?  The
waters murmur, and fall with more than mortal music, and spirits of
peace walk abroad to calm the agitated breast. Eternity is in these
moments. Worldly cares melt into the airy stuff that dreams are made of,
and reveries, mild and enchanting as the first hopes of love or the
recollection of lost enjoyment, carry the hapless wight into futurity,
who in bustling life has vainly strove to throw off the grief which lies
heavy at the heart. Good night!  A crescent hangs out in the vault
before, which woos me to stray abroad. It is not a silvery reflection
of the sun, but glows with all its golden splendour. Who fears the
fallen dew?  It only makes the mown grass smell more fragrant. Adieu!




LETTER III.


The population of Sweden has been estimated from two millions and a half
to three millions; a small number for such an immense tract of country,
of which only so much is cultivated--and that in the simplest manner--as
is absolutely requisite to supply the necessaries of life; and near the
seashore, whence herrings are easily procured, there scarcely appears a
vestige of cultivation. The scattered huts that stand shivering on the
naked rocks, braving the pitiless elements, are formed of logs of wood
rudely hewn; and so little pains are taken with the craggy foundation
that nothing like a pathway points out the door.

Gathered into himself by the cold, lowering his visage to avoid the
cutting blast, is it surprising that the churlish pleasure of drinking
drams takes place of social enjoyments amongst the poor, especially if
we take into the account that they mostly live on high-seasoned
provision and rye bread?  Hard enough, you may imagine, as it is baked
only once a year. The servants also, in most families, eat this kind of
bread, and have a different kind of food from their masters, which, in
spite of all the arguments I have heard to vindicate the custom, appears
to me a remnant of barbarism.

In fact, the situation of the servants in every respect, particularly
that of the women, shows how far the Swedes are from having a just
conception of rational equality. They are not termed slaves; yet a man
may strike a man with impunity because he pays him wages, though these
wages are so low that necessity must teach them to pilfer, whilst
servility renders them false and boorish. Still the men stand up for the
dignity of man by oppressing the women. The most menial, and even
laborious offices, are therefore left to these poor drudges. Much of
this I have seen. In the winter, I am told, they take the linen down to
the river to wash it in the cold water, and though their hands, cut by
the ice, are cracked and bleeding, the men, their fellow-servants, will
not disgrace their manhood by carrying a tub to lighten their burden.

You will not be surprised to hear that they do not wear shoes or
stockings, when I inform you that their wages are seldom more than
twenty or thirty shillings per annum. It is the custom, I know, to give
them a new year's gift and a present at some other period, but can it
all amount to a just indemnity for their labour?  The treatment of
servants in most countries, I grant, is very unjust, and in England,
that boasted land of freedom, it is often extremely tyrannical. I have
frequently, with indignation, heard gentlemen declare that they would
never allow a servant to answer them; and ladies of the most exquisite
sensibility, who were continually exclaiming against the cruelty of the
vulgar to the brute creation, have in my presence forgot that their
attendants had human feelings as well as forms. I do not know a more
agreeable sight than to see servants part of a family. By taking an
interest, generally speaking, in their concerns you inspire them with
one for yours. We must love our servants, or we shall never be
sufficiently attentive to their happiness; and how can those masters be
attentive to their happiness who, living above their fortunes, are more
anxious to outshine their neighbours than to allow their household the
innocent enjoyments they earn?

It is, in fact, much more difficult for servants, who are tantalised by
seeing and preparing the dainties of which they are not to partake, to
remain honest, than the poor, whose thoughts are not led from their
homely fare; so that, though the servants here are commonly thieves, you
seldom hear of housebreaking, or robbery on the highway. The country is,
perhaps, too thinly inhabited to produce many of that description of
thieves termed footpads, or highwaymen. They are usually the spawn of
great cities--the effect of the spurious desires generated by wealth,
rather than the desperate struggles of poverty to escape from misery.

The enjoyment of the peasantry was drinking brandy and coffee, before
the latter was prohibited, and the former not allowed to be privately
distilled, the wars carried on by the late king rendering it necessary
to increase the revenue, and retain the specie in the country by every
possible means.

The taxes before the reign of Charles XII. were inconsiderable. Since
then the burden has continually been growing heavier, and the price of
provisions has proportionately increased--nay, the advantage accruing
from the exportation of corn to France and rye to Germany will probably
produce a scarcity in both Sweden and Norway, should not a peace put a
stop to it this autumn, for speculations of various kinds have already
almost doubled the price.

Such are the effects of war, that it saps the vitals even of the neutral
countries, who, obtaining a sudden influx of wealth, appear to be
rendered flourishing by the destruction which ravages the hapless
nations who are sacrificed to the ambition of their governors. I shall
not, however, dwell on the vices, though they be of the most
contemptible and embruting cast, to which a sudden accession of fortune
gives birth, because I believe it may be delivered as an axiom, that it
is only in proportion to the industry necessary to acquire wealth that a
nation is really benefited by it.

The prohibition of drinking coffee under a penalty, and the
encouragement given to public distilleries, tend to impoverish the poor,
who are not affected by the sumptuary laws; for the regent has lately
laid very severe restraints on the articles of dress, which the middling
class of people found grievous, because it obliged them to throw aside
finery that might have lasted them for their lives.

These may be termed vexatious; still the death of the king, by saving
them from the consequences his ambition would naturally have entailed on
them, may be reckoned a blessing.

Besides, the French Revolution has not only rendered all the crowned
heads more cautious, but has so decreased everywhere (excepting amongst
themselves) a respect for nobility, that the peasantry have not only
lost their blind reverence for their seigniors, but complain in a manly
style of oppressions which before they did not think of denominating
such, because they were taught to consider themselves as a different
order of beings. And, perhaps, the efforts which the aristocrats are
making here, as well as in every other part of Europe, to secure their
sway, will be the most effectual mode of undermining it, taking into the
calculation that the King of Sweden, like most of the potentates of
Europe, has continually been augmenting his power by encroaching on the
privileges of the nobles.

The well-bred Swedes of the capital are formed on the ancient French
model, and they in general speak that language; for they have a knack at
acquiring languages with tolerable fluency. This may be reckoned an
advantage in some respects; but it prevents the cultivation of their
own, and any considerable advance in literary pursuits.

A sensible writer has lately observed (I have not his work by me,
therefore cannot quote his exact words), "That the Americans very wisely
let the Europeans make their books and fashions for them."  But I cannot
coincide with him in this opinion. The reflection necessary to produce a
certain number even of tolerable productions augments more than he is
aware of the mass of knowledge in the community. Desultory reading is
commonly a mere pastime. But we must have an object to refer our
reflections to, or they will seldom go below the surface. As in
travelling, the keeping of a journal excites to many useful inquiries
that would not have been thought of had the traveller only determined to
see all he could see, without ever asking himself for what purpose.
Besides, the very dabbling in literature furnishes harmless topics of
conversation; for the not having such subjects at hand, though they are
often insupportably fatiguing, renders the inhabitants of little towns
prying and censorious. Idleness, rather than ill-nature, gives birth to
scandal, and to the observation of little incidents which narrows the
mind. It is frequently only the fear of being talked of which produces
that puerile scrupulosity about trifles incompatible with an enlarged
plan of usefulness, and with the basis of all moral principles--respect
for the virtues which are not merely the virtues of convention.

I am, my friend, more and more convinced that a metropolis, or an abode
absolutely solitary, is the best calculated for the improvement of the
heart, as well as the understanding; whether we desire to become
acquainted with man, nature, or ourselves. Mixing with mankind, we are
obliged to examine our prejudices, and often imperceptibly lose, as we
analyse them. And in the country, growing intimate with nature, a
thousand little circumstances, unseen by vulgar eyes, give birth to
sentiments dear to the imagination, and inquiries which expand the soul,
particularly when cultivation has not smoothed into insipidity all its
originality of character.

I love the country, yet whenever I see a picturesque situation chosen on
which to erect a dwelling I am always afraid of the improvements. It
requires uncommon taste to form a whole, and to introduce accommodations
and ornaments analogous with the surrounding scene.

I visited, near Gothenburg, a house with improved land about it, with
which I was particularly delighted. It was close to a lake embosomed in
pine-clad rocks. In one part of the meadows your eye was directed to the
broad expanse, in another you were led into a shade, to see a part of
it, in the form of a river, rush amongst the fragments of rocks and
roots of trees; nothing seemed forced. One recess, particularly grand
and solemn amongst the towering cliffs, had a rude stone table and seat
placed in it, that might have served for a Druid's haunt, whilst a
placid stream below enlivened the flowers on its margin, where
light-footed elves would gladly have danced their airy rounds.

Here the hand of taste was conspicuous though not obtrusive, and formed
a contrast with another abode in the same neighbourhood, on which much
money had been lavished; where Italian colonnades were placed to excite
the wonder of the rude crags, and a stone staircase, to threaten with
destruction a wooden house. Venuses and Apollos condemned to lie hid in
snow three parts of the year seemed equally displaced, and called the
attention off from the surrounding sublimity, without inspiring any
voluptuous sensations. Yet even these abortions of vanity have been
useful. Numberless workmen have been employed, and the superintending
artist has improved the labourers, whose unskilfulness tormented him, by
obliging them to submit to the discipline of rules. Adieu!

Yours affectionately.




LETTER IV.


The severity of the long Swedish winter tends to render the people
sluggish, for though this season has its peculiar pleasures, too much
time is employed to guard against its inclemency. Still as warm clothing
is absolutely necessary, the women spin and the men weave, and by these
exertions get a fence to keep out the cold. I have rarely passed a knot
of cottages without seeing cloth laid out to bleach, and when I entered,
always found the women spinning or knitting.

A mistaken tenderness, however, for their children, makes them even in
summer load them with flannels, and having a sort of natural antipathy
to cold water, the squalid appearance of the poor babes, not to speak of
the noxious smell which flannel and rugs retain, seems a reply to a
question I had often asked--Why I did not see more children in the
villages I passed through?  Indeed the children appear to be nipt in the
bud, having neither the graces nor charms of their age. And this, I am
persuaded, is much more owing to the ignorance of the mothers than to
the rudeness of the climate. Rendered feeble by the continual
perspiration they are kept in, whilst every pore is absorbing
unwholesome moisture, they give them, even at the breast, brandy, salt
fish, and every other crude substance which air and exercise enables the
parent to digest.

The women of fortune here, as well as everywhere else, have nurses to
suckle their children; and the total want of chastity in the lower class
of women frequently renders them very unfit for the trust.

You have sometimes remarked to me the difference of the manners of the
country girls in England and in America; attributing the reserve of the
former to the climate--to the absence of genial suns. But it must be
their stars, not the zephyrs, gently stealing on their senses, which
here lead frail women astray. Who can look at these rocks, and allow the
voluptuousness of nature to be an excuse for gratifying the desires it
inspires?  We must therefore, find some other cause beside
voluptuousness, I believe, to account for the conduct of the Swedish and
American country girls; for I am led to conclude, from all the
observations I have made, that there is always a mixture of sentiment
and imagination in voluptuousness, to which neither of them have much
pretension.

The country girls of Ireland and Wales equally feel the first impulse of
nature, which, restrained in England by fear or delicacy, proves that
society is there in a more advanced state. Besides, as the mind is
cultivated, and taste gains ground, the passions become stronger, and
rest on something more stable than the casual sympathies of the moment.
Health and idleness will always account for promiscuous amours; and in
some degree I term every person idle, the exercise of whose mind does
not bear some proportion to that of the body.

The Swedish ladies exercise neither sufficiently; of course, grow very
fat at an early age; and when they have not this downy appearance, a
comfortable idea, you will say, in a cold climate, they are not
remarkable for fine forms. They have, however, mostly fine complexions;
but indolence makes the lily soon displace the rose. The quantity of
coffee, spices, and other things of that kind, with want of care, almost
universally spoil their teeth, which contrast but ill with their ruby
lips.

The manners of Stockholm are refined, I hear, by the introduction of
gallantry; but in the country, romping and coarse freedoms, with coarser
allusions, keep the spirits awake. In the article of cleanliness, the
women of all descriptions seem very deficient; and their dress shows
that vanity is more inherent in women than taste.

The men appear to have paid still less court to the graces. They are a
robust, healthy race, distinguished for their common sense and turn for
humour, rather than for wit or sentiment. I include not, as you may
suppose, in this general character, some of the nobility and officers,
who having travelled, are polite and well informed.

I must own to you that the lower class of people here amuse and interest
me much more than the middling, with their apish good breeding and
prejudices. The sympathy and frankness of heart conspicuous in the
peasantry produces even a simple gracefulness of deportment which has
frequently struck me as very picturesque; I have often also been touched
by their extreme desire to oblige me, when I could not explain my wants,
and by their earnest manner of expressing that desire. There is such a
charm in tenderness!  It is so delightful to love our fellow-creatures,
and meet the honest affections as they break forth. Still, my good
friend, I begin to think that I should not like to live continually in
the country with people whose minds have such a narrow range. My heart
would frequently be interested; but my mind would languish for more
companionable society.

The beauties of nature appear to me now even more alluring than in my
youth, because my intercourse with the world has formed without
vitiating my taste. But, with respect to the inhabitants of the country,
my fancy has probably, when disgusted with artificial manners, solaced
itself by joining the advantages of cultivation with the interesting
sincerity of innocence, forgetting the lassitude that ignorance will
naturally produce. I like to see animals sporting, and sympathise in
their pains and pleasures. Still I love sometimes to view the human face
divine, and trace the soul, as well as the heart, in its varying
lineaments.

A journey to the country, which I must shortly make, will enable me to
extend my remarks.--Adieu!




LETTER V.


Had I determined to travel in Sweden merely for pleasure, I should
probably have chosen the road to Stockholm, though convinced, by
repeated observation, that the manners of a people are best
discriminated in the country. The inhabitants of the capital are all of
the same genus; for the varieties in the species we must, therefore,
search where the habitations of men are so separated as to allow the
difference of climate to have its natural effect. And with this
difference we are, perhaps, most forcibly struck at the first view, just
as we form an estimate of the leading traits of a character at the first
glance, of which intimacy afterwards makes us almost lose sight.

As my affairs called me to Stromstad (the frontier town of Sweden) in my
way to Norway, I was to pass over, I heard, the most uncultivated part
of the country. Still I believe that the grand features of Sweden are
the same everywhere, and it is only the grand features that admit of
description. There is an individuality in every prospect, which remains
in the memory as forcibly depicted as the particular features that have
arrested our attention; yet we cannot find words to discriminate that
individuality so as to enable a stranger to say, this is the face, that
the view. We may amuse by setting the imagination to work; but we cannot
store the memory with a fact.

As I wish to give you a general idea of this country, I shall continue
in my desultory manner to make such observations and reflections as the
circumstances draw forth, without losing time, by endeavouring to
arrange them.

Travelling in Sweden is very cheap, and even commodious, if you make but
the proper arrangements. Here, as in other parts of the Continent, it is
necessary to have your own carriage, and to have a servant who can speak
the language, if you are unacquainted with it. Sometimes a servant who
can drive would be found very useful, which was our case, for I
travelled in company with two gentlemen, one of whom had a German
servant who drove very well. This was all the party; for not intending
to make a long stay, I left my little girl behind me.

As the roads are not much frequented, to avoid waiting three or four
hours for horses, we sent, as is the constant custom, an _avant courier_
the night before, to order them at every post, and we constantly found
them ready. Our first set I jokingly termed requisition horses; but
afterwards we had almost always little spirited animals that went on at
a round pace.

The roads, making allowance for the ups and downs, are uncommonly good
and pleasant. The expense, including the postillions and other
incidental things, does not amount to more than a shilling the Swedish
mile.

The inns are tolerable; but not liking the rye bread, I found it
necessary to furnish myself with some wheaten before I set out. The
beds, too, were particularly disagreeable to me. It seemed to me that I
was sinking into a grave when I entered them; for, immersed in down
placed in a sort of box, I expected to be suffocated before morning. The
sleeping between two down beds--they do so even in summer--must be very
unwholesome during any season; and I cannot conceive how the people can
bear it, especially as the summers are very warm. But warmth they seem
not to feel; and, I should think, were afraid of the air, by always
keeping their windows shut. In the winter, I am persuaded, I could not
exist in rooms thus closed up, with stoves heated in their manner, for
they only put wood into them twice a day; and, when the stove is
thoroughly heated, they shut the flue, not admitting any air to renew
its elasticity, even when the rooms are crowded with company. These
stoves are made of earthenware, and often in a form that ornaments an
apartment, which is never the case with the heavy iron ones I have seen
elsewhere. Stoves may be economical, but I like a fire, a wood one, in
preference; and I am convinced that the current of air which it attracts
renders this the best mode of warming rooms.

We arrived early the second evening at a little village called Quistram,
where we had determined to pass the night, having been informed that we
should not afterwards find a tolerable inn until we reached Stromstad.

Advancing towards Quistram, as the sun was beginning to decline, I was
particularly impressed by the beauty of the situation. The road was on
the declivity of a rocky mountain, slightly covered with a mossy herbage
and vagrant firs. At the bottom, a river, straggling amongst the
recesses of stone, was hastening forward to the ocean and its grey
rocks, of which we had a prospect on the left; whilst on the right it
stole peacefully forward into the meadows, losing itself in a
thickly-wooded rising ground. As we drew near, the loveliest banks of
wild flowers variegated the prospect, and promised to exhale odours to
add to the sweetness of the air, the purity of which you could almost
see, alas! not smell, for the putrefying herrings, which they use as
manure, after the oil has been extracted, spread over the patches of
earth, claimed by cultivation, destroyed every other.

It was intolerable, and entered with us into the inn, which was in other
respects a charming retreat.

Whilst supper was preparing I crossed the bridge, and strolled by the
river, listening to its murmurs. Approaching the bank, the beauty of
which had attracted my attention in the carriage, I recognised many of
my old acquaintance growing with great luxuriance.

Seated on it, I could not avoid noting an obvious remark. Sweden
appeared to me the country in the world most proper to form the botanist
and natural historian; every object seemed to remind me of the creation
of things, of the first efforts of sportive nature. When a country
arrives at a certain state of perfection, it looks as if it were made
so; and curiosity is not excited. Besides, in social life too many
objects occur for any to be distinctly observed by the generality of
mankind; yet a contemplative man, or poet, in the country--I do not mean
the country adjacent to cities--feels and sees what would escape vulgar
eyes, and draws suitable inferences. This train of reflections might
have led me further, in every sense of the word; but I could not escape
from the detestable evaporation of the herrings, which poisoned all my
pleasure.

After making a tolerable supper--for it is not easy to get fresh
provisions on the road--I retired, to be lulled to sleep by the
murmuring of a stream, of which I with great difficulty obtained
sufficient to perform my daily ablutions.

The last battle between the Danes and Swedes, which gave new life to
their ancient enmity, was fought at this place 1788; only seventeen or
eighteen were killed, for the great superiority of the Danes and
Norwegians obliged the Swedes to submit; but sickness, and a scarcity of
provision, proved very fatal to their opponents on their return.

It would be very easy to search for the particulars of this engagement
in the publications of the day; but as this manner of filling my pages
does not come within my plan, I probably should not have remarked that
the battle was fought here, were it not to relate an anecdote which I
had from good authority.

I noticed, when I first mentioned this place to you, that we descended a
steep before we came to the inn; an immense ridge of rocks stretching
out on one side. The inn was sheltered under them; and about a hundred
yards from it was a bridge that crossed the river, the murmurs of which
I have celebrated; it was not fordable. The Swedish general received
orders to stop at the bridge and dispute the passage--a most
advantageous post for an army so much inferior in force; but the
influence of beauty is not confined to courts. The mistress of the inn
was handsome; when I saw her there were still some remains of beauty;
and, to preserve her house, the general gave up the only tenable
station. He was afterwards broke for contempt of orders.

Approaching the frontiers, consequently the sea, nature resumed an
aspect ruder and ruder, or rather seemed the bones of the world waiting
to be clothed with everything necessary to give life and beauty. Still
it was sublime.

The clouds caught their hue of the rocks that menaced them. The sun
appeared afraid to shine, the birds ceased to sing, and the flowers to
bloom; but the eagle fixed his nest high amongst the rocks, and the
vulture hovered over this abode of desolation. The farm houses, in which
only poverty resided, were formed of logs scarcely keeping off the cold
and drifting snow: out of them the inhabitants seldom peeped, and the
sports or prattling of children was neither seen or heard. The current
of life seemed congealed at the source: all were not frozen, for it was
summer, you remember; but everything appeared so dull that I waited to
see ice, in order to reconcile me to the absence of gaiety.

The day before, my attention had frequently been attracted by the wild
beauties of the country we passed through.

The rocks which tossed their fantastic heads so high were often covered
with pines and firs, varied in the most picturesque manner. Little woods
filled up the recesses when forests did not darken the scene, and
valleys and glens, cleared of the trees, displayed a dazzling verdure
which contrasted with the gloom of the shading pines. The eye stole into
many a covert where tranquillity seemed to have taken up her abode, and
the number of little lakes that continually presented themselves added
to the peaceful composure of the scenery. The little cultivation which
appeared did not break the enchantment, nor did castles rear their
turrets aloft to crush the cottages, and prove that man is more savage
than the natives of the woods. I heard of the bears but never saw them
stalk forth, which I was sorry for; I wished to have seen one in its
wild state. In the winter, I am told, they sometimes catch a stray cow,
which is a heavy loss to the owner.

The farms are small. Indeed most of the houses we saw on the road
indicated poverty, or rather that the people could just live. Towards
the frontiers they grew worse and worse in their appearance, as if not
willing to put sterility itself out of countenance. No gardens smiled
round the habitations, not a potato or cabbage to eat with the fish
drying on a stick near the door. A little grain here and there appeared,
the long stalks of which you might almost reckon. The day was gloomy
when we passed over this rejected spot, the wind bleak, and winter
seemed to be contending with nature, faintly struggling to change the
season. Surely, thought I, if the sun ever shines here it cannot warm
these stones; moss only cleaves to them, partaking of their hardness,
and nothing like vegetable life appears to cheer with hope the heart.

So far from thinking that the primitive inhabitants of the world lived
in a southern climate where Paradise spontaneously arose, I am led to
infer, from various circumstances, that the first dwelling of man
happened to be a spot like this which led him to adore a sun so seldom
seen; for this worship, which probably preceded that of demons or
demigods, certainly never began in a southern climate, where the
continual presence of the sun prevented its being considered as a good;
or rather the want of it never being felt, this glorious luminary would
carelessly have diffused its blessings without being hailed as a
benefactor. Man must therefore have been placed in the north, to tempt
him to run after the sun, in order that the different parts of the earth
might be peopled. Nor do I wonder that hordes of barbarians always
poured out of these regions to seek for milder climes, when nothing like
cultivation attached them to the soil, especially when we take into the
view that the adventuring spirit, common to man, is naturally stronger
and more general during the infancy of society. The conduct of the
followers of Mahomet, and the crusaders, will sufficiently corroborate
my assertion.

Approaching nearer to Stromstad, the appearance of the town proved to be
quite in character with the country we had just passed through. I
hesitated to use the word country, yet could not find another; still it
would sound absurd to talk of fields of rocks.

The town was built on and under them. Three or four weather-beaten trees
were shrinking from the wind, and the grass grew so sparingly that I
could not avoid thinking Dr. Johnson's hyperbolical assertion "that the
man merited well of his country who made a few blades of grass grow
where they never grew before," might here have been uttered with strict
propriety. The steeple likewise towered aloft, for what is a church,
even amongst the Lutherans, without a steeple?  But to prevent mischief
in such an exposed situation, it is wisely placed on a rock at some
distance not to endanger the roof of the church.

Rambling about, I saw the door open, and entered, when to my great
surprise I found the clergyman reading prayers, with only the clerk
attending. I instantly thought of Swift's "Dearly beloved Roger," but on
inquiry I learnt that some one had died that morning, and in Sweden it
is customary to pray for the dead.

The sun, who I suspected never dared to shine, began now to convince me
that he came forth only to torment; for though the wind was still
cutting, the rocks became intolerably warm under my feet, whilst the
herring effluvia, which I before found so very offensive, once more
assailed me. I hastened back to the house of a merchant, the little
sovereign of the place, because he was by far the richest, though not
the mayor.

Here we were most hospitably received, and introduced to a very fine and
numerous family. I have before mentioned to you the lilies of the north,
I might have added, water lilies, for the complexion of many, even of
the young women, seem to be bleached on the bosom of snow. But in this
youthful circle the roses bloomed with all their wonted freshness, and I
wondered from whence the fire was stolen which sparkled in their fine
blue eyes.

Here we slept; and I rose early in the morning to prepare for my little
voyage to Norway. I had determined to go by water, and was to leave my
companions behind; but not getting a boat immediately, and the wind
being high and unfavourable, I was told that it was not safe to go to
sea during such boisterous weather; I was, therefore, obliged to wait
for the morrow, and had the present day on my hands, which I feared
would be irksome, because the family, who possessed about a dozen French
words amongst them and not an English phrase, were anxious to amuse me,
and would not let me remain alone in my room. The town we had already
walked round and round, and if we advanced farther on the coast, it was
still to view the same unvaried immensity of water surrounded by
barrenness.

The gentlemen, wishing to peep into Norway, proposed going to
Fredericshall, the first town--the distance was only three Swedish
miles. There and back again was but a day's journey, and would not, I
thought, interfere with my voyage. I agreed, and invited the eldest and
prettiest of the girls to accompany us. I invited her because I like to
see a beautiful face animated by pleasure, and to have an opportunity of
regarding the country, whilst the gentlemen were amusing themselves with
her.

I did not know, for I had not thought of it, that we were to scale some
of the most mountainous cliffs of Sweden in our way to the ferry which
separates the two countries.

Entering amongst the cliffs, we were sheltered from the wind, warm
sunbeams began to play, streams to flow, and groves of pines diversified
the rocks. Sometimes they became suddenly bare and sublime. Once, in
particular, after mounting the most terrific precipice, we had to pass
through a tremendous defile, where the closing chasm seemed to threaten
us with instant destruction, when, turning quickly, verdant meadows and
a beautiful lake relieved and charmed my eyes.

I had never travelled through Switzerland, but one of my companions
assured me that I should not there find anything superior, if equal, to
the wild grandeur of these views.

As we had not taken this excursion into our plan, the horses had not
been previously ordered, which obliged us to wait two hours at the first
post. The day was wearing away. The road was so bad that walking up the
precipices consumed the time insensibly; but as we desired horses at
each post ready at a certain hour, we reckoned on returning more
speedily.

We stopped to dine at a tolerable farm; they brought us out ham, butter,
cheese, and milk, and the charge was so moderate that I scattered a
little money amongst the children who were peeping at us, in order to
pay them for their trouble.

Arrived at the ferry, we were still detained, for the people who attend
at the ferries have a stupid kind of sluggishness in their manner, which
is very provoking when you are in haste. At present I did not feel it,
for, scrambling up the cliffs, my eye followed the river as it rolled
between the grand rocky banks; and, to complete the scenery, they were
covered with firs and pines, through which the wind rustled as if it
were lulling itself to sleep with the declining sun.

Behold us now in Norway; and I could not avoid feeling surprise at
observing the difference in the manners of the inhabitants of the two
sides of the river, for everything shows that the Norwegians are more
industrious and more opulent. The Swedes (for neighbours are seldom the
best friends) accuse the Norwegians of knavery, and they retaliate by
bringing a charge of hypocrisy against the Swedes. Local circumstances
probably render both unjust, speaking from their feelings rather than
reason; and is this astonishing when we consider that most writers of
travels have done the same, whose works have served as materials for the
compilers of universal histories?  All are eager to give a national
character, which is rarely just, because they do not discriminate the
natural from the acquired difference. The natural, I believe, on due
consideration, will be found to consist merely in the degree of
vivacity, or thoughtfulness, pleasures or pain, inspired by the climate,
whilst the varieties which the forms of government, including religion,
produce are much more numerous and unstable.

A people have been characterised as stupid by nature; what a paradox!
because they did not consider that slaves, having no object to stimulate
industry, have not their faculties sharpened by the only thing that can
exercise them, self-interest. Others have been brought forward as
brutes, having no aptitude for the arts and sciences, only because the
progress of improvement had not reached that stage which produces them.

Those writers who have considered the history of man, or of the human
mind, on a more enlarged scale have fallen into similar errors, not
reflecting that the passions are weak where the necessaries of life are
too hardly or too easily obtained.

Travellers who require that every nation should resemble their native
country, had better stay at home. It is, for example, absurd to blame a
people for not having that degree of personal cleanliness and elegance
of manners which only refinement of taste produces, and will produce
everywhere in proportion as society attains a general polish. The most
essential service, I presume, that authors could render to society,
would be to promote inquiry and discussion, instead of making those
dogmatical assertions which only appear calculated to gird the human
mind round with imaginary circles, like the paper globe which represents
the one he inhabits.

This spirit of inquiry is the characteristic of the present century,
from which the succeeding will, I am persuaded, receive a great
accumulation of knowledge; and doubtless its diffusion will in a great
measure destroy the factitious national characters which have been
supposed permanent, though only rendered so by the permanency of
ignorance.

Arriving at Fredericshall, at the siege of which Charles XII. lost his
life, we had only time to take a transient view of it whilst they were
preparing us some refreshment.

Poor Charles!  I thought of him with respect. I have always felt the
same for Alexander, with whom he has been classed as a madman by several
writers, who have reasoned superficially, confounding the morals of the
day with the few grand principles on which unchangeable morality rests.
Making no allowance for the ignorance and prejudices of the period, they
do not perceive how much they themselves are indebted to general
improvement for the acquirements, and even the virtues, which they would
not have had the force of mind to attain by their individual exertions
in a less advanced state of society.

The evening was fine, as is usual at this season, and the refreshing
odour of the pine woods became more perceptible, for it was nine o'clock
when we left Fredericshall. At the ferry we were detained by a dispute
relative to our Swedish passport, which we did not think of getting
countersigned in Norway. Midnight was coming on, yet it might with such
propriety have been termed the noon of night that, had Young ever
travelled towards the north, I should not have wondered at his becoming
enamoured of the moon. But it is not the Queen of Night alone who reigns
here in all her splendour, though the sun, loitering just below the
horizon, decks her within a golden tinge from his car, illuminating the
cliffs that hide him; the heavens also, of a clear softened blue, throw
her forward, and the evening star appears a smaller moon to the naked
eye. The huge shadows of the rocks, fringed with firs, concentrating the
views without darkening them, excited that tender melancholy which,
sublimating the imagination, exalts rather than depresses the mind.

My companions fell asleep--fortunately they did not snore; and I
contemplated, fearless of idle questions, a night such as I had never
before seen or felt, to charm the senses, and calm the heart. The very
air was balmy as it freshened into morn, producing the most voluptuous
sensations. A vague pleasurable sentiment absorbed me, as I opened my
bosom to the embraces of nature; and my soul rose to its Author, with
the chirping of the solitary birds, which began to feel, rather than
see, advancing day. I had leisure to mark its progress. The grey morn,
streaked with silvery rays, ushered in the orient beams (how beautifully
varying into purple!), yet I was sorry to lose the soft watery clouds
which preceded them, exciting a kind of expectation that made me almost
afraid to breathe, lest I should break the charm. I saw the sun--and
sighed.

One of my companions, now awake, perceiving that the postillion had
mistaken the road, began to swear at him, and roused the other two, who
reluctantly shook off sleep.

We had immediately to measure back our steps, and did not reach
Stromstad before five in the morning.

The wind had changed in the night, and my boat was ready.

A dish of coffee, and fresh linen, recruited my spirits, and I directly
set out again for Norway, purposing to land much higher up the coast.

Wrapping my great-coat round me, I lay down on some sails at the bottom
of the boat, its motion rocking me to rest, till a discourteous wave
interrupted my slumbers, and obliged me to rise and feel a solitariness
which was not so soothing as that of the past night.

Adieu!




LETTER VI.


The sea was boisterous, but, as I had an experienced pilot, I did not
apprehend any danger. Sometimes, I was told, boats are driven far out
and lost. However, I seldom calculate chances so nicely--sufficient for
the day is the obvious evil!

We had to steer amongst islands and huge rocks, rarely losing sight of
the shore, though it now and then appeared only a mist that bordered the
water's edge. The pilot assured me that the numerous harbours on the
Norway coast were very safe, and the pilot-boats were always on the
watch. The Swedish side is very dangerous, I am also informed; and the
help of experience is not often at hand to enable strange vessels to
steer clear of the rocks, which lurk below the water close to the shore.

There are no tides here, nor in the Cattegate, and, what appeared to me
a consequence, no sandy beach. Perhaps this observation has been made
before; but it did not occur to me till I saw the waves continually
beating against the bare rocks, without ever receding to leave a
sediment to harden.

The wind was fair, till we had to tack about in order to enter Laurvig,
where we arrived towards three o'clock in the afternoon. It is a clean,
pleasant town, with a considerable iron-work, which gives life to it.

As the Norwegians do not frequently see travellers, they are very
curious to know their business, and who they are--so curious, that I was
half tempted to adopt Dr. Franklin's plan, when travelling in America,
where they are equally prying, which was to write on a paper, for public
inspection, my name, from whence I came, where I was going, and what was
my business. But if I were importuned by their curiosity, their friendly
gestures gratified me. A woman coming alone interested them. And I know
not whether my weariness gave me a look of peculiar delicacy, but they
approached to assist me, and inquire after my wants, as if they were
afraid to hurt, and wished to protect me. The sympathy I inspired, thus
dropping down from the clouds in a strange land, affected me more than
it would have done had not my spirits been harassed by various
causes--by much thinking--musing almost to madness--and even by a sort
of weak melancholy that hung about my heart at parting with my daughter
for the first time.

You know that, as a female, I am particularly attached to her; I feel
more than a mother's fondness and anxiety when I reflect on the
dependent and oppressed state of her sex. I dread lest she should be
forced to sacrifice her heart to her principles, or principles to her
heart. With trembling hand I shall cultivate sensibility and cherish
delicacy of sentiment, lest, whilst I lend fresh blushes to the rose, I
sharpen the thorns that will wound the breast I would fain guard; I
dread to unfold her mind, lest it should render her unfit for the world
she is to inhabit. Hapless woman! what a fate is thine!

But whither am I wandering?  I only meant to tell you that the
impression the kindness of the simple people made visible on my
countenance increased my sensibility to a painful degree. I wished to
have had a room to myself, for their attention, and rather distressing
observation, embarrassed me extremely. Yet, as they would bring me eggs,
and make my coffee, I found I could not leave them without hurting their
feelings of hospitality.

It is customary here for the host and hostess to welcome their guests as
master and mistress of the house.

My clothes, in their turn, attracted the attention of the females, and I
could not help thinking of the foolish vanity which makes many women so
proud of the observation of strangers as to take wonder very
gratuitously for admiration. This error they are very apt to fall into
when, arrived in a foreign country, the populace stare at them as they
pass. Yet the make of a cap or the singularity of a gown is often the
cause of the flattering attention which afterwards supports a fantastic
superstructure of self-conceit.

Not having brought a carriage over with me, expecting to have met a
person where I landed, who was immediately to have procured me one, I
was detained whilst the good people of the inn sent round to all their
acquaintance to search for a vehicle. A rude sort of cabriole was at
last found, and a driver half drunk, who was not less eager to make a
good bargain on that account. I had a Danish captain of a ship and his
mate with me; the former was to ride on horseback, at which he was not
very expert, and the latter to partake of my seat. The driver mounted
behind to guide the horses and flourish the whip over our shoulders; he
would not suffer the reins out of his own hands. There was something so
grotesque in our appearance that I could not avoid shrinking into myself
when I saw a gentleman-like man in the group which crowded round the
door to observe us. I could have broken the driver's whip for cracking
to call the women and children together, but seeing a significant smile
on the face, I had before remarked, I burst into a laugh to allow him to
do so too, and away we flew. This is not a flourish of the pen, for we
actually went on full gallop a long time, the horses being very good;
indeed, I have never met with better, if so good, post-horses as in
Norway. They are of a stouter make than the English horses, appear to be
well fed, and are not easily tired.

I had to pass over, I was informed, the most fertile and best cultivated
tract of country in Norway. The distance was three Norwegian miles,
which are longer than the Swedish. The roads were very good; the farmers
are obliged to repair them; and we scampered through a great extent of
country in a more improved state than any I had viewed since I left
England. Still there was sufficient of hills, dales, and rocks to
prevent the idea of a plain from entering the head, or even of such
scenery as England and France afford. The prospects were also
embellished by water, rivers, and lakes before the sea proudly claimed
my regard, and the road running frequently through lofty groves rendered
the landscapes beautiful, though they were not so romantic as those I
had lately seen with such delight.

It was late when I reached Tonsberg, and I was glad to go to bed at a
decent inn. The next morning the 17th of July, conversing with the
gentleman with whom I had business to transact, I found that I should be
detained at Tonsberg three weeks, and I lamented that I had not brought
my child with me.

The inn was quiet, and my room so pleasant, commanding a view of the
sea, confined by an amphitheatre of hanging woods, that I wished to
remain there, though no one in the house could speak English or French.
The mayor, my friend, however, sent a young woman to me who spoke a
little English, and she agreed to call on me twice a day to receive my
orders and translate them to my hostess.

My not understanding the language was an excellent pretext for dining
alone, which I prevailed on them to let me do at a late hour, for the
early dinners in Sweden had entirely deranged my day. I could not alter
it there without disturbing the economy of a family where I was as a
visitor, necessity having forced me to accept of an invitation from a
private family, the lodgings were so incommodious.

Amongst the Norwegians I had the arrangement of my own time, and I
determined to regulate it in such a manner that I might enjoy as much of
their sweet summer as I possibly could; short, it is true, but "passing
sweet."

I never endured a winter in this rude clime, consequently it was not the
contrast, but the real beauty of the season which made the present
summer appear to me the finest I had ever seen. Sheltered from the north
and eastern winds, nothing can exceed the salubrity, the soft freshness
of the western gales. In the evening they also die away; the aspen
leaves tremble into stillness, and reposing nature seems to be warmed by
the moon, which here assumes a genial aspect. And if a light shower has
chanced to fall with the sun, the juniper, the underwood of the forest,
exhales a wild perfume, mixed with a thousand nameless sweets that,
soothing the heart, leave images in the memory which the imagination
will ever hold dear.

Nature is the nurse of sentiment, the true source of taste; yet what
misery, as well as rapture, is produced by a quick perception of the
beautiful and sublime when it is exercised in observing animated nature,
when every beauteous feeling and emotion excites responsive sympathy,
and the harmonised soul sinks into melancholy or rises to ecstasy, just
as the chords are touched, like the Æolian harp agitated by the
changing wind. But how dangerous is it to foster these sentiments in
such an imperfect state of existence, and how difficult to eradicate
them when an affection for mankind, a passion for an individual, is but
the unfolding of that love which embraces all that is great and
beautiful!

When a warm heart has received strong impressions, they are not to be
effaced. Emotions become sentiments, and the imagination renders even
transient sensations permanent by fondly retracing them. I cannot,
without a thrill of delight, recollect views I have seen, which are not
to be forgotten, nor looks I have felt in every nerve, which I shall
never more meet. The grave has closed over a dear friend, the friend of
my youth. Still she is present with me, and I hear her soft voice
warbling as I stray over the heath. Fate has separated me from another,
the fire of whose eyes, tempered by infantine tenderness, still warms my
breast; even when gazing on these tremendous cliffs sublime emotions
absorb my soul. And, smile not, if I add that the rosy tint of morning
reminds me of a suffusion which will never more charm my senses, unless
it reappears on the cheeks of my child. Her sweet blushes I may yet hide
in my bosom, and she is still too young to ask why starts the tear so
near akin to pleasure and pain.

I cannot write any more at present. To-morrow we will talk of Tonsberg.




LETTER VII.


Though the king of Denmark be an absolute monarch, yet the Norwegians
appear to enjoy all the blessings of freedom. Norway may be termed a
sister kingdom; but the people have no viceroy to lord it over them, and
fatten his dependants with the fruit of their labour.

There are only two counts in the whole country who have estates, and
exact some feudal observances from their tenantry. All the rest of the
country is divided into small farms, which belong to the cultivator. It
is true some few, appertaining to the Church, are let, but always on a
lease for life, generally renewed in favour of the eldest son, who has
this advantage as well as a right to a double portion of the property.
But the value of the farm is estimated, and after his portion is
assigned to him he must be answerable for the residue to the remaining
part of the family.

Every farmer for ten years is obliged to attend annually about twelve
days to learn the military exercise, but it is always at a small
distance from his dwelling, and does not lead him into any new habits of
life.

There are about six thousand regulars also in garrison at Christiania
and Fredericshall, who are equally reserved, with the militia, for the
defence of their own country. So that when the Prince Royal passed into
Sweden in 1788, he was obliged to request, not command, them to
accompany him on this expedition.

These corps are mostly composed of the sons of the cottagers, who being
labourers on the farms, are allowed a few acres to cultivate for
themselves. These men voluntarily enlist, but it is only for a limited
period (six years), at the expiration of which they have the liberty of
retiring. The pay is only twopence a day and bread; still, considering
the cheapness of the country, it is more than sixpence in England.

The distribution of landed property into small farms produces a degree
of equality which I have seldom seen elsewhere; and the rich being all
merchants, who are obliged to divide their personal fortune amongst
their children, the boys always receiving twice as much as the girls,
property has met a chance of accumulating till overgrowing wealth
destroys the balance of liberty.

You will be surprised to hear me talk of liberty; yet the Norwegians
appear to me to be the most free community I have ever observed.

The mayor of each town or district, and the judges in the country,
exercise an authority almost patriarchal. They can do much good, but
little harm,--as every individual can appeal from their judgment; and as
they may always be forced to give a reason for their conduct, it is
generally regulated by prudence. "They have not time to learn to be
tyrants," said a gentleman to me, with whom I discussed the subject.

The farmers not fearing to be turned out of their farms, should they
displease a man in power, and having no vote to be commanded at an
election for a mock representative, are a manly race; for not being
obliged to submit to any debasing tenure in order to live, or advance
themselves in the world, they act with an independent spirit. I never
yet have heard of anything like domineering or oppression, excepting
such as has arisen from natural causes. The freedom the people enjoy
may, perhaps, render them a little litigious, and subject them to the
impositions of cunning practitioners of the law; but the authority of
office is bounded, and the emoluments of it do not destroy its utility.

Last year a man who had abused his power was cashiered, on the
representation of the people to the bailiff of the district.

There are four in Norway who might with propriety be termed sheriffs;
and from their sentence an appeal, by either party, may be made to
Copenhagen.

Near most of the towns are commons, on which the cows of all the
inhabitants, indiscriminately, are allowed to graze. The poor, to whom a
cow is necessary, are almost supported by it. Besides, to render living
more easy, they all go out to fish in their own boats, and fish is their
principal food.

The lower class of people in the towns are in general sailors; and the
industrious have usually little ventures of their own that serve to
render the winter comfortable.

With respect to the country at large, the importation is considerably in
favour of Norway.

They are forbidden, at present, to export corn or rye on account of the
advanced price.

The restriction which most resembles the painful subordination of
Ireland, is that vessels, trading to the West Indies, are obliged to
pass by their own ports, and unload their cargoes at Copenhagen, which
they afterwards reship. The duty is indeed inconsiderable, but the
navigation being dangerous, they run a double risk.

There is an excise on all articles of consumption brought to the towns;
but the officers are not strict, and it would be reckoned invidious to
enter a house to search, as in England.

The Norwegians appear to me a sensible, shrewd people, with little
scientific knowledge, and still less taste for literature; but they are
arriving at the epoch which precedes the introduction of the arts and
sciences.

Most of the towns are seaports, and seaports are not favourable to
improvement. The captains acquire a little superficial knowledge by
travelling, which their indefatigable attention to the making of money
prevents their digesting; and the fortune that they thus laboriously
acquire is spent, as it usually is in towns of this description, in show
and good living. They love their country, but have not much public
spirit. Their exertions are, generally speaking, only for their
families, which, I conceive, will always be the case, till politics,
becoming a subject of discussion, enlarges the heart by opening the
understanding. The French Revolution will have this effect. They sing,
at present, with great glee, many Republican songs, and seem earnestly
to wish that the republic may stand; yet they appear very much attached
to their Prince Royal, and, as far as rumour can give an idea of a
character, he appears to merit their attachment. When I am at
Copenhagen, I shall be able to ascertain on what foundation their good
opinion is built; at present I am only the echo of it.

In the year 1788 he travelled through Norway; and acts of mercy gave
dignity to the parade, and interest to the joy his presence inspired. At
this town he pardoned a girl condemned to die for murdering an
illegitimate child, a crime seldom committed in this country. She is
since married, and become the careful mother of a family. This might be
given as an instance, that a desperate act is not always a proof of an
incorrigible depravity of character, the only plausible excuse that has
been brought forward to justify the infliction of capital punishments.

I will relate two or three other anecdotes to you, for the truth of
which I will not vouch because the facts were not of sufficient
consequence for me to take much pains to ascertain them; and, true or
false, they evince that the people like to make a kind of mistress of
their prince.

An officer, mortally wounded at the ill-advised battle of Quistram,
desired to speak with the prince; and with his dying breath, earnestly
recommended to his care a young woman of Christiania, to whom he was
engaged. When the prince returned there, a ball was given by the chief
inhabitants: he inquired whether this unfortunate girl was invited, and
requested that she might, though of the second class. The girl came; she
was pretty; and finding herself among her superiors, bashfully sat down
as near the door as possible, nobody taking notice of her. Shortly
after, the prince entering, immediately inquired for her, and asked her
to dance, to the mortification of the rich dames. After it was over he
handed her to the top of the room, and placing himself by her, spoke of
the loss she had sustained, with tenderness, promising to provide for
anyone she should marry, as the story goes. She is since married, and he
has not forgotten his promise.

A little girl, during the same expedition, in Sweden, who informed him
that the logs of a bridge were out underneath, was taken by his orders
to Christiania, and put to school at his expense.

Before I retail other beneficial effects of his journey, it is necessary
to inform you that the laws here are mild, and do not punish capitally
for any crime but murder, which seldom occurs. Every other offence
merely subjects the delinquent to imprisonment and labour in the castle,
or rather arsenal at Christiania, and the fortress at Fredericshall. The
first and second conviction produces a sentence for a limited number of
years--two, three, five, or seven, proportioned to the atrocity of the
crime. After the third he is whipped, branded in the forehead, and
condemned to perpetual slavery. This is the ordinary course of justice.
For some flagrant breaches of trust, or acts of wanton cruelty,
criminals have been condemned to slavery for life the first time of
conviction, but not frequently. The number of these slaves do not, I am
informed, amount to more than a hundred, which is not considerable,
compared with the population, upwards of eight hundred thousand. Should
I pass through Christiania, on my return to Gothenburg, I shall probably
have an opportunity of learning other particulars.

There is also a House of Correction at Christiania for trifling
misdemeanours, where the women are confined to labour and imprisonment
even for life. The state of the prisoners was represented to the prince,
in consequence of which he visited the arsenal and House of Correction.
The slaves at the arsenal were loaded with irons of a great weight; he
ordered them to be lightened as much as possible.

The people in the House of Correction were commanded not to speak to
him; but four women, condemned to remain there for life, got into the
passage, and fell at his feet. He granted them a pardon; and inquiring
respecting the treatment of the prisoners, he was informed that they
were frequently whipped going in, and coming out, and for any fault, at
the discretion of the inspectors. This custom he humanely abolished,
though some of the principal inhabitants, whose situation in life had
raised them above the temptation of stealing, were of opinion that these
chastisements were necessary and wholesome.

In short, everything seems to announce that the prince really cherishes
the laudable ambition of fulfilling the duties of his station. This
ambition is cherished and directed by the Count Bernstorff, the Prime
Minister of Denmark, who is universally celebrated for his abilities and
virtue. The happiness of the people is a substantial eulogium; and, from
all I can gather, the inhabitants of Denmark and Norway are the least
oppressed people of Europe. The press is free. They translate any of the
French publications of the day, deliver their opinion on the subject,
and discuss those it leads to with great freedom, and without fearing to
displease the Government.

On the subject of religion they are likewise becoming tolerant, at
least, and perhaps have advanced a step further in free-thinking. One
writer has ventured to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, and to
question the necessity or utility of the Christian system, without being
considered universally as a monster, which would have been the case a
few years ago. They have translated many German works on education; and
though they have not adopted any of their plans, it has become a subject
of discussion. There are some grammar and free schools; but, from what I
hear, not very good ones. All the children learn to read, write, and
cast accounts, for the purposes of common life. They have no university;
and nothing that deserves the name of science is taught; nor do
individuals, by pursuing any branch of knowledge, excite a degree of
curiosity which is the forerunner of improvement. Knowledge is not
absolutely necessary to enable a considerable portion of the community
to live; and, till it is, I fear it never becomes general.

In this country, where minerals abound, there is not one collection;
and, in all probability, I venture a conjecture, the want of mechanical
and chemical knowledge renders the silver mines unproductive, for the
quantity of silver obtained every year is not sufficient to defray the
expenses. It has been urged that the employment of such a number of
hands is very beneficial. But a positive loss is never to be done away;
and the men, thus employed, would naturally find some other means of
living, instead of being thus a dead weight on Government, or rather on
the community from whom its revenue is drawn.

About three English miles from Tonsberg there is a salt work, belonging,
like all their establishments, to Government, in which they employ above
a hundred and fifty men, and maintain nearly five hundred people, who
earn their living. The clear profit, an increasing one, amounts to two
thousand pounds sterling. And as the eldest son of the inspector, an
ingenious young man, has been sent by the Government to travel, and
acquire some mathematical and chemical knowledge in Germany, it has a
chance of being improved. He is the only person I have met with here who
appears to have a scientific turn of mind. I do not mean to assert that
I have not met with others who have a spirit of inquiry.

The salt-works at St. Ubes are basins in the sand, and the sun produces
the evaporation, but here there is no beach. Besides, the heat of summer
is so short-lived that it would be idle to contrive machines for such an
inconsiderable portion of the year. They therefore always use fires; and
the whole establishment appears to be regulated with judgment.

The situation is well chosen and beautiful. I do not find, from the
observation of a person who has resided here for forty years, that the
sea advances or recedes on this coast.

I have already remarked that little attention is paid to education,
excepting reading, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic; I ought to
have added that a catechism is carefully taught, and the children
obliged to read in the churches, before the congregation, to prove that
they are not neglected.

Degrees, to enable any one to practise any profession, must be taken at
Copenhagen; and the people of this country, having the good sense to
perceive that men who are to live in a community should at least acquire
the elements of their knowledge, and form their youthful attachments
there, are seriously endeavouring to establish a university in Norway.
And Tonsberg, as a central place in the best part of the country, had
the most suffrages, for, experiencing the bad effects of a metropolis,
they have determined not to have it in or near Christiania. Should such
an establishment take place, it will promote inquiry throughout the
country, and give a new face to society. Premiums have been offered, and
prize questions written, which I am told have merit. The building
college-halls, and other appendages of the seat of science, might enable
Tonsberg to recover its pristine consequence, for it is one of the most
ancient towns of Norway, and once contained nine churches. At present
there are only two. One is a very old structure, and has a Gothic
respectability about it, which scarcely amounts to grandeur, because, to
render a Gothic pile grand, it must have a huge unwieldiness of
appearance. The chapel of Windsor may be an exception to this rule; I
mean before it was in its present nice, clean state. When I first saw
it, the pillars within had acquired, by time, a sombre hue, which
accorded with the architecture; and the gloom increased its dimensions
to the eye by hiding its parts; but now it all bursts on the view at
once, and the sublimity has vanished before the brush and broom; for it
has been white-washed and scraped till it has become as bright and neat
as the pots and pans in a notable house-wife's kitchen--yes; the very
spurs on the recumbent knights were deprived of their venerable rust, to
give a striking proof that a love of order in trifles, and taste for
proportion and arrangement, are very distinct. The glare of light thus
introduced entirely destroys the sentiment these piles are calculated to
inspire; so that, when I heard something like a jig from the organ-loft,
I thought it an excellent hall for dancing or feasting. The measured
pace of thought with which I had entered the cathedral changed into a
trip; and I bounded on the terrace, to see the royal family, with a
number of ridiculous images in my head that I shall not now recall.

The Norwegians are fond of music, and every little church has an organ.
In the church I have mentioned there is an inscription importing that a
king James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, who came with more than
princely gallantry to escort his bride home--stood there, and heard
divine service.

There is a little recess full of coffins, which contains bodies embalmed
long since--so long, that there is not even a tradition to lead to a
guess at their names.

A desire of preserving the body seems to have prevailed in most
countries of the world, futile as it is to term it a preservation, when
the noblest parts are immediately sacrificed merely to save the muscles,
skin, and bone from rottenness. When I was shown these human
petrifactions, I shrank back with disgust and horror. "Ashes to ashes!"
thought I--"Dust to dust!"  If this be not dissolution, it is something
worse than natural decay--it is treason against humanity, thus to lift
up the awful veil which would fain hide its weakness. The grandeur of
the active principle is never more strongly felt than at such a sight,
for nothing is so ugly as the human form when deprived of life, and thus
dried into stone, merely to preserve the most disgusting image of death.
The contemplation of noble ruins produces a melancholy that exalts the
mind. We take a retrospect of the exertions of man, the fate of empires
and their rulers, and marking the grand destruction of ages, it seems
the necessary change of time leading to improvement. Our very soul
expands, and we forget our littleness--how painfully brought to our
recollection by such vain attempts to snatch from decay what is destined
so soon to perish. Life, what art thou?  Where goes this breath?--this
_I_, so much alive?  In what element will it mix, giving or receiving
fresh energy?  What will break the enchantment of animation?  For worlds
I would not see a form I loved--embalmed in my heart--thus
sacrilegiously handled?  Pugh! my stomach turns. Is this all the
distinction of the rich in the grave? They had better quietly allow the
scythe of equality to mow them down with the common mass, than struggle
to become a monument of the instability of human greatness.

The teeth, nails, and skin were whole, without appearing black like the
Egyptian mummies; and some silk, in which they had been wrapped, still
preserved its colour--pink--with tolerable freshness.

I could not learn how long the bodies had been in this state, in which
they bid fair to remain till the Day of Judgment, if there is to be such
a day; and before that time, it will require some trouble to make them
fit to appear in company with angels without disgracing humanity. God
bless you!  I feel a conviction that we have some perfectible principle
in our present vestment, which will not be destroyed just as we begin to
be sensible of improvement; and I care not what habit it next puts on,
sure that it will be wisely formed to suit a higher state of existence.
Thinking of death makes us tenderly cling to our affections; with more
than usual tenderness I therefore assure you that I am yours, wishing
that the temporary death of absence may not endure longer than is
absolutely necessary.




LETTER VIII.


Tonsberg was formerly the residence of one of the little sovereigns of
Norway; and on an adjacent mountain the vestiges of a fort remain, which
was battered down by the Swedes, the entrance of the bay lying close to
it.

Here I have frequently strayed, sovereign of the waste; I seldom met any
human creature; and sometimes, reclining on the mossy down, under the
shelter of a rock, the prattling of the sea amongst the pebbles has
lulled me to sleep--no fear of any rude satyr's approaching to interrupt
my repose. Balmy were the slumbers, and soft the gales, that refreshed
me, when I awoke to follow, with an eye vaguely curious, the white
sails, as they turned the cliffs, or seemed to take shelter under the
pines which covered the little islands that so gracefully rose to render
the terrific ocean beautiful. The fishermen were calmly casting their
nets, whilst the sea-gulls hovered over the unruffled deep. Everything
seemed to harmonise into tranquillity; even the mournful call of the
bittern was in cadence with the tinkling bells on the necks of the cows,
that, pacing slowly one after the other, along an inviting path in the
vale below, were repairing to the cottages to be milked. With what
ineffable pleasure have I not gazed--and gazed again, losing my breath
through my eyes--my very soul diffused itself in the scene; and, seeming
to become all senses, glided in the scarcely-agitated waves, melted in
the freshening breeze, or, taking its flight with fairy wing, to the
misty mountain which bounded the prospect, fancy tripped over new lawns,
more beautiful even than the lovely slopes on the winding shore before
me. I pause, again breathless, to trace, with renewed delight,
sentiments which entranced me, when, turning my humid eyes from the
expanse below to the vault above, my sight pierced the fleecy clouds
that softened the azure brightness; and imperceptibly recalling the
reveries of childhood, I bowed before the awful throne of my Creator,
whilst I rested on its footstool.

You have sometimes wondered, my dear friend, at the extreme affection of
my nature. But such is the temperature of my soul. It is not the
vivacity of youth, the heyday of existence. For years have I endeavoured
to calm an impetuous tide, labouring to make my feelings take an orderly
course. It was striving against the stream. I must love and admire with
warmth, or I sink into sadness. Tokens of love which I have received
have wrapped me in Elysium, purifying the heart they enchanted. My bosom
still glows. Do not saucily ask, repeating Sterne's question, "Maria, is
it still so warm?"  Sufficiently, O my God! has it been chilled by
sorrow and unkindness; still nature will prevail; and if I blush at
recollecting past enjoyment, it is the rosy hue of pleasure heightened
by modesty, for the blush of modesty and shame are as distinct as the
emotions by which they are produced.

I need scarcely inform you, after telling you of my walks, that my
constitution has been renovated here, and that I have recovered my
activity even whilst attaining a little _embonpoint_. My imprudence last
winter, and some untoward accidents just at the time I was weaning my
child, had reduced me to a state of weakness which I never before
experienced. A slow fever preyed on me every night during my residence
in Sweden, and after I arrived at Tonsberg. By chance I found a fine
rivulet filtered through the rocks, and confined in a basin for the
cattle. It tasted to me like a chalybeate; at any rate, it was pure; and
the good effect of the various waters which invalids are sent to drink
depends, I believe, more on the air, exercise, and change of scene, than
on their medicinal qualities. I therefore determined to turn my morning
walks towards it, and seek for health from the nymph of the fountain,
partaking of the beverage offered to the tenants of the shade.

Chance likewise led me to discover a new pleasure equally beneficial to
my health. I wished to avail myself of my vicinity to the sea and bathe;
but it was not possible near the town; there was no convenience. The
young woman whom I mentioned to you proposed rowing me across the water
amongst the rocks; but as she was pregnant, I insisted on taking one of
the oars, and learning to row. It was not difficult, and I do not know a
pleasanter exercise. I soon became expert, and my train of thinking kept
time, as it were, with the oars, or I suffered the boat to be carried
along by the current, indulging a pleasing forgetfulness or fallacious
hopes. How fallacious! yet, without hope, what is to sustain life, but
the fear of annihilation--the only thing of which I have ever felt a
dread. I cannot bear to think of being no more--of losing myself--though
existence is often but a painful consciousness of misery; nay, it
appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this
active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be
organised dust--ready to fly abroad the moment the spring snaps, or the
spark goes out which kept it together. Surely something resides in this
heart that is not perishable, and life is more than a dream.

Sometimes, to take up my oar once more, when the sea was calm, I was
amused by disturbing the innumerable young star fish which floated just
below the surface; I had never observed them before, for they have not a
hard shell like those which I have seen on the seashore. They look like
thickened water with a white edge, and four purple circles, of different
forms, were in the middle, over an incredible number of fibres or white
lines. Touching them, the cloudy substance would turn or close, first on
one side, then on the other, very gracefully, but when I took one of
them up in the ladle, with which I heaved the water out of the boat, it
appeared only a colourless jelly.

I did not see any of the seals, numbers of which followed our boat when
we landed in Sweden; but though I like to sport in the water I should
have had no desire to join in their gambols.

Enough, you will say, of inanimate nature and of brutes, to use the
lordly phrase of man; let me hear something of the inhabitants.

The gentleman with whom I had business is the Mayor of Tonsberg. He
speaks English intelligibly, and, having a sound understanding, I was
sorry that his numerous occupations prevented my gaining as much
information from him as I could have drawn forth had we frequently
conversed. The people of the town, as far as I had an opportunity of
knowing their sentiments, are extremely well satisfied with his manner
of discharging his office. He has a degree of information and good sense
which excites respect, whilst a cheerfulness, almost amounting to
gaiety, enables him to reconcile differences and keep his neighbours in
good humour. "I lost my horse," said a woman to me, "but ever since,
when I want to send to the mill, or go out, the Mayor lends me one. He
scolds if I do not come for it."

A criminal was branded, during my stay here, for the third offence; but
the relief he received made him declare that the judge was one of the
best men in the world.

I sent this wretch a trifle, at different times, to take with him into
slavery. As it was more than he expected, he wished very much to see me,
and this wish brought to my remembrance an anecdote I heard when I was
in Lisbon.

A wretch who had been imprisoned several years, during which period
lamps had been put up, was at last condemned to a cruel death, yet, in
his way to execution, he only wished for one night's respite to see the
city lighted.

Having dined in company at the mayor's I was invited with his family to
spend the day at one of the richest merchant's houses. Though I could
not speak Danish I knew that I could see a great deal; yes, I am
persuaded that I have formed a very just opinion of the character of the
Norwegians, without being able to hold converse with them.

I had expected to meet some company, yet was a little disconcerted at
being ushered into an apartment full of well dressed people, and
glancing my eyes round they rested on several very pretty faces. Rosy
cheeks, sparkling eyes, and light brown or golden locks; for I never saw
so much hair with a yellow cast, and, with their fine complexions, it
looked very becoming.

These women seem a mixture of indolence and vivacity; they scarcely ever
walk out, and were astonished that I should for pleasure, yet they are
immoderately fond of dancing. Unaffected in their manners, if they have
no pretensions to elegance, simplicity often produces a gracefulness of
deportment, when they are animated by a particular desire to please,
which was the case at present. The solitariness of my situation, which
they thought terrible, interested them very much in my favour. They
gathered round me, sung to me, and one of the prettiest, to whom I gave
my hand with some degree of cordiality, to meet the glance of her eyes,
kissed me very affectionately.

At dinner, which was conducted with great hospitality, though we
remained at table too long, they sung several songs, and, amongst the
rest, translations of some patriotic French ones. As the evening
advanced they became playful, and we kept up a sort of conversation of
gestures. As their minds were totally uncultivated I did not lose much,
perhaps gained, by not being able to understand them; for fancy probably
filled up, more to their advantage, the void in the picture. Be that as
it may, they excited my sympathy, and I was very much flattered when I
was told the next day that they said it was a pleasure to look at me, I
appeared so good-natured.

The men were generally captains of ships. Several spoke English very
tolerably, but they were merely matter-of-fact men, confined to a very
narrow circle of observation. I found it difficult to obtain from them
any information respecting their own country, when the fumes of tobacco
did not keep me at a distance.

I was invited to partake of some other feasts, and always had to
complain of the quantity of provision and the length of time taken to
consume it; for it would not have been proper to have said devour, all
went on so fair and softly. The servants wait as slowly as their
mistresses carve.

The young women here, as well as in Sweden, have commonly bad teeth,
which I attribute to the same causes. They are fond of finery, but do
not pay the necessary attention to their persons, to render beauty less
transient than a flower, and that interesting expression which sentiment
and accomplishments give seldom supplies its place.

The servants have, likewise, an inferior sort of food here, but their
masters are not allowed to strike them with impunity. I might have added
mistresses, for it was a complaint of this kind brought before the mayor
which led me to a knowledge of the fact.

The wages are low, which is particularly unjust, because the price of
clothes is much higher than that of provision. A young woman, who is wet
nurse to the mistress of the inn where I lodge, receives only twelve
dollars a year, and pays ten for the nursing of her own child. The
father had run away to get clear of the expense. There was something in
this most painful state of widowhood which excited my compassion and led
me to reflections on the instability of the most flattering plans of
happiness, that were painful in the extreme, till I was ready to ask
whether this world was not created to exhibit every possible combination
of wretchedness. I asked these questions of a heart writhing with
anguish, whilst I listened to a melancholy ditty sung by this poor girl.
It was too early for thee to be abandoned, thought I, and I hastened out
of the house to take my solitary evening's walk. And here I am again to
talk of anything but the pangs arising from the discovery of estranged
affection and the lonely sadness of a deserted heart.

The father and mother, if the father can be ascertained, are obliged to
maintain an illegitimate child at their joint expense; but, should the
father disappear, go up the country or to sea, the mother must maintain
it herself. However, accidents of this kind do not prevent their
marrying, and then it is not unusual to take the child or children home,
and they are brought up very amicably with the marriage progeny.

I took some pains to learn what books were written originally in their
language; but for any certain information respecting the state of Danish
literature I must wait till I arrive at Copenhagen.

The sound of the language is soft, a great proportion of the words
ending in vowels; and there is a simplicity in the turn of some of the
phrases which have been translated to me that pleased and interested me.
In the country the farmers use the _thou_ and _thee_; and they do not
acquire the polite plurals of the towns by meeting at market. The not
having markets established in the large towns appears to me a great
inconvenience. When the farmers have anything to sell they bring it to
the neighbouring town and take it from house to house. I am surprised
that the inhabitants do not feel how very incommodious this usage is to
both parties, and redress it; they, indeed, perceive it, for when I have
introduced the subject they acknowledged that they were often in want of
necessaries, there being no butchers, and they were often obliged to buy
what they did not want; yet it was the custom, and the changing of
customs of a long standing requires more energy than they yet possess. I
received a similar reply when I attempted to persuade the women that
they injured their children by keeping them too warm. The only way of
parrying off my reasoning was that they must do as other people did; in
short, reason on any subject of change, and they stop you by saying that
"the town would talk."  A person of sense, with a large fortune to
ensure respect, might be very useful here, by inducing them to treat
their children and manage their sick properly, and eat food dressed in a
simpler manner--the example, for instance, of a count's lady.

Reflecting on these prejudices made me revert to the wisdom of those
legislators who established institutions for the good of the body under
the pretext of serving heaven for the salvation of the soul. These might
with strict propriety be termed pious frauds; and I admire the Peruvian
pair for asserting that they came from the sun, when their conduct
proved that they meant to enlighten a benighted country, whose
obedience, or even attention, could only be secured by awe. Thus much
for conquering the _inertia_ of reason; but, when it is once in motion,
fables once held sacred may be ridiculed; and sacred they were when
useful to mankind. Prometheus alone stole fire to animate the first man;
his posterity needs not supernatural aid to preserve the species, though
love is generally termed a flame; and it may not be necessary much
longer to suppose men inspired by heaven to inculcate the duties which
demand special grace when reason convinces them that they are the
happiest who are the most nobly employed.

In a few days I am to set out for the western part of Norway, and then
shall return by land to Gothenburg. I cannot think of leaving this place
without regret. I speak of the place before the inhabitants, though
there is a tenderness in their artless kindness which attaches me to
them; but it is an attachment that inspires a regret very different from
that I felt at leaving Hull in my way to Sweden. The domestic happiness
and good-humoured gaiety of the amiable family where I and my Frances
were so hospitably received would have been sufficient to ensure the
tenderest remembrance, without the recollection of the social evening to
stimulate it, when good breeding gave dignity to sympathy and wit zest
to reason.

Adieu!--I am just informed that my horse has been waiting this quarter
of an hour. I now venture to ride out alone. The steeple serves as a
landmark. I once or twice lost my way, walking alone, without being able
to inquire after a path; I was therefore obliged to make to the steeple,
or windmill, over hedge and ditch.

Yours truly.




LETTER IX.


I have already informed you that there are only two noblemen who have
estates of any magnitude in Norway. One of these has a house near
Tonsberg, at which he has not resided for some years, having been at
court, or on embassies. He is now the Danish Ambassador in London. The
house is pleasantly situated, and the grounds about it fine; but their
neglected appearance plainly tells that there is nobody at home.

A stupid kind of sadness, to my eye, always reigns in a huge habitation
where only servants live to put cases on the furniture and open the
windows. I enter as I would into the tomb of the Capulets, to look at
the family pictures that here frown in armour, or smile in ermine. The
mildew respects not the lordly robe, and the worm riots unchecked on the
cheek of beauty.

There was nothing in the architecture of the building, or the form of
the furniture, to detain me from the avenue where the aged pines
stretched along majestically. Time had given a greyish cast to their
ever-green foliage; and they stood, like sires of the forest, sheltered
on all sides by a rising progeny. I had not ever seen so many oaks
together in Norway as in these woods, nor such large aspens as here were
agitated by the breeze, rendering the wind audible--nay musical; for
melody seemed on the wing around me. How different was the fresh odour
that reanimated me in the avenue, from the damp chillness of the
apartments; and as little did the gloomy thoughtfulness excited by the
dusty hangings, and worm-eaten pictures, resemble the reveries inspired
by the soothing melancholy of their shade. In the winter, these august
pines, towering above the snow, must relieve the eye beyond measure and
give life to the white waste.

The continual recurrence of pine and fir groves in the day sometimes
wearies the sight, but in the evening, nothing can be more picturesque,
or, more properly speaking, better calculated to produce poetical
images. Passing through them, I have been struck with a mystic kind of
reverence, and I did, as it were, homage to their venerable shadows. Not
nymphs, but philosophers, seemed to inhabit them--ever musing; I could
scarcely conceive that they were without some consciousness of
existence--without a calm enjoyment of the pleasure they diffused.

How often do my feelings produce ideas that remind me of the origin of
many poetical fictions. In solitude, the imagination bodies forth its
conceptions unrestrained, and stops enraptured to adore the beings of
its own creation. These are moments of bliss; and the memory recalls
them with delight.

But I have almost forgotten the matters of fact I meant to relate,
respecting the counts. They have the presentation of the livings on
their estates, appoint the judges, and different civil officers, the
Crown reserving to itself the privilege of sanctioning them. But though
they appoint, they cannot dismiss. Their tenants also occupy their farms
for life, and are obliged to obey any summons to work on the part he
reserves for himself; but they are paid for their labour. In short, I
have seldom heard of any noblemen so innoxious.

Observing that the gardens round the count's estate were better
cultivated than any I had before seen, I was led to reflect on the
advantages which naturally accrue from the feudal tenures. The tenants
of the count are obliged to work at a stated price, in his grounds and
garden; and the instruction which they imperceptibly receive from the
head gardener tends to render them useful, and makes them, in the common
course of things, better husbandmen and gardeners on their own little
farms. Thus the great, who alone travel in this period of society, for
the observation of manners and customs made by sailors is very confined,
bring home improvement to promote their own comfort, which is gradually
spread abroad amongst the people, till they are stimulated to think for
themselves.

The bishops have not large revenues, and the priests are appointed by
the king before they come to them to be ordained. There is commonly some
little farm annexed to the parsonage, and the inhabitants subscribe
voluntarily, three times a year, in addition to the church fees, for the
support of the clergyman. The church lands were seized when Lutheranism
was introduced, the desire of obtaining them being probably the real
stimulus of reformation. The tithes, which are never required in kind,
are divided into three parts--one to the king, another to the incumbent,
and the third to repair the dilapidations of the parsonage. They do not
amount to much. And the stipend allowed to the different civil officers
is also too small, scarcely deserving to be termed an independence; that
of the custom-house officers is not sufficient to procure the
necessaries of life--no wonder, then, if necessity leads them to
knavery. Much public virtue cannot be expected till every employment,
putting perquisites out of the question, has a salary sufficient to
reward industry;--whilst none are so great as to permit the possessor to
remain idle. It is this want of proportion between profit and labour
which debases men, producing the sycophantic appellations of patron and
client, and that pernicious _esprit du corps_, proverbially vicious.

The farmers are hospitable as well as independent. Offering once to pay
for some coffee I drank when taking shelter from the rain, I was asked,
rather angrily, if a little coffee was worth paying for. They smoke, and
drink drams, but not so much as formerly. Drunkenness, often the
attendant disgrace of hospitality, will here, as well as everywhere
else, give place to gallantry and refinement of manners; but the change
will not be suddenly produced.

The people of every class are constant in their attendance at church;
they are very fond of dancing, and the Sunday evenings in Norway, as in
Catholic countries, are spent in exercises which exhilarate the spirits
without vitiating the heart. The rest of labour ought to be gay; and the
gladness I have felt in France on a Sunday, or Decadi, which I caught
from the faces around me, was a sentiment more truly religious than all
the stupid stillness which the streets of London ever inspired where the
Sabbath is so decorously observed. I recollect, in the country parts of
England, the churchwardens used to go out during the service to see if
they could catch any luckless wight playing at bowls or skittles; yet
what could be more harmless?  It would even, I think, be a great
advantage to the English, if feats of activity (I do not include boxing
matches) were encouraged on a Sunday, as it might stop the progress of
Methodism, and of that fanatical spirit which appears to be gaining
ground. I was surprised when I visited Yorkshire, on my way to Sweden,
to find that sullen narrowness of thinking had made such a progress
since I was an inhabitant of the country. I could hardly have supposed
that sixteen or seventeen years could have produced such an alteration
for the worse in the morals of a place--yes, I say morals; for
observance of forms, and avoiding of practices, indifferent in
themselves, often supply the place of that regular attention to duties
which are so natural, that they seldom are vauntingly exercised, though
they are worth all the precepts of the law and the prophets. Besides,
many of these deluded people, with the best meaning, actually lose their
reason, and become miserable, the dread of damnation throwing them into
a state which merits the term; and still more, in running after their
preachers, expecting to promote their salvation, they disregard their
welfare in this world, and neglect the interest and comfort of their
families; so that, in proportion as they attain a reputation for piety,
they become idle.

Aristocracy and fanaticism seem equally to be gaining ground in England,
particularly in the place I have mentioned; I saw very little of either
in Norway. The people are regular in their attendance on public worship,
but religion does not interfere with their employments.

As the farmers cut away the wood they clear the ground. Every year,
therefore, the country is becoming fitter to support the inhabitants.
Half a century ago the Dutch, I am told, only paid for the cutting down
of the wood, and the farmers were glad to get rid of it without giving
themselves any trouble. At present they form a just estimate of its
value; nay, I was surprised to find even firewood so dear when it
appears to be in such plenty. The destruction, or gradual reduction, of
their forests will probably ameliorate the climate, and their manners
will naturally improve in the same ratio as industry requires ingenuity.
It is very fortunate that men are a long time but just above the brute
creation, or the greater part of the earth would never have been
rendered habitable, because it is the patient labour of men, who are
only seeking for a subsistence, which produces whatever embellishes
existence, affording leisure for the cultivation of the arts and
sciences that lift man so far above his first state. I never, my friend,
thought so deeply of the advantages obtained by human industry as since
I have been in Norway. The world requires, I see, the hand of man to
perfect it, and as this task naturally unfolds the faculties he
exercises, it is physically impossible that he should have remained in
Rousseau's golden age of stupidity. And, considering the question of
human happiness, where, oh where does it reside?  Has it taken up its
abode with unconscious ignorance or with the high-wrought mind?  Is it
the offspring of thoughtless animal spirits or the dye of fancy
continually flitting round the expected pleasure?

The increasing population of the earth must necessarily tend to its
improvement, as the means of existence are multiplied by invention.

You have probably made similar reflections in America, where the face of
the country, I suppose, resembles the wilds of Norway. I am delighted
with the romantic views I daily contemplate, animated by the purest air;
and I am interested by the simplicity of manners which reigns around me.
Still nothing so soon wearies out the feelings as unmarked simplicity. I
am therefore half convinced that I could not live very comfortably
exiled from the countries where mankind are so much further advanced in
knowledge, imperfect as it is, and unsatisfactory to the thinking mind.
Even now I begin to long to hear what you are doing in England and
France. My thoughts fly from this wilderness to the polished circles of
the world, till recollecting its vices and follies, I bury myself in the
woods, but find it necessary to emerge again, that I may not lose sight
of the wisdom and virtue which exalts my nature.

What a long time it requires to know ourselves; and yet almost every one
has more of this knowledge than he is willing to own, even to himself. I
cannot immediately determine whether I ought to rejoice at having turned
over in this solitude a new page in the history of my own heart, though
I may venture to assure you that a further acquaintance with mankind
only tends to increase my respect for your judgment and esteem for your
character. Farewell!




LETTER X.


I have once more, my friend, taken flight, for I left Tonsberg
yesterday, but with an intention of returning in my way back to Sweden.

The road to Laurvig is very fine, and the country the best cultivated in
Norway. I never before admired the beech tree, and when I met stragglers
here they pleased me still less. Long and lank, they would have forced
me to allow that the line of beauty requires some curves, if the stately
pine, standing near, erect, throwing her vast arms around, had not
looked beautiful in opposition to such narrow rules.

In these respects my very reason obliges me to permit my feelings to be
my criterion. Whatever excites emotion has charms for me, though I
insist that the cultivation of the mind by warming, nay, almost creating
the imagination, produces taste and an immense variety of sensations and
emotions, partaking of the exquisite pleasure inspired by beauty and
sublimity. As I know of no end to them, the word infinite, so often
misapplied, might on this occasion be introduced with something like
propriety.

But I have rambled away again. I intended to have remarked to you the
effect produced by a grove of towering beech, the airy lightness of
their foliage admitting a degree of sunshine, which, giving a
transparency to the leaves, exhibited an appearance of freshness and
elegance that I had never before remarked. I thought of descriptions of
Italian scenery. But these evanescent graces seemed the effect of
enchantment; and I imperceptibly breathed softly, lest I should destroy
what was real, yet looked so like the creation of fancy. Dryden's fable
of the flower and the leaf was not a more poetical reverie.

Adieu, however, to fancy, and to all the sentiments which ennoble our
nature. I arrived at Laurvig, and found myself in the midst of a group
of lawyers of different descriptions. My head turned round, my heart
grew sick, as I regarded visages deformed by vice, and listened to
accounts of chicanery that was continually embroiling the ignorant.
These locusts will probably diminish as the people become more
enlightened. In this period of social life the commonalty are always
cunningly attentive to their own interest; but their faculties, confined
to a few objects, are so narrowed, that they cannot discover it in the
general good. The profession of the law renders a set of men still
shrewder and more selfish than the rest; and it is these men, whose wits
have been sharpened by knavery, who here undermine morality, confounding
right and wrong.

The Count of Bernstorff, who really appears to me, from all I can
gather, to have the good of the people at heart, aware of this, has
lately sent to the mayor of each district to name, according to the size
of the place, four or six of the best-informed inhabitants, not men of
the law, out of which the citizens were to elect two, who are to be
termed mediators. Their office is to endeavour to prevent litigious
suits, and conciliate differences. And no suit is to be commenced before
the parties have discussed the dispute at their weekly meeting. If a
reconciliation should, in consequence, take place, it is to be
registered, and the parties are not allowed to retract.

By these means ignorant people will be prevented from applying for
advice to men who may justly be termed stirrers-up of strife. They have
for a long time, to use a significant vulgarism, set the people by the
ears, and live by the spoil they caught up in the scramble. There is
some reason to hope that this regulation will diminish their number, and
restrain their mischievous activity. But till trials by jury are
established, little justice can be expected in Norway. Judges who cannot
be bribed are often timid, and afraid of offending bold knaves, lest
they should raise a set of hornets about themselves. The fear of censure
undermines all energy of character; and, labouring to be prudent, they
lose sight of rectitude. Besides, nothing is left to their conscience,
or sagacity; they must be governed by evidence, though internally
convinced that it is false.

There is a considerable iron manufactory at Laurvig for coarse work, and
a lake near the town supplies the water necessary for working several
mills belonging to it.

This establishment belongs to the Count of Laurvig. Without a fortune
and influence equal to his, such a work could not have been set afloat;
personal fortunes are not yet sufficient to support such undertakings.
Nevertheless the inhabitants of the town speak of the size of his estate
as an evil, because it obstructs commerce. The occupiers of small farms
are obliged to bring their wood to the neighbouring seaports to be
shipped; but he, wishing to increase the value of his, will not allow it
to be thus gradually cut down, which turns the trade into another
channel. Added to this, nature is against them, the bay being open and
insecure. I could not help smiling when I was informed that in a hard
gale a vessel had been wrecked in the main street. When there are such a
number of excellent harbours on the coast, it is a pity that accident
has made one of the largest towns grow up on a bad one.

The father of the present count was a distant relation of the family; he
resided constantly in Denmark, and his son follows his example. They
have not been in possession of the estate many years; and their
predecessor lived near the town, introducing a degree of profligacy of
manners which has been ruinous to the inhabitants in every respect,
their fortunes not being equal to the prevailing extravagance.

What little I have seen of the manners of the people does not please me
so well as those of Tonsberg. I am forewarned that I shall find them
still more cunning and fraudulent as I advance towards the westward, in
proportion as traffic takes place of agriculture, for their towns are
built on naked rocks, the streets are narrow bridges, and the
inhabitants are all seafaring men, or owners of ships, who keep shops.

The inn I was at in Laurvig this journey was not the same that I was at
before. It is a good one--the people civil, and the accommodations
decent. They seem to be better provided in Sweden; but in justice I
ought to add that they charge more extravagantly. My bill at Tonsberg
was also much higher than I had paid in Sweden, and much higher than it
ought to have been where provision is so cheap. Indeed, they seem to
consider foreigners as strangers whom they shall never see again, and
may fairly pluck. And the inhabitants of the western coast, isolated, as
it were, regard those of the east almost as strangers. Each town in that
quarter seems to be a great family, suspicious of every other, allowing
none to cheat them but themselves; and, right or wrong, they support one
another in the face of justice.

On this journey I was fortunate enough to have one companion with more
enlarged views than the generality of his countrymen, who spoke English
tolerably.

I was informed that we might still advance a mile and a quarter in our
cabrioles; afterwards there was no choice, but of a single horse and
wretched path, or a boat, the usual mode of travelling.

We therefore sent our baggage forward in the boat, and followed rather
slowly, for the road was rocky and sandy. We passed, however, through
several beech groves, which still delighted me by the freshness of their
light green foliage, and the elegance of their assemblage, forming
retreats to veil without obscuring the sun.

I was surprised, at approaching the water, to find a little cluster of
houses pleasantly situated, and an excellent inn. I could have wished
to have remained there all night; but as the wind was fair, and the
evening fine, I was afraid to trust to the wind--the uncertain wind of
to-morrow. We therefore left Helgeraac immediately with the declining
sun.

Though we were in the open sea, we sailed more amongst the rocks and
islands than in my passage from Stromstad; and they often forced very
picturesque combinations. Few of the high ridges were entirely bare; the
seeds of some pines or firs had been wafted by the winds or waves, and
they stood to brave the elements.

Sitting, then, in a little boat on the ocean, amidst strangers, with
sorrow and care pressing hard on me--buffeting me about from clime to
clime--I felt

   "Like the lone shrub at random cast,
   That sighs and trembles at each blast!"

On some of the largest rocks there were actually groves, the retreat of
foxes and hares, which, I suppose, had tripped over the ice during the
winter, without thinking to regain the main land before the thaw.

Several of the islands were inhabited by pilots; and the Norwegian
pilots are allowed to be the best in the world--perfectly acquainted
with their coast, and ever at hand to observe the first signal or sail.
They pay a small tax to the king and to the regulating officer, and
enjoy the fruit of their indefatigable industry.

One of the islands, called Virgin Land, is a flat, with some depth of
earth, extending for half a Norwegian mile, with three farms on it,
tolerably well cultivated.

On some of the bare rocks I saw straggling houses; they rose above the
denomination of huts inhabited by fishermen. My companions assured me
that they were very comfortable dwellings, and that they have not only
the necessaries, but even what might be reckoned the superfluities of
life. It was too late for me to go on shore, if you will allow me to
give that name to shivering rocks, to ascertain the fact.

But rain coming on, and the night growing dark, the pilot declared that
it would be dangerous for us to attempt to go to the place of our
destination--East Rusoer--a Norwegian mile and a half further; and we
determined to stop for the night at a little haven, some half dozen
houses scattered under the curve of a rock. Though it became darker and
darker, our pilot avoided the blind rocks with great dexterity.

It was about ten o'clock when we arrived, and the old hostess quickly
prepared me a comfortable bed--a little too soft or so, but I was weary;
and opening the window to admit the sweetest of breezes to fan me to
sleep, I sunk into the most luxurious rest: it was more than refreshing.
The hospitable sprites of the grots surely hovered round my pillow; and,
if I awoke, it was to listen to the melodious whispering of the wind
amongst them, or to feel the mild breath of morn. Light slumbers
produced dreams, where Paradise was before me. My little cherub was
again hiding her face in my bosom. I heard her sweet cooing beat on my
heart from the cliffs, and saw her tiny footsteps on the sands. New-born
hopes seemed, like the rainbow, to appear in the clouds of sorrow,
faint, yet sufficient to amuse away despair.

Some refreshing but heavy showers have detained us; and here I am
writing quite alone--something more than gay, for which I want a name.

I could almost fancy myself in Nootka Sound, or on some of the islands
on the north-west coast of America. We entered by a narrow pass through
the rocks, which from this abode appear more romantic than you can well
imagine; and seal-skins hanging at the door to dry add to the illusion.

It is indeed a corner of the world, but you would be surprised to see
the cleanliness and comfort of the dwelling. The shelves are not only
shining with pewter and queen's ware, but some articles in silver, more
ponderous, it is true, than elegant. The linen is good, as well as
white. All the females spin, and there is a loom in the kitchen. A sort
of individual taste appeared in the arrangement of the furniture (this
is not the place for imitation) and a kindness in their desire to
oblige. How superior to the apish politeness of the towns! where the
people, affecting to be well bred, fatigue with their endless ceremony.

The mistress is a widow, her daughter is married to a pilot, and has
three cows. They have a little patch of land at about the distance of
two English miles, where they make hay for the winter, which they bring
home in a boat. They live here very cheap, getting money from the
vessels which stress of weather, or other causes, bring into their
harbour. I suspect, by their furniture, that they smuggle a little. I
can now credit the account of the other houses, which I last night
thought exaggerated.

I have been conversing with one of my companions respecting the laws and
regulations of Norway. He is a man within great portion of common sense
and heart--yes, a warm heart. This is not the first time I have remarked
heart without sentiment; they are distinct. The former depends on the
rectitude of the feelings, on truth of sympathy; these characters have
more tenderness than passion; the latter has a higher source--call it
imagination, genius, or what you will, it is something very different. I
have been laughing with these simple worthy folk--to give you one of my
half-score Danish words--and letting as much of my heart flow out in
sympathy as they can take. Adieu!  I must trip up the rocks. The rain is
over. Let me catch pleasure on the wing--I may be melancholy to-morrow.
Now all my nerves keep time with the melody of nature. Ah! let me be
happy whilst I can. The tear starts as I think of it. I must flee from
thought, and find refuge from sorrow in a strong imagination--the only
solace for a feeling heart. Phantoms of bliss! ideal forms of
excellence! again enclose me in your magic circle, and wipe clear from
my remembrance the disappointments that reader the sympathy painful,
which experience rather increases than damps, by giving the indulgence
of feeling the sanction of reason.

Once more farewell!




LETTER XI.


I left Portoer, the little haven I mentioned, soon after I finished my
last letter. The sea was rough, and I perceived that our pilot was right
not to venture farther during a hazy night. We had agreed to pay four
dollars for a boat from Helgeraac. I mention the sum, because they would
demand twice as much from a stranger. I was obliged to pay fifteen for
the one I hired at Stromstad. When we were ready to set out, our boatman
offered to return a dollar and let us go in one of the boats of the
place, the pilot who lived there being better acquainted with the coast.
He only demanded a dollar and a half, which was reasonable. I found him
a civil and rather intelligent man; he was in the American service
several years, during the Revolution.

I soon perceived that an experienced mariner was necessary to guide us,
for we were continually obliged to tack about, to avoid the rocks,
which, scarcely reaching to the surface of the water, could only be
discovered by the breaking of the waves over them.

The view of this wild coast, as we sailed along it, afforded me a
continual subject for meditation. I anticipated the future improvement
of the world, and observed how much man has still to do to obtain of the
earth all it could yield. I even carried my speculations so far as to
advance a million or two of years to the moment when the earth would
perhaps be so perfectly cultivated, and so completely peopled, as to
render it necessary to inhabit every spot--yes, these bleak shores.
Imagination went still farther, and pictured the state of man when the
earth could no longer support him. Whither was he to flee from universal
famine?  Do not smile; I really became distressed for these fellow
creatures yet unborn. The images fastened on me, and the world appeared
a vast prison. I was soon to be in a smaller one--for no other name can
I give to Rusoer. It would be difficult to form an idea of the place, if
you have never seen one of these rocky coasts.

We were a considerable time entering amongst the islands, before we saw
about two hundred houses crowded together under a very high rock--still
higher appearing above. Talk not of Bastilles!  To be born here was to
be bastilled by nature--shut out from all that opens the understanding,
or enlarges the heart. Huddled one behind another, not more than a
quarter of the dwellings even had a prospect of the sea. A few planks
formed passages from house to house, which you must often scale,
mounting steps like a ladder to enter.

The only road across the rocks leads to a habitation sterile enough, you
may suppose, when I tell you that the little earth on the adjacent ones
was carried there by the late inhabitant. A path, almost impracticable
for a horse, goes on to Arendall, still further to the westward.

I inquired for a walk, and, mounting near two hundred steps made round a
rock, walked up and down for about a hundred yards viewing the sea, to
which I quickly descended by steps that cheated the declivity. The ocean
and these tremendous bulwarks enclosed me on every side. I felt the
confinement, and wished for wings to reach still loftier cliffs, whose
slippery sides no foot was so hardy as to tread. Yet what was it to
see?--only a boundless waste of water--not a glimpse of smiling
nature--not a patch of lively green to relieve the aching sight, or vary
the objects of meditation.

I felt my breath oppressed, though nothing could be clearer than the
atmosphere. Wandering there alone, I found the solitude desirable; my
mind was stored with ideas, which this new scene associated with
astonishing rapidity. But I shuddered at the thought of receiving
existence, and remaining here, in the solitude of ignorance, till forced
to leave a world of which I had seen so little, for the character of the
inhabitants is as uncultivated, if not as picturesquely wild, as their
abode.

Having no employment but traffic, of which a contraband trade makes the
basis of their profit, the coarsest feelings of honesty are quickly
blunted. You may suppose that I speak in general terms; and that, with
all the disadvantages of nature and circumstances, there are still some
respectable exceptions, the more praiseworthy, as tricking is a very
contagious mental disease, that dries up all the generous juices of the
heart. Nothing genial, in fact, appears around this place, or within the
circle of its rocks. And, now I recollect, it seems to me that the most
genial and humane characters I have met with in life were most alive to
the sentiments inspired by tranquil country scenes. What, indeed, is to
humanise these beings, who rest shut up (for they seldom even open their
windows), smoking, drinking brandy, and driving bargains?  I have been
almost stifled by these smokers. They begin in the morning, and are
rarely without their pipe till they go to bed. Nothing can be more
disgusting than the rooms and men towards the evening--breath, teeth,
clothes, and furniture, all are spoilt. It is well that the women are
not very delicate, or they would only love their husbands because they
were their husbands. Perhaps, you may add, that the remark need not be
confined to so small a part of the world; and, _entre nous_, I am of the
same opinion. You must not term this innuendo saucy, for it does not
come home.

If I had not determined to write I should have found my confinement
here, even for three or four days, tedious. I have no books; and to pace
up and down a small room, looking at tiles overhung by rocks, soon
becomes wearisome. I cannot mount two hundred steps to walk a hundred
yards many times in the day. Besides, the rocks, retaining the heat of
the sun, are intolerably warm. I am, nevertheless, very well; for though
there is a shrewdness in the character of these people, depraved by a
sordid love of money which repels me, still the comparisons they force
me to make keep my heart calm by exercising my understanding.

Everywhere wealth commands too much respect, but here almost
exclusively; and it is the only object pursued, not through brake and
briar, but over rocks and waves; yet of what use would riches be to me,
I have sometimes asked myself, were I confined to live in such in a
spot?  I could only relieve a few distressed objects, perhaps render
them idle, and all the rest of life would be a blank.

My present journey has given fresh force to my opinion that no place is
so disagreeable and unimproving as a country town. I should like to
divide my time between the town and country; in a lone house, with the
business of farming and planting, where my mind would gain strength by
solitary musing, and in a metropolis to rub off the rust of thought, and
polish the taste which the contemplation of nature had rendered just.
Thus do we wish as we float down the stream of life, whilst chance does
more to gratify a desire of knowledge than our best laid plans. A degree
of exertion, produced by some want, more or less painful, is probably
the price we must all pay for knowledge. How few authors or artists have
arrived at eminence who have not lived by their employment?

I was interrupted yesterday by business, and was prevailed upon to dine
with the English vice-consul. His house being open to the sea, I was
more at large; and the hospitality of the table pleased me, though the
bottle was rather too freely pushed about. Their manner of entertaining
was such as I have frequently remarked when I have been thrown in the
way of people without education, who have more money than wit--that is,
than they know what to do with. The women were unaffected, but had not
the natural grace which was often conspicuous at Tonsberg. There was
even a striking difference in their dress, these having loaded
themselves with finery in the style of the sailors' girls of Hull or
Portsmouth. Taste has not yet taught them to make any but an
ostentatious display of wealth. Yet I could perceive even here the first
steps of the improvement which I am persuaded will make a very obvious
progress in the course of half a century, and it ought not to be sooner,
to keep pace with the cultivation of the earth. Improving manners will
introduce finer moral feelings. They begin to read translations of some
of the most useful German productions lately published, and one of our
party sung a song ridiculing the powers coalesced against France, and
the company drank confusion to those who had dismembered Poland.

The evening was extremely calm and beautiful. Not being able to walk, I
requested a boat as the only means of enjoying free air.

The view of the town was now extremely fine. A huge rocky mountain stood
up behind it, and a vast cliff stretched on each side, forming a
semicircle. In a recess of the rocks was a clump of pines, amongst which
a steeple rose picturesquely beautiful.

The churchyard is almost the only verdant spot in the place. Here,
indeed, friendship extends beyond the grave, and to grant a sod of earth
is to accord a favour. I should rather choose, did it admit of a choice,
to sleep in some of the caves of the rocks, for I am become better
reconciled to them since I climbed their craggy sides last night,
listening to the finest echoes I ever heard. We had a French horn with
us, and there was an enchanting wildness in the dying away of the
reverberation that quickly transported me to Shakespeare's magic island.
Spirits unseen seemed to walk abroad, and flit from cliff to cliff to
soothe my soul to peace.

I reluctantly returned to supper, to be shut up in a warm room, only to
view the vast shadows of the rocks extending on the slumbering waves. I
stood at the window some time before a buzz filled the drawing-room, and
now and then the dashing of a solitary oar rendered the scene still more
solemn.

Before I came here I could scarcely have imagined that a simple object
(rocks) could have admitted of so many interesting combinations, always
grand and often sublime. Good night!  God bless you!




LETTER XII.


I left East Rusoer the day before yesterday. The weather was very fine;
but so calm that we loitered on the water near fourteen hours, only to
make about six and twenty miles.

It seemed to me a sort of emancipation when we landed at Helgeraac. The
confinement which everywhere struck me whilst sojourning amongst the
rocks, made me hail the earth as a land of promise; and the situation
shone with fresh lustre from the contrast--from appearing to be a free
abode. Here it was possible to travel by land--I never thought this a
comfort before--and my eyes, fatigued by the sparkling of the sun on the
water, now contentedly reposed on the green expanse, half persuaded that
such verdant meads had never till then regaled them.

I rose early to pursue my journey to Tonsberg. The country still wore a
face of joy--and my soul was alive to its charms. Leaving the most lofty
and romantic of the cliffs behind us, we were almost continually
descending to Tonsberg, through Elysian scenes; for not only the sea,
but mountains, rivers, lakes, and groves, gave an almost endless variety
to the prospect. The cottagers were still carrying home the hay; and the
cottages on this road looked very comfortable. Peace and plenty--I mean
not abundance--seemed to reign around--still I grew sad as I drew near
my old abode. I was sorry to see the sun so high; it was broad noon.
Tonsberg was something like a home--yet I was to enter without lighting
up pleasure in any eye. I dreaded the solitariness of my apartment, and
wished for night to hide the starting tears, or to shed them on my
pillow, and close my eyes on a world where I was destined to wander
alone. Why has nature so many charms for me--calling forth and
cherishing refined sentiments, only to wound the breast that fosters
them?  How illusive, perhaps the most so, are the plans of happiness
founded on virtue and principle; what inlets of misery do they not open
in a half-civilised society?  The satisfaction arising from conscious
rectitude, will not calm an injured heart, when tenderness is ever
finding excuses; and self-applause is a cold solitary feeling, that
cannot supply the place of disappointed affection, without throwing a
gloom over every prospect, which, banishing pleasure, does not exclude
pain. I reasoned and reasoned; but my heart was too full to allow me to
remain in the house, and I walked, till I was wearied out, to purchase
rest--or rather forgetfulness.

Employment has beguiled this day, and to-morrow I set out for Moss, on
my way to Stromstad. At Gothenburg I shall embrace my Fannikin; probably
she will not know me again--and I shall be hurt if she do not. How
childish is this! still it is a natural feeling. I would not permit
myself to indulge the "thick coming fears" of fondness, whilst I was
detained by business. Yet I never saw a calf bounding in a meadow, that
did not remind me of my little frolicker. A calf, you say. Yes; but a
capital one I own.

I cannot write composedly--I am every instant sinking into reveries--my
heart flutters, I know not why. Fool!  It is time thou wert at rest.

Friendship and domestic happiness are continually praised; yet how
little is there of either in the world, because it requires more
cultivation of mind to keep awake affection, even in our own hearts,
than the common run of people suppose. Besides, few like to be seen as
they really are; and a degree of simplicity, and of undisguised
confidence, which, to uninterested observers, would almost border on
weakness, is the charm, nay the essence of love or friendship, all the
bewitching graces of childhood again appearing. As objects merely to
exercise my taste, I therefore like to see people together who have an
affection for each other; every turn of their features touches me, and
remains pictured on my imagination in indelible characters. The zest of
novelty is, however, necessary to rouse the languid sympathies which
have been hackneyed in the world; as is the factitious behaviour,
falsely termed good-breeding, to amuse those, who, defective in taste,
continually rely for pleasure on their animal spirits, which not being
maintained by the imagination, are unavoidably sooner exhausted than the
sentiments of the heart. Friendship is in general sincere at the
commencement, and lasts whilst there is anything to support it; but as a
mixture of novelty and vanity is the usual prop, no wonder if it fall
with the slender stay. The fop in the play paid a greater compliment
than he was aware of when he said to a person, whom he meant to flatter,
"I like you almost as well as a _new acquaintance_."  Why am I talking
of friendship, after which I have had such a wild-goose chase. I thought
only of telling you that the crows, as well as wild-geese, are here
birds of passage.




LETTER XIII.


I left Tonsberg yesterday, the 22nd of August. It is only twelve or
thirteen English miles to Moss, through a country less wild than any
tract I had hitherto passed over in Norway. It was often beautiful, but
seldom afforded those grand views which fill rather than soothe the
mind.

We glided along the meadows and through the woods, with sunbeams playing
around us; and, though no castles adorned the prospects, a greater
number of comfortable farms met my eyes during this ride than I have
ever seen, in the same space, even in the most cultivated part of
England; and the very appearance of the cottages of the labourers
sprinkled amidst them excluded all those gloomy ideas inspired by the
contemplation of poverty.

The hay was still bringing in, for one harvest in Norway treads on the
heels of the other. The woods were more variegated, interspersed with
shrubs. We no longer passed through forests of vast pines stretching
along with savage magnificence. Forests that only exhibited the slow
decay of time or the devastation produced by warring elements. No; oaks,
ashes, beech, and all the light and graceful tenants of our woods here
sported luxuriantly. I had not observed many oaks before, for the
greater part of the oak-planks, I am informed, come from the westward.

In France the farmers generally live in villages, which is a great
disadvantage to the country; but the Norwegian farmers, always owning
their farms or being tenants for life, reside in the midst of them,
allowing some labourers a dwelling rent free, who have a little land
appertaining to the cottage, not only for a garden, but for crops of
different kinds, such as rye, oats, buck-wheat, hemp, flax, beans,
potatoes, and hay, which are sown in strips about it, reminding a
stranger of the first attempts at culture, when every family was obliged
to be an independent community.

These cottagers work at a certain price (tenpence per day) for the
farmers on whose ground they live, and they have spare time enough to
cultivate their own land and lay in a store of fish for the winter. The
wives and daughters spin and the husbands and sons weave, so that they
may fairly be reckoned independent, having also a little money in hand
to buy coffee, brandy and some other superfluities.

The only thing I disliked was the military service, which trammels them
more than I at first imagined. It is true that the militia is only
called out once a year, yet in case of war they have no alternative but
must abandon their families. Even the manufacturers are not exempted,
though the miners are, in order to encourage undertakings which require
a capital at the commencement. And, what appears more tyrannical, the
inhabitants of certain districts are appointed for the land, others for
the sea service. Consequently, a peasant, born a soldier, is not
permitted to follow his inclination should it lead him to go to sea, a
natural desire near so many seaports.

In these regulations the arbitrary government--the King of Denmark being
the most absolute monarch in Europe--appears, which in other respects
seeks to hide itself in a lenity that almost renders the laws nullities.
If any alteration of old customs is thought of, the opinion of the old
country is required and maturely considered. I have several times had
occasion to observe that, fearing to appear tyrannical, laws are allowed
to become obsolete which ought to be put in force or better substituted
in their stead; for this mistaken moderation, which borders on timidity,
favours the least respectable part of the people.

I saw on my way not only good parsonage houses, but comfortable
dwellings, with glebe land for the clerk, always a consequential man in
every country, a being proud of a little smattering of learning, to use
the appropriate epithet, and vain of the stiff good-breeding reflected
from the vicar, though the servility practised in his company gives it a
peculiar cast.

The widow of the clergyman is allowed to receive the benefit of the
living for a twelvemonth after the death of the incumbent.

Arriving at the ferry (the passage over to Moss is about six or eight
English miles) I saw the most level shore I had yet seen in Norway. The
appearance of the circumjacent country had been preparing me for the
change of scene which was to greet me when I reached the coast. For the
grand features of nature had been dwindling into prettiness as I
advanced; yet the rocks, on a smaller scale, were finely wooded to the
water's edge. Little art appeared, yet sublimity everywhere gave place
to elegance. The road had often assumed the appearance of a gravelled
one, made in pleasure-grounds; whilst the trees excited only an idea of
embellishment. Meadows, like lawns, in an endless variety, displayed the
careless graces of nature; and the ripening corn gave a richness to the
landscape analogous with the other objects.

Never was a southern sky more beautiful, nor more soft its gales.
Indeed, I am led to conclude that the sweetest summer in the world is
the northern one, the vegetation being quick and luxuriant the moment
the earth is loosened from its icy fetters and the bound streams regain
their wonted activity. The balance of happiness with respect to climate
may be more equal than I at first imagined; for the inhabitants describe
with warmth the pleasures of a winter at the thoughts of which I
shudder. Not only their parties of pleasure but of business are reserved
for this season, when they travel with astonishing rapidity the most
direct way, skimming over hedge and ditch.

On entering Moss I was struck by the animation which seemed to result
from industry. The richest of the inhabitants keep shops, resembling in
their manners and even the arrangement of their houses the tradespeople
of Yorkshire; with an air of more independence, or rather consequence,
from feeling themselves the first people in the place. I had not time to
see the iron-works, belonging to Mr. Anker, of Christiania, a man of
fortune and enterprise; and I was not very anxious to see them after
having viewed those at Laurvig.

Here I met with an intelligent literary man, who was anxious to gather
information from me relative to the past and present situation of
France. The newspapers printed at Copenhagen, as well as those in
England, give the most exaggerated accounts of their atrocities and
distresses, but the former without any apparent comments or inferences.
Still the Norwegians, though more connected with the English, speaking
their language and copying their manners, wish well to the Republican
cause, and follow with the most lively interest the successes of the
French arms. So determined were they, in fact, to excuse everything,
disgracing the struggle of freedom, by admitting the tyrant's plea,
necessity, that I could hardly persuade them that Robespierre was a
monster.

The discussion of this subject is not so general as in England, being
confined to the few, the clergy and physicians, with a small portion of
people who have a literary turn and leisure; the greater part of the
inhabitants having a variety of occupations, being owners of ships,
shopkeepers, and farmers, have employment enough at home. And their
ambition to become rich may tend to cultivate the common sense which
characterises and narrows both their hearts and views, confirming the
former to their families, taking the handmaids of it into the circle of
pleasure, if not of interest, and the latter to the inspection of their
workmen, including the noble science of bargain-making--that is, getting
everything at the cheapest, and selling it at the dearest rate. I am now
more than ever convinced that it is an intercourse with men of science
and artists which not only diffuses taste, but gives that freedom to the
understanding without which I have seldom met with much benevolence of
character on a large scale.

Besides, though you do not hear of much pilfering and stealing in
Norway, yet they will, with a quiet conscience, buy things at a price
which must convince them they were stolen. I had an opportunity of
knowing that two or three reputable people had purchased some articles
of vagrants, who were detected. How much of the virtue which appears in
the world is put on for the world?  And how little dictated by
self-respect?--so little, that I am ready to repeat the old question,
and ask, Where is truth, or rather principle, to be found?  These are,
perhaps, the vapourings of a heart ill at ease--the effusions of a
sensibility wounded almost to madness. But enough of this; we will
discuss the subject in another state of existence, where truth and
justice will reign. How cruel are the injuries which make us quarrel
with human nature!  At present black melancholy hovers round my
footsteps; and sorrow sheds a mildew over all the future prospects,
which hope no longer gilds.

A rainy morning prevented my enjoying the pleasure the view of a
picturesque country would have afforded me; for though this road passed
through a country a greater extent of which was under cultivation than I
had usually seen here, it nevertheless retained all the wild charms of
Norway. Rocks still enclosed the valleys, the great sides of which
enlivened their verdure. Lakes appeared like branches of the sea, and
branches of the sea assumed the appearance of tranquil lakes; whilst
streamlets prattled amongst the pebbles and the broken mass of stone
which had rolled into them, giving fantastic turns to the trees, the
roots of which they bared.

It is not, in fact, surprising that the pine should be often undermined;
it shoots its fibres in such a horizontal direction, merely on the
surface of the earth, requiring only enough to cover those that cling to
the crags. Nothing proves to me so clearly that it is the air which
principally nourishes trees and plants as the flourishing appearance of
these pines. The firs, demanding a deeper soil, are seldom seen in equal
health, or so numerous on the barren cliffs. They take shelter in the
crevices, or where, after some revolving ages, the pines have prepared
them a footing.

Approaching, or rather descending, to Christiania, though the weather
continued a little cloudy, my eyes were charmed with the view of an
extensive undulated valley, stretching out under the shelter of a noble
amphitheatre of pine-covered mountains. Farm houses scattered about
animated, nay, graced a scene which still retained so much of its native
wildness, that the art which appeared seemed so necessary, it was
scarcely perceived. Cattle were grazing in the shaven meadows; and the
lively green on their swelling sides contrasted with the ripening corn
and rye. The corn that grew on the slopes had not, indeed, the laughing
luxuriance of plenty, which I have seen in more genial climes. A fresh
breeze swept across the grain, parting its slender stalks, but the wheat
did not wave its head with its wonted careless dignity, as if nature had
crowned it the king of plants.

The view, immediately on the left, as we drove down the mountain, was
almost spoilt by the depredations committed on the rocks to make alum. I
do not know the process. I only saw that the rocks looked red after they
had been burnt, and regretted that the operation should leave a quantity
of rubbish to introduce an image of human industry in the shape of
destruction. The situation of Christiania is certainly uncommonly fine,
and I never saw a bay that so forcibly gave me an idea of a place of
safety from the storms of the ocean; all the surrounding objects were
beautiful and even grand. But neither the rocky mountains, nor the woods
that graced them, could be compared with the sublime prospects I had
seen to the westward; and as for the hills, "capped with _eternal_
snow," Mr. Coxe's description led me to look for them, but they had
flown, for I looked vainly around for this noble background.

A few months ago the people of Christiania rose, exasperated by the
scarcity and consequent high price of grain. The immediate cause was the
shipping of some, said to be for Moss, but which they suspected was only
a pretext to send it out of the country, and I am not sure that they
were wrong in their conjecture. Such are the tricks of trade. They threw
stones at Mr. Anker, the owner of it, as he rode out of town to escape
from their fury; they assembled about his house, and the people demanded
afterwards, with so much impetuosity, the liberty of those who were
taken up in consequence of the tumult, that the Grand Bailiff thought it
prudent to release them without further altercation.

You may think me too severe on commerce, but from the manner it is at
present carried on little can be advanced in favour of a pursuit that
wears out the most sacred principles of humanity and rectitude. What is
speculation but a species of gambling, I might have said fraud, in which
address generally gains the prize?  I was led into these reflections
when I heard of some tricks practised by merchants, miscalled reputable,
and certainly men of property, during the present war, in which common
honesty was violated: damaged goods and provision having been shipped
for the express purpose of falling into the hands of the English, who
had pledged themselves to reimburse neutral nations for the cargoes they
seized; cannon also, sent back as unfit for service, have been shipped
as a good speculation, the captain receiving orders to cruise about till
he fell in with an English frigate. Many individuals I believe have
suffered by the seizures of their vessels; still I am persuaded that the
English Government has been very much imposed upon in the charges made
by merchants who contrived to get their ships taken. This censure is not
confined to the Danes. Adieu, for the present, I must take advantage of
a moment of fine weather to walk out and see the town.

At Christiania I met with that polite reception, which rather
characterises the progress of manners in the world, than of any
particular portion of it. The first evening of my arrival I supped with
some of the most fashionable people of the place, and almost imagined
myself in a circle of English ladies, so much did they resemble them in
manners, dress, and even in beauty; for the fairest of my countrywomen
would not have been sorry to rank with the Grand Bailiff's lady. There
were several pretty girls present, but she outshone them all, and, what
interested me still more, I could not avoid observing that in acquiring
the easy politeness which distinguishes people of quality, she had
preserved her Norwegian simplicity. There was, in fact, a graceful
timidity in her address, inexpressibly charming. This surprised me a
little, because her husband was quite a Frenchman of the _ancien
régime_, or rather a courtier, the same kind of animal in every country.

Here I saw the cloven foot of despotism. I boasted to you that they had
no viceroy in Norway, but these Grand Bailiffs, particularly the
superior one, who resides at Christiania, are political monsters of the
same species. Needy sycophants are provided for by their relations and
connections at Copenhagen as at other courts. And though the Norwegians
are not in the abject state of the Irish, yet this second-hand
government is still felt by their being deprived of several natural
advantages to benefit the domineering state.

The Grand Bailiffs are mostly noblemen from Copenhagen, who act as men
of common minds will always act in such situations--aping a degree of
courtly parade which clashes with the independent character of a
magistrate. Besides, they have a degree of power over the country
judges, which some of them, who exercise a jurisdiction truly
patriarchal most painfully feel. I can scarcely say why, my friend, but
in this city thoughtfulness seemed to be sliding into melancholy or
rather dulness. The fire of fancy, which had been kept alive in the
country, was almost extinguished by reflections on the ills that harass
such a large portion of mankind. I felt like a bird fluttering on the
ground unable to mount, yet unwilling to crawl tranquilly like a
reptile, whilst still conscious it had wings.

I walked out, for the open air is always my remedy when an aching head
proceeds from an oppressed heart. Chance directed my steps towards the
fortress, and the sight of the slaves, working with chains on their
legs, only served to embitter me still more against the regulations of
society, which treated knaves in such a different manner, especially as
there was a degree of energy in some of their countenances which
unavoidably excited my attention, and almost created respect.

I wished to have seen, through an iron grate, the face of a man who has
been confined six years for having induced the farmers to revolt against
some impositions of the Government. I could not obtain a clear account
of the affair, yet, as the complaint was against some farmers of taxes,
I am inclined to believe that it was not totally without foundation. He
must have possessed some eloquence, or have had truth on his side; for
the farmers rose by hundreds to support him, and were very much
exasperated at his imprisonment, which will probably last for life,
though he has sent several very spirited remonstrances to the upper
court, which makes the judges so averse to giving a sentence which may
be cavilled at, that they take advantage of the glorious uncertainty of
the law, to protract a decision which is only to be regulated by reasons
of state.

The greater number of the slaves I saw here were not confined for life.
Their labour is not hard; and they work in the open air, which prevents
their constitutions from suffering by imprisonment. Still, as they are
allowed to associate together, and boast of their dexterity, not only to
each other but to the soldiers around them, in the garrison; they
commonly, it is natural to conclude, go out more confirmed and more
expert knaves than when they entered.

It is not necessary to trace the origin of the association of ideas
which led me to think that the stars and gold keys, which surrounded me
the evening before, disgraced the wearers as much as the fetters I was
viewing--perhaps more. I even began to investigate the reason, which led
me to suspect that the former produced the latter.

The Norwegians are extravagantly fond of courtly distinction, and of
titles, though they have no immunities annexed to them, and are easily
purchased. The proprietors of mines have many privileges: they are
almost exempt from taxes, and the peasantry born on their estates, as
well as those on the counts', are not born soldiers or sailors.

One distinction, or rather trophy of nobility, which might have
occurred to the Hottentots, amused me; it was a bunch of hog's bristles
placed on the horses' heads, surmounting that part of the harness to
which a round piece of brass often dangles, fatiguing the eye with its
idle motion.

From the fortress I returned to my lodging, and quickly was taken out of
town to be shown a pretty villa, and English garden. To a Norwegian both
might have been objects of curiosity; and of use, by exciting to the
comparison which leads to improvement. But whilst I gazed, I was
employed in restoring the place to nature, or taste, by giving it the
character of the surrounding scene. Serpentine walks, and
flowering-shrubs, looked trifling in a grand recess of the rocks, shaded
by towering pines. Groves of smaller trees might have been sheltered
under them, which would have melted into the landscape, displaying only
the art which ought to point out the vicinity of a human abode,
furnished with some elegance. But few people have sufficient taste to
discern, that the art of embellishing consists in interesting, not in
astonishing.

Christiania is certainly very pleasantly situated, and the environs I
passed through, during this ride, afforded many fine and cultivated
prospects; but, excepting the first view approaching to it, rarely
present any combination of objects so strikingly new, or picturesque, as
to command remembrance. Adieu!




LETTER XIV.


Christiania is a clean, neat city; but it has none of the graces of
architecture, which ought to keep pace with the refining manners of a
people--or the outside of the house will disgrace the inside, giving the
beholder an idea of overgrown wealth devoid of taste. Large square
wooden houses offend the eye, displaying more than Gothic barbarism.
Huge Gothic piles, indeed, exhibit a characteristic sublimity, and a
wildness of fancy peculiar to the period when they were erected; but
size, without grandeur or elegance, has an emphatical stamp of meanness,
of poverty of conception, which only a commercial spirit could give.

The same thought has struck me, when I have entered the meeting-house of
my respected friend, Dr. Price. I am surprised that the dissenters, who
have not laid aside all the pomps and vanities of life, should imagine a
noble pillar, or arch, unhallowed. Whilst men have senses, whatever
soothes them lends wings to devotion; else why do the beauties of
nature, where all that charm them are spread around with a lavish hand,
force even the sorrowing heart to acknowledge that existence is a
blessing? and this acknowledgment is the most sublime homage we can pay
to the Deity.

The argument of convenience is absurd. Who would labour for wealth, if
it were to procure nothing but conveniences. If we wish to render
mankind moral from principle, we must, I am persuaded, give a greater
scope to the enjoyments of the senses by blending taste with them. This
has frequently occurred to me since I have been in the north, and
observed that there sanguine characters always take refuge in
drunkenness after the fire of youth is spent.

But I have flown from Norway. To go back to the wooden houses; farms
constructed with logs, and even little villages, here erected in the
same simple manner, have appeared to me very picturesque. In the more
remote parts I had been particularly pleased with many cottages situated
close to a brook, or bordering on a lake, with the whole farm
contiguous. As the family increases, a little more land is cultivated;
thus the country is obviously enriched by population. Formerly the
farmers might more justly have been termed woodcutters. But now they
find it necessary to spare the woods a little, and this change will be
universally beneficial; for whilst they lived entirely by selling the
trees they felled, they did not pay sufficient attention to husbandry;
consequently, advanced very slowly in agricultural knowledge. Necessity
will in future more and more spur them on; for the ground, cleared of
wood, must be cultivated, or the farm loses its value; there is no
waiting for food till another generation of pines be grown to maturity.

The people of property are very careful of their timber; and, rambling
through a forest near Tonsberg, belonging to the Count, I have stopped
to admire the appearance of some of the cottages inhabited by a
woodman's family--a man employed to cut down the wood necessary for the
household and the estate. A little lawn was cleared, on which several
lofty trees were left which nature had grouped, whilst the encircling
firs sported with wild grace. The dwelling was sheltered by the forest,
noble pines spreading their branches over the roof; and before the door
a cow, goat, nag, and children, seemed equally content with their lot;
and if contentment be all we can attain, it is, perhaps, best secured by
ignorance.

As I have been most delighted with the country parts of Norway, I was
sorry to leave Christiania without going farther to the north, though
the advancing season admonished me to depart, as well as the calls of
business and affection.

June and July are the months to make a tour through Norway; for then the
evenings and nights are the finest I have ever seen; but towards the
middle or latter end of August the clouds begin to gather, and summer
disappears almost before it has ripened the fruit of autumn--even, as it
were, slips from your embraces, whilst the satisfied senses seem to rest
in enjoyment.

You will ask, perhaps, why I wished to go farther northward. Why? not
only because the country, from all I can gather, is most romantic,
abounding in forests and lakes, and the air pure, but I have heard much
of the intelligence of the inhabitants, substantial farmers, who have
none of that cunning to contaminate their simplicity, which displeased
me so much in the conduct of the people on the sea coast. A man who has
been detected in any dishonest act can no longer live among them. He is
universally shunned, and shame becomes the severest punishment.

Such a contempt have they, in fact, for every species of fraud, that
they will not allow the people on the western coast to be their
countrymen; so much do they despise the arts for which those traders who
live on the rocks are notorious.

The description I received of them carried me back to the fables of the
golden age: independence and virtue; affluence without vice; cultivation
of mind, without depravity of heart; with "ever smiling Liberty;" the
nymph of the mountain. I want faith!

My imagination hurries me forward to seek an asylum in such a retreat
from all the disappointments I am threatened with; but reason drags me
back, whispering that the world is still the world, and man the same
compound of weakness and folly, who must occasionally excite love and
disgust, admiration and contempt. But this description, though it seems
to have been sketched by a fairy pencil, was given me by a man of sound
understanding, whose fancy seldom appears to run away with him.

A law in Norway, termed the _odels right_, has lately been modified, and
probably will be abolished as an impediment to commerce. The heir of an
estate had the power of re-purchasing it at the original purchase money,
making allowance for such improvements as were absolutely necessary,
during the space of twenty years. At present ten is the term allowed for
afterthought; and when the regulation was made, all the men of abilities
were invited to give their opinion whether it were better to abrogate or
modify it. It is certainly a convenient and safe way of mortgaging land;
yet the most rational men whom I conversed with on the subject seemed
convinced that the right was more injurious than beneficial to society;
still if it contribute to keep the farms in the farmers' own hands, I
should be sorry to hear that it were abolished.

The aristocracy in Norway, if we keep clear of Christiania, is far from
being formidable; and it will require a long time to enable the
merchants to attain a sufficient moneyed interest to induce them to
reinforce the upper class at the expense of the yeomanry, with whom they
are usually connected.

England and America owe their liberty to commerce, which created new
species of power to undermine the feudal system. But let them beware of
the consequence; the tyranny of wealth is still more galling and
debasing than that of rank.

Farewell!  I must prepare for my departure.




LETTER XV.


I left Christiania yesterday. The weather was not very fine, and having
been a little delayed on the road, I found that it was too late to go
round, a couple of miles, to see the cascade near Fredericstadt, which I
had determined to visit. Besides, as Fredericstadt is a fortress, it was
necessary to arrive there before they shut the gate.

The road along the river is very romantic, though the views are not
grand; and the riches of Norway, its timber, floats silently down the
stream, often impeded in its course by islands and little cataracts, the
offspring, as it were, of the great one I had frequently heard
described.

I found an excellent inn at Fredericstadt, and was gratified by the kind
attention of the hostess, who, perceiving that my clothes were wet, took
great pains procure me, as a stranger, every comfort for the night.

It had rained very hard, and we passed the ferry in the dark without
getting out of our carriage, which I think wrong, as the horses are
sometimes unruly. Fatigue and melancholy, however, had made me
regardless whether I went down or across the stream, and I did not know
that I was wet before the hostess marked it. My imagination has never
yet severed me from my griefs, and my mind has seldom been so free as to
allow my body to be delicate.

How I am altered by disappointment!  When going to Lisbon, the
elasticity of my mind was sufficient to ward off weariness, and my
imagination still could dip her brush in the rainbow of fancy, and
sketch futurity in glowing colours. Now--but let me talk of something
else--will you go with me to the cascade?

The cross road to it was rugged and dreary; and though a considerable
extent of land was cultivated on all sides, yet the rocks were entirely
bare, which surprised me, as they were more on a level with the surface
than any I had yet seen. On inquiry, however, I learnt that some years
since a forest had been burnt. This appearance of desolation was beyond
measure gloomy, inspiring emotions that sterility had never produced.
Fires of this kind are occasioned by the wind suddenly rising when the
farmers are burning roots of trees, stalks of beans, &c., with which
they manure the ground. The devastation must, indeed, be terrible, when
this, literally speaking, wildfire, runs along the forest, flying from
top to top, and crackling amongst the branches. The soil, as well as the
trees, is swept away by the destructive torrent; and the country,
despoiled of beauty and riches, is left to mourn for ages.

Admiring, as I do, these noble forests, which seem to bid defiance to
time, I looked with pain on the ridge of rocks that stretched far beyond
my eye, formerly crowned with the most beautiful verdure.

I have often mentioned the grandeur, but I feel myself unequal to the
task of conveying an idea of the beauty and elegance of the scene when
the spiry tops of the pines are loaded with ripening seed, and the sun
gives a glow to their light-green tinge, which is changing into purple,
one tree more or less advanced contrasted with another. The profusion
with which Nature has decked them with pendant honours, prevents all
surprise at seeing in every crevice some sapling struggling for
existence. Vast masses of stone are thus encircled, and roots torn up by
the storms become a shelter for a young generation. The pine and fir
woods, left entirely to Nature, display an endless variety; and the
paths in the woods are not entangled with fallen leaves, which are only
interesting whilst they are fluttering between life and death. The grey
cobweb-like appearance of the aged pines is a much finer image of decay;
the fibres whitening as they lose their moisture, imprisoned life seems
to be stealing away. I cannot tell why, but death, under every form,
appears to me like something getting free to expand in I know not what
element--nay, I feel that this conscious being must be as unfettered,
have the wings of thought, before it can be happy.

Reaching the cascade, or rather cataract, the roaring of which had a
long time announced its vicinity, my soul was hurried by the falls into
a new train of reflections. The impetuous dashing of the rebounding
torrent from the dark cavities which mocked the exploring eye produced
an equal activity in my mind. My thoughts darted from earth to heaven,
and I asked myself why I was chained to life and its misery. Still the
tumultuous emotions this sublime object excited were pleasurable; and,
viewing it, my soul rose with renewed dignity above its cares. Grasping
at immortality--it seemed as impossible to stop the current of my
thoughts, as of the always varying, still the same, torrent before me; I
stretched out my hand to eternity, bounding over the dark speck of life
to come.

We turned with regret from the cascade. On a little hill, which commands
the best view of it, several obelisks are erected to commemorate the
visits of different kings. The appearance of the river above and below
the falls is very picturesque, the ruggedness of the scenery
disappearing as the torrent subsides into a peaceful stream. But I did
not like to see a number of saw-mills crowded together close to the
cataracts; they destroyed the harmony of the prospect.

The sight of a bridge erected across a deep valley, at a little
distance, inspired very dissimilar sensations. It was most ingeniously
supported by mast-like trunks, just stripped of their branches; and
logs, placed one across the other, produced an appearance equally light
and firm, seeming almost to be built in the air when we were below it,
the height taking from the magnitude of the supporting trees give them a
slender graceful look.

There are two noble estates in this neighbourhood, the proprietors of
which seem to have caught more than their portion of the enterprising
spirit that is gone abroad. Many agricultural experiments have been
made, and the country appears better enclosed and cultivated, yet the
cottages had not the comfortable aspect of those I had observed near
Moss and to the westward. Man is always debased by servitude of any
description, and here the peasantry are not entirely free. Adieu!

I almost forgot to tell you that I did not leave Norway without making
some inquiries after the monsters said to have been seen in the northern
sea; but though I conversed with several captains, I could not meet with
one who had ever heard any traditional description of them, much less
had any ocular demonstration of their existence. Till the fact is better
ascertained, I should think the account of them ought to be torn out of
our geographical grammars.




LETTER XVI.


I set out from Fredericstadt about three o'clock in the afternoon, and
expected to reach Stromstad before the night closed in; but the wind
dying away, the weather became so calm that we scarcely made any
perceptible advances towards the opposite coast, though the men were
fatigued with rowing.

Getting amongst the rocks and islands as the moon rose, and the stars
darted forward out of the clear expanse, I forgot that the night stole
on whilst indulging affectionate reveries, the poetical fictions of
sensibility; I was not, therefore, aware of the length of time we had
been toiling to reach Stromstad. And when I began to look around, I did
not perceive anything to indicate that we were in its neighbourhood. So
far from it, that when I inquired of the pilot, who spoke a little
English, I found that he was only accustomed to coast along the
Norwegian shore; and had been only once across to Stromstad. But he had
brought with him a fellow better acquainted, he assured me, with the
rocks by which they were to steer our course, for we had not a compass
on board; yet, as he was half a fool, I had little confidence in his
skill. There was then great reason to fear that we had lost our way, and
were straying amidst a labyrinth of rocks without a clue.

This was something like an adventure, but not of the most agreeable
cast; besides, I was impatient to arrive at Stromstad, to be able to
send forward that night a boy to order horses on the road to be ready,
for I was unwilling to remain there a day without having anything to
detain me from my little girl, and from the letters which I was
impatient to get from you.

I began to expostulate, and even to scold the pilot, for not having
informed me of his ignorance previous to my departure. This made him row
with more force, and we turned round one rock only to see another,
equally destitute of the tokens we were in search of to tell us where we
were. Entering also into creek after creek which promised to be the
entrance of the bay we were seeking, we advanced merely to find
ourselves running aground.

The solitariness of the scene, as we glided under the dark shadows of
the rocks, pleased me for a while; but the fear of passing the whole
night thus wandering to and fro, and losing the next day, roused me. I
begged the pilot to return to one of the largest islands, at the side of
which we had seen a boat moored. As we drew nearer, a light through a
window on the summit became our beacon; but we were farther off than I
supposed.

With some difficulty the pilot got on shore, not distinguishing the
landing-place; and I remained in the boat, knowing that all the relief
we could expect was a man to direct us. After waiting some time, for
there is an insensibility in the very movements of these people that
would weary more than ordinary patience, he brought with him a man who,
assisting them to row, we landed at Stromstad a little after one in the
morning.

It was too late to send off a boy, but I did not go to bed before I had
made the arrangements necessary to enable me to set out as early as
possible.

The sun rose with splendour. My mind was too active to allow me to
loiter long in bed, though the horses did not arrive till between seven
and eight. However, as I wished to let the boy, who went forward to
order the horses, get considerably the start of me, I bridled in my
impatience.

This precaution was unavailing, for after the three first posts I had to
wait two hours, whilst the people at the post-house went, fair and
softly, to the farm, to bid them bring up the horses which were carrying
in the first-fruits of the harvest. I discovered here that these
sluggish peasants had their share of cunning. Though they had made me
pay for a horse, the boy had gone on foot, and only arrived half an hour
before me. This disconcerted the whole arrangement of the day; and being
detained again three hours, I reluctantly determined to sleep at
Quistram, two posts short of Uddervalla, where I had hoped to have
arrived that night.

But when I reached Quistram I found I could not approach the door of the
inn for men, horses, and carts, cows, and pigs huddled together. From
the concourse of people I had met on the road I conjectured that there
was a fair in the neighbourhood; this crowd convinced me that it was but
too true. The boisterous merriment that almost every instant produced a
quarrel, or made me dread one, with the clouds of tobacco, and fumes of
brandy, gave an infernal appearance to the scene. There was everything
to drive me back, nothing to excite sympathy in a rude tumult of the
senses, which I foresaw would end in a gross debauch. What was to be
done?  No bed was to be had, or even a quiet corner to retire to for a
moment; all was lost in noise, riot, and confusion.

After some debating they promised me horses, which were to go on to
Uddervalla, two stages. I requested something to eat first, not having
dined; and the hostess, whom I have mentioned to you before as knowing
how to take care of herself, brought me a plate of fish, for which she
charged a rix-dollar and a half. This was making hay whilst the sun
shone. I was glad to get out of the uproar, though not disposed to
travel in an incommodious open carriage all night, had I thought that
there was any chance of getting horses.

Quitting Quistram I met a number of joyous groups, and though the
evening was fresh many were stretched on the grass like weary cattle;
and drunken men had fallen by the road-side. On a rock, under the shade
of lofty trees, a large party of men and women had lighted a fire,
cutting down fuel around to keep it alive all night. They were drinking,
smoking, and laughing with all their might and main. I felt for the
trees whose torn branches strewed the ground. Hapless nymphs! your
haunts, I fear, were polluted by many an unhallowed flame, the casual
burst of the moment!

The horses went on very well; but when we drew near the post-house the
postillion stopped short and neither threats nor promises could prevail
on him to go forward. He even began to howl and weep when I insisted on
his keeping his word. Nothing, indeed, can equal the stupid obstinacy of
some of these half-alive beings, who seem to have been made by
Prometheus when the fire he stole from Heaven was so exhausted that he
could only spare a spark to give life, not animation, to the inert clay.

It was some time before we could rouse anybody; and, as I expected,
horses, we were told, could not be had in less than four or five hours.
I again attempted to bribe the churlish brute who brought us there, but
I discovered that, in spite of the courteous hostess's promises, he had
received orders not to go any father.

As there was no remedy I entered, and was almost driven back by the
stench--a softer phrase would not have conveyed an idea of the hot
vapour that issued from an apartment in which some eight or ten people
were sleeping, not to reckon the cats and dogs stretched on the floor.
Two or three of the men or women were on the benches, others on old
chests; and one figure started half out of a trunk to look at me, whom
might have taken for a ghost, had the chemise been white, to contrast
with the sallow visage. But the costume of apparitions not being
preserved I passed, nothing dreading, excepting the effluvia, warily
amongst the pots, pans, milk-pails, and washing-tubs. After scaling a
ruinous staircase I was shown a bed-chamber. The bed did not invite me
to enter; opening, therefore, the window, and taking some clean towels
out of my night-sack, I spread them over the coverlid, on which tired
Nature found repose, in spite of the previous disgust.

With the grey of the morn the birds awoke me; and descending to inquire
for the horses, I hastened through the apartment I have already
described, not wishing to associate the idea of a pigstye with that of a
human dwelling.

I do not now wonder that the girls lose their fine complexions at such
an early age, or that love here is merely an appetite to fulfil the main
design of Nature, never enlivened by either affection or sentiment.

For a few posts we found the horses waiting; but afterwards I was
retarded, as before, by the peasants, who, taking advantage of my
ignorance of the language, made me pay for the fourth horse that ought
to have gone forward to have the others in readiness, though it had
never been sent. I was particularly impatient at the last post, as I
longed to assure myself that my child was well.

My impatience, however, did not prevent my enjoying the journey. I had
six weeks before passed over the same ground; still it had sufficient
novelty to attract my attention, and beguile, if not banish, the sorrow
that had taken up its abode in my heart. How interesting are the varied
beauties of Nature, and what peculiar charms characterise each season!
The purple hue which the heath now assumed gave it a degree of richness
that almost exceeded the lustre of the young green of spring, and
harmonised exquisitely with the rays of the ripening corn. The weather
was uninterruptedly fine, and the people busy in the fields cutting down
the corn, or binding up the sheaves, continually varied the prospect.
The rocks, it is true, were unusually rugged and dreary; yet as the road
runs for a considerable way by the side of a fine river, with extended
pastures on the other side, the image of sterility was not the
predominant object, though the cottages looked still more miserable,
after having seen the Norwegian farms. The trees likewise appeared of me
growth of yesterday, compared with those Nestors of the forest I have
frequently mentioned. The women and children were cutting off branches
from the beech, birch, oak, &c., and leaving them to dry. This way of
helping out their fodder injures the trees. But the winters are so long
that the poor cannot afford to lay in a sufficient stock of hay. By
such means they just keep life in the poor cows, for little milk can be
expected when they are so miserably fed.

It was Saturday, and the evening was uncommonly serene. In the villages
I everywhere saw preparations for Sunday; and I passed by a little car
loaded with rye, that presented, for the pencil and heart, the sweetest
picture of a harvest home I had ever beheld. A little girl was mounted
a-straddle on a shaggy horse, brandishing a stick over its head; the
father was walking at the side of the car with a child in his arms, who
must have come to meet him with tottering steps; the little creature was
stretching out its arms to cling round his neck; and a boy, just above
petticoats, was labouring hard with a fork behind to keep the sheaves
from falling.

My eyes followed them to the cottage, and an involuntary sigh whispered
to my heart that I envied the mother, much as I dislike cooking, who was
preparing their pottage. I was returning to my babe, who may never
experience a father's care or tenderness. The bosom that nurtured her
heaved with a pang at the thought which only an unhappy mother could
feel.

Adieu!




LETTER XVII.


I was unwilling to leave Gothenburg without visiting Trolhættæ. I
wished not only to see the cascade, but to observe the progress of the
stupendous attempt to form a canal through the rocks, to the extent of
an English mile and a half.

This work is carried on by a company, who employ daily nine hundred men;
five years was the time mentioned in the proposals addressed to the
public as necessary for the completion. A much more considerable sum
than the plan requires has been subscribed, for which there is every
reason to suppose the promoters will receive ample interest.

The Danes survey the progress of this work with a jealous eye, as it is
principally undertaken to get clear of the Sound duty.

Arrived at Trolhættæ, I must own that the first view of the cascade
disappointed me; and the sight of the works, as they advanced, though a
grand proof of human industry, was not calculated to warm the fancy. I,
however, wandered about; and at last coming to the conflux of the
various cataracts rushing from different falls, struggling with the huge
masses of rock, and rebounding from the profound cavities, I immediately
retracted, acknowledging that it was indeed a grand object. A little
island stood in the midst, covered with firs, which, by dividing the
torrent, rendered it more picturesque; one half appearing to issue from
a dark cavern, that fancy might easily imagine a vast fountain throwing
up its waters from the very centre of the earth.

I gazed I know not how long, stunned with the noise, and growing giddy
with only looking at the never-ceasing tumultuous motion, I listened,
scarcely conscious where I was, when I observed a boy, half obscured by
the sparkling foam, fishing under the impending rock on the other side.
How he had descended I could not perceive; nothing like human footsteps
appeared, and the horrific crags seemed to bid defiance even to the
goat's activity. It looked like an abode only fit for the eagle, though
in its crevices some pines darted up their spiral heads; but they only
grew near the cascade, everywhere else sterility itself reigned with
dreary grandeur; for the huge grey massy rocks, which probably had been
torn asunder by some dreadful convulsion of nature, had not even their
first covering of a little cleaving moss. There were so many appearances
to excite the idea of chaos, that, instead of admiring the canal and the
works, great as they are termed, and little as they appear, I could not
help regretting that such a noble scene had not been left in all its
solitary sublimity. Amidst the awful roaring of the impetuous torrents,
the noise of human instruments and the bustle of workmen, even the
blowing up of the rocks when grand masses trembled in the darkened air,
only resembled the insignificant sport of children.

One fall of water, partly made by art, when they were attempting to
construct sluices, had an uncommonly grand effect; the water
precipitated itself with immense velocity down a perpendicular, at least
fifty or sixty yards, into a gulf, so concealed by the foam as to give
full play to the fancy. There was a continual uproar. I stood on a rock
to observe it, a kind of bridge formed by nature, nearly on a level with
the commencement of the fall. After musing by it a long time I turned
towards the other side, and saw a gentle stream stray calmly out. I
should have concluded that it had no communication with the torrent had
I not seen a huge log that fell headlong down the cascade steal
peacefully into the purling stream.

I retired from these wild scenes with regret to a miserable inn, and
next morning returned to Gothenburg, to prepare for my journey to
Copenhagen.

I was sorry to leave Gothenburg without travelling farther into Sweden,
yet I imagine I should only have seen a romantic country thinly
inhabited, and these inhabitants struggling with poverty. The Norwegian
peasantry, mostly independent, have a rough kind of frankness in their
manner; but the Swedish, rendered more abject by misery, have a degree
of politeness in their address which, though it may sometimes border on
insincerity, is oftener the effect of a broken spirit, rather softened
than degraded by wretchedness.

In Norway there are no notes in circulation of less value than a Swedish
rix-dollar. A small silver coin, commonly not worth more than a penny,
and never more than twopence, serves for change; but in Sweden they have
notes as low as sixpence. I never saw any silver pieces there, and could
not without difficulty, and giving a premium, obtain the value of a rix-
dollar in a large copper coin to give away on the road to the poor who
open the gates.

As another proof of the poverty of Sweden, I ought to mention that
foreign merchants who have acquired a fortune there are obliged to
deposit the sixth part when they leave the kingdom. This law, you may
suppose, is frequently evaded.

In fact, the laws here, as well as in Norway, are so relaxed that they
rather favour than restrain knavery.

Whilst I was at Gothenburg, a man who had been confined for breaking
open his master's desk and running away with five or six thousand
rix-dollars, was only sentenced to forty days' confinement on bread and
water; and this slight punishment his relations rendered nugatory by
supplying him with more savoury food.

The Swedes are in general attached to their families, yet a divorce may
be obtained by either party on proving the infidelity of the other or
acknowledging it themselves. The women do not often recur to this equal
privilege, for they either retaliate on their husbands by following
their own devices or sink into the merest domestic drudges, worn down by
tyranny to servile submission. Do not term me severe if I add, that
after youth is flown the husband becomes a sot, and the wife amuses
herself by scolding her servants. In fact, what is to be expected in any
country where taste and cultivation of mind do not supply the place of
youthful beauty and animal spirits?  Affection requires a firmer
foundation than sympathy, and few people have a principle of action
sufficiently stable to produce rectitude of feeling; for in spite of all
the arguments I have heard to justify deviations from duty, I am
persuaded that even the most spontaneous sensations are more under the
direction of principle than weak people are willing to allow.

But adieu to moralising. I have been writing these last sheets at an inn
in Elsineur, where I am waiting for horses; and as they are not yet
ready, I will give you a short account of my journey from Gothenburg,
for I set out the morning after I returned from Trolhættæ.

The country during the first day's journey presented a most barren
appearance, as rocky, yet not so picturesque as Norway, because on a
diminutive scale. We stopped to sleep at a tolerable inn in
Falckersberg, a decent little town.

The next day beeches and oaks began to grace the prospects, the sea
every now and then appearing to give them dignity. I could not avoid
observing also, that even in this part of Sweden, one of the most
sterile, as I was informed, there was more ground under cultivation than
in Norway. Plains of varied crops stretched out to a considerable
extent, and sloped down to the shore, no longer terrific. And, as far as
I could judge, from glancing my eye over the country as we drove along,
agriculture was in a more advanced state, though in the habitations a
greater appearance of poverty still remained. The cottages, indeed,
often looked most uncomfortable, but never so miserable as those I had
remarked on the road to Stromstad, and the towns were equal, if not
superior, to many of the little towns in Wales, or some I have passed
through in my way from Calais to Paris.

The inns as we advanced were not to be complained of, unless I had
always thought of England. The people were civil, and much more moderate
in their demands than the Norwegians, particularly to the westward,
where they boldly charge for what you never had, and seem to consider
you, as they do a wreck, if not as lawful prey, yet as a lucky chance,
which they ought not to neglect to seize.

The prospect of Elsineur, as we passed the Sound, was pleasant. I gave
three rix-dollars for my boat, including something to drink. I mention
the sum, because they impose on strangers.

Adieu! till I arrive at Copenhagen.




LETTER XVIII.--COPENHAGEN.


The distance from Elsineur to Copenhagen is twenty-two miles; the road
is very good, over a flat country diversified with wood, mostly beech,
and decent mansions. There appeared to be a great quantity of corn land,
and the soil looked much more fertile than it is in general so near the
sea. The rising grounds, indeed, were very few, and around Copenhagen it
is a perfect plain; of course has nothing to recommend it but
cultivation, not decorations. If I say that the houses did not disgust
me, I tell you all I remember of them, for I cannot recollect any
pleasurable sensations they excited, or that any object, produced by
nature or art, took me out of myself. The view of the city, as we drew
near, was rather grand, but without any striking feature to interest the
imagination, excepting the trees which shade the footpaths.

Just before I reached Copenhagen I saw a number of tents on a wide
plain, and supposed that the rage for encampments had reached this city;
but I soon discovered that they were the asylum of many of the poor
families who had been driven out of their habitations by the late fire.

Entering soon after, I passed amongst the dust and rubbish it had left,
affrighted by viewing the extent of the devastation, for at least a
quarter of the city had been destroyed. There was little in the
appearance of fallen bricks and stacks of chimneys to allure the
imagination into soothing melancholy reveries; nothing to attract the
eye of taste, but much to afflict the benevolent heart. The depredations
of time have always something in them to employ the fancy, or lead to
musing on subjects which, withdrawing the mind from objects of sense,
seem to give it new dignity; but here I was treading on live ashes. The
sufferers were still under the pressure of the misery occasioned by this
dreadful conflagration. I could not take refuge in the thought: they
suffered, but they are no more! a reflection I frequently summon to calm
my mind when sympathy rises to anguish. I therefore desired the driver
to hasten to the hotel recommended to me, that I might avert my eyes
and snap the train of thinking which had sent me into all the corners of
the city in search of houseless heads.

This morning I have been walking round the town, till I am weary of
observing the ravages. I had often heard the Danes, even those who had
seen Paris and London, speak of Copenhagen with rapture. Certainly I
have seen it in a very disadvantageous light, some of the best streets
having been burnt, and the whole place thrown into confusion. Still the
utmost that can, or could ever, I believe, have been said in its praise,
might be comprised in a few words. The streets are open, and many of the
houses large; but I saw nothing to rouse the idea of elegance or
grandeur, if I except the circus where the king and prince royal reside.

The palace, which was consumed about two years ago, must have been a
handsome, spacious building; the stone-work is still standing, and a
great number of the poor, during the late fire, took refuge in its ruins
till they could find some other abode. Beds were thrown on the landing-
places of the grand staircase, where whole families crept from the cold,
and every little nook is boarded up as a retreat for some poor creatures
deprived of their home. At present a roof may be sufficient to shelter
them from the night air; but as the season advances, the extent of the
calamity will be more severely felt, I fear, though the exertions on the
part of Government are very considerable. Private charity has also, no
doubt, done much to alleviate the misery which obtrudes itself at every
turn; still, public spirit appears to me to be hardly alive here. Had it
existed, the conflagration might have been smothered in the beginning,
as it was at last, by tearing down several houses before the flames had
reached them. To this the inhabitants would not consent; and the prince
royal not having sufficient energy of character to know when he ought to
be absolute, calmly let them pursue their own course, till the whole
city seemed to be threatened with destruction. Adhering, with puerile
scrupulosity, to the law which he has imposed on himself, of acting
exactly right, he did wrong by idly lamenting whilst he marked the
progress of a mischief that one decided step would have stopped. He was
afterwards obliged to resort to violent measures; but then, who could
blame him?  And, to avoid censure, what sacrifices are not made by weak
minds?

A gentleman who was a witness of the scene assured me, likewise, that if
the people of property had taken half as much pains to extinguish the
fire as to preserve their valuables and furniture, it would soon have
been got under. But they who were not immediately in danger did not
exert themselves sufficiently, till fear, like an electrical shock,
roused all the inhabitants to a sense of the general evil. Even the
fire-engines were out of order, though the burning of the palace ought
to have admonished them of the necessity of keeping them in constant
repair. But this kind of indolence respecting what does not immediately
concern them seems to characterise the Danes. A sluggish concentration
in themselves makes them so careful to preserve their property, that
they will not venture on any enterprise to increase it in which there is
a shadow of hazard.

Considering Copenhagen as the capital of Denmark and Norway, I was
surprised not to see so much industry or taste as in Christiania.
Indeed, from everything I have had an opportunity of observing, the
Danes are the people who have made the fewest sacrifices to the graces.

The men of business are domestic tyrants, coldly immersed in their own
affairs, and so ignorant of the state of other countries, that they
dogmatically assert that Denmark is the happiest country in the world;
the Prince Royal the best of all possible princes; and Count Bernstorff
the wisest of ministers.

As for the women, they are simply notable housewives; without
accomplishments or any of the charms that adorn more advanced social
life. This total ignorance may enable them to save something in their
kitchens, but it is far from rendering them better parents. On the
contrary, the children are spoiled, as they usually are when left to the
care of weak, indulgent mothers, who having no principle of action to
regulate their feelings, become the slaves of infants, enfeebling both
body and mind by false tenderness.

I am, perhaps, a little prejudiced, as I write from the impression of
the moment; for I have been tormented to-day by the presence of unruly
children, and made angry by some invectives thrown out against the
maternal character of the unfortunate Matilda. She was censured, with
the most cruel insinuation, for her management of her son, though, from
what I could gather, she gave proofs of good sense as well as tenderness
in her attention to him. She used to bathe him herself every morning;
insisted on his being loosely clad; and would not permit his attendants
to injure his digestion by humouring his appetite. She was equally
careful to prevent his acquiring haughty airs, and playing the tyrant in
leading-strings. The Queen Dowager would not permit her to suckle him;
but the next child being a daughter, and not the Heir-Apparent of the
Crown, less opposition was made to her discharging the duty of a mother.

Poor Matilda! thou hast haunted me ever since may arrival; and the view
I have had of the manners of the country, exciting my sympathy, has
increased my respect for thy memory.

I am now fully convinced that she was the victim of the party she
displaced, who would have overlooked or encouraged her attachment, had
not her lover, aiming at being useful, attempted to overturn some
established abuses before the people, ripe for the change, had
sufficient spirit to support him when struggling in their behalf. Such
indeed was the asperity sharpened against her that I have heard her,
even after so many years have elapsed, charged with licentiousness, not
only for endeavouring to render the public amusements more elegant, but
for her very charities, because she erected, amongst other institutions,
a hospital to receive foundlings. Disgusted with many customs which pass
for virtues, though they are nothing more than observances of forms,
often at the expense of truth, she probably ran into an error common to
innovators, in wishing to do immediately what can only be done by time.

Many very cogent reasons have been urged by her friends to prove that
her affection for Struensee was never carried to the length alleged
against her by those who feared her influence. Be that as it may she
certainly was no a woman of gallantry, and if she had an attachment for
him it did not disgrace her heart or understanding, the king being a
notorious debauchee and an idiot into the bargain. As the king's conduct
had always been directed by some favourite, they also endeavoured to
govern him, from a principle of self-preservation as well as a laudable
ambition; but, not aware of the prejudices they had to encounter, the
system they adopted displayed more benevolence of heart than soundness
of judgment. As to the charge, still believed, of their giving the King
drugs to injure his faculties, it is too absurd to be refuted. Their
oppressors had better have accused them of dabbling in the black art,
for the potent spell still keeps his wits in bondage.

I cannot describe to you the effect it had on me to see this puppet of a
monarch moved by the strings which Count Bernstorff holds fast; sit,
with vacant eye, erect, receiving the homage of courtiers who mock him
with a show of respect. He is, in fact, merely a machine of state, to
subscribe the name of a king to the acts of the Government, which, to
avoid danger, have no value unless countersigned by the Prince Royal;
for he is allowed to be absolutely an idiot, excepting that now and
then an observation or trick escapes him, which looks more like madness
than imbecility.

What a farce is life. This effigy of majesty is allowed to burn down to
the socket, whilst the hapless Matilda was hurried into an untimely
grave.

   "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;
   They kill us for their sport."

Adieu!




LETTER XIX.


Business having obliged me to go a few miles out of town this morning I
was surprised at meeting a crowd of people of every description, and
inquiring the cause of a servant, who spoke French, I was informed that
a man had been executed two hours before, and the body afterwards burnt.
I could not help looking with horror around--the fields lost their
verdure--and I turned with disgust from the well-dressed women who were
returning with their children from this sight. What a spectacle for
humanity!  The seeing such a flock of idle gazers plunged me into a
train of reflections on the pernicious effects produced by false notions
of justice. And I am persuaded that till capital punishments are
entirely abolished executions ought to have every appearance of horror
given to them, instead of being, as they are now, a scene of amusement
for the gaping crowd, where sympathy is quickly effaced by curiosity.

I have always been of opinion that the allowing actors to die in the
presence of the audience has an immoral tendency, but trifling when
compared with the ferocity acquired by viewing the reality as a show;
for it seems to me that in all countries the common people go to
executions to see how the poor wretch plays his part, rather than to
commiserate his fate, much less to think of the breach of morality which
has brought him to such a deplorable end. Consequently executions, far
from being useful examples to the survivors, have, I am persuaded, a
quite contrary effect, by hardening the heart they ought to terrify.
Besides the fear of an ignominious death, I believe, never deferred
anyone from the commission of a crime, because, in committing it, the
mind is roused to activity about present circumstances. It is a game at
hazard, at which all expect the turn of the die in their own favour,
never reflecting on the chance of ruin till it comes. In fact, from what
I saw in the fortresses of Norway, I am more and more convinced that the
same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have
rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organised.
When a strong mind is not disciplined by cultivation it is a sense of
injustice that renders it unjust.

Executions, however, occur very rarely at Copenhagen; for timidity,
rather than clemency, palsies all the operations of the present
Government. The malefactor who died this morning would not, probably,
have been punished with death at any other period; but an incendiary
excites universal execration; and as the greater part of the inhabitants
are still distressed by the late conflagration, an example was thought
absolutely necessary; though, from what I can gather, the fire was
accidental.

Not, but that I have very seriously been informed, that combustible
materials were placed at proper distance, by the emissaries of Mr. Pitt;
and, to corroborate the fact, many people insist that the flames burst
out at once in different parts of the city; not allowing the wind to
have any hand in it. So much for the plot. But the fabricators of plots
in all countries build their conjectures on the "baseless fabric of a
vision;" and it seems even a sort of poetical justice, that whilst this
Minister is crushing at home plots of his own conjuring up, on the
Continent, and in the north, he should, with as little foundation, be
accused of wishing to set the world on fire.

I forgot to mention to you, that I was informed, by a man of veracity,
that two persons came to the stake to drink a glass of the criminal's
blood, as an infallible remedy for the apoplexy. And when I animadverted
in the company, where it was mentioned, on such a horrible violation of
nature, a Danish lady reproved me very severely, asking how I knew that
it was not a cure for the disease? adding, that every attempt was
justifiable in search of health. I did not, you may imagine, enter into
an argument with a person the slave of such a gross prejudice. And I
allude to it not only as a trait of the ignorance of the people, but to
censure the Government for not preventing scenes that throw an odium on
the human race.

Empiricism is not peculiar to Denmark; and I know no way of rooting it
out, though it be a remnant of exploded witchcraft, till the acquiring a
general knowledge of the component parts of the human frame becomes a
part of public education.

Since the fire, the inhabitants have been very assiduously employed in
searching for property secreted during the confusion; and it is
astonishing how many people, formerly termed reputable, had availed
themselves of the common calamity to purloin what the flames spared.
Others, expert at making a distinction without a difference, concealed
what they found, not troubling themselves to inquire for the owners,
though they scrupled to search for plunder anywhere, but amongst the
ruins.

To be honester than the laws require is by most people thought a work of
supererogation; and to slip through the grate of the law has ever
exercised the abilities of adventurers, who wish to get rich the
shortest way. Knavery without personal danger is an art brought to great
perfection by the statesman and swindler; and meaner knaves are not
tardy in following their footsteps.

It moves my gall to discover some of the commercial frauds practised
during the present war. In short, under whatever point of view I
consider society, it appears to me that an adoration of property is the
root of all evil. Here it does not render the people enterprising, as in
America, but thrifty and cautious. I never, therefore, was in a capital
where there was so little appearance of active industry; and as for
gaiety, I looked in vain for the sprightly gait of the Norwegians, who
in every respect appear to me to have got the start of them. This
difference I attribute to their having more liberty--a liberty which
they think their right by inheritance, whilst the Danes, when they boast
of their negative happiness, always mention it as the boon of the Prince
Royal, under the superintending wisdom of Count Bernstorff. Vassalage is
nevertheless ceasing throughout the kingdom, and with it will pass away
that sordid avarice which every modification of slavery is calculated to
produce.

If the chief use of property be power, in the shape of the respect it
procures, is it not among the inconsistencies of human nature most
incomprehensible, that men should find a pleasure in hoarding up
property which they steal from their necessities, even when they are
convinced that it would be dangerous to display such an enviable
superiority?  Is not this the situation of serfs in every country. Yet a
rapacity to accumulate money seems to become stronger in proportion as
it is allowed to be useless.

Wealth does not appear to be sought for amongst the Danes, to obtain the
excellent luxuries of life, for a want of taste is very conspicuous at
Copenhagen; so much so that I am not surprised to hear that poor Matilda
offended the rigid Lutherans by aiming to refine their pleasures. The
elegance which she wished to introduce was termed lasciviousness; yet I
do not find that the absence of gallantry renders the wives more chaste,
or the husbands more constant. Love here seems to corrupt the morals
without polishing the manners, by banishing confidence and truth, the
charm as well as cement of domestic life. A gentleman, who has resided
in this city some time, assures me that he could not find language to
give me an idea of the gross debaucheries into which the lower order of
people fall; and the promiscuous amours of the men of the middling class
with their female servants debase both beyond measure, weakening every
species of family affection.

I have everywhere been struck by one characteristic difference in the
conduct of the two sexes; women, in general, are seduced by their
superiors, and men jilted by their inferiors: rank and manners awe the
one, and cunning and wantonness subjugate the other; ambition creeping
into the woman's passion, and tyranny giving force to the man's, for
most men treat their mistresses as kings do their favourites: _ergo_ is
not man then the tyrant of the creation?

Still harping on the same subject, you will exclaim--How can I avoid it,
when most of the struggles of an eventful life have been occasioned by
the oppressed state of my sex?  We reason deeply when we feel forcibly.

But to return to the straight road of observation. The sensuality so
prevalent appears to me to arise rather from indolence of mind and dull
senses, than from an exuberance of life, which often fructifies the
whole character when the vivacity of youthful spirits begins to subside
into strength of mind.

I have before mentioned that the men are domestic tyrants, considering
them as fathers, brothers, or husbands; but there is a kind of
interregnum between the reign of the father and husband which is the
only period of freedom and pleasure that the women enjoy. Young people
who are attached to each other, with the consent of their friends,
exchange rings, and are permitted to enjoy a degree of liberty together
which I have never noticed in any other country. The days of courtship
are, therefore, prolonged till it be perfectly convenient to marry: the
intimacy often becomes very tender; and if the lover obtain the
privilege of a husband, it can only be termed half by stealth, because
the family is wilfully blind. It happens very rarely that these honorary
engagements are dissolved or disregarded, a stigma being attached to a
breach of faith which is thought more disgraceful, if not so criminal,
as the violation of the marriage-vow.

Do not forget that, in my general observations, I do not pretend to
sketch a national character, but merely to note the present state of
morals and manners as I trace the progress of the world's improvement.
Because, during my residence in different countries, my principal object
has been to take such a dispassionate view of men as will lead me to
form a just idea of the nature of man. And, to deal ingenuously with
you, I believe I should have been less severe in the remarks I have made
on the vanity and depravity of the French, had I travelled towards the
north before I visited France.

The interesting picture frequently drawn of the virtues of a rising
people has, I fear, been fallacious, excepting the accounts of the
enthusiasm which various public struggles have produced. We talk of the
depravity of the French, and lay a stress on the old age of the nation;
yet where has more virtuous enthusiasm been displayed than during the
two last years by the common people of France, and in their armies?  I
am obliged sometimes to recollect the numberless instances which I have
either witnessed, or heard well authenticated, to balance the account of
horrors, alas! but too true. I am, therefore, inclined to believe that
the gross vices which I have always seem allied with simplicity of
manners, are the concomitants of ignorance.

What, for example, has piety, under the heathen or Christian system,
been, but a blind faith in things contrary to the principles of reason?
And could poor reason make considerable advances when it was reckoned
the highest degree of virtue to do violence to its dictates?  Lutherans,
preaching reformation, have built a reputation for sanctity on the same
foundation as the Catholics; yet I do not perceive that a regular
attendance on public worship, and their other observances, make them a
whit more true in their affections, or honest in their private
transactions. It seems, indeed, quite as easy to prevaricate with
religious injunctions as human laws, when the exercise of their reason
does not lead people to acquire principles for themselves to be the
criterion of all those they receive from others.

If travelling, as the completion of a liberal education, were to be
adopted on rational grounds, the northern states ought to be visited
before the more polished parts of Europe, to serve as the elements even
of the knowledge of manners, only to be acquired by tracing the various
shades in different countries. But, when visiting distant climes, a
momentary social sympathy should not be allowed to influence the
conclusions of the understanding, for hospitality too frequently leads
travellers, especially those who travel in search of pleasure, to make a
false estimate of the virtues of a nation, which, I am now convinced,
bear an exact proportion to their scientific improvements.

Adieu.




LETTER XX.


I have formerly censured the French for their extreme attachment to
theatrical exhibitions, because I thought that they tended to render
them vain and unnatural characters; but I must acknowledge, especially
as women of the town never appear in the Parisian as at our theatres,
that the little saving of the week is more usefully expended there every
Sunday than in porter or brandy, to intoxicate or stupify the mind. The
common people of France have a great superiority over that class in
every other country on this very score. It is merely the sobriety of the
Parisians which renders their fêtes more interesting, their gaiety never
becoming disgusting or dangerous, as is always the case when liquor
circulates. Intoxication is the pleasure of savages, and of all those
whose employments rather exhaust their animal spirits than exercise
their faculties. Is not this, in fact, the vice, both in England and the
northern states of Europe, which appears to be the greatest impediment
to general improvement?  Drinking is here the principal relaxation of
the men, including smoking, but the women are very abstemious, though
they have no public amusements as a substitute. I ought to except one
theatre, which appears more than is necessary; for when I was there it
was not half full, and neither the ladies nor actresses displayed much
fancy in their dress.

The play was founded on the story of the "Mock Doctor;" and, from the
gestures of the servants, who were the best actors, I should imagine
contained some humour. The farce, termed ballet, was a kind of
pantomime, the childish incidents of which were sufficient to show the
state of the dramatic art in Denmark, and the gross taste of the
audience. A magician, in the disguise of a tinker, enters a cottage
where the women are all busy ironing, and rubs a dirty frying-pan
against the linen. The women raise a hue-and-cry, and dance after him,
rousing their husbands, who join in the dance, but get the start of them
in the pursuit. The tinker, with the frying-pan for a shield, renders
them immovable, and blacks their cheeks. Each laughs at the other,
unconscious of his own appearance; meanwhile the women enter to enjoy
the sport, "the rare fun," with other incidents of the same species.

The singing was much on a par with the dancing, the one as destitute of
grace as the other of expression; but the orchestra was well filled, the
instrumental being far superior to the vocal music.

I have likewise visited the public library and museum, as well as the
palace of Rosembourg. This palace, now deserted, displays a gloomy kind
of grandeur throughout, for the silence of spacious apartments always
makes itself to be felt; I at least feel it, and I listen for the sound
of my footsteps as I have done at midnight to the ticking of the
death-watch, encouraging a kind of fanciful superstition. Every object
carried me back to past times, and impressed the manners of the age
forcibly on my mind. In this point of view the preservation of old
palaces and their tarnished furniture is useful, for they may be
considered as historical documents.

The vacuum left by departed greatness was everywhere observable, whilst
the battles and processions portrayed on the walls told you who had here
excited revelry after retiring from slaughter, or dismissed pageantry in
search of pleasure. It seemed a vast tomb full of the shadowy phantoms
of those who had played or toiled their hour out and sunk behind the
tapestry which celebrated the conquests of love or war. Could they be no
more--to whom my imagination thus gave life?  Could the thoughts, of
which there remained so many vestiges, have vanished quite away?  And
these beings, composed of such noble materials of thinking and feeling,
have they only melted into the elements to keep in motion the grand mass
of life?  It cannot be!--as easily could I believe that the large silver
lions at the top of the banqueting room thought and reasoned. But
avaunt! ye waking dreams! yet I cannot describe the curiosities to you.

There were cabinets full of baubles and gems, and swords which must have
been wielded by giant's hand. The coronation ornaments wait quietly here
till wanted, and the wardrobe exhibits the vestments which formerly
graced these shows. It is a pity they do not lend them to the actors,
instead of allowing them to perish ingloriously.

I have not visited any other palace, excepting Hirsholm, the gardens of
which are laid out with taste, and command the finest views the country
affords. As they are in the modern and English style, I thought I was
following the footsteps of Matilda, who wished to multiply around her
the images of her beloved country. I was also gratified by the sight of
a Norwegian landscape in miniature, which with great propriety makes a
part of the Danish King's garden. The cottage is well imitated, and the
whole has a pleasing effect, particularly so to me who love Norway--its
peaceful farms and spacious wilds.

The public library consists of a collection much larger than I expected
to see; and it is well arranged. Of the value of the Icelandic
manuscripts I could not form a judgment, though the alphabet of some of
them amused me, by showing what immense labour men will submit to, in
order to transmit their ideas to posterity. I have sometimes thought it
a great misfortune for individuals to acquire a certain delicacy of
sentiment, which often makes them weary of the common occurrences of
life; yet it is this very delicacy of feeling and thinking which
probably has produced most of the performances that have benefited
mankind. It might with propriety, perhaps, be termed the malady of
genius; the cause of that characteristic melancholy which "grows with
its growth, and strengthens with its strength."

There are some good pictures in the royal museum. Do not start, I am not
going to trouble you with a dull catalogue, or stupid criticisms on
masters to whom time has assigned their just niche in the temple of
fame; had there been any by living artists of this country, I should
have noticed them, as making a part of the sketches I am drawing of the
present state of the place. The good pictures were mixed
indiscriminately with the bad ones, in order to assort the frames. The
same fault is conspicuous in the new splendid gallery forming at Paris;
though it seems an obvious thought that a school for artists ought to be
arranged in such a manner, as to show the progressive discoveries and
improvements in the art.

A collection of the dresses, arms, and implements of the Laplanders
attracted my attention, displaying that first species of ingenuity which
is rather a proof of patient perseverance, than comprehension of mind.
The specimens of natural history, and curiosities of art, were likewise
huddled together without that scientific order which alone renders them
useful; but this may partly have been occasioned by the hasty manner in
which they were removed from the palace when in flames.

There are some respectable men of science here, but few literary
characters, and fewer artists. They want encouragement, and will
continue, I fear, from the present appearance of things, to languish
unnoticed a long time; for neither the vanity of wealth, nor the
enterprising spirit of commerce, has yet thrown a glance that way.

Besides, the Prince Royal, determined to be economical, almost descends
to parsimony; and perhaps depresses his subjects, by labouring not to
oppress them; for his intentions always seem to be good--yet nothing can
give a more forcible idea of the dulness which eats away all activity of
mind, than the insipid routine of a court, without magnificence or
elegance.

The Prince, from what I can now collect, has very moderate abilities;
yet is so well disposed, that Count Bernstorff finds him as tractable as
he could wish; for I consider the Count as the real sovereign, scarcely
behind the curtain; the Prince having none of that obstinate
self-sufficiency of youth, so often the forerunner of decision of
character. He and the Princess his wife, dine every day with the King,
to save the expense of two tables. What a mummery it must be to treat as
a king a being who has lost the majesty of man!  But even Count
Bernstorff's morality submits to this standing imposition; and he avails
himself of it sometimes, to soften a refusal of his own, by saying it is
the _will_ of the King, my master, when everybody knows that he has
neither will nor memory. Much the same use is made of him as, I have
observed, some termagant wives make of their husbands; they would dwell
on the necessity of obeying their husbands, poor passive souls, who
never were allowed _to will_, when they wanted to conceal their own
tyranny.

A story is told here of the King's formerly making a dog counsellor of
state, because when the dog, accustomed to eat at the royal table,
snatched a piece of meat off an old officer's plate, he reproved him
jocosely, saying that he, _monsieur le chien_, had not the privilege of
dining with his majesty, a privilege annexed to this distinction.

The burning of the palace was, in fact, a fortunate circumstance, as it
afforded a pretext for reducing the establishment of the household,
which was far too great for the revenue of the Crown. The Prince Royal,
at present, runs into the opposite extreme; and the formality, if not
the parsimony, of the court, seems to extend to all the other branches
of society, which I had an opportunity of observing; though hospitality
still characterises their intercourse with strangers.

But let me now stop; I may be a little partial, and view everything with
the jaundiced eye of melancholy--for I am sad--and have cause.

God bless you!




LETTER XXI.


I have seen Count Bernstorff; and his conversation confirms me in the
opinion I had previously formed of him; I mean, since my arrival at
Copenhagen. He is a worthy man, a little vain of his virtue _à la_
Necker; and more anxious not to do wrong, that is to avoid blame, than
desirous of doing good; especially if any particular good demands a
change. Prudence, in short, seems to be the basis of his character; and,
from the tenor of the Government, I should think inclining to that
cautious circumspection which treads on the heels of timidity. He has
considerable information, and some finesse; or he could not be a
Minister. Determined not to risk his popularity, for he is tenderly
careful of his reputation, he will never gloriously fail like Struensee,
or disturb, with the energy of genius, the stagnant state of the public
mind.

I suppose that Lavater, whom he invited to visit him two years ago--some
say to fix the principles of the Christian religion firmly in the Prince
Royal's mind, found lines in his face to prove him a statesman of the
first order; because he has a knack at seeing a great character in the
countenances of men in exalted stations, who have noticed him or his
works. Besides, the Count's sentiments relative to the French
Revolution, agreeing with Lavater's, must have ensured his applause.

The Danes, in general, seem extremely averse to innovation, and if
happiness only consist in opinion, they are the happiest people in the
world; for I never saw any so well satisfied with their own situation.
Yet the climate appears to be very disagreeable, the weather being dry
and sultry, or moist and cold; the atmosphere never having that sharp,
bracing purity, which in Norway prepares you to brave its rigours. I do
not hear the inhabitants of this place talk with delight of the winter,
which is the constant theme of the Norwegians; on the contrary, they
seem to dread its comfortless inclemency.

The ramparts are pleasant, and must have been much more so before the
fire, the walkers not being annoyed by the clouds of dust which, at
present, the slightest wind wafts from the ruins. The windmills, and the
comfortable houses contiguous, belonging to the millers, as well as the
appearance of the spacious barracks for the soldiers and sailors, tend
to render this walk more agreeable. The view of the country has not much
to recommend it to notice but its extent and cultivation: yet as the eye
always delights to dwell on verdant plains, especially when we are
resident in a great city, these shady walks should be reckoned amongst
the advantages procured by the Government for the inhabitants. I like
them better than the Royal Gardens, also open to the public, because the
latter seem sunk in the heart of the city, to concentrate its fogs.

The canals which intersect the streets are equally convenient and
wholesome; but the view of the sea commanded by the town had little to
interest me whilst the remembrance of the various bold and picturesque
shores I had seen was fresh in my memory. Still the opulent inhabitants,
who seldom go abroad, must find the spots where they fix their country
seats much pleasanter on account of the vicinity of the ocean.

One of the best streets in Copenhagen is almost filled with hospitals,
erected by the Government, and, I am assured, as well regulated as
institutions of this kind are in any country; but whether hospitals or
workhouses are anywhere superintended with sufficient humanity I have
frequently had reason to doubt.

The autumn is so uncommonly fine that I am unwilling to put off my
journey to Hamburg much longer, lest the weather should alter suddenly,
and the chilly harbingers of winter catch me here, where I have nothing
now to detain me but the hospitality of the families to whom I had
recommendatory letters. I lodged at an hotel situated in a large open
square, where the troops exercise and the market is kept. My apartments
were very good; and on account of the fire I was told that I should be
charged very high; yet, paying my bill just now, I find the demands much
lower in proportion than in Norway, though my dinners were in every
respect better.

I have remained more at home since I arrived at Copenhagen than I ought
to have done in a strange place, but the mind is not always equally
active in search of information, and my oppressed heart too often sighs
out--

   "How dull, flat, and unprofitable
   Are to me all the usages of this world:
   That it should come to this!"

Farewell!  Fare thee well, I say; if thou canst, repeat the adieu in a
different tone.




LETTER XXII.


I arrived at Corsoer the night after I quitted Copenhagen, purposing to
take my passage across the Great Belt the next morning, though the
weather was rather boisterous. It is about four-and-twenty miles but as
both I and my little girl are never attacked by sea-sickness--though who
can avoid _ennui_?--I enter a boat with the same indifference as I
change horses; and as for danger, come when it may, I dread it not
sufficiently to have any anticipating fears.

The road from Copenhagen was very good, through an open, flat country
that had little to recommend it to notice excepting the cultivation,
which gratified my heart more than my eye.

I took a barge with a German baron who was hastening back from a tour
into Denmark, alarmed by the intelligence of the French having passed
the Rhine. His conversation beguiled the time, and gave a sort of
stimulus to my spirits, which had been growing more and more languid
ever since my return to Gothenburg; you know why. I had often
endeavoured to rouse myself to observation by reflecting that I was
passing through scenes which I should probably never see again, and
consequently ought not to omit observing. Still I fell into reveries,
thinking, by way of excuse, that enlargement of mind and refined
feelings are of little use but to barb the arrows of sorrow which waylay
us everywhere, eluding the sagacity of wisdom and rendering principles
unavailing, if considered as a breastwork to secure our own hearts.

Though we had not a direct wind, we were not detained more than three
hours and a half on the water, just long enough to give us an appetite
for our dinner.

We travelled the remainder of the day and the following night in company
with the same party, the German gentleman whom I have mentioned, his
friend, and servant. The meetings at the post-houses were pleasant to
me, who usually heard nothing but strange tongues around me. Marguerite
and the child often fell asleep, and when they were awake I might still
reckon myself alone, as our train of thoughts had nothing in common.
Marguerite, it is true, was much amused by the costume of the women,
particularly by the pannier which adorned both their heads and tails,
and with great glee recounted to me the stories she had treasured up for
her family when once more within the barriers of dear Paris, not
forgetting, with that arch, agreeable vanity peculiar to the French,
which they exhibit whilst half ridiculing it, to remind me of the
importance she should assume when she informed her friends of all her
journeys by sea and land, showing the pieces of money she had collected,
and stammering out a few foreign phrases, which she repeated in a true
Parisian accent. Happy thoughtlessness! ay, and enviable harmless
vanity, which thus produced a _gaité du cœur_ worth all my philosophy!

The man I had hired at Copenhagen advised me to go round about twenty
miles to avoid passing the Little Belt excepting by a ferry, as the wind
was contrary. But the gentlemen overruled his arguments, which we were
all very sorry for afterwards, when we found ourselves becalmed on the
Little Belt ten hours, tacking about without ceasing, to gain the shore.

An oversight likewise made the passage appear much more tedious, nay,
almost insupportable. When I went on board at the Great Belt, I had
provided refreshments in case of detention, which remaining untouched I
thought not then any such precaution necessary for the second passage,
misled by the epithet of "little," though I have since been informed
that it is frequently the longest. This mistake occasioned much
vexation; for the child, at last, began to cry so bitterly for bread,
that fancy conjured up before me the wretched Ugolino, with his famished
children; and I, literally speaking, enveloped myself in sympathetic
horrors, augmented by every tear my babe shed, from which I could not
escape till we landed, and a luncheon of bread and basin of milk routed
the spectres of fancy.

I then supped with my companions, with whom I was soon after to part for
ever--always a most melancholy death-like idea--a sort of separation of
soul; for all the regret which follows those from whom fate separates us
seems to be something torn from ourselves. These were strangers I
remember; yet when there is any originality in a countenance, it takes
its place in our memory, and we are sorry to lose an acquaintance the
moment he begins to interest us, though picked up on the highway. There
was, in fact, a degree of intelligence, and still more sensibility, in
the features and conversation of one of the gentlemen, that made me
regret the loss of his society during the rest of the journey; for he
was compelled to travel post, by his desire to reach his estate before
the arrival of the French.

This was a comfortable inn, as were several others I stopped at; but the
heavy sandy roads were very fatiguing, after the fine ones we had lately
skimmed over both in Sweden and Denmark. The country resembled the most
open part of England--laid out for corn rather than grazing. It was
pleasant, yet there was little in the prospects to awaken curiosity, by
displaying the peculiar characteristics of a new country, which had so
frequently stole me from myself in Norway. We often passed over large
unenclosed tracts, not graced with trees, or at least very sparingly
enlivened by them, and the half-formed roads seemed to demand the
landmarks, set up in the waste, to prevent the traveller from straying
far out of his way, and plodding through the wearisome sand.

The heaths were dreary, and had none of the wild charms of those of
Sweden and Norway to cheat time; neither the terrific rocks, nor smiling
herbage grateful to the sight and scented from afar, made us forget
their length. Still the country appeared much more populous, and the
towns, if not the farmhouses, were superior to those of Norway. I even
thought that the inhabitants of the former had more intelligence--at
least, I am sure they had more vivacity in their countenances than I had
seen during my northern tour: their senses seemed awake to business and
pleasure. I was therefore gratified by hearing once more the busy hum of
industrious men in the day, and the exhilarating sounds of joy in the
evening; for, as the weather was still fine, the women and children were
amusing themselves at their doors, or walking under the trees, which in
many places were planted in the streets; and as most of the towns of any
note were situated on little bays or branches of the Baltic, their
appearance as we approached was often very picturesque, and, when we
entered, displayed the comfort and cleanliness of easy, if not the
elegance of opulent, circumstances. But the cheerfulness of the people
in the streets was particularly grateful to me, after having been
depressed by the deathlike silence of those of Denmark, where every
house made me think of a tomb. The dress of the peasantry is suited to
the climate; in short, none of that poverty and dirt appeared, at the
sight of which the heart sickens.

As I only stopped to change horses, take refreshment, and sleep, I had
not an opportunity of knowing more of the country than conclusions which
the information gathered by my eyes enabled me to draw, and that was
sufficient to convince me that I should much rather have lived in some
of the towns I now pass through than in any I had seen in Sweden or
Denmark. The people struck me as having arrived at that period when the
faculties will unfold themselves; in short; they look alive to
improvement, neither congealed by indolence, nor bent down by
wretchedness to servility.

From the previous impression--I scarcely can trace whence I received
it--I was agreeably surprised to perceive such an appearance of comfort
in this part of Germany. I had formed a conception of the tyranny of the
petty potentates that had thrown a gloomy veil over the face of the
whole country in my imagination, that cleared away like the darkness of
night before the sun as I saw the reality. I should probably have
discovered much lurking misery, the consequence of ignorant oppression,
no doubt, had I had time to inquire into particulars; but it did not
stalk abroad and infect the surface over which my eye glanced. Yes, I am
persuaded that a considerable degree of general knowledge pervades this
country, for it is only from the exercise of the mind that the body
acquires the activity from which I drew these inferences. Indeed, the
King of Denmark's German dominions--Holstein--appeared to me far
superior to any other part of his kingdom which had fallen under my
view; and the robust rustics to have their muscles braced, instead of
the, as it were, lounge of the Danish peasantry.

Arriving at Sleswick, the residence of Prince Charles of Hesse-Cassel,
the sight of the soldiers recalled all the unpleasing ideas of German
despotism, which imperceptibly vanished as I advanced into the country.
I viewed, with a mixture of pity and horror, these beings training to be
sold to slaughter, or be slaughtered, and fell into reflections on an
old opinion of mine, that it is the preservation of the species, not of
individuals, which appears to be the design of the Deity throughout the
whole of Nature. Blossoms come forth only to be blighted; fish lay their
spawn where it will be devoured; and what a large portion of the human
race are born merely to be swept prematurely away!  Does not this waste
of budding life emphatically assert that it is not men, but Man, whose
preservation is so necessary to the completion of the grand plan of the
universe?  Children peep into existence, suffer, and die; men play like
moths about a candle, and sink into the flame; war, and "the thousand
ills which flesh is heir to," mow them down in shoals; whilst the more
cruel prejudices of society palsy existence, introducing not less sure
though slower decay.

The castle was heavy and gloomy, yet the grounds about it were laid out
with some taste; a walk, winding under the shade of lofty trees, led to
a regularly built and animated town.

I crossed the drawbridge, and entered to see this shell of a court in
miniature, mounting ponderous stairs--it would be a solecism to say a
flight--up which a regiment of men might have marched, shouldering their
firelocks to exercise in vast galleries, where all the generations of
the Princes of Hesse-Cassel might have been mustered rank and file,
though not the phantoms of all the wretched they had bartered to support
their state, unless these airy substances could shrink and expand, like
Milton's devils, to suit the occasion.

The sight of the presence-chamber, and of the canopy to shade the
fauteuil which aped a throne, made me smile. All the world is a stage,
thought I; and few are there in it who do not play the part they have
learnt by rote; and those who do not, seem marks set up to be pelted at
by fortune, or rather as sign-posts which point out the road to others,
whilst forced to stand still themselves amidst the mud and dust.

Waiting for our horses, we were amused by observing the dress of the
women, which was very grotesque and unwieldy. The false notion of beauty
which prevails here as well as in Denmark, I should think very
inconvenient in summer, as it consists in giving a rotundity to a
certain part of the body, not the most slim, when Nature has done her
part. This Dutch prejudice often leads them to toil under the weight of
some ten or a dozen petticoats, which, with an enormous basket,
literally speaking, as a bonnet, or a straw hat of dimensions equally
gigantic, almost completely conceal the human form as well as face
divine, often worth showing; still they looked clean, and tripped along,
as it were, before the wind, with a weight of tackle that I could
scarcely have lifted. Many of the country girls I met appeared to me
pretty--that is, to have fine complexions, sparkling eyes, and a kind of
arch, hoyden playfulness which distinguishes the village coquette. The
swains, in their Sunday trim, attended some of these fair ones in a more
slouching pace, though their dress was not so cumbersome. The women seem
to take the lead in polishing the manners everywhere, this being the
only way to better their condition.

From what I have seen throughout my journey, I do not think the
situation of the poor in England is much, if at all, superior to that of
the same class in different parts of the world; and in Ireland I am sure
it is much inferior. I allude to the former state of England; for at
present the accumulation of national wealth only increases the cares of
the poor, and hardens the hearts of the rich, in spite of the highly
extolled rage for almsgiving.

You know that I have always been an enemy to what is termed charity,
because timid bigots, endeavouring thus to cover their sins, do violence
to justice, till, acting the demigod, they forget that they are men. And
there are others who do not even think of laying up a treasure in
heaven, whose benevolence is merely tyranny in disguise; they assist the
most worthless, because the most servile, and term them helpless only in
proportion to their fawning.

After leaving Sleswick, we passed through several pretty towns; Itzchol
particularly pleased me; and the country, still wearing the same aspect,
was improved by the appearance of more trees and enclosures. But what
gratified me most was the population. I was weary of travelling four or
five hours, never meeting a carriage, and scarcely a peasant; and then
to stop at such wretched huts as I had seen in Sweden was surely
sufficient to chill any heart awake to sympathy, and throw a gloom over
my favourite subject of contemplation, the future improvement of the
world.

The farmhouses, likewise, with the huge stables, into which we drove
whilst the horses were putting to or baiting, were very clean and
commodious. The rooms, with a door into this hall-like stable and
storehouse in one, were decent; and there was a compactness in the
appearance of the whole family lying thus snugly together under the same
roof that carried my fancy back to the primitive times, which probably
never existed with such a golden lustre as the animated imagination
lends when only able to seize the prominent features.

At one of them, a pretty young woman, with languishing eyes of celestial
blue, conducted us into a very neat parlour, and observing how loosely
and lightly my little girl was clad, began to pity her in the sweetest
accents, regardless of the rosy down of health on her cheeks. This same
damsel was dressed--it was Sunday--with taste and even coquetry, in a
cotton jacket, ornamented with knots of blue ribbon, fancifully disposed
to give life to her fine complexion. I loitered a little to admire her,
for every gesture was graceful; and, amidst the other villagers, she
looked like a garden lily suddenly rearing its head amongst grain and
corn-flowers. As the house was small, I gave her a piece of money rather
larger than it was my custom to give to the female waiters--for I could
not prevail on her to sit down--which she received with a smile; yet
took care to give it, in my presence, to a girl who had brought the
child a slice of bread; by which I perceived that she was the mistress
or daughter of the house, and without doubt the belle of the village.
There was, in short, an appearance of cheerful industry, and of that
degree of comfort which shut out misery, in all the little hamlets as I
approached Hamburg, which agreeably surprised me.

The short jackets which the women wear here, as well as in France, are
not only more becoming to the person, but much better calculated for
women who have rustic or household employments than the long gowns worn
in England, dangling in the dirt.

All the inns on the road were better than I expected, though the
softness of the beds still harassed me, and prevented my finding the
rest I was frequently in want of, to enable me to bear the fatigue of
the next day. The charges were moderate, and the people very civil, with
a certain honest hilarity and independent spirit in their manner, which
almost made me forget that they were innkeepers, a set of men--waiters,
hostesses, chambermaids, &c., down to the ostler, whose cunning
servility in England I think particularly disgusting.

The prospect of Hamburg at a distance, as well as the fine road shaded
with trees, led me to expect to see a much pleasanter city than I found.

I was aware of the difficulty of obtaining lodgings, even at the inns,
on account of the concourse of strangers at present resorting to such a
centrical situation, and determined to go to Altona the next day to seek
for an abode, wanting now only rest. But even for a single night we were
sent from house to house, and found at last a vacant room to sleep in,
which I should have turned from with disgust had there been a choice.

I scarcely know anything that produces more disagreeable sensations, I
mean to speak of the passing cares, the recollection of which afterwards
enlivens our enjoyments, than those excited by little disasters of this
kind. After a long journey, with our eyes directed to some particular
spot, to arrive and find nothing as it should be is vexatious, and sinks
the agitated spirits. But I, who received the cruellest of
disappointments last spring in returning to my home, term such as these
emphatically passing cares. Know you of what materials some hearts are
made?  I play the child, and weep at the recollection--for the grief is
still fresh that stunned as well as wounded me--yet never did drops of
anguish like these bedew the cheeks of infantine innocence--and why
should they mine, that never was stained by a blush of guilt?  Innocent
and credulous as a child, why have I not the same happy thoughtlessness?
Adieu!




LETTER XXIII.


I might have spared myself the disagreeable feelings I experienced the
first night of my arrival at Hamburg, leaving the open air to be shut up
in noise and dirt, had I gone immediately to Altona, where a lodging had
been prepared for me by a gentleman from whom I received many civilities
during my journey. I wished to have travelled in company with him from
Copenhagen, because I found him intelligent and friendly, but business
obliged him to hurry forward, and I wrote to him on the subject of
accommodations as soon as I was informed of the difficulties I might
have to encounter to house myself and brat.

It is but a short and pleasant walk from Hamburg to Altona, under the
shade of several rows of trees, and this walk is the more agreeable
after quitting the rough pavement of either place.

Hamburg is an ill, close-built town, swarming with inhabitants, and,
from what I could learn, like all the other free towns, governed in a
manner which bears hard on the poor, whilst narrowing the minds of the
rich; the character of the man is lost in the Hamburger. Always afraid
of the encroachments of their Danish neighbours, that is, anxiously
apprehensive of their sharing the golden harvest of commerce with them,
or taking a little of the trade off their hands--though they have more
than they know what to do with--they are ever on the watch, till their
very eyes lose all expression, excepting the prying glance of suspicion.

The gates of Hamburg are shut at seven in the winter and nine in the
summer, lest some strangers, who come to traffic in Hamburg, should
prefer living, and consequently--so exactly do they calculate--spend
their money out of the walls of the Hamburger's world. Immense fortunes
have been acquired by the per-cents. arising from commissions nominally
only two and a half, but mounted to eight or ten at least by the secret
manoeuvres of trade, not to include the advantage of purchasing goods
wholesale in common with contractors, and that of having so much money
left in their hands, not to play with, I can assure you. Mushroom
fortunes have started up during the war; the men, indeed, seem of the
species of the fungus, and the insolent vulgarity which a sudden influx
of wealth usually produces in common minds is here very conspicuous,
which contrasts with the distresses of many of the emigrants, "fallen,
fallen from their high estate," such are the ups and downs of fortune's
wheel. Many emigrants have met, with fortitude, such a total change of
circumstances as scarcely can be paralleled, retiring from a palace to
an obscure lodging with dignity; but the greater number glide about, the
ghosts of greatness, with the _Croix de St. Louis_ ostentatiously
displayed, determined to hope, "though heaven and earth their wishes
crossed."  Still good breeding points out the gentleman, and sentiments
of honour and delicacy appear the offspring of greatness of soul when
compared with the grovelling views of the sordid accumulators of cent.
per cent.

Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed: so
much so, inferring from what I have lately seen, that I mean not to be
severe when I add--previously asking why priests are in general cunning
and statesmen false?--that men entirely devoted to commerce never
acquire or lose all taste and greatness of mind. An ostentatious display
of wealth without elegance, and a greedy enjoyment of pleasure without
sentiment, embrutes them till they term all virtue of an heroic cast,
romantic attempts at something above our nature, and anxiety about the
welfare of others, a search after misery in which we have no concern.
But you will say that I am growing bitter, perhaps personal. Ah! shall I
whisper to you, that you yourself are strangely altered since you have
entered deeply into commerce--more than you are aware of; never allowing
yourself to reflect, and keeping your mind, or rather passions, in a
continual state of agitation?  Nature has given you talents which lie
dormant, or are wasted in ignoble pursuits. You will rouse yourself and
shake off the vile dust that obscures you, or my understanding, as well
as my heart, deceives me egregiously--only tell me when. But to go
farther afield.

Madame la Fayette left Altona the day I arrived, to endeavour, at
Vienna, to obtain the enlargement of her husband, or permission to share
his prison. She lived in a lodging up two pairs of stairs, without a
servant, her two daughters cheerfully assisting; choosing, as well as
herself, to descend to anything before unnecessary obligations. During
her prosperity, and consequent idleness, she did not, I am told, enjoy a
good state of health, having a train of nervous complaints, which,
though they have not a name, unless the significant word _ennui_ be
borrowed, had an existence in the higher French circles; but adversity
and virtuous exertions put these ills to flight, and dispossessed her of
a devil who deserves the appellation of legion.

Madame Genus also resided at Altona some time, under an assumed name,
with many other sufferers of less note though higher rank. It is, in
fact, scarcely possible to stir out without meeting interesting
countenances, every lineament of which tells you that they have seen
better days.

At Hamburg, I was informed, a duke had entered into partnership with his
cook, who becoming a _traiteur_, they were both comfortably supported by
the profit arising from his industry. Many noble instances of the
attachment of servants to their unfortunate masters have come to my
knowledge, both here and in France, and touched my heart, the greatest
delight of which is to discover human virtue.

At Altona, a president of one of the _ci-devant_ parliaments keeps an
ordinary, in the French style; and his wife with cheerful dignity
submits to her fate, though she is arrived at an age when people seldom
relinquish their prejudices. A girl who waits there brought a dozen
_double louis d'or_ concealed in her clothes, at the risk of her life,
from France, which she preserves lest sickness or any other distress
should overtake her mistress, "who," she observed, "was not accustomed
to hardships."  This house was particularly recommended to me by an
acquaintance of yours, the author of the "American Farmer's Letters."  I
generally dine in company with him: and the gentleman whom I have
already mentioned is often diverted by our declamations against
commerce, when we compare notes respecting the characteristics of the
Hamburgers. "Why, madam," said he to me one day, "you will not meet with
a man who has any calf to his leg; body and soul, muscles and heart, are
equally shrivelled up by a thirst of gain. There is nothing generous
even in their youthful passions; profit is their only stimulus, and
calculations the sole employment of their faculties, unless we except
some gross animal gratifications which, snatched at spare moments, tend
still more to debase the character, because, though touched by his
tricking wand, they have all the arts, without the wit, of the
wing-footed god."

Perhaps you may also think us too severe; but I must add that the more I
saw of the manners of Hamburg, the more was I confirmed in my opinion
relative to the baleful effect of extensive speculations on the moral
character. Men are strange machines; and their whole system of morality
is in general held together by one grand principle which loses its force
the moment they allow themselves to break with impunity over the bounds
which secured their self-respect. A man ceases to love humanity, and
then individuals, as he advances in the chase after wealth; as one
clashes with his interest, the other with his pleasures: to business, as
it is termed, everything must give way; nay, is sacrificed, and all the
endearing charities of citizen, husband, father, brother, become empty
names. But--but what?  Why, to snap the chain of thought, I must say
farewell. Cassandra was not the only prophetess whose warning voice has
been disregarded. How much easier it is to meet with love in the world
than affection!

Yours sincerely.




LETTER XXIV.


My lodgings at Altona are tolerably comfortable, though not in any
proportion to the price I pay; but, owing to the present circumstances,
all the necessaries of life are here extravagantly dear. Considering it
as a temporary residence, the chief inconvenience of which I am inclined
to complain is the rough streets that must be passed before Marguerite
and the child can reach a level road.

The views of the Elbe in the vicinity of the town are pleasant,
particularly as the prospects here afford so little variety. I attempted
to descend, and walk close to the water's edge; but there was no path;
and the smell of glue, hanging to dry, an extensive manufactory of which
is carried on close to the beach, I found extremely disagreeable. But to
commerce everything must give way; profit and profit are the only
speculations--"double--double, toil and trouble."  I have seldom entered
a shady walk without being soon obliged to turn aside to make room for
the rope-makers; and the only tree I have seen, that appeared to be
planted by the hand of taste, is in the churchyard, to shade the tomb of
the poet Klopstock's wife.

Most of the merchants have country houses to retire to during the
summer; and many of them are situated on the banks of the Elbe, where
they have the pleasure of seeing the packet-boats arrive--the periods of
most consequence to divide their week.

The moving picture, consisting of large vessels and small craft, which
are continually changing their position with the tide, renders this
noble river, the vital stream of Hamburg, very interesting; and the
windings have sometimes a very fine effect, two or three turns being
visible at once, intersecting the flat meadows; a sudden bend often
increasing the magnitude of the river; and the silvery expanse, scarcely
gliding, though bearing on its bosom so much treasure, looks for a
moment like a tranquil lake.

Nothing can be stronger than the contrast which this flat country and
strand afford, compared with the mountains and rocky coast I have lately
dwelt so much among. In fancy I return to a favourite spot, where I
seemed to have retired from man and wretchedness; but the din of trade
drags me back to all the care I left behind, when lost in sublime
emotions. Rocks aspiring towards the heavens, and, as it were, shutting
out sorrow, surrounded me, whilst peace appeared to steal along the lake
to calm my bosom, modulating the wind that agitated the neighbouring
poplars. Now I hear only an account of the tricks of trade, or listen to
the distressful tale of some victim of ambition.

The hospitality of Hamburg is confined to Sunday invitations to the
country houses I have mentioned, when dish after dish smokes upon the
board, and the conversation ever flowing in the muddy channel of
business, it is not easy to obtain any appropriate information. Had I
intended to remain here some time, or had my mind been more alive to
general inquiries, I should have endeavoured to have been introduced to
some characters not so entirely immersed in commercial affairs, though
in this whirlpool of gain it is not very easy to find any but the
wretched or supercilious emigrants, who are not engaged in pursuits
which, in my eyes, appear as dishonourable as gambling. The interests of
nations are bartered by speculating merchants. My God! with what _sang
froid_ artful trains of corruption bring lucrative commissions into
particular hands, disregarding the relative situation of different
countries, and can much common honesty be expected in the discharge of
trusts obtained by fraud? But this _entre nous_.

During my present journey, and whilst residing in France, I have had an
opportunity of peeping behind the scenes of what are vulgarly termed
great affairs, only to discover the mean machinery which has directed
many transactions of moment. The sword has been merciful, compared with
the depredations made on human life by contractors and by the swarm of
locusts who have battened on the pestilence they spread abroad. These
men, like the owners of negro ships, never smell on their money the
blood by which it has been gained, but sleep quietly in their beds,
terming such occupations lawful callings; yet the lightning marks not
their roofs to thunder conviction on them "and to justify the ways of
God to man."

Why should I weep for myself?  "Take, O world! thy much indebted tear!"
Adieu!




LETTER XXV.


There is a pretty little French theatre at Altona, and the actors are
much superior to those I saw at Copenhagen. The theatres at Hamburg are
not open yet, but will very shortly, when the shutting of the gates at
seven o'clock forces the citizens to quit their country houses. But,
respecting Hamburg, I shall not be able to obtain much more information,
as I have determined to sail with the first fair wind for England.

The presence of the French army would have rendered my intended tour
through Germany, in my way to Switzerland, almost impracticable, had not
the advancing season obliged me to alter my plan. Besides, though
Switzerland is the country which for several years I have been
particularly desirous to visit, I do not feel inclined to ramble any
farther this year; nay, I am weary of changing the scene, and quitting
people and places the moment they begin to interest me. This also is
vanity!


DOVER.

I left this letter unfinished, as I was hurried on board, and now I have
only to tell you that, at the sight of Dover cliffs, I wondered how
anybody could term them grand; they appear so insignificant to me, after
those I had seen in Sweden and Norway.

Adieu!  My spirit of observation seems to be fled, and I have been
wandering round this dirty place, literally speaking, to kill time,
though the thoughts I would fain fly from lie too close to my heart to
be easily shook off, or even beguiled, by any employment, except that of
preparing for my journey to London.

God bless you!

MARY ----.




APPENDIX.


Private business and cares have frequently so absorbed me as to prevent
my obtaining all the information during this journey which the novelty
of the scenes would have afforded, had my attention been continually
awake to inquiry. This insensibility to present objects I have often had
occasion to lament since I have been preparing these letters for the
press; but, as a person of any thought naturally considers the history
of a strange country to contrast the former with the present state of
its manners, a conviction of the increasing knowledge and happiness of
the kingdoms I passed through was perpetually the result of my
comparative reflections.

The poverty of the poor in Sweden renders the civilisation very partial,
and slavery has retarded the improvement of every class in Denmark, yet
both are advancing; and the gigantic evils of despotism and anarchy have
in a great measure vanished before the meliorating manners of Europe.
Innumerable evils still remain, it is true, to afflict the humane
investigator, and hurry the benevolent reformer into a labyrinth of
error, who aims at destroying prejudices quickly which only time can
root out, as the public opinion becomes subject to reason.

An ardent affection for the human race makes enthusiastic characters
eager to produce alteration in laws and governments prematurely. To
render them useful and permanent, they must be the growth of each
particular soil, and the gradual fruit of the ripening understanding of
the nation, matured by time, not forced by an unnatural fermentation.
And, to convince me that such a change is gaining ground with
accelerating pace, the view I have had of society during my northern
journey would have been sufficient had I not previously considered the
grand causes which combine to carry mankind forward and diminish the sum
of human misery.