ADVENTURES IN THE NORTH OF EUROPE. CHAPTER I. THE PASTOR OF CUREWELL LANDS AT ELSINORE. It was evening. Scarcely a breath of wind swept over the bosom of the tideless Baltic, as the ship, late so proud and majestic, but now impotent and helpless, was towed to her anchorage beneath the castle of Cronborg. I stood upon her deck; the beams of the sun were level with the sea, and shone in golden light upon the walls of the castle, and gave a brighter tinge B to the red roofs of Elsinore. I looked for the "wild and stormy steep" which Campbell has mentioned; but steep there was none, and calmness and silence and peace were on every thing around. The castle stood out into the sea; a noble stone building of a square form, with high roofs of sheet copper. On one side, and modestly retiring, lay the town of Elsinore, clean, neat, and unassuming. The opposite shore, about five miles distant, was the coast of Sweden-bleak, barren, and inhospitable; and the eye gladly turned again to the woods of Denmark, and the long hill or cliff which, covered with trees, stretched away behind the castle, and formed part of the domain of a royal palace. It was the scene of the tragedy of Hamlet. The tranquillity of the hour shed a softness over the heart, that gave a charm to every object which met the eye; the little boats carelessly moving in all directions; the many vessels with their naked spars, motionless as the trees on land, and waiting for a capful of wind 4 to waft them up the Sound; the few white seabirds sailing idly to and fro,-all had, in their listless appearance, a charm which every one will recognise and appreciate. There is something in evening that subdues all but the sternest and most unfeeling; that gives at times a tinge of romance to the dullest imagination, and can raise, for a moment, from the mire in which he grovels, even the most sordid of beings. What a gush of softened and endearing recollections flows over the memory as we muse on this holiest of hours! The troubled thoughts, the thousand cares which harassed and convulsed us during the day, have subsided. The soul is still and serene as the prospect around; undisturbed by the tumult of joy or the anguish of affliction-tranquil, chastened, subdued, and purified. Perhaps I was myself, at this hour, peculiarly alive to those gentle emotions which awaken the best feelings of man; which suffuse the heart with a softness that tends most to reclaim it from sterility, and which gradually lift the thoughts beyond the confines of mortal ken. I had left a home where death had deprived me of every thing that can give joy to existence, or soften the asperities of life. I had been a husband and a father;-a few hours, and I was alone in the world; but, though withered, I did not uselessly repine, and though bowed down with anguish, I did not rebel. As a clergyman, I had often taught submission to others; as a christian, I now strove to practise it myself: but the heart is very long in healing, when every scene reopens its wounds. I could endure my home no more (for the present, at least), and resolved to seek in other climates for that variety which should relieve my soul from the load that oppressed it. Accordingly, having distributed my stipend and income among those that required it most, reserving to myself only sufficient to answer my necessities, I repaired to Hull, and embarked in the first ship that was bound for the Baltic. In my younger days I had |