greys, which, with a profusion of gold lace upon the coats of the coachman and footman, attracted the notice and surprise of the good people of Copenhagen, who had never even seen their beloved Crown Prince in such finery: it was the equipage of a foreign quack doctor, who had had the good fortune to live and flourish in England in an age of pills.

Copenhagen is a small but very neat city, its circumference between four and five English miles; the streets are broad and handsome; the houses, of which there are about four thousand, exclusive of the quarter belonging to the sailors, and garrisons for three regiments, are generally of brick stuccoed to resemble stone, and some are of free-stone, and in an elegant style of Italian architecture: the shops are in the basement story, and by making no prominent appearance, do not disfigure the beauty of the rest of the building. Such is the case upon every part of the Continent which I have visited. In England every tradesman's shop is the raree show of the street, and perhaps it is in allusion to this as much as to any other cause, that our neighbours on the other side of the channel, have pronounced us to be a nation of shopkeepers. The streets are divided by canals, which afford great facility to the transport of goods, but have narrow and inconvenient foot-paths: the population is estimated at eighty-two thousand. La rue de Goths is a beautiful street, and is about three quarters of an English mile long. The Kongens nye Tow or King's place, which is also the mar

ket place, is a noble, spacious, irregular area, adorned with many fine houses, several of which have been raised since the late fire. The only theatre in the city is here: it was not open during our stay. This building is detached, small but handsome without, and within is elegantly decorated: in the season, the performers play four times in the week, alternately opera and play, which is generally in the language of the country. On account of the vast number of persons who have free admission to it, amongst whom are all marine and land officers, the receipts are but very little, and the deficiency, which is supplied by the king, generally amounts to about one hundred thousand rix dollars per annum. Upon the whole the court is not a very munificent patron of the drama, and the performers seldom exceed mediocrity. In the middle of the market-place is an equestrian statue in bronze of Christian V. but too deficient in merit to attract the notice of a traveller. One of the large buildings in this place is the castle of Charlottenberg, part of which is devoted to the royal academy of painting, architecture, and sculpture; it has eight professors and four masters: the day for the annual distribution of the prizes is the 31st of March, the birth-day of the prince, Frederic, who is the patron. Those pupils who obtain the golden medal are sent to travel at the expence of the crown. Such of the productions of the pupils and professors as I saw did not excite

a very high opinion of the arts in Denmark.

G2

TAYLOR

INSTI

UNIVERSITY
OF

OXFORD

FRARY

No respectable stranger can enter Copenhagen without speedily becoming the object of its frank, and generous hospitality. The day after our arrival enabled us to partake of the hearty profusion of a Danish dinner; it was given at the country house of one of the most respectable inhabitants of the city, and appeared in the following succession: soups top and bottom, Norwegian beef boiled, ham strongly salted, fish, pigeons, fowls, stewed spinnage, and asparagus; the meat is always cut into slices by the master of the house, and handed round by the servants. Etiquette proscribes the touching of any particular dish out of its regular course, although the table may be groaning under the weight of its covers; this ceremony is occasionally a little tantalizing. Creams, confectionary, and dried fruits followed: the wines were various and excellent. Our party was composed of English, Norwegians, Flemish, Swiss, Russians, Danish, and French: would to heaven that their respective nations could for ever be as cordial and joyous as was this chequered collection of their merry natives! The repast lasted a formidable length of time: it was two hours of hard stuffing in a fog of hot meats. The appetite of the fair ones present, was far, I might say very far from being puny or fastidious, but in the homely phrase, what they eat did them good.

The Danish ladies are en bon point, and possess that frank and generous countenance, which, the moment the eye sees, the heart understands and loves; they much resemble the

higher class of Wouvermann's figures, and very largely partake of that gay good humour, which is so generally the companion of a plump and portly figure. Having said so much in their favour, which they eminently deserve, I cannot help hinting that they are not so attentive to neatness of dress as their neighbours; they want such a man as Addison to rally them with his delicate satire out of a slovenly habit, which induces them, when they buy a gown, almost always to prefer a dark cotton, because it does not want washing. The Danish ladies would immediately feel the force of the remark, without being offended at its freedom. They speak English with its proper accent, as well as French and German fluently. The English language forms a prominent part of female education.

Upon my complimenting a Danish lady on her accurate knowledge of the English language, she said, "We are obliged "to learn that, and French and German, in our own defence,

" otherwise we should frequently be obliged to sit mute, which

66

you know is a very unpleasant situation for any woman, for

'beyond the islands," meaning Zealand and Funen, "our lan

guage, which is a dialect of the Teutonic, is not understood." This I found afterwards verified: upon my return to Holstein from Prussia, a Danish serjeant in drilling a recruit from the former place, was obliged to speak to him in German.

Here, as in France, the company rise and retire with the

lady of the house. In the garden we found coffee and a droll fellow of a wandering mendicant Norwegian who occupied sans ceremonie one of the garden seats, and upon his rustic guitar had collected the little folks of the family round him, who were dancing to some of the wildest and sweetest sounds that ever issued from the touch of simplicity.

On our return to the city, and about a mile from it, a turfed hillock of small poplars attracted our notice: it was the national tomb of the heroes who fell in the memorable battle of Copenhagen roads on the second of April, 1801, and stood in a meadow about two hundred yards from the road, and looked towards the Crown battery. As we approached it, we saw a small monumental obelisk which was raised to the memory of Captain Albert Thurah, by the Crown Prince. It appeared by the inscription, that during the heat of that sanguinary battle a signal was made from one of the block ships, that all the officers on board were killed; the Crown Prince, who behaved with distinguished judgment and composure during the whole of that terrific and anxious day, and was giving his orders on shore, exclaimed "who will take the command ?” The gallant Thurah replied “I will, my Prince," and immediately leaped into a boat, and as he was mounting the deck of the block ship, a British shot numbered him amongst the dead, which formed a ghastly pile before him, and consigned his spirit and his glory to the regions of immortality.