Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No.306

'Ah, my worthy Taffy,' answered the colonel smiling, 'I fear much that no one will be inclined to receive Miss Laura Drelincourt in the capacity you suggest. But should your fears prove true with respect to Mrs Drelincourt, which I sincerely trust they may not' – Taffy shook her head – 'why, then, all we can do is this; it is the only plan I can suggest or follow out: – My brother is the proprietor of land in the close vicinage of your native place, and I know of a little spot that you can retire to; at my representation he will let you have it cheap, for he is a kind fellow. I must give what I can towards assisting you to maintain these two helpless girls, though it seems to me Miss Clari is the most likely one to help herself.'

This, and a great deal more, said Colonel Howard, to all of which Taffy Lewin thankfully acceded. Sooner even than the tiny woman had anticipated, poor Mrs Drelincourt sank into her grave; and Taffy, accompanied by her two charges, bade adieu for ever to the gray venerable walls which had witnessed such chequered scenes. At Springhead Taffy established herself forthwith; her quick little eyes saw its wonderful 'capabilities;' and 'What a God-send were the osiers!' said she; and what with needlework, and watercresses, and basket-making, Taffy had need to dip but lightly into her hoard of savings.

Laura Drelincourt did not long continue to reside with her faithful nurse: her sister Blanch was left a widow, with no means of supporting her family. Taffy Lewin appealed to Colonel Howard, intreating him to permit Laura to share with her destitute sister the stipend he had originally intended for the use of the former and Clari. Taffy said that Clari and she could support themselves well; Laura was miserable at Springhead; Blanch and her children were starving; and it was far better and happier for them all that the sisters lived together, and managed for themselves. Colonel Howard immediately agreed to Taffy's request; and thus poor Clari was left solely dependent on the good little soul, who is indeed her only friend and earthly stay.

'As to Miss Drelincourt and her sister,' continued my friend, 'they set up a boarding-school for young ladies; but it did not answer; and when Taffy last heard of them, they were living at a cheap village in Wales on Colonel Howard's bounty – a sad fall for these proud, arrogant ladies. Taffy's sole anxiety is respecting the future fate of her unfortunate charge, should it please Providence to remove herself first from this transitory scene. The Misses Howard not long ago paid a visit to Springhead, and assured the tiny woman that she might set her heart at rest on that score, for Miss Clari should be their care if death deprived her of her present faithful protectress. They will not prove false to their promise; they are my most valued friends; and when I pay my annual visit to Drelincourt Hall, I inhabit the chamber formerly occupied by poor Miss Clari, still known as "Miss Clari's Room." Taffy refuses all pecuniary aid; she is in want of nothing, she says, but a thankful heart. And it offends the honest pride of the Fairy Queen to offer assistance.'

Thus my friend concluded her reminiscences; and I never since then see watercresses on the table, or beautiful basket-work, without associating them in my mind with the memories I retain of the good Taffy Lewin and her 'greenerie.'

TRACINGS OF THE NORTH OF EUROPE

COPENHAGEN

Having passed with little trouble or difficulty through the customhouse formalities, we entered the city, and soon found ourselves established in comfortable apartments in the Hôtel Royal. This is a house on the usual large scale of the continental hotels, being a quadrangle surrounding a courtyard, and accessible from the street by a port-cocher. It is conducted by a gentleman – the term is in no respect inapplicable – named Leobel, who speaks English, and seems indefatigable in his friendly exertions for the benefit of his guests. I believe there are other good hotels in Copenhagen, but I have heard Mr Leobel's always admitted to be the best.

The first plunge into a large city is confusing. In our perfect ignorance of the relative situations of the streets and public buildings, we know not which way to turn without guidance. It is a good plan in such circumstances to go at the very first to the top of some height, natural or artificial, from which a view of the whole may be obtained. In Copenhagen there is a certain Trinity Church, situated obscurely in the densest part of the town, but furnished with a singular tower of great altitude, and so spacious, that the ascent is not by a stair, but by a spiral carriage-way, up which, it is said, Peter the Great of Russia used to drive a coach-and-six. Our little party immediately proceeded thither, and, ascending to the top – where, by the way, there is an observatory – were gratified with a comprehensive survey of the city and its environs. We soon ascertained that Copenhagen is built on a flat piece of ground, with no hills near it; that towards the sea, on the south and east, it is a congeries of batteries, docks, stores, and arsenals; that its west end, contrary to a flimsy theory on the subject, is the meaner and more ancient part; and that it is chiefly confined within a line of fortifications, but that these are now formed into public walks, here and there enlivened with windmills. The only arresting object beyond the bounds of the city is a slightly-rising ground, about two miles to the westward, crowned by a palace (Fredericksberg). The chalk formation, which prevails here, as over Denmark generally, is usually tumescent and tame of surface; hence there are few points in the environs of Copenhagen calculated to arrest attention.

A large irregular space in the centre of the town – called Kongens Nye Torv; that is, the King's New Market – gives a key to the whole, because from it radiate the leading thoroughfares, in which the shops and best houses are situated – Ostergade to the west, Gothersgade to the north, while to the east proceed the Amalie Gade, the Bred Gade, and others – broad modern streets, containing many fine buildings, and terminating on the citadel of Frederickshavn, the grand defence of the city in that direction. To be a town of only 127,000 inhabitants, and the capital of so small a state as Denmark, Copenhagen contains a surprising number of goodly public buildings, particularly palaces; so much, indeed, is this the case, that the houses for the residence of the people appear as something subordinate, and put half out of sight. These palaces convey a striking idea of the wantonness with which former rulers have used, or rather abused, the means extorted from the industrious part of the community. Will it be believed that four palaces were set down in the last century, in a cluster, divided only by the breadth of so many crossings; and that, after this was done, another was built (Christiansborg), which measures upwards of 600 feet in one direction, and is so huge a building, that Somerset House would appear but a fragment of it? These stately edifices are now given up to the service of the public as museums, picture-galleries, and libraries, while the existing sovereign is contented to live quietly in one of his equally numerous country palaces on an allowance of about sixty thousand a year. The effect, however, is, that Copenhagen is a place positively fatiguing from the multitude of its sights. One of those conscientious travellers who get a list of show-places from a friend, or from Murray's Handbook, and go through the whole as a duty, would be like to die here of pure exhaustion of spirits before he had got three-fourths way down the paper.

Notwithstanding the multitude of fine edifices, the city is deficient in sprightliness. The English ambassador, Keith, in 1771, spoke pathetically of the dulness of Copenhagen, and the same character yet clings to it. A certain plainness marks even the best of the population on the street. The shops, not fitted peculiarly, as in England, for the show of goods at the windows, and often accessible from obscure side-passages, contribute little gaiety to the street scenery. Equipages are few and homely. There is a great abundance of male figures in some sort of uniform, for the functionaries of the state, civil and military, are a legion; but these persons are also, in general, of very moderate appearance. One quickly remarks that nine out of every ten men, of whatever kind, have cigars in their mouths; and another circumstance, perhaps a corollary to the last, attracts observation – namely, the great number of young men wearing spectacles. While, however, one remarks an inferiority to England in so many respects, he is forced to confess in one important particular a comfortable superiority; and this is in the aspect of the humbler classes. Here, as in most other continental towns, there is scarcely any trace of that horde of abject miserables which is so prominent in every British city. The labouring people are generally clad decently, many of them, particularly the peasant women, gaily. As a matter of course – as indeed the grand cause of this peculiarity – there is no drunkenness seen amongst them. On the whole, the Danes, as seen in their metropolis, appear an innocent, amiable people – a little stolid, perhaps, but remarkably inoffensive and respectable.

It is, I believe, a general distinction between England and continental countries, that in the latter elegancies and fineries are first attended to, and things conducive to daily comfort only in the second place, while in England the comfortable and the ornamental go hand in hand together. Hence it is that, with all their fine palaces, which are indeed almost objects of the past, the people of Copenhagen have not even yet learned how to pave their streets, to introduce water into their houses, or to establish gas-lighting. They make a causeway of small, round, waterworn stones, like eggs placed on end, which tortures the feet, and causes every passing wagon to produce a noise so great, that conversation is drowned in it. They form a side pavement of the same materials, with a border of hewn granite slabs; the whole being far too narrow for the passing crowd, so that, there being, after all, little more than a choice between the egg pavement on the side and the egg pavement in the middle, the multitude is chiefly seen plodding its way along the causeway, among wheelbarrows, wains, and carriages. The diffusion of water, and the introduction of gas, are objects advocated by an enlightened few; but, as usual, municipal privileges and pedantic government regulations obstruct the blessing. It was a curious thing for me to tell the people of Copenhagen and Stockholm that they were, in this and some other matters, behind the small towns of Scotland which had so many as a thousand or twelve hundred inhabitants.

The first object to which our party bent their steps was the Castle of Rosenberg, an old palace in the northern section of the city, surrounded by some fine gardens, which are open to the public. Rosenberg is understood to be a production of the genius of Inigo Jones: it reminds one of the order of buildings which we in England call Elizabethan, and certainly was built by Christian IV. of Denmark at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is now simply a museum of the antiquities of the Danish royal family – that is, the furniture, dresses, ornaments, &c. which have belonged to those princes and their children, even to the toys of some of them, in the course of the last three or four centuries. Such a multitude of curious and elegant objects, recalling the royalty of past ages, perhaps nowhere else exists. They are so arranged in a suite of ancient state apartments, that you pass from one age to another in proper chronological succession, and find you have been reading the Danish history of several centuries in the course of an hour's lounge. The most conspicuous sovereign of the series is the builder of the house, who was in truth a noted monarch in his day, an active, hard-headed man, very warlike, very sensual, yet not devoid of a kind-hearted regard for the good of his people. He was the brother-in-law of our James I., whom he once visited with a dozen ships of war in his train; on which occasion he kept the English court for some time in such a whirlwind of conviviality, that Shakspeare is supposed to have been induced by it to pen the well-known passage in Hamlet, beginning,

'This heavy-headed rival, east and west,
Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations;'

and likewise to describe the usurping uncle as a drunkard. You see here King Christian's audience-chamber, a handsome old panelled room, full of little pictures, and having a small aperture in the door, through which it is said the king could, from his sitting-room, observe the conduct of his courtiers while they were waiting for him. In glass-cases are ranged a bewildering multitude of antique gold boxes, cups, baptismal basins, goblets, and drinking-horns, together with some elegant decorated swords, and other weapons. The object singled out for special observation is the celebrated silver horn of Oldenborg; not, it seems, that which Dousterswivel speaks of as given to Count Otto of Oldenborg by a mountain spirit, but one which is said to have been made for Christian I. in 1447. The singularly rich decorations and figurings on the outside are certainly in the style of that period, if I may judge by the mace preserved at St Andrews – a rich product of the Parisian workshop of the time of Charles VII. In a small room Christian IV. slept in a hammock; the rings by which it was suspended are still seen in the ceiling. Portraits of his favourite ladies hang around. In another room there is a great variety of drinking-glasses; some of them of the beautiful Venetian manufacture, said to be exceedingly rare and valuable. One of the richest articles in the whole collection is a set of horse-furniture which Christian presented to his son on his marriage, and which cost a million of francs. The very buckles are set with diamonds! An upper floor contains the grand hall of the palace, styled the Riddersal, or Knights' Chamber: it has a silver throne at one end, and much historical tapestry along the walls. One comes away with a strong sense of the prodigality in which the royalty of Denmark indulged during its days of absolute authority, when the people were condemned to slavery, at once the sole workers and the sole taxpayers in the country. I may remark that a party is shown through this palace by a well-bred gentlemanlike man, who speaks in French, if required, for a fee amounting to 6s. 9d. sterling. Everything is explained with precision, and nothing but what is historically true is stated. An enlightened visitor is thus left with a very different impression from what he would acquire in any similar show-house in England, where probably an old housekeeper, unfit for anything else, would be found placed as a cicerone, full of childish legends and myths, which she would relate as unchallengeable facts.

Before turning to any other Copenhagen sight, I may take the reader to a place much allied in character to the Château Rosenberg – namely, the cathedral of Roeskilde, which I did not visit till my return from the north. A railway of about sixteen English miles – the only thing of the kind as yet introduced into the country – enabled me to be deposited there in an hour. We found a huge ungainly brick church rising in the midst of a village which has something of the withered look of Versailles. The inside is as plain as the outside is coarse, and there is little trace of the Gothic architecture to be seen. Yet there are here some exceedingly curious, and even some beautiful objects. The altar-piece is a complicated exhibition of ancient Dutch wood-carving, representing the principal events in the life of Christ. It is said to be at least three hundred years old. Along the sides of the space enclosed for the Communion-table are two series of still more ancient wood-carvings, representing Bible events – the Old Testament on one side, and the New on the other. The quaintness of many of the figures, and the homely ideas embodied by the artist, are exceedingly amusing – for example, Adam writhing in painful sleep, as the Almighty is pulling Eve bodily out of his side; Noah calmly steering something like an omnibus, with seven faces looking out at as many windows; and Elijah going up into the air in a four-wheeled vehicle marvellously resembling the ill-constructed wains which still rumble through the streets of Copenhagen. Having dwelt long on the curious and minute work here displayed, we proceeded to view the sarcophagi of the Danish sovereigns of the last two centuries, all of which are placed in this church. I found the aisle in the right transept in the course of being repaired and adorned with frescoes, for the reception of the coffin of Christian IV., and a grand statue of the monarch by Thorvaldsen. As yet, he reposes in the half-lit vault below, with his queen by his side, and his naked sword lying rusted and out of order upon his coffin. The length of the weapon surprises the curious visitor, but is explained by the uncommon stature of the royal owner – for Christian, it seems, was a man of six feet five inches. The coffin is otherwise distinguished only by a number of plain silver ornaments.

The marble tombs of Christian V. and Frederick IV., and their queens – contemporaries of our William III. and Queen Anne – are placed in a quadrangular arrangement behind the altar, and are certainly magnificent structures of their kind, being formed of pure marble, and adorned with many figures, all in the finest style of art. Medallion portraits of the royal personages, and sculptures referring to events in their lives, are among the ornaments of these mausolea, the costliness of which tells the same tale as the Copenhagen palaces, of a time when the king was everything, and the people nothing. In beholding one of them, which seems to rise from the floor rather like some magical exhalation than a work of human hands, the idea occurred to me, 'Certainly this is making the very best of the sad case of death which it is possible for human nature to do, as far as its mere material elements are concerned.' In the left transept, a beautifully fitted-up chamber, as it may be called, in the Grecian style, are sarcophagi of two earlier sovereigns, not much less splendid. The series of monarchs thus liberally treated were all of them bad, selfish kings, who had little feeling for their people, over whom they maintained absolute rule. A more virtuous series, commencing with Frederick V. – the contemporary of our George II. – are disposed of less magnificently, most of them being placed in simple velvet-covered coffins on the floor. Amongst these, one dull-looking ark in black velvet attracts attention by its plainness. It contains the ashes of the imbecile Christian VII., whose queen Matilda passed through so sad a history. In the vicissitudes of subsequent ages, I should say that the plain monuments have the best chance of preservation. The cicerone here shows a pillar on which are three marks: one indicating the stature of Christian I. – the first prince of the existing dynasty, and a contemporary of our Edward IV.; he was, it seems, six feet ten inches in height, and his sword, which hangs on the wall, is long enough to reach up to the chin of a man of ordinary size; a second denotes the stature of Christian IV.; a third, strikingly lower, betokens the height of the late amiable king, Frederick VI.

Some other aisles contain the sarcophagi of distinguished noble families of Denmark. I was arrested for a little by one which has a door of iron grated-work, bearing a figure of the devil as large as life, with horns, tail, and claws. The explanation is, that the family reposing within is named Trolle, a famous one in Danish history. Trolle is the name of one of the beings of Scandinavian superstition; and this being is figured in the armorial-bearings of the house as a man having his head placed in the middle of his body. Latterly, I suppose, as these superstitions became obscure, the malignant Trolle was confounded with the devil; and hence the figure on the grating as an object bearing reference to this noble family. The English visitor is disposed to pause under a different feeling over the slab beneath which Saxo-Grammaticus reposes, when he recollects that Shakspeare obtained the foundation of his Hamlet in the pages of that historian. I find it stated in Feldborg's 'Denmark Delineated,' that when James VI. of Scotland came to Copenhagen in the course of his matrimonial excursion, he met in Roeskilde Cathedral the celebrated Dr Hemmingen, and discussed with him in Latin the substantial presence of the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist. Dr Hemmingen had been placed here, as in an honourable banishment, for his Calvinistic notions on this subject. The Scottish monarch was so much pleased with his cast of opinion, that he invited him to dinner, and at parting bestowed upon him a golden beaker.

The royal collection of pictures in the Christiansborg palace is a large one, occupying twelve stately rooms; but it contains only a few good pictures, and seldom detains a visitor long. While I was in Copenhagen, a small collection of the productions of living Norwegian artists was open to public inspection for a small fee, the proceeds being applicable to the relief of the Danish soldiers wounded in the Sleswig-Holstein war. Several of the landscapes, particularly one by a Mr Gude, representing the Hardanger Fiord, struck me as works of merit; and there was one conversation-piece, representing an old peasant reading the Bible to his wife, which seemed to me not less happy in its way. It is remarkable that the northern nations have not yet produced any painter of great reputation, but that in sculpture they have surpassed all other European nations besides Italy. The great distinction attained by Thorvaldsen has thrown a glory over Denmark, of which the Danes are justly proud. He was the son of a poor Icelandic boat-builder, and was born in Copenhagen. On his attaining to eminence in Rome about thirty years ago, his country at once awakened to a sense of his merits; and when he afterwards visited it, he was received with honours such as are usually reserved for some soldier who has saved his country, or added stupendously to its laurels. He ultimately settled in Denmark, where he died in 1844, leaving to his country many of his best works in marble, casts of all his great works, besides his pictures, curiosities, furniture, and the sum of 60,000 Danish dollars. The consequence has been the erection of the Thorvaldsen Museum, beyond all comparison the most interesting object in Copenhagen. It is a quadrangular building in what is called the Pompeii style, with a court in the middle; in the centre of which, within a simple square of marble slabs, rest the remains of the great artist. In the halls and galleries within are ranged the sculptures, casts, &c. under a judicious classification, each apartment being adorned with frescoes more or less appropriate to the objects contained in it. The finest object in the whole collection is undoubtedly the cast of a colossal figure of Christ, which Thorvaldsen executed, along with the twelve apostles, and a kneeling angel bearing a font, for the Frue Kirk in Copenhagen. The stranger sees the marble originals of all these figures in the church with admiration; but it is admitted that the cast of the Christ has a better effect than the original, in consequence of its superior relative arrangement. The Saviour is represented in the act of saying, 'Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden;' and there is a mixture of human benevolence with divine majesty in the attitude and expression, which perfectly answers to the text. The tendency seems to be to an admission that this is the finest embodiment of the idea of the Saviour of the world which that world has ever seen; and I shall not be surprised if this opinion be confirmed. Many of the artist's mythological figures – particularly those realising ideal beauty, his Psyches, Venuses, Dianas, and Apollos, the cast of his noble frieze of the triumphal march of Alexander, and some of his subjects embodying the poetry of human life – are eminently beautiful. The busts, which are numerous, are less interesting, and in most instances inferior as works of art. The representations of the artist himself, in sculpture and painting, are many, and calculated to give a perfect idea of the man – a massive figure, with a massive head, blue eyes, a pale complexion, and a gentle, but thoughtful expression of countenance. After dwelling to weariness on the creations of the man's genius, it is pleasant to walk into the rooms which contain his simple household furniture, books, favourite pictures, and other intimate memorials of his personal existence. It is equally agreeable to pause in the midst of the contemplation of his works, and observe the groups of admiring countrymen, from the noble to the peasant, who pass through the rooms to enjoy the spectacle of an intellectual triumph in which they feel that they have a part. Finally, one pauses with speechless emotion over the plain enclosure in the courtyard, which pronounces only the words Bertel Thorvaldsen over one whom these countrymen can never cease to revere. On the outside of the building there are frescoes representing —first, the national reception of Thorvaldsen on his final return to Copenhagen; and, second, the public joy on the introduction of his works into their country. I heard some criticise these frescoes severely; but I could never get so far as criticism in their case. Every such attempt is anticipated with me by a melting of the heart in sympathy with this worthy people, over the glory which Thorvaldsen has conferred upon them in the eyes of their fellow-nations, and that genial kindly relation between them and their immortal compatriot, of which this invaluable museum is the monument.

The Danes are remarkably fond of amusement, and the means of affording this gratification at Copenhagen are ample. The principal theatre (Konglige Theater) is a handsome house of moderate size, where both the Opera and Ballet are respectably presented. I was present one evening, when an operatic piece of Hans Christian Andersen, named Brylluppet ved Como-Soen, apparently of very simple construction, was performed, and I thought both the singing and orchestra exceedingly good. There are several other playhouses, some of which are chiefly frequented by the humbler classes. On the outskirts of the town there is an establishment called a Tivoli, resembling Vauxhall, and to which, as the admission is only 4½d. sterling, immense multitudes resort. Here is found a little theatre for dancing and short vaudevilles, which the people witness standing in the open air. There is a salon for music, where the people are under cover, but without seats, unless they choose to ask for refreshments. In the open air are merry-go-rounds, an undulating railway, and machines for testing strength. In Denmark, a merry-go-round is the enjoyment of old as well as young. It is composed of a circular stage, bearing carriages like those of a railway, and going partly upon wheels, while a brass band sounds vociferously in the centre. It was most amusing to us English to observe the gravity with which people of all ages took their places in this circumambient train. One curricle presents a decent shopkeeper with his wife, he with the baby on his knee, which he is endeavouring to awaken to a sense of its droll situation – the cigar kept firm in his mouth all the time; another exhibits a pair of young lovers in very amicable union; a third an aged couple, who might be grandfather and grandmother to the latter party. An inner circle of boys, whipping and spurring imaginary horses, complete the whimsicality of the machine, as it goes grinding and thundering on to the sound of the band. I do not envy the man who can turn away contemptuously from such a sight as this. The simplicity of intellect betrayed by such tastes one might certainly wish to see improved; but yet there is something in being easily pleased which a benevolent nature cannot easily resist. I quite loved the people for the innocence of heart shown in their amusements.

A Sunday evening which I spent in Copenhagen on my return from the north afforded me an additional insight into the habits of the Danes in this respect. Sunday, it must be premised, is held all over Scandinavia much less strictly than in England, and its religious character is considered as terminating at six in the evening. What I had seen in Norway made me not quite unprepared for what I found at Copenhagen; nevertheless it was somewhat startling. The evening being fine, the whole of the broad shady walks between the west gate of the city and the palace of Fredericksberg, two miles off, were crowded with groups of people in their best clothes; not merely peasants and artisans, or even shopkeepers, but persons of superior condition, though perhaps not in such great proportion. The peasant women, with their gaudy gold-laced caps and ribbons, gave a striking character to the scene. There were no drunk or disorderly people – all perfectly quiet and well-behaved. Along the side of the road are numerous tea-gardens, some of them having little theatres, others merry-go-rounds and nine-pins, and so forth. These were all in full operation. It was astounding to see old women, identical in aspect with those who in Scotland sit on pulpit-stairs, and spend the Sunday evening over Boston's 'Fourfold State' and 'Crook in the Lot,' here swimming along in the circular railway to the music of a band. I tell, however, but a simple fact when I say that such was the case. Scores of little parties were enjoying themselves in the recesses along the walks. I observed that many of these were family parties, whose potations consisted only of tea. As the only variation to a laborious life for a whole week, it must have been intensely enjoyed. In one garden connected with a third-rate tavern there was a dancing saloon, with a clarionet, two fiddles, and a bass, to which a few lads and lasses were waltzing; and this seemed no solitary case. There was evidence of enjoyment everywhere, but not the slightest symptom of a sense that there was anything wrong in it. All seemed to be done openly and in good faith. I could not help contrasting the scene with the Sunday evenings of my own country. There the middle-classes spend the time at least quietly, if not religiously, at home; and having the power, use it, to forbid all public or acknowledged means of amusement to their inferiors. It is well known, however, that the taverns frequented by the common people are very busy that evening. It has been stated that in Glasgow, on the evening of the Sunday on which the Communion was administered last winter, one thousand and eighty public-houses were found in full business. The difference, therefore, between Denmark and Britain is mainly this – that in the one country amusements of a comparatively innocent nature are partaken of without a sense of guilt, while in the other enjoyments of a degrading kind are enjoyed clandestinely, and with the feeling of a reprobation hanging over them which must add to their anti-moral tendency. We must pause, then, I conceive, before we express the feelings which are most apt to arise in our minds regarding the Scandinavian mode of spending the Sunday evening.

The Museum of Northern Antiquities may perhaps be admitted to divide the palm of interest with the Thorvaldsen Museum; but I postpone all reference to the subject till a proper groundwork shall have been laid by the description of my journeyings in Sweden and Norway.

    R. C.

PIANOS FOR THE MILLION

There seems to be an increasing disposition among us to regard music as an agent of civilisation, and therefore an increasing anxiety to diffuse a taste for the art throughout all classes of the people. The simple songs that are found in countries in an early stage of progress cannot constitute the music of a refined nation, any more than their rude ballads can be the staple, instead of the mere germ, of their poetry. Both, however, serve as an excellent foundation for the superstructures of taste; and to both we return occasionally from amid the complications of art, to snatch from them a healthy inspiration.

It is not in mere refinement that the operation of music is obvious and powerful: it humanises, and 'makes the whole world kin.' 'There is no free-masonry so intimate and immediate, I believe,' says a recent author when relating a conversation with Mrs Hemans, 'as that which exists among the lovers of music; and although, when we parted, I could not tell the colour of her eyes and hair, I felt that a confidence and a good understanding had arisen between us, which the discussion of no subject less fascinating could have excited.' It is in this point of view that music should be regarded by philanthropists: the science should be given to the masses of the people as a bond of sympathy between them and the upper stratum of society. But while many efforts are making in this direction, there is still great sluggishness in one important branch of the business: the lower classes have no good instruments, and have no great artists; the inspiration derived from a Jenny Lind or a Sontag never descends beneath a certain line in the social scale; and the pianoforte, the most useful of all musical instruments, has never served for a rallying-point in the domestic circles of the poor.

To deal with the former of these two difficulties is arduous – perhaps impossible. Even in this country, where everything bears a money value, including even the light that enters our houses, there are some galleries where the works of great painters are patent to the public. But the sister art is a monopoly of the rich, because the efforts of performers produce no permanent creations, but merely an evanescent sound, which may elevate the mind and linger on the memory, but can never be reproduced by the listener. A painter lives by the sale of works which survive even himself perhaps for hundreds of years; but a musician retails performances that are not prolonged even by an echo. The great singer, however, demands a higher reward than the great poet; and the great actor grows rich while the great dramatist barely lives. Who can help it? We give willingly what they demand: there is no compulsion in the case, and the day of sumptuary laws is gone by.

But this deprivation does not press so much upon the poor as upon a great portion of the middle-classes. We cannot find fault with musical artists for demanding half a guinea or a guinea from every one who chooses to listen to a few songs; because such sums are voluntarily paid, and all dealers, even those who deal in harmonious sounds, have the same right to sell them in the dearest market that they have to buy their wines and jewels in the cheapest. But unluckily the deprivation is felt by the very class which would benefit the most, and confer the most benefit, by being admitted on reasonable terms to such exhibitions of high art. It is neither from among the poor nor the rich that great artists usually spring, but from that large middle-class in which the genius of individuals receives an impulse from pecuniary necessity. In that rank large sums cannot be paid for a song, and their claims to gentility will not permit them to class themselves even at a concert with the grade beneath them, permitted to listen for a lower price in organ lofts and at the back of galleries. We do not say that there is no remedy even for this evil. The genius of the present age is fertile in expedients, and perhaps some plan may be hit upon to satisfy the exorbitant expectations of musical artists, by providing a larger and more frequent audience at prices better adapted to ordinary means. So long as the present system, however, continues, music cannot be expected to make any rapid progress among us; for the effect of the system is to degrade art to the level of fashion, and thus repress the noble and generous aspirations of genius.

But the difficulty arising from the enormous expense of such musical instruments as the piano is less complicated; and indeed it would appear at first sight to be very extraordinary that in an age of almost unbounded speculation and competition it should exist at all. There is nothing in the construction of the machinery of a piano which ought to prevent it from being found in tens of thousands of houses in this country from which it is at present entirely excluded. The existing piano, however, is a traditional instrument – an heir-loom of the wealthy; and for them alone it must be manufactured. Its case must be of expensive foreign woods, and its keys of ivory; its legs must be elegantly turned; its handsome feet must roll on brazen wheels adapted for the rich carpet; and generally it must be decorated with carvings in wood, such as of themselves, entirely superfluous as they are, add several pounds to the expense. The manufacturers say that all this is so because the instruments must be made exclusively for the rich, who would not purchase them if they were not elegant in form, and costly in material and workmanship. But this, we strongly suspect, is no longer true. Music has now descended lower in the social scale than it did in the last generation, and thousands of hearts are beating with the feeling of art and its aspirations, which were formerly cold and silent. The comparatively poor and the really economical do not buy pianos, simply because they are far beyond their means; and in England the cause of musical science and kindly feeling is deprived of the aid of a family instrument, which in Germany is found even in the parlour of the village public-houses.

Tables and chairs, bedsteads, and other articles of furniture, are manufactured on purpose to suit the means of the various classes of purchasers. Bedsteads may be had in London, and we presume elsewhere with equal ease, at 18s. and at L.50 a piece; and chairs which, in one form, cost L.2 or L.3 each, in another – of stained wood, with cane seats, extremely pretty and lasting – sell for 15s. the half-dozen. Why should not the less wealthy families have their own piano as well as their own chair or bedstead? And the humbleness of the materials, it should be remarked, would not necessarily involve any want of elegance in shape. The cheap chairs alluded to are sometimes very passable imitations of rosewood chairs – and they answer the purpose as well! Let us add, that the introduction of the new process of desiccation applied to timber would seem to render the present a very favourable juncture for such speculations as we hint at. Formerly, many years' warehousing would have been required to divest the wood of those juices which interrupt sound, and the trade in the material would thus be a monopoly of wealthy capitalists; but now, thanks to the science of the day, timber may be thoroughly dried in hours instead of years, and thus a ruinous interest on invested money saved.

Should this new manufacture, however, be commenced, the speculators must please to bear in mind that we do not ask for inferior instruments, but for cheap materials and plain workmanship. Some time ago an attempt was made to introduce watches with imitative gold cases: but the works were spurious imitations likewise; and these out-of-time-pieces, brought forward, if we recollect rightly, at 15s., sank speedily to 5s., and are now rarely seen at all. This should be a lesson to piano-makers for the million. They should further recollect, however, that an instrument, hitherto the prescriptive property of the rich and refined, must, however humble its materials, retain a certain elegance of form. A plain deal piano, for instance, even if the wood were suitable, would not be bought; but one made of birch, and French polished, with cheap keys, &c. would not disgrace a drawing-room. We remember seeing furniture of this timber in some of the small country inns in Russia; and it struck us as having an enormously-extravagant look, having all the appearance of satin-wood. This, however, we give merely as an illustration of our meaning. We put forth these paragraphs as nothing more than a hint to set thinking on the subject persons who possess the mechanical knowledge we cannot pretend to; and having so done, we take leave of the subject.

    L. R.

THE PRISONS OF PARIS AND THEIR TENANTS.

SECOND ARTICLE

The castle of Vincennes, within a few miles of Paris, has always been as terrible a place of detention as was the Bastille. Even in these days of comparative liberty and justice, Vincennes is made an engine of oppression; for throughout all political changes, the French government never scruples to seize and incarcerate illegally any one against whom it has a grudge.

The prisoners of Vincennes, till of late years, were seldom tried, and rarely knew what their offence was. The question they had to ask themselves was not, what is my crime? – but who is my enemy? who wants my fortune or my place? who covets my wife or my sister? who dreads my influence? Then the walls were so thick, the dungeons so deep, the guard so strict, that no cry for justice could reach the world outside.

An unhappy person destined to be the inmate of this castle was generally seized and brought there in the middle of the night. After crossing a drawbridge, which spans a moat forty feet deep, he found himself in the hands of two men, who, by the pale light of a lamp, directed his trembling steps. Heavy doors of iron, with enormous bolts, were opened and closed one after another; narrow, steep, winding stairs, descending and descending; on all sides padlocks, bars, and gratings; and vaults which the sun never saw! Arrived in his dungeon, the prisoner, who perhaps an hour before had been dancing and feasting at a court-ball, and still wore his suit of velvet and gold, was searched and stripped of everything but the bare clothes that covered him, and was then left with a miserable pallet, two straw chairs, and a broken pitcher – the parting injunction of the jailors being, that he was not to permit himself the slightest noise. 'C'est ici le palais de la silence!' say they – ('This is the palace of silence!') Those who were fortunate enough to see the light again, and lived to be restored to the world, were searched in the same way on leaving their dungeon, and were obliged to take an oath never to reveal what had passed in this state-prison, under the penalty of incurring the king's displeasure. As the king's displeasure would have immediately carried them back to Vincennes, we may believe that the vow was seldom violated.

The tragedy of the Duc d'Enghien, who, on the 21st of March 1804, by the dim light of a lantern, was shot in the fosse of the castle of Vincennes, is too well known to be dilated on here: but although everybody has heard of the lamentable death of this brave man, and although the universal voice of mankind has pronounced his execution one of the darkest blots that stain the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, few people are aware that his arrest, or at least the pretence for it, originated in a simple police report, which was itself founded on a misunderstanding. The duke, who had emigrated to Germany, had there secretly married the Princess Charlotte de Rohan. What family reasons induced them to make a mystery of the marriage have never been disclosed; but the precautions he took to conceal his visits first awakened the suspicions of the police, and ultimately led them to report him as engaged in a counter-revolutionary intrigue. Another of the accusations brought against him originated in the mispronunciation of a name. It was reported that he was on intimate terms with General Dumourier, a man most obnoxious to the First Consul. It was too late discovered that the name of his associate was General Thumery. The German pronunciation had rendered these two names identical to the ears of the French agents of police. It is singular that the sole favour the duke asked for on arriving at Vincennes was a day's liberty on his parole, to shoot in the forest. The only tears shed at the sad ceremony of his execution were by the wife of the commandant, Madame Harel, who, by a romantic coincidence, happened to be his foster-sister.

One of the most celebrated prisoners of Vincennes in the eighteenth century was Masères de La Tude, who expiated a folly by twenty years of cruel captivity, spent partly here and partly in the Bastille. Ingenious, clever, indefatigable, and patient, the schemes he contrived to effect an escape, and to communicate with his neighbours in misfortune, would fill a volume. Nevertheless, although Madame de Pompadour, the person he had offended, was dead, he would probably have never recovered his liberty but for a lucky breeze of wind, which blew a piece of paper, on which he had described his sufferings, into the lap of an honest woman called Legros, who kept a shop in Paris. The good soul was so touched by the narrative, that, by dint of perseverance and money, she obtained the release of her protégé in 1784.

Not far from the chamber inhabited by La Tude was that of the unhappy Prévôt de Beaumont, who was guilty of the unpardonable rashness of denouncing the famous Pacte de Famine. 'I accused De Sartines,' says he in his memoir published after the Revolution, 'who was attorney-general under Louis XV., of occasioning the famines that desolated France for three years; and to punish me, he inflicted on me, for fifteen years, sufferings to which the martyrology of the saints can present no parallel. Torn from my family and friends, buried alive in a dismal dungeon, chained to the wall, deprived of light and air, perishing of hunger and cold, nearly naked, I endured horrors so repugnant to nature, that my surviving to relate them is nothing less than a miracle!'

Not only did the dire injustice of arbitrary will in those days tyrannise thus cruelly over men's bodies, but it did not scruple to destroy their minds. When a prisoner of state was considered dangerous from his courage, his patience, or his power of endurance, it was no uncommon thing to put him in a strait waistcoat, and carry him to Bicêtre. Here he was shut up in a cage, and bled, under pretext of curing him, till he died, or went really as mad as they said he was. Few survived and withstood this treatment; but amongst those who did was the Prévôt de Beaumont. He was found at Bicêtre by Mirabeau and his colleagues when they visited the hospital for the purpose of releasing those who had been unjustly confined there; on which occasion the infamies discovered are said to have been terrific. Many of the prisons in France are distinguished by the names of saints, which arises from the circumstance of their having been formerly religious houses. St Pelagie is the place to which persons were latterly sent for political offences: editors of newspapers, caricaturists, and people who would not be satisfied with things as they are, formed a considerable portion of its population.

At the period of the First Revolution, the keeper of this prison was a man named Bouchotte, who, uninfected by the rage of cruelty that seemed to have seized on the population of Paris, distinguished himself by his courageous humanity. When the massacres of September were being perpetrated, and the furious mob were attacking all the jails, and slaughtering the prisoners, the jailors, far from making any resistance, generally threw wide their gates with a hearty welcome; but when the assassins reached St Pelagie, they found the house apparently abandoned; the gates were closed, all was silent within, and none answered to their summons. At length, having obtained implements, and forced an entrance, they found Bouchotte and his wife fast bound with cords. 'You are too late, citizens!' said Bouchotte; 'the prisoners, hearing of your approach, became desperate, and revolted. After serving us as you see, they have all made their escape!' Fortunately the mob was deceived; nor was it known till long afterwards that the whole scene was a scheme of this worthy man's to save the lives of the intended victims.

An American gentleman of the name of Swan resided for twenty years in this prison; for we can scarcely say he was confined there, since he might have been restored to liberty had he desired it. After a long suit with a Frenchman, in which the American was cast, he preferred going to jail to paying a demand he considered unjust. Every year his creditor paid him a visit, in hopes of finding him less obstinate; and the employés of the prison, as well as his fellow-captives, by all of whom he was exceedingly beloved, would intreat him to give way; but he only smiled, and bowing to his disappointed visitor, bade him adieu till that time next year. The love the prisoners bore him was well earned by innumerable acts of kindness and beneficence. He not only gave bread to the poorer debtors, but he restored many to liberty by satisfying the demands of their creditors. Mr Swan died at St Pelagie in 1830.

Clichy is also a prison for debtors, where a cell is shown which was for two years inhabited by a man of forty years of age, who had been sent there for a very singular sort of debt – namely, the money he owed for the wet nurse's milk which he had imbibed while an infant, the amount of the debt at the period of his incarceration having accumulated to twelve thousand francs!

A law formerly prevailed in France, that if a debtor escaped, the keeper became responsible for his debt. Of course this arrangement rendered evasion extremely difficult; nevertheless, to revenge some real or fancied injustice, a singular trick was played by a debtor, which greatly amused the Parisians. A certain Monsieur L – having contrived to escape, presented himself one evening at the house of his astonished creditor.

'You see,' said he, 'I am free. You may seize me, certainly, and send me back to jail, but I can never pay you; whereas, if you will give me money enough to escape out of the country, you can claim your debt of the keeper who can.'

The creditor, who does not seem to have been very scrupulous, consented to this arrangement, on condition that he himself saw Monsieur L – off by the diligence; which having done, and feeling himself safe, he on the following morning knocked at the gate of Clichy, and asked the keeper if he remembered him.

'Certainly,' said the functionary; 'you are the creditor of Monsieur L – .'

'Exactly,' answered the creditor; 'and you are doubtless aware that Monsieur L – has effected his escape, and that you are now responsible to me for the six thousand francs he owes me?'