Uhairman-The Right Hon. LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S., Member of the National Institute of Framos.

THOMAS COATES, Esq., Secretary, No. 52, Lincoln's Inn Fields,

Mrs. A.E. Proud fit

21-220

THE PENNY CYCLOPÆDIA

OF

THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF

USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.

SCA

SCA

were the scenes of never-ceasing bloodshed. In the mean time Denmark had acquired a more regular government, and the famous Margaret, queen of Denmark, succeeded in uniting the crowns of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway in her own person. Norway was acquired by inheritance, and Sweden by conquest.

By the union of Calmar (1397) these countries were never to be disjoined. Norway indeed remained united with Denmark up to 1814, but Sweden was separated from it in the middle of the fifteenth century. From that time the two countries of Scandinavia constituted separate states, until the year 1814, when Denmark was obliged to cede Norwav to Sweden, and Norway submitted to the new order o. things. Since that time the whole peninsula has been under the same king, but the two countries of Norway and Sweden have preserved their constitutions, which differ in every respect. [NORWAY; SWEDEN.]

SCANDEROON, or ISKENDEROON, or ALEXANDRETTA, formerly called Alexandria, a seaport town in the north of Syria, at the head of the Gulf of Scanderoon, which was founded by Alexander the Great. It is a very unhealthy place, whence it is called in one of the antient Itineraries Alexandria scabiosa, and only owes its importance to its being the seaport to Haleb or Aleppo. Its unhealthiness is in a great measure owing to the waters which flow down from the mountains, and collect in great marshes around the town. Moryson, who visited it in 1596, represents it as a poor village, built all of straw and dirt, excepting some houses built of timber and clay in some convenient sort, and it lies all along the sea-shore. For the famous city of Aleppo having no other haven, the merchants do here unload their goods, but themselves make haste to Aleppo, staying as little here as possibly they can, and committing the care of carrying their goods upon camels to the factors of their nations continually abiding there. The SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE. The antient Scanpestilent air is the cause that they dare not make any stay dinavian language, once common to the whole north-western there, for this village is compassed on three sides with a fenny portion of Europe beyond the Baltic, is now confined to plain, and the fourth side lies open upon the sea' (quoted by Iceland, where it has undergone little change since the Russell, Natural History of Aleppo, vol. i., p. 358, Lond., | ninth century. [ICELAND.] This dialect of the Gothic is the 1794). Niebuhr (Beschreibung, &c., vol. iii., pp. 18, 19, parent stock of both Swedish and Danish, the former of Hamburg, 1837), who visited Scanderoon in 1766, describes which tongues has retained more of the original character its situation and state in much the same terms, and says, than the other, which is also the language of Norway; and that with the exception of the houses of the vice-consuls if not for the literature they contain, in a philological point and merchants, it contains only sixty or seventy poor dwell- of view they deserve far more attention than they have ings, inhabited for the most part by Greeks. He adds, that hitherto obtained from Englishmen, since they throw conthere are the remains of some building in the morass sur-siderable light on the history of our own language. There is rounding the town, which proves that the place was formerly also a striking similarity of construction between them and much larger than it is at present. A similar account of the English, which renders them of comparatively easy acquisistate of Scanderoon is also given by a still more recent tra- tion to ourselves. Nearly the same grammatical simplicity veller (Damoiseau, Voyage en Syrie et dans le Désert, p. 4, prevails, nor are their verbs and nouns subject to those Paris, 1833). numerous changes of terminations which render such languages as the German and the Russian so perplexing to a foreigner. Into the subject of Scandinavian literature, properly so called, we do not propose to enter, it being one of such magnitude that of itself alone it would require as much space as can be afforded for a literary-historical sketch of the two nations whom we here place together under the same common title.

SCANDINAVIA is a term adopted in geography and history, and is of great antiquity. The name Scandinavia occurs in Pliny (Hist. Nat. iv. 13), who states that Scandinavia is the best known island in the Sinus Codanus (the Baltic), and is of unascertained dimensions. The part which was known was inhabited by the Hilleviones, who had five hundred pagi or districts. This description seems to refer to the large peninsula which forms the north-western portion of the continent of Europe, and comprehends the countries which at present are known under the names of Norway and Sweden. The area of this peninsula is somewhat more than 300,000 square miles, and it is consequently one-third greater than France, but as the largest portion of it is covered with sterile mountains, it is in general thinly inhabited, and the whole population does not much exceed four millions.

The small sovereignties which existed in this peninsula when it first began to be noticed in history, became united into the two great monarchies of Sweden and Norway in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But the internal governments of these states were so ill arranged, that the countries were continually a prey to internal wars, and they P. C., No. 1295.

Literature, in the usual meaning of the term, was of ex ceedingly tardy development in both Denmark and Sweden; for what learning there was, continued for a long time to be confined to the Latin of the schools. The people however possessed an abundant stock of those traditional poetical records which scarcely lay any claim to individual authorship, being rather the embodying of the sentiments and feelings of an entire race than those of individuals. of these national songs there are many distinguished by the title of Kiæmpe Viser, or Heroic Ballads, which strains of romantic minstrelsy serve to give an idea of the compositions of the antient bards or skalds. Deeds of arms and bravery constitute their main subjects; for in the infancy of states personal courage and physical strength are regarded as the chief titles to pre-eminence, more especially VOL. XXI.-B

in such a region as Scandinavia, where the sword was the only patrimony of the younger branches of a family, and was a possession quite as honourable and frequently more lucrative than that of the soil. Possessing a very great extent of sea-coast, the inhabitants regarded that element also as their natural territory. Their piratical expeditions, undertaken partly through necessity and partly from the love of adventure, obtained for them a fearful fame; and the leaders of these hardy pirates assumed the imposing title of Seakings. These 'Viser' contain moreover no small quantity of legendary fable and supernatural lore, derived from the antient Sagas and the mythology of the Edda [EDDA], whose wild traditions, half oriental and half northern, were so congenial to the spirit of the people that they continued to cherish the remembrance of them long after the establishment of Christianity (which was not earlier than the commencement of the eleventh century); and in modern times they have been largely made use of by Oehlenschläger and other living or recent poets, who have found in them a source of powerful interest for their countrymen. For a while indeed it was very doubtful whether the Gospel would prevail against the popular belief in the Valhalla. The labours of the early missionaries in the ninth and tenth centuries produced very little effect; the people continued to be almost entirely pagan, and Svend Tvæskiæg, the successor of Harald, renounced Christianity, and did all he could to re-establish the worship of the antient idols; nor was it until after the accession of Canute the Great (1014) that Christianity became the national religion, and churches and convents began to be built. For several years afterwards however little improvement took place in the intellectual condition of the people. Literature can hardly be said to have been cultivated at all. Its sole monument is the history (written in Latin) by Saxo Grammaticus, who died in 1208. In the same century, the first public library was formed at Lund, in Sweden, which was then under the dominion of Denmark; but during the following century literary studies rather declined, being superseded on the one hand by the system of dialectic then in vogue; and on the other, by extravagant monkish legends. In the fifteenth century the university of Copenhagen was established by Christian I., and opened in 1479; yet it was long before either that event or the adoption of the principles of the Reformation effected any improvement in education or in the intellectual condition of the people.

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published by Sorenson Wedel, the translator of Saxo Grammaticus, in 1591, at the instance of the queen Sophia. Its success was so great that it quickly passed through several editions, and in 1695 Peter Syv added a second hundred pieces to the first, which it originally contained. Since that time similar collections have been published at various times; and one of the best and most complete is that by Abrahamson, Nyerup, and Rahbek, in 5 vols. 8vo., Copenhagen, 1812-14.

Together with the Reformation came a change in literary taste-an impulse towards literature, from Germany. Romances of chivalry, legends, tales of magic, moralities, and similar works, were translated from that language, as were also some pieces of Hans Sachs, of the Dutch poet Cats, and even of the Scots Lindsay. Still notwithstanding that the classics, both Greek and Latin, were now generally studied, no one thought of taking them as models of composition, instead of servilely copying contemporaries who were themselves little advanced before them. Consequently, scarcely a name of the slightest importance has been preserved, until we arrive at that of Anders Arrebo, in the seventeenth century, whose fame is now limited to his being considered the morning star, or rather the harbinger of the modern literature of Denmark. This writer, who was born in the island of Aeröe, in 1587, studied at the university of Copenhagen, and became bishop of Drontheim at the age of thirty, but was afterwards deprived of his dignity, and retired to Malmöe in Sweden, where he died in 1637. His chief production is his Hexaemeron,' a poem in heroic rhyme, on the creation, in imitation of that by Du Bartas, and it displays considerable refinement of language and versification. To him succeeded Anders Bording and Thomas Kingo, the first of whom was a more industrious than gifted writer. He published a great number of poetical pieces in a work edited by himself, under the title of 'The Danish Mercury,' which were little more than a rhyming chronicle of the events of the day. Kingo, who has been termed the Dr. Watts of Denmark, on account of the religious cast of his poetry, and who was the son of a weaver, entered the church, and became bishop of Fynen. His celebrity among his contemporaries was very great, and he certainly possessed much genuine talent; but his private character was by no means the most amiable. He was even sordidly avaricious, and the man who expressed so many noble and generous sentiments displayed in his own conduct much that was despicable and mean. Still he is exempt from the reproach of countenancing vice in others by the laxity and immoral tendency of his own productions. His writings still continue to be read, nor is it many years since his Psalms' were reprinted with a very numerous list of subscribers. Jörgen Jörgenson Sorterup is almost the only other name of any importance belonging to this period. Inferior to Kingu in poetical feeling, he had the merit of breaking through the literary mannerism of the time, and striking into a different

brates the naval achievements of his countrymen and the victories of Frederic IV., revive, though in an inferior degree, the animated strains of the older Kæmpe Viser. After all, Sorterup and his immediate predecessors constitute only the first faint dawnings of Danish literature, which in Holberg suddenly attained to a noon-day brightness. [HOLBERG.]

In the mean time the language itself, now one of the softest in sound and most simple in construction of all the Gothic dialects, which had begun to change from that of Iceland in the eleventh and twelve centuries, gradually borrowed more and more from the Low-German, but did not acquire any fixity until the fifteenth. Its progress was greatly retarded by Latin being employed as the language of the clergy and students, and German as that of the court and the higher classes. Although it possesses scarcely any literary value in itself, otherwise than as a specimen of the language at that period, the most remark-route. His 'Heltesange,' or heroic songs, wherein he celeable production of the fifteenth century is Den Danske Riimkronike' (or chronicle in rhyme) of Niel, a monk of Soröe, who being desirous of giving his countrymen their annals in a more popular form, made use of the work of Saxo Grammaticus, continuing it from the substance of other Latin records, but moulding the whole differently, and making each monarch relate his own exploits and the events of his reign. The first edition of this work is that of 1495, and one was published by Molbech in 1825, illustrated by an introduction and a glossary. Not long after Niel, a priest at Odensee, named Mikkel, obtained some celebrity by his religious poems, the longest of which is in honour of the rosary, and breathes the spirit of Roman Catholic devotion. As a model of style, of language, and versification, this production places its author at the head of the Danish poets of the fifteenth century. About twenty years later, the same place (Odensee) gave Denmark another writer of some note in its literary annals, namely, Christian Hansen, a schoolmaster, who first attempted dramatic poetry, and whose compositions, though barbarous in taste, and both grotesque and coarse in their dialogue, are not wholly destitute of merit as regards style, nor of interest as throwing some light on the manners and opinions of the age. The real poetry however of the whole of this period is to be sought for in the national ballads and other compositions of popular minstrelsy, which, though despised by those who affected any sort of learning, were ardently cherished by the rest of the people. The first printed collection of such pieces was that

In a sketch like the present we cannot recapitulate Holberg's chief productions, while to examine them as they deserve, and so as to give a satisfactory idea of them and of their author's varied talents, would be matter for a volume of some bulk. In speaking of such a man, it is difficult to award him his just praise without seeming to fall into exaggeration; for what he is fairly entitled to is known only to those who are actually acquainted with his writings. As the author of Peder Paars,' he has been compared not only to Butler, but to Hogarth, and although no imitator of either, he rivals both the poet and the painter in satiric humour. That production alone would have immortalised him among his countrymen. The same may be said of his comedies: with defects and sins against good taste which no one would now fall into, they are marked by great dramatic power and genuine humour.* There is scarcely any branch of literature which he left unattempted,

The English reader will find a well executed specimen of Holberg as a dramatist in an entire scene from his comedy of Don Ranudo Colibrados.' in the Appendix to Feldborg's Denmark Delineated,' which work also contains much interesting informatiou relative both to the artists and the literary mer of that country.

but he was not equally successful in all. In some of them he has since been greatly surpassed by other Danish writers, but there is no one who has yet equalled him in his own peculiar line. He was to Darish literature what Peter the Great was to Russia. He gave it a sudden and powerful impulse, and produced a no less beneficial than extraordinary change in the intellectual tastes of his countrymen, whom he taught to read and to think. In short, if Don Quixote' alone will repay a student for the task of acquiring the Spanish language, so will the works of Holberg indemnify an Englishman for the labour, or rather the recreation, of making himself acquainted with a language so nearly allied to his native tongue.

1750.

Sneedorff is not a name of great eminence, yet he was a most serviceable labourer in the field of literature one to whom the language itself is greatly indebted for the example which he set of a pure, elegant, and graceful style, such as no previous writer had attained to. These qualities rendered his periodical, entitled 'The Patriotic Spectator,' exceedingly popular, and contributed to improve the taste both of readers and of writers. As a poet he has far less merit, though his poems were much admired in their day. We may in this place mention Tyge Rothe, professor of philosophy at the university of Copenhagen, for, like Sneedorff, he greatly contributed to refine the language, and his work on the Love of One's Country' is a finished model of style. When he attempted verse however his eloquence forsook him; his philosophical poem on the Destiny of Man' shows him to have been more favoured by the goddess of wisdom than by the muses.

in others, was Johan Herman Wessel, who, like Holberg, was a native of Norway, and like him possessed much comic talent and turn for humorous satire. Of these qualities he gave proof in his dramatic epigram or parody entitled Kierlighed uden Strömpei Love without stockings) (1772), which experienced a very different reception from Ewald's 'Rolf Krage, for its success on the stage was almost unprecedented, and it became such a favourite, that it was not uncommon for persons to know the whole of it by heart. Nevertheless he is said not to have intended it for representation, and to have been so doubtful of its success on the stage, that it was with the greatest difficulty his friends could prevail upon him to offer it. After this production, his tales in verse are those which exhibit him to most ad vantage, since they earned for him the title of the Danish Lafontaine. They partake however more of the manner of Prior.

Contemporary with Holberg were Gram, Falster, Sneedorff, and Tullin. The first of these, who was Archivarius of Denmark, was an acute and industrious antiquary and historian. His inquiries threw much light upon the more obscure portions of Northern annals; and some of their re- For convenience sake we may here put together the names sults were given to the world in the notes to the Florentine of the brothers Trojel, Bull, Weyer, Fasting, Sansöe, edition of Meursius's History of Denmark.' Though his Storm, and Suhm, as those of the principal writers of the productions were inconsiderable in number, Christian Fal-time who closed their career before the end of the century ster acquired no small repute as a satirist, in which character Peter Magnus and Peter Cofod Trojel claim notice chiefly he wrote in a still bolder and bitterer tone than Holberg for their songs and bacchanalian lyrics, a species of poetry himself, while as a poet he was certainly superior to him. in which the Danes have greatly distinguished themselves His satires went through several editions between 1730 and Magnus is also known by his satires and poetical epistles some of which possess considerable merit. Bull was the author of some ethic and didactic poems, but as a writer he has no great merit. Niels Weyer was a poet of more than ordinary promise, but as he died at the age of twenty-one, his works do not show the refined fruits of talent. Claus Fasting obtained more celebrity by his epigrams, some of the best in the language, than by his tragedy of Hermione.' The other three are far more important names in our catalogue; yet that of Samsöe we may dismiss at once, referring to what has already been said of him [SAMSOE], and pass on to Edward Storm. If Storm were known only by his comic epic Bragur,' in hexameter verse, his reputation would not be high, since, if not absolutely a failure, it is 2 very moderate performance, and by no means to be compared with his tales and fables, which display much genuine comic humour, and some of which are particularly felicitous, exhibiting that keen relish for the ludicrous which appears to be a trait in the national character. Nor are his ballads less admirable: they breathe the genuine spirit of the antient minstrelsy, and, but for their modern diction, might be taken for compositions of the antient Skalds. Suhm's claims to celebrity are of a different kind, for though not without pretensions as a poet, it is by his historical works that he adorned the literature of his country. His 'History of Denmark' (in 11 vols.) displays extraordinary diligence and research, and is a work of no ordinary merit, though its value is now in some degree lessened by recent productions of the kind, such as G. L. Baden's (in 5 vols., 1829-32) and L. C. Müller's (2 vols., 1835-6). He also wrote many historical tales and narratives (occupying three volumes in the collection of his works), founded upon antient traditions, and giving lively pictures of the manners and habits of the former population of Scandinavia, and of the national character.

What Sneedorff and Rothe did for prose, Tullin performed for poetry; he gave it the charm of melody, ease, and richness; on which account, although not a poet of the first order, he may fairly be considered a master in the mechanical part of the art. In that respect he may be classed with Pope, and he also occasionally resembles the English poet in his moral strains. He was acquainted with the English poets, and seems to have imbibed no small portion of the spirit of Young, whom he closely approaches in his 'Skabningens Ypperlighed,' or poem on the creation, which displays a similar loftiness in the conceptions and deep religious sentiment. This production had many admirers in Germany, and Jenisch pronounces it to be a work displaying a fiery imagination, unrivalled by anything of the kind in his own language. Tullin was certainly not devoid of poetical power: indeed his thoughts are often sublime and most happily expressed. His lyrical pieces possess much elegance and tenderness, and they encouraged a number of imitators, some of them mere versifiers, while none of them produced more than agreeable trifles.

We now arrive at a period of the literature-of its poetry especially, which may be designated as that of Ewald [EWALD], for he impressed upon it a character till then unknown, vivifying it by his own fervid genius. If Holberg was the founder of Danish comedy, Ewald was the creator of the national tragedy. His 'Rolf Krage' (1770) forms an epoch in the drama, being the first model of that species of it which has since been so successfully cultivated by Oehlenschläger and others. As a lyric poet he stands still higher, and some writers have pronounced him the most perfect and powerful master in that branch of the art that the world has ever yet seen. Distinguished by genius, he was scarcely less so by misfortune, which may in some degree be attributed to his imprudence, as well as to disappointment, and to the cold inuifference of those who should have patronised him as an ornament to their country. A tithe of the posthumous honour and applause bestowed upon him would have cheered, perhaps prolonged his bitter and brief existence. Contemporary with Ewald, his coheritor in indigence, his counterpart in many respects, his opposite

Before the close of the century a new school, at least a new generation, had begun to spring up. Both Rahbek and Baggesen had already made themselves favourably known to the public, and the first had already done much towards popularising a taste for literature by his two periodical publications, the Minerva' (commenced in 1785) and the

Danish Spectator,' both of which obtained merited success. About the same time Baggesen had made himself a favourite with the public by his Comic Tales,' decidedly the best of their kind in the language; while, in his Labyrinthen,' or Tour through Germany, Switzerland, &c., he had produced the most admirable specimen of a prose style that the literature possesses. Yet considering how much more both of them afterwards performed, these writers can be said to have been at this period only in the early part of their career. That of Oehlenschläger, a name now of European celebrity, may be dated from the first years of the nineteenth century, the poetical pieces by him, which appeared in 1803, being almost the first of his published productions, and in the following year the first book of his rifacciamento, or modernised version of the Edda, printed in Rahbek's Charis.' With the Edda' he proceeded no further than that specimen, but in his dramas and some other works he has re-opened the stores of antient Scandinavian fable