Copenhagen--Children of Amak--Brisk bargaining--Specimens
of horn fish--Unlucky dogs--Thorwaldsen’s museum--The Royal
Assistenz House--Going, gone--The Ethnographic Museum--An
inexorable professor--Lionizes a big-wig--The stone
period in Denmark--England’s want of an ethnographical
collection--A light struck from the flint in the stag’s
head--The gold period--A Scandinavian idol’s cestus--How
dead chieftains cheated fashion--Antiquities in gold--Wooden
almanacks--Bridal crowns--Scandinavian antiquities peculiarly
interesting to Englishmen--Four thousand a year in return
for soft sawder--Street scenes in Copenhagen--Thorwaldsen’s
colossal statues--Blushes for Oxford and Cambridge--A Danish
comedy--Where the warriors rest.
It was late in the evening when the third train of the day whisked us
into Copenhagen, where I took up my abode at a quiet hotel near the
ramparts.
What a strange place this is. Works of art, and museums superior to
anything in Europe, and streets, for the most part very paltry, and
infamously paved. Traveller, be on your guard. The trottoirs of
granite slab, worn slippery by the perambulating hobnails of those
children of Amak, are very treacherous, and if you are supplanted, you
will slide into a gutter nearly a foot deep, full of black sludge.
These people are a Dutch colony planted by King Christian II. in the
neighbouring island of Amak.
The original female costume, which they still retain, consists of
little black coalscuttle Quaker bonnets, very large dark-blue or white
aprons, which almost hide their sober-coloured stuff gowns with their
red and yellow edgings. Their ruddy faces, at the bottom of the said
scuttles, look like hot cinders got there by mistake. Altogether they
are a most neat, dapper, and cleanly-looking set of bodies. The men
have also their peculiar costume. These people are the purveyors of
vegetables for Copenhagen. Yon lady, standing in a little one-horse
shay, full of flower-pots and bouquets, is another specimen of the
clan, but seemingly one of the upper-crust section. Locomotive shops
appear to be the fashion. Near the Church of our Lady are a lot of
butchers’ carts drawn up, with meat for sale. They come from the
environs of the city. Much life is concentred round the bridge near the
palace. In the canal are several little stumpy sailing boats at anchor,
crammed full of pots and crockery. These are from Bornholm and Jutland.
Near them are some vessels with awnings: these are depôts of cheeses
and butter from Sleswig and Holstein.
Look at yon row of women with that amphibious white head-dress
spotted brown. In front it looks like a bonnet; behind, it terminates
in a kerchief. You are reminded by the mixture of another mongrel,
but picturesque article of dress, worn by the Welsh peasant-women,
the pais a gwn bach. How they are gabbling to those ladies and
housekeeper-looking women, and sparring linguistically about something
in the basket. Greek contending with Trojan for the dead body of
Achilles.
Their whole stock in trade consists of specimens of “hornfish,” an
animal like a sand eel, with long spiky snout, and of a silvery
whiteness. They are about two feet long, and twenty skillings the pair.
These women are from Helsingör, which is the whereabouts of the said
fish. They come from thence every day, if the wind serves; and if it
does not, I fancy they manage to come all the same.
Look at these men, too, in the street, sawing and splitting away for
dear life, a lot of beech logs at that door. Fuel, I find, is very
dear, from seventeen to twenty dollars the fathom.
Alas! for the poor dogs, victims of that terrible fear of hydrophobia
which seems to infect continental nations more than England; they
are running about with capacious wire muzzles, projecting some
inches beyond the smeller, which renders them, it is true, incapable
of biting, but also of exchanging those amiable blandishments and
courtesies with their kind, so becoming and so natural to them, and
forming one of the great solaces of canine existence.
Yonder is Thorwaldsen’s museum, with its yellow ochre walls, and
frescoes outside representing the conveyance of his works from Italy
hither. But that is shut up to-day, and besides, everybody has read
an account of this museum of sculpture. An Englishman is surprised
to learn that the sculptor’s body rests, at his own request, under
some ivy-covered mould in the quad inside. But the ground, if not
consecrated episcopally, is so by the atmosphere of genius around.
Let us just pop into this large building opposite. There is something
to be seen here, perhaps, that will give us an insight into Copenhagen
life.
“What is this place, sir?”
“This, sir, is the Royal Assistenz Huus.”
“What may that be?”
“It is a place where needy people can have money lent on clothes. It
enjoys a monopoly to the exclusion of all private establishments of
the kind. If the goods are not redeemed within a twelvemonth, they are
sold.”
A sale of this kind, I found, was now going on. Seated at a table,
placed upon a sort of dais, were two functionaries, dressed in
brown-holland coats, who performed the part of auctioneers. One drawled
out the several bids, and another booked the name and offer of the
highest bidder, and very hot work it seemed to be; the one and the
other kept mopping their foreheads, and presently a Jewish-looking
youth, who had been performing the part of jackal, handing up the
articles of clothing, and exhibiting them to the buyers, brought
the two brown-holland gents a foaming tankard of beer, which being
swallowed, the scribe began scribbling, and the other Robins drawling
again. A very nice pair of black trousers were now put up: “Better
than new; show them round, Ignatius.” A person of clerical appearance
seized them, and examined them thoroughly; then a peasant woman got
hold of them; she had very dark eyes and a very red pippin-coloured
face. A broad scarlet riband, passing under her chin, fastened her
lace-bordered cap, while on her crown was a piece of gold cloth. One
would have thought that the way in which her countenance was swaddled
would have impeded her utterance; but she led off the bidding, and
was quickly followed by the motley crowd round the platform. But the
clerical-looking customer who had been lying by, now took up the
running, and had it easy. He marched off in triumph with his prize, and
I feel no doubt that he would preach in them the next Sunday.
Leaving these daws to scramble for the plumes, I passed into another
large room, where I saw some nice-looking, respectable persons behind
a large counter, examining different articles brought by unfortunates
who were hard up. There was none of that mixture of cunning, hardness,
and brutality about their demeanour which stamps the officials of the
private establishments of the sort in England.
Hence we go to an old clothes establishment of another sort--I mean
the Ethnographic Museum. Here you find yourself, as you proceed from
chamber to chamber, now _tête-à-tête_ with a Greenland family in their
quaint abode; anon you are lower down Europe among the Laplanders, and
among other little amusements you behold the get-up of a Lap wizard and
his divining drum (quobdas). Hence you proceed eastward, and are now
promenading with a Japanese beau in his handsome dress of black silk,
now shuddering at the hideous grimaces of a Chinese deity. All this
has been recently arranged with extraordinary care, and on scientific
principles, by the learned Professor Thomsen.
“Herr Professor,” exclaimed a bearded German, “can’t we see the Museum
of Northern Antiquities to-day? I have come all the way from Vienna to
see it, and must leave this to-morrow.”
“Unmöglich, mein Herr,” replied the Professor. “To-morrow is the day.
If you saw it to-day you would not see the flowers of the collection;
and we will not show it without the flowers. The most costly and
interesting specimens are locked up, and can’t be opened unless all the
attendants are present.”
“Mais, Mons. Professeur,” put in a French savan.
“C’est impossible,” replied the Professor, shrugging up his shoulders.
“Could not we just have a little peep at it, sir?” here asked some of
my fair countrywomen, in wheedling accents.
“I am very sorry, ladies, but this is not the day, you know. I shall be
most happy to explain all to-morrow, at four o’clock,” was the reply of
the polyglot Professor.
It would be well if the curators of museums in England would have the
example of Professor Thomsen before their eyes. There is no end to
his civility to the public, and to his labours in the departments of
science committed to his care. Speaking most of the European languages,
he may be seen, his Jove-like, grizzled head towering above the rest,
listening to the questions of the curious crowd, and explaining to each
in their own tongue in which they were born the meaning of the divers
objects of art and science stored up in this palace. Next day, I found
him engaged in lionizing a big-wig; at least, so I concluded, when I
perceived that, on either breast, he wore a silver star of the bigness
of a dahlia flower of the first magnitude; while his coat, studded
with gold buttons, was further illustrated by a green velvet collar.
Subsequently I learned, what I, indeed, guessed, that he was a Russian
grandee on his travels. He is the owner of one of the best antiquarian
collections in Europe. Professor Thomsen, not to be outdone, likewise
exhibited four orders. While the Muscovite examined the various
curiosities of the stone,[1] the bronze, and the iron period, I heard
him talking with the air of a man whose mind was thoroughly made up
about the three several migrations from the Caucasus of the Celts,
Goths, and Sclavonians.
An Englishman, when he sees this wonderful collection, cannot but be
struck with astonishment, on the one hand, at the industry and tact of
Professor Thomsen, who has been the main instrument in its formation;
and with shame and regret, on the other, that Great Britain has no
collection of strictly national antiquities at all to be compared with
it; and, what is more, it is daily being increased. The sub-curator,
Mr. C. Steinhauer, informed me, that already, this year, he had
received and added to the museum one hundred and twenty different
batches of national antiquities, some believed to date as far back as
before the Christian era. And then, the specimens are so admirably
arranged, that you may really learn something from them as to the
state of civilization prevailing in Scandinavia at very remote periods:
the collection being a connected running commentary or history, such as
you will meet with nowhere else. Observe this oak coffin, pronounced to
be not less than two thousand years old; and those pieces of woollen
cloth of the same date. Look at that skeleton of a stag’s head,
discovered in the peat.
“There is nothing in that,” says an Hibernian, fresh from Dublin. “Did
you ever see the great fossil elk in Trinity College Museum?”
Ay! but there is something more interesting about this stag’s head,
nevertheless. Examine it closely. Imbedded in the bone of the jaw,
see, there is a flint arrow-head; the bow that sped that arrow must
have been pulled by a nervous arm. This “stag that from the hunter’s
aim had taken some hurt,” perhaps retreated into a sequestered bog to
languish, and sunk, by his weight, into the bituminous peat, and was
thus embalmed by nature as a monument of a very early and rude period.
Presently we get among the gold ornaments. There the Irishman is
completely “shut up.” “The Museum of Trinity College,” and “Museum of
the Royal Irish Academy,” are beaten hollow. Nay, to leave no room for
boasting, facsimiles of the gold head and neck ornaments in Dublin are
actually placed here side by side with those discovered in Denmark.
The weight of some of the armlets and necklets is astonishing. Here is
a great gold ring, big enough for the waist; but it has no division,
like the armlets, to enable the wearer to expand it, and fit it to the
body; moreover, the inner side presents a sharp edge, such as would
inconvenience a human wearer.
“That,” said Professor Thomsen, seeing our difficulty, “must have
been the waistband of an idol; which, as there was no necessity for
taking it off, must have been soldered fast together, after it had once
encircled the form of the image.[2]”
“What can be the meaning of these pigmy ornaments and arms?” said I.
“Why, that is very curious. You know the ancient Scandinavian chieftain
was buried with his sword and his trinkets. This was found to be
expensive, but still the tyrant fashion was inflexible on the subject;
so, to comply with her rules, and let the chief have his properties
with him in the grave, miniature swords, &c., were made, and buried
with him; just in the same way as some of your ladies of fashion,
though they have killed their goose, will still keep it; in other
words, though their diamonds are in the hands of the Jews, still love
to glitter about in paste.”
“Cunning people those old Vikings,” thought I.
“Yes,” continued our obliging informant, “and look at these,” pointing
to what looked like balls of gold. “They are weights gilt all over.
The reason why they were gilt was the more easily to detect any
loss of weight, which a dishonest merchant, had discovery not been
certain, might otherwise have contrived to inflict on them.” Those
mighty wind-instruments, six feet long, are the war-horns (Luren) of
the bronze period; under these coats of mail throbbed the bosoms of
some valorous freebooters handed down to fame by Snorro. “Look here,”
continued he, “these pieces of thick gold and silver wire were used
for money in the same way as later the links of a chain were used for
that purpose. Here is a curious gold medal of Constantine, most likely
used as a military decoration. The reverse has no impress on it.” This
reminded me of the buttons and other ornaments in Thelemarken, which
are exact copies of fashions in use hundreds of years ago. Here again
are some Bezants, coins minted at Byzantium, which were either brought
over by the ships of the Vikings, or were carried up the Volga to
Novgorod, a place founded by the Northmen, and so on to Scandinavia,
by the merchants and mercenary soldiers who in early times flocked
to the East. Gotland used to be a gathering-place for those who thus
passed to and fro, and to this Wisby owes its former greatness. Many of
these articles of value were probably buried by the owner on setting
out upon some fresh expedition from which he never returned, and their
discovery has been due to the plough or the spade, while others have
been unearthed from the barrows and cromlechs. Here, again, are some
primstavs, or old Scandinavian wooden calendars. You see they are of
two sorts--one straight, like the one I picked up in Thelemarken,
while another is in the shape of an elongated ellipse. If you compare
them, you will now find how much they differed, not only in shape, but
also in the signs made to betoken the different days in the calendar.
“You have heard of our Queen Dagmar. Here is a beautiful enamelled
cross of Byzantine workmanship which she once wore around her neck.
You have travelled in Norway? Wait a moment,” continued the voluble
Professor, as he directed an attendant to open a massive escritoir.
“You are aware, sir, that it is the custom in Norway and Sweden for
brides to wear a crown. I thought that, before the old custom died, I
would secure a memento of it. I had very great difficulty, the peasants
were so loth to part with them, but at last I succeeded, and behold the
result, sir. That crown is from Iceland, that from Sweden, and that
from Norway. It is three hundred years old. That fact I have on the
best authority. It used to be lent out far and near for a fixed sum,
and, computing the weddings it attended at one hundred per annum, which
is very moderate, it must have encircled the heads of thirty thousand
brides on their wedding-day. Very curious, Excellence!” he continued,
giving the Russian grandee a sly poke in the ribs.
The idea seemed to amuse the old gentleman of the stars and green
velvet collar wonderfully.
“Sapperlot! Potztannsend noch ein mal!” he ejaculated, with great
animation, while the antiquarian dust seemed to roll from his eyes,
and they gleamed up uncommonly.
In the same case I observed more than one hundred Danish, Swedish, and
Norwegian spoons of quaint shape, though they were nearly all of what
we call the Apostle type.
But we must take leave of the museum with the remark that, to see
it thoroughly, would require a great many visits. To an Englishman,
whose country was so long intimately connected with Scandinavia,--and
which has most likely undergone pretty nearly the same vicissitudes of
civilization and occupancy as Scandinavia itself--this collection must
be intensely interesting, especially when examined by the light thrown
upon it by Worsaae and others.
Indeed, if England wishes to know the facts of her Scandinavian period,
it is to these people that she must look for information.
“Ten per cent. for my money!” That, alas! is too often an Englishman’s
motto now-a-days; “and I can’t get that by troubling my head about King
Olaf or Canute.”
While I write this I am reminded of an agreeable, good-looking young
Briton whom I met here; he is a physician making four thousand a-year
by administering doses of soft sawder. Thrown by circumstances early
on the world, he has not had the opportunity of acquiring ideas or
knowledge out of the treadmill of his profession. He is just fresh from
Norway, through which he has shot like a rocket, being pressed for time.
“How beautiful the rivers are there,” he observed; “so rapid.
By-the-bye, though, your river at Oxford must be something like them.
The poet says, ‘Isis rolling rapidly!’”
Leaving the museum, I dined at the great restaurant’s of Copenhagen,
Jomfru Henkel’s, in the Ostergade; it was too crowded for comfort.
Dinner is _à la carte_.
Some convicts were mending the roadway in one of the streets; their
jackets were half black, half yellow, trousers ditto, only that where
the jacket was black, the inexpressibles were yellow on the same side,
and _vice versâ_. Their legs were heavily chained. Many carriages
were assembled round the church of the Holy Ghost; I found it was a
wedding. All European nations, I believe, but the English, choose the
afternoon for the ceremony.
Thorwaldsen’s colossal statues in white marble of our Saviour and
his Apostles which adorn the Frue Kirke, are too well known to need
description.
At the Christianborg, or Palace of King Christian, the lions that
caught my attention first were the three literal ones in massive
silver, which always figure at the enthronization of the Danish
monarchs. Next to them I observed the metaphorical lions, viz., the
sword of Gustavus Adolphus, the cup in which Peter the Great used to
take his matutinal dram, the portrait of the unhappy Matilda, and of
the wretched Christian VII.
Blush Oxford and Cambridge, when you know that on the walls of this
palace, side by side with the freedom of the City of London and the
Goldsmiths’ Company (but the London citizens are of course not very
particular in these matters), hang your diplomas of D.C.L., engrossed
on white satin, conferred upon this precious specimen of a husband and
king.
That evening I went to see a comedy of Holberg’s at the theatre, _Jacob
von Tybö_ by name. It seemed to create immense fun, which was not to be
wondered at, for the piece contained a rap at the German customs, and
braggadocio style of that people in vogue here some hundred years ago.
The taste for that sort of thing, as may readily be imagined, no longer
exists here. Roars of laughter accompanied every hit at Tuskland.
The two Roskilds and Madame Pfister acquitted themselves well. The
temperature of the building was as nearly as possible that of the Black
Hole of Calcutta, as far as I was able to judge by my own feelings
compared with the historical account of that delectable place. A lady
next me told me that they had long talked of an improved building.
Next day I visited the Seamen’s Burial Ground, where, clustering about
an elevated mound, are the graves of the Danish sailors who fell in
1807. I observed an inscription in marble overgrown with ivy:--
Kranz som Fadrelandet gav,
Den visner ei paa falden Krieger’s Grav.
The chaplet which their fatherland once gave
Shall never fade on fallen warrior’s grave.
True to the motto, the monuments are decked every Saturday with
fresh flowers. Fuchsias were also growing in great numbers about.
The different spaces of ground are let for a hundred years; if the
lease is not renewed then, I presume the Company will enter upon the
premises. There were traces about, I observed, of English whittlers.
Our countrymen seem to remember the command of the augur to Tarquinius,
“cut boldly,” and the King cut through.