The distance from Elsineur to Copenhagen is twenty-two miles; the road
is very good, over a flat country diversified with wood, mostly beech,
and decent mansions. There appeared to be a great quantity of corn land,
and the soil looked much more fertile than it is in general so near the
sea. The rising grounds, indeed, were very few, and around Copenhagen it
is a perfect plain; of course has nothing to recommend it but
cultivation, not decorations. If I say that the houses did not disgust
me, I tell you all I remember of them, for I cannot recollect any
pleasurable sensations they excited, or that any object, produced by
nature or art, took me out of myself. The view of the city, as we drew
near, was rather grand, but without any striking feature to interest the
imagination, excepting the trees which shade the footpaths.
Just before I reached Copenhagen I saw a number of tents on a wide
plain, and supposed that the rage for encampments had reached this city;
but I soon discovered that they were the asylum of many of the poor
families who had been driven out of their habitations by the late fire.
Entering soon after, I passed amongst the dust and rubbish it had left,
affrighted by viewing the extent of the devastation, for at least a
quarter of the city had been destroyed. There was little in the
appearance of fallen bricks and stacks of chimneys to allure the
imagination into soothing melancholy reveries; nothing to attract the
eye of taste, but much to afflict the benevolent heart. The depredations
of time have always something in them to employ the fancy, or lead to
musing on subjects which, withdrawing the mind from objects of sense,
seem to give it new dignity; but here I was treading on live ashes. The
sufferers were still under the pressure of the misery occasioned by this
dreadful conflagration. I could not take refuge in the thought: they
suffered, but they are no more! a reflection I frequently summon to calm
my mind when sympathy rises to anguish. I therefore desired the driver
to hasten to the hotel recommended to me, that I might avert my eyes
and snap the train of thinking which had sent me into all the corners of
the city in search of houseless heads.
This morning I have been walking round the town, till I am weary of
observing the ravages. I had often heard the Danes, even those who had
seen Paris and London, speak of Copenhagen with rapture. Certainly I
have seen it in a very disadvantageous light, some of the best streets
having been burnt, and the whole place thrown into confusion. Still the
utmost that can, or could ever, I believe, have been said in its praise,
might be comprised in a few words. The streets are open, and many of the
houses large; but I saw nothing to rouse the idea of elegance or
grandeur, if I except the circus where the king and prince royal reside.
The palace, which was consumed about two years ago, must have been a
handsome, spacious building; the stone-work is still standing, and a
great number of the poor, during the late fire, took refuge in its ruins
till they could find some other abode. Beds were thrown on the landing-
places of the grand staircase, where whole families crept from the cold,
and every little nook is boarded up as a retreat for some poor creatures
deprived of their home. At present a roof may be sufficient to shelter
them from the night air; but as the season advances, the extent of the
calamity will be more severely felt, I fear, though the exertions on the
part of Government are very considerable. Private charity has also, no
doubt, done much to alleviate the misery which obtrudes itself at every
turn; still, public spirit appears to me to be hardly alive here. Had it
existed, the conflagration might have been smothered in the beginning,
as it was at last, by tearing down several houses before the flames had
reached them. To this the inhabitants would not consent; and the prince
royal not having sufficient energy of character to know when he ought to
be absolute, calmly let them pursue their own course, till the whole
city seemed to be threatened with destruction. Adhering, with puerile
scrupulosity, to the law which he has imposed on himself, of acting
exactly right, he did wrong by idly lamenting whilst he marked the
progress of a mischief that one decided step would have stopped. He was
afterwards obliged to resort to violent measures; but then, who could
blame him? And, to avoid censure, what sacrifices are not made by weak
minds?
A gentleman who was a witness of the scene assured me, likewise, that if
the people of property had taken half as much pains to extinguish the
fire as to preserve their valuables and furniture, it would soon have
been got under. But they who were not immediately in danger did not
exert themselves sufficiently, till fear, like an electrical shock,
roused all the inhabitants to a sense of the general evil. Even the
fire-engines were out of order, though the burning of the palace ought
to have admonished them of the necessity of keeping them in constant
repair. But this kind of indolence respecting what does not immediately
concern them seems to characterise the Danes. A sluggish concentration
in themselves makes them so careful to preserve their property, that
they will not venture on any enterprise to increase it in which there is
a shadow of hazard.
Considering Copenhagen as the capital of Denmark and Norway, I was
surprised not to see so much industry or taste as in Christiania.
Indeed, from everything I have had an opportunity of observing, the
Danes are the people who have made the fewest sacrifices to the graces.
The men of business are domestic tyrants, coldly immersed in their own
affairs, and so ignorant of the state of other countries, that they
dogmatically assert that Denmark is the happiest country in the world;
the Prince Royal the best of all possible princes; and Count Bernstorff
the wisest of ministers.
As for the women, they are simply notable housewives; without
accomplishments or any of the charms that adorn more advanced social
life. This total ignorance may enable them to save something in their
kitchens, but it is far from rendering them better parents. On the
contrary, the children are spoiled, as they usually are when left to the
care of weak, indulgent mothers, who having no principle of action to
regulate their feelings, become the slaves of infants, enfeebling both
body and mind by false tenderness.
I am, perhaps, a little prejudiced, as I write from the impression of
the moment; for I have been tormented to-day by the presence of unruly
children, and made angry by some invectives thrown out against the
maternal character of the unfortunate Matilda. She was censured, with
the most cruel insinuation, for her management of her son, though, from
what I could gather, she gave proofs of good sense as well as tenderness
in her attention to him. She used to bathe him herself every morning;
insisted on his being loosely clad; and would not permit his attendants
to injure his digestion by humouring his appetite. She was equally
careful to prevent his acquiring haughty airs, and playing the tyrant in
leading-strings. The Queen Dowager would not permit her to suckle him;
but the next child being a daughter, and not the Heir-Apparent of the
Crown, less opposition was made to her discharging the duty of a mother.
Poor Matilda! thou hast haunted me ever since may arrival; and the view
I have had of the manners of the country, exciting my sympathy, has
increased my respect for thy memory.
I am now fully convinced that she was the victim of the party she
displaced, who would have overlooked or encouraged her attachment, had
not her lover, aiming at being useful, attempted to overturn some
established abuses before the people, ripe for the change, had
sufficient spirit to support him when struggling in their behalf. Such
indeed was the asperity sharpened against her that I have heard her,
even after so many years have elapsed, charged with licentiousness, not
only for endeavouring to render the public amusements more elegant, but
for her very charities, because she erected, amongst other institutions,
a hospital to receive foundlings. Disgusted with many customs which pass
for virtues, though they are nothing more than observances of forms,
often at the expense of truth, she probably ran into an error common to
innovators, in wishing to do immediately what can only be done by time.
Many very cogent reasons have been urged by her friends to prove that
her affection for Struensee was never carried to the length alleged
against her by those who feared her influence. Be that as it may she
certainly was no a woman of gallantry, and if she had an attachment for
him it did not disgrace her heart or understanding, the king being a
notorious debauchee and an idiot into the bargain. As the king's conduct
had always been directed by some favourite, they also endeavoured to
govern him, from a principle of self-preservation as well as a laudable
ambition; but, not aware of the prejudices they had to encounter, the
system they adopted displayed more benevolence of heart than soundness
of judgment. As to the charge, still believed, of their giving the King
drugs to injure his faculties, it is too absurd to be refuted. Their
oppressors had better have accused them of dabbling in the black art,
for the potent spell still keeps his wits in bondage.
I cannot describe to you the effect it had on me to see this puppet of a
monarch moved by the strings which Count Bernstorff holds fast; sit,
with vacant eye, erect, receiving the homage of courtiers who mock him
with a show of respect. He is, in fact, merely a machine of state, to
subscribe the name of a king to the acts of the Government, which, to
avoid danger, have no value unless countersigned by the Prince Royal;
for he is allowed to be absolutely an idiot, excepting that now and
then an observation or trick escapes him, which looks more like madness
than imbecility.
What a farce is life. This effigy of majesty is allowed to burn down to
the socket, whilst the hapless Matilda was hurried into an untimely
grave.
"As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport."
Adieu!