Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 307: New Series, Saturday, November 17, 1849Various
History
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 307: New Series, Saturday, November 17, 1849
Various
Periodicals
[Illustration: CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
NO. 307. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1849. PRICE 1½_d._]
TRACINGS OF THE NORTH OF EUROPE.
ELSINORE--GOTTENBURG.
I left Copenhagen for Elsinore on the last day of June, with two
companions, in a _char-a-banc_; a rough but not inconvenient kind of
carriage drawn by two horses. We took the route by Fredericksborg
(different from the Fredericksberg already mentioned), in order to
visit that most distinguished of all the Danish palaces. The king
was living in it at the time; but this was understood to present
no difficulty. The life of Frederick VII. is remarkably modest and
unobtrusive. Allowing his ministers to govern according to the best of
their judgment, he is content to live in the manner almost of a private
gentleman. It was stated that at this time, when half the sovereigns
of Europe were in the agonies of a revolutionary crisis, the attention
of the Danish monarch was chiefly engrossed by some ancient sepulchral
tumuli found in his neighbourhood. So great is his disrelish of royal
state and parade, that he can only with difficulty be induced to come
occasionally to town to give audiences and attend reviews. Yet Denmark
is a year old in a constitution which grants something approaching to
universal suffrage. Very probably the Sleswig-Holstein war is what
has secured this internal peace. Uniting in this external object, the
people have escaped as yet the danger of falling together by the ears
about progress and reaction. So for once a democratic movement has not
been attended by a crop of folly and outrage.
The country passed over in our drive is composed of the tame
undulations usual in the chalk formation, varied only by a few lakes
and some fine woods. We snatched an interval required for resting the
horses to see the queen-dowager's palace at Lundby, which we found
to be a plain building situated amongst some pleasant groves, but in
no way remarkable, except that the domain was open at all points to
any one who chose to leave the high road by which it is skirted. We
walked over the grounds, and penetrated into the garden, asking no
leave, and meeting no resistance or challenge--a proof not so much,
I apprehend, of any special liberality in the royal possessor, as of
great harmlessness in the people; for certainly without _that_, no such
indulgence could be extended. The inferiority of the place in point of
trimness to similar places in England, and the meagre show of plants in
the garden, were remarkable. That fastidious mowing, and paring, and
cleaning, which is continually going on round a country residence in
England, is unknown in the north of Europe.
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