Note 36. NORWEGIAN STUDENTS' GREETING TO PROFESSOR WELHAVEN. Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven was born December 22, 1807, lived from 1828 in Christiania, was lector from 1840 to 1846, and from 1846 to 1868 professor of philosophy in the University; he died October 21, 1873. His poetical works were: Norway's Dawn, 1834; Poems, 1839; New Poems, 1845; Half a Hundred Poems, 1848; Pictures of Travel and Poems, 1851; A Collection of Poems, 1860. A polemical writer, gifted with wit and fine taste, and a social-political author, Welhaven represented in his earlier period the "party of intelligence"" over against the chauvinism of the radical Peasant party of Wergeland (see Note 78). He was an adherent of Danish culture and of the esthetic view of art and life, who hated all national exclusiveness and showed a love of his country no less true and intense than Wergeland's by chastising the Norwegians of his time for their big, empty words and their crass materialism. For this he was rewarded with abuse, and called "traitor to his country" and "matricide." In reality Welhaven was a dreamer, a worshiper of nature, a man of tender feeling. His subjective lyric poetry is not surpassed in richness of content and beauty of form by that of any other Norwegian. Outside of his ordinary University duties Welhaven was also active; he was a favorite speaker at student festivities and musical festivals, notably at the Student Meetings in Upsala, 1856, and in Copenhagen, 1862. But early in 1864 his health failed and he was unable thereafter to lecture regularly. In August, 1868, he requested to be retired; on September 24, the University Authorities granted his request and a pension at the highest rate; but the Storting, on November 12, reduced this to two-thirds of the amount proposed. The same day the students brought to Professor Welhaven their farewell greeting, marching with flags to his residence, where this poem of homage was sung.