None have laboured with more success in this vocation than Ingemann. Already known as a poet and a dramatist, he had still to earn a reputation among his countrymen as a novelist. Seizing upon the romantic materials of Denmark's former history, he revived the memory of the great Waldemars, and the proudest periods of the Danish monarchy, investing the heroes who still live in ancient ballad and story with greater charms of interest; and he has succeeded in winning a place in the hearts and estimation of his countrymen as an author and a patriot. He has written wholly for his countrymen, and in the purest spirit of the historical romance. His characters are real characters; his facts are the facts of his country's history, gleaned from her ancient chronicles and popular song, and woven together with the slightest texture of fiction, sufficient only to redeem his narrative from the character of a dry chronicle. In this respect his romances must suffer when compared with those of Sir Walter Scott, where history is made subordinate to fiction, and poetic licence usurps the place of historical truth; but they possess this advantage--that they are truer transcripts of the past, and present us with the men, manners, and institutions of by-gone times, with a fidelity that enhances our interest in the history, and with fiction enough to make the reading of the history attractive. In present romance Ingemann introduces us to an interesting period in the history of Denmark--the last year of the reign of Erik Glipping, and the commencement of the reign of his son and successor, Erik Menved. He gives us a portraiture of the state of society at the time--glimpses of old laws and old customs--snatches of ancient fable--and places men before us as they lived and acted towards the close of the thirteenth century. The translator has endeavoured, in the purity of faithfulness, to present the reader with both the letter and the spirit of his original. In the course of his narrative the author alludes to matters familiar enough, no doubt, to his own countrymen, but with which the English reader can scarcely be expected to be acquainted. In many of these cases the translator has subjoined a note explanatory of a particular passage, which, in a work of this description, might otherwise be regarded as an editorial impertinence. For the adoption of occasional Scottish words and phrases, in translating the various fragments of old Danish ballads scattered throughout the narrative, the translator can only plead the example of Sir Walter Scott, Jamieson, and others, who have followed this course in rendering several of the Kæmpeviser. Indeed, the close similarity of language and phraseology in many of the old Scottish and Danish ballads, furnishes an irresistible temptation to this mode of translation. _London_, _November_, 1846. THE CHILDHOOD OF ERIK MENVED. PART I.