OEHLENSCHLAOER, ADAM QOTTLOR 



OERSTED, HANS CHRISTIAN'. 



613 



the great loon of the Royal Shooting-Gitllery. All the leading 

 poete of Denmark were present, and many of them wrote a song for 

 the "~^-V'n Oehleneohlager recited a poetical address of thanks, in 

 which he alluded to hi* being near the termination of his career, but 

 Mid 



" I qusff a goblet with you as a gu wt ; 



The feut I than U not my funeral feait . . . 



Close to ut stands the botue where I was born, 



And from It to the churchyard's quiet meads 



Beautiful is the avenue that leads." 



In little more than two months he wot destined to be borne along 

 the avenue to which he had thus symbolically alluded. An illuees which 

 did not at first seem serious soon became BO, aud about eight o'clock 

 in the evening on Sunday the 20th of January 1850 he felt the 

 approach of death. At half past nine he called to his eldest son and 

 told him, " At the theatre on the occasion of my funeral I wish them 

 to act my own tragedy of ' Socrates.' Head to me now that part of the 

 scene in the fifth act between Socrates and Cebes, in which Socrates 

 speaks of death, it is so unspeakably beautiful." The sou read the 

 passage 



" How then can Death affright the* ! 

 It only can be one of two things, Cebes 

 It must be something or it must be nothing," &c. 

 ending with 



" Think what a Joy then that mutt be 

 E'en with the gods themselrcs to live, to speak 

 With IlrMod, with Orpheus and with Homer, 

 And all the great men who hare been before us." 



lie heard this passage read with the greatest emotion, looking round 

 him with a amile of pleasure. When it was concluded he put an end 

 to the reading and took leave of his family who were standing around 

 the bed. As the clock struck eleven he expired. 



The funeral of Oehlenschliiger was a national solemnity, like that of 

 Thorvaldsen a few years before. The funeral procession consisted of 

 about 3004 persons, including representatives of the king and queen, 

 the heir of the throne in person, the foreign ambassadors, the pro- 

 fessors of the university, the clergy of the capital, and all that was 

 most distinguished. As it emerged from the western gate of Copen- 

 hagen it passed the house in which the deceased was born, and halted 

 while the musical societies executed a solemn ' Farewell,' composed 

 for music by Andersen. The procession closed at the church of Fre- 

 derikaberg, where lies the poet. Grundtvig and Bishop Mynster spoke 

 over the poet's grave. It is the church where his father was organist, 

 and where the boy had first attended divine service. 



The estimation in which Oehleuschliiger is held by his countrymen 

 is beat shown by the commencement of the life of him in Flamand's 

 'Qalleri af berumte Daneke Mcand og Qvmder.' " Small as Denmark is, 

 it must be counted among the great powers in the world of art and 

 poetry, since it has a sculptor to show like Thorvaldsen, whom only 

 the gnat masters of antiquity can be considered to rival, and a poet 

 like Ocblenschlager, who can worthily take the fourth seat by the aide 

 of the three heroes of poetry, Shakspere, Byron, aud Guthe." Foersan 

 the translator of Shakspere into Danish sent a copy to Oehlenscbluger 

 inscribed "To William Shakspere's Twin-brother." The English 

 writer however to whom Onhltuwcbluger bears by far thu most resem- 

 blance is Walter Scott. Though the great Danish writer was unfor- 

 tunate in pure fiction and the great Scottish writer in the drama, 

 the series of the Scotch novels of the one may be most aptly paralleled 

 by the series of Danish tragedies of the other. In both there is an 

 exuberance of life, a careless felicity, an apparent ease of production, 

 a wonderful ' breadth of effect.' 



OehlcnM&lJiger's tragedies are twenty-four in number, and nineteen 

 are on Scandinavian subjects. They are arranged in the last edition 

 in chronological order, aud touch upon almost everything of any great 

 interest or importance in Scandinavian history or tradition. Bcides 

 those that have been already mentioned there are' Knud den Store ' 

 (Canute the Great'); 'Vnsringerne i Miklagord' (' The Variugers in 

 Constantinople '), the hero of which is one of the northern body-guards 

 of the Bynantine monarohs, who were taken as a subject after Oehlen- 

 cblager by Sir W.lter Scott in 'Count Hobert of Paris;' 'Landet 

 fundtt ox fonvundel ' (' Land Found and Lost '), in which are drama- 

 tised the incidents of the early discovery of America by the Northmen, 

 Utt. rly brought so prominently before the public by the ' Antiquitatei 

 Americano),' 'Din*,' a very interesting play founded on the extra- 

 ordinary story of the Danish Alcibisdes, Corfitz Ulfeld ; ' Tordenskiold,' 

 the 'Danish Kelson,' on one of whose adventures Oehlenschliiger also 

 composed an opera, was published in 1849. These tragedies are the 

 true monument of the fame of Ueblenschlager. If to the ten octavo 

 volumes which contain them, in the fine edition of bis works com- 

 menced in 1848. be added his 'Aladdin,' his 'Fisherman and his 

 Daughter,' his 'Twin Brothers of Damascus,' and perhaps bis 

 'Kobinson Crusoe in England' (a play on the story of Defoe and 

 Alexander Selkirk), hi* ' Ludlam's Hole,' his ' Garrick in France,' and 

 a few other operas anil comedies, a series of dramatic works will be 

 shown which, for extent snd value, no other author of the 19th 

 century can rival 



Oehleneeblager's poems, which are sometimes spirited, arc for the 

 most part commoDplace; and bin proee works arc ecldom of a character 



to claim lunch attention. His ' Poetical Works,' as they are called, 

 comprising tdl of his imaginative works, whether in prose or verse, 

 except the tragedies, occupy in the collected editiou twenty-seven 

 volumes. If to those be added the ' Krindringer,' four volumes of 

 the same size, the whole series of his Danish works will be found to 

 amount to forty-one volumes. The last edition of his German works 

 reaches to twenty-one. In these sixty-two volumes are not included 

 many translations which flowed from his ever-active pen : Utway'a 

 ' Orphan,' the ' Midsummer Night's Dream,' Beskav*s Swedish dramas 

 into Danish, and the whole of Hoi berg's 'Danish Theatre 'into German. 

 In mentioning the 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' it may not bo unin- 

 teresting to add that Oehlenschliiger, though a warm, was not an 

 unconditional admirer of Shakspere. He professed to belong to the 

 old school, who saw great faults as well as great beauties in the bard 

 of Avon. It may be suspected however that his acquaintance with 

 his works was not perfect his acquaintance with his biography was 

 singularly defective. In a ballad entitled ' William Sbakspeare,' which 

 is entirely devoid of merit, he speaks of him as being born at Warwick, 

 never apparently having heard of Stratford, and of his gaining his 

 fame at " Drury Lane." 



In the general character of Oehlenschliiger, as shown in hi* life, it 

 may be seen that a high estimation of himself was a prominent feature ; 

 but this in his case, as in many others, was grounded on real merit. 

 The tone of his 'Autobiography ' not unfrequeutly reminds tho English 

 reader of that of Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. Neither of the two 

 was inclined to overlook or undervalue his own claims to attention. 

 It is a more singular circumstance that the merits of the poet were 

 through the course of a long life generously appreciated and rewarded 

 by his countrymen, who by their conduct did no less honour to 

 themselves than to him. 



OKKSTED (OUSTED), HANS CHRISTIAN, celebrated as the 

 originator of the science of electro-magnetism, from which sprung 

 the electric telegraph, Professor of Natural Philosophy, aud Director 

 of the Polytechnic School of Copenhagen, was born on the 14th of 

 August 1777 at Kudkjobiug, in the Danish island of Laugeland, 

 where his father was an apothecary. He studied in the University 

 of Copenhagen, and was made a Doctor of Philosophy in that univer- 

 sity in 1800. At this time he studied the subject of galvanism, and 

 discovered that tho power of the opposite poles of the gidvauic battery 

 to give off acids and alkalies depended on circumstances, aud showed 

 that this power was relative. From 1801 to 1803 he studied in 

 Holland and France, returning to Copenhagen, where he was made 

 professor of physics in 1806. In 1812 he went to Germany, and 

 whilst there he wrote his essay on the identity of chemical and 

 electrical forces, thus laying the foundation for the subsequent identi- 

 fication of the forces of magnetism, electricity, and galvanism. In 

 1819 he made the announcement of his great discovery of the intimate 

 relation existing between magnetism and electricity. This announce- 

 ment was mode in an essay entitled, ' Kxperimonta circa ellieaciaia 

 conuictus electrici in acum magnetic*.' By defining the nature of 

 the influence exerted by the galvanic current on the magnetic ; 

 he laid the foundations of the science of electro-magnetism, and led 

 the way to its practical application in the production of tho electric 

 telegraph. Previous to this time the identity of the forces of mag- 

 netism and electricity hod only been suspected. He now demonstrated 

 "that there is always a magnetic circulation round the electric 

 conductor, and that the electric current, in accordance with a 

 certain law, always exercises determined and similar impressions on 

 tho direction of the magnetic needle, even when it does not pass 

 through the needle, but near it." For this discovery he received the 

 Copley medal of the Uoyal Society of London, and the French 

 Institute presented him with one of its mathematical class prizes worth 

 3000 francs. 



In 1809 he wrote a 'Manual of Mechanical Physics,' a second 

 edition of which was published in 1844. The re-writing thin work 

 le<l him to make many original researches in many departments of 

 natural philosophy, scarcely any of which have not been enriched by 

 his experiments. He made many important experiments on the com- 

 pression of water, and invented an instrument by which liquids 

 might bo compressed with more certainty. He was the first to demon- 

 strate the existence of the metal aluminium in alumina, and made 

 otli< r ch' uiieal discoveries. In 1622-23 he again visited Germany 

 and France, and also visited KngUnd. On his return to Denmark he 

 founded tho Society for the Distribution of Natural Science, one 

 object of which was to send forth a body of popular lecturers to 

 deliver courses of instruction in the most important towns of the 

 country. He took an active part in the Scandinavian Society of 

 Naturalists, which, like our own British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, assembles annually in different parts of the country. 

 lie again visited Knglaud in 1816, during the meeting of the British 

 Association at Southampton. 



As he increased in years honours increased upon him. He was 

 made secretary to the Uoyal Society of Copenhagen ; a correspond- 

 ing member of tho Academy of Sciences in the French Institute ; 

 and Director of tho Polytechnic School at Copenhagen, which he had 

 himself founded. In Is37 he was made Knight of the Legion of 

 Honour, aud in 1842 Knight of the Prussian order for the reward of 

 Merit in the ArU and Sciences. In early life Orsted was associated 



