66 



SCANDINAVIA. 



the Dane, awaiting the day when his oppressed country shall again stand in need of 

 his stout arm. This is also the famous castle of Hamlet, which thus lives in deathless 

 song, though we look in vain from its "platform" for Shakspere's "dreadful 

 summit of the cliff, that beetles o'er his base into the sea." The events told by the 

 poet are fancy's theme, but here the mind still bodies them forth, and the 

 castle halls seem still to echo those sublime utterances that can never die. 



The current of the Sound sweeps by Elsinore, which is the natural limit of the 

 two seas, and which the Danish kings took care to fortify, in order to enforce dues 



Fii"-. 29. - Kkonkokg Castle, from the Sound. 



from all vessels passing to and fro. Till the middle of the present century this 

 tribute was universally submitted to, but in 1855 the United States refused 

 payment of the tax, and in 1857 it was redeemed for the sum of £3,49-4,000, 

 payable by sixteen nations in proportion to their traffic. About 50,000 vessels 

 pass yearly in front of Elsinore, 4,000 to 6,000 stopping for supplies. 



BoskiMe, capital and most populous city of Denmark before Copenhagen, 



