Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 307 / New Series, Saturday, November 17, 1849

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
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.