[FREDERIK PALUDAN-MÜLLER.]
1881.
From Germans who were conversant with the Danish language, I have frequently heard the remark, "Paludan-Müller, not Oehlenschläger, is the greatest poet Denmark has produced in this century. How strange this has never been recognized!"
It has never been recognized because it is not the case. Intellectual superiority has here been confounded with poetic, or personal maturity preferred to the originality of genius. In Meyer's "Konversations-Lexikon" we read: "Paludan-Müller is unconditionally the most important Danish author of our century, quite as much owing to his wealth of ideas, as to the depth of his moral earnestness and the beauty of form displayed in his diction." Questionable as the justice of this assertion appears to me, it is equally unquestionable that Paludan-Müller (born Feb. 7, 1809, died Dec. 28, 1876) is far more calculated to interest the foreign reader than any other modern Danish author, and his deep, inquiring mind is especially in harmony with the German mind.
FREDERIK PALUDAN-MÜLLER.