Not long since, a Dane in England was led into a warm argument respecting the disputed result of this battle; when the master of the house suddenly recollected that an old invalid, who looked after the boats on the canals in the garden, had served under Nelson. He called out to him that “here was a Dane, and that he had certainly seen that sort of folks before.” “Yes, master,” answered the honest tar, “but on that day the Danes made it much hotter than we liked.”
This terminated the dispute. The time, however, in the order of Nature, cannot be far distant when the Dane in England may look in vain for such support from men who were present at the battle. He must then be contented to state his opinion, without the least hope of its carrying any weight; though he can, at all events, console himself with the reflection that, when the conversation turns on the mutual relations between England and Denmark, the latter may point to conquests of a very different, as well as far more important and altogether undisputed kind.
In the long series of brilliant victories, won not only by the Danish sword, but by the Danish national character in England, and which, by the conquest of that country, essentially contributed to found there a greatness and a power before unknown, the Danish people possess memorials so proud and brilliant, that they may be reckoned among the most beautiful ornaments in that glorious wreath which from time immemorial encircles the Danish name. We may safely leave them by the side of the best and most imposing memorials of most other nations.
THE
NORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND.
Section I.
Nature of Scotland.—The Highlands and Lowlands.—Population.—Original
Inhabitants.
None of the seas of Europe are so rough and stormy as that which washes its northern and north-western coasts. Even in Jutland the effects of the cold north-west wind which sweeps down from the icy sea between Norway, Iceland, and Scotland, are severely felt. Along its west coast, for a distance of several miles inland, there are no woods, but only low stunted oak bushes, which in many places scarcely rise above the tall heather. Still farther eastward, and even in Funen and Zealand, which the north-west wind does not reach till it has passed over considerable tracts of land, it has such an influence on the woods, that in their western outskirts the trees are bent, and as it were scorched or blighted at the top. The North Sea, whose surges, breaking on the coast of Jutland, are heard even in calm weather far in the interior, rises to a fearful height during a storm. It would long since have washed over Jutland, and perhaps the whole of Denmark, if Nature had not placed sand-banks or shoals along the coast, as a sort of bulwark, against which the highest waves break harmlessly.