From the London Times.
COPENHAGEN.
A more stately city than Copenhagen can scarcely be imagined. The streets, wide and long, filled with spacious and lofty houses of unspotted whiteness, and built with great regularity, remind one somewhat of Bath, but that the ground is level; many of them all but equal, in breadth, to the Irishman's test of street architecture—Sackville-street, Dublin. But large squares break up their continuous lines, and the eye rests on fine statues, noble palaces, and splendid buildings devoted to the arts, to amusement, to justice, or to the purposes of religion in every quarter of the city. Copenhagen is but a creation of the last century, and, after a little time spent there, a large portion of it gives the idea that it was built all of a sudden, by some Danish Grissell and Peto, according to contract. Surrounded by a deep foss, by ramparts and intrenchments, defended by formidable forts and batteries, filled with the halls of kings, with churches, museums, and castles, it combines the appearance of a new cut made by the royal commissioners through some old London rookery, with the air of an old feudal town. The moat prohibits any considerable extension. Seen under a bright cold sky, the blanched fronts of the houses, the white walls of the public edifices, the regularity of the streets, conveyed an impression of cleanliness, which could only be destroyed when one happened to look down at his feet, or ceased to keep guard over his nose. The paving is of the style which may be called Titanic, and was never intended for any foot garb less defensive than a sabot or a caliga. The drainage is superficial,—that is, all the liquid refuse of the city runs, or rather walks very leisurely, along grooves in the pavement aforesaid, which are covered over by boards in various stages of decomposition. In summer, the city must be worse than Berlin (which, by the by, it very much resembles in many respects). In spring time, after rain, my own experience tells me it suggests forcible reminiscences of the antique odors of Fleet Ditch. One thing which soon strikes the stranger is the apparent want of shops. But they are to be found by those who want them. Nearly every trader carries on his business very modestly in his front parlor, and makes a moderate display of his stock in the ordinary window, so that the illusory and enchanting department of trade is quite gone. A Danish gentleman can walk out with his wife without the least fear that he will fall a victim to "a stupendous sacrifice," or be immolated on the altar of "an imperative necessity to clear out in a week."
Moving through these streets is a quiet, soberly-attired population. Bigger than most foreigners, and with great roundness of muscle and size of bone, your Dane wants the dapper air of the Frenchman, or the solemnity of the Spaniard, while he is not so bearded or so dirty as the German. But then he smokes prodigiously, dresses moderately in the English style, is addicted to jewelry in excess, and has a habit of plodding along, straight in the middle of the road, with his head down, which must be a matter of considerable annoyance to the native cabman. He is, however, amazingly polite. He not only takes off his hat to every one he knows, but gives any lady-acquaintance the trouble of recognizing him, by bowing to her before she has made up her mind whether the individual is known or not. Another of his peculiarities is, that he always has a dog. I should say, more correctly, there is always a dog following him,—for I have seen an animal, which seemed to be bound by the closest ties to a particular gentleman, placidly leave him at the corner of a street, and set off on an independent walk by itself. These dogs are, in fact, a feature of the place by themselves. In number they can only be excelled by the canine scavengers of Cairo or Constantinople, and in mongrelness and ugliness by no place in the world—not even in Tuum before the potato rot. They get up little extemporary hunts through the squares, the trail being generally the remnant of an old rat, carried away by the foremost, and dash between your legs from unexpected apertures in walls and houses, so as to cause very unpleasant consequences to the nervous or feeble sojourner. On seeking for an explanation of their great abundance, I was informed that they were kept to kill rats. But this is a mere delusion. These dogs are far too wise to lose their health by keeping late hours in pursuit of vermin. No, they retire as soon as darkness sets in, and with darkness, out come the rats in the most perfect security. Such rats! they are as big as kittens, and their squeaking under the wooden planks of the gutters as you walk home is perfectly amazing. The celebrated dog Billy would have died in a week of violent exercise in any one street in Copenhagen, giving him his usual allowance of murder. I must say that, in the matters of paving, dogs, rats, sewers, water, and lights, Copenhagen is rather behind the rest of the world. As to the lights, they are sparely placed, and as yet gas is not used. With a laudable economy, the oil-wicks are extinguished when the moon shines, and the result is, that sometimes an envious cloud leaves the whole city in Cimmerian darkness for the rest of the night, in consequence of five minutes' moonshine in the early part, as, once put out, they are not again relumed.
In the crowd you meet many pale, sorrow-stricken women in mourning, and now and then a poor soldier limps before you, with recent bandages on his stump, or hobbles along limpingly, with perhaps a sabre-cut across the face, or an empty coat-sleeve dangling from his shoulder; and then you remember all the horrors the late war must have caused Denmark, when, out of her small population, 90,000 men were under arms in the field. It can scarcely atone for this sight to meet dashing hussars, with their red coats and sheepskin calpacks; heavy dragoons in light-blue and dark-green; jagers in smart frocks of olive-green, decorated with stars and ribands, and swaggering along in all the pride of having smelt powder and done their duty. They are numerous enough, indeed every third man is a soldier; but one of these sad widows or orphans is an antidote to the glories of these fine heroes, scarcely less powerful than that of the spectacle of their mutilated and mangled comrades. This war has roused the national spirit of Denmark; it has caused her to make a powerful effort to shake off all connection with Germany, or dependence on her Germanic subjects, but it has cost her £5,000,000 of money, and it has left many a home desolate for ever.
From Household Words.
THE SHADOW OF LUCY HUTCHINSON.
There are some books that leave upon the mind a strange impression, one of the most delightful reading can produce—a haunting of the memory, it may be, by one form or by several, strangely real, having a positive personal presence and identity, yet always preserving an immaterial existence, and occupying a "removed ground," from which they never stir to mingle with the realities of recollection. These shadows hold their place apart, as some rare dreams do, claiming from us an indescribable tenderness.