almost a town of tea gardens on the road to Fredericksberg, the same common enjoyments of high and low, the same free intercourse without distinction, must naturally diffuse the better element and its influences over the worse, the refinement of tastes, habits, and manners of the higher, over the vulgarity, rudeness, and selfishness of the lower class.

MUSEUM

CHAP. XIX.

ITS

OF NORTHERN ANTIQUITIES AT COPENHAGEN. MANAGEMENT. THE VIEWS IT SUGGESTS.AGES OF BONE, BRONZE, IRON. ANCIENT COMMERCE. ARTICLES PROBABLY DEALT IN. BENEFIT OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH TO TRADE AND COMMERCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

THERE is not among all the museums in Europe, one so instructive as the Museum of Northern Antiquities in the palace of Christiansborg at Copenhagen. It is not only instructive to the visitors, but to the governments, or heads of departments, which establish and regulate museums in other countries. It is open to the public, gratis, on certain days, and at certain hours, and the visitors. are not left to gape in ignorance at what they see. Professors of the highest attainments in antiquarian science-Professor Thomsen, M. Worsaae, and others -men who in fact have created a science out of an undigested mass of relics, curiosities, and specimens of the arts in the early ages,-go round with groups of the visitors, and explain equally to all, high and low, with the greatest zeal, intelligence, and affability, the uses of the articles exhibited, the state of the arts in the ages in which they were used, the gradual progress of mankind from shells, stones, and bones, to bronze and iron, as the materials for tools, ornaments, and weapons, and the conclusions made, and the grounds and reasons for making them, in their antiquarian researches. They deliver, in fact, an extempore lecture intelligible to the peasant, and instructive to the philosopher. Our British

Museum is Noah's ark stranded upon the tower of Babel. All things are there, and all things are unintelligible. A few professors with the zeal, tact, and information of the gentlemen of this museum, each with his distinct department of science, going round with, and explaining to his group of visitors what is before them, and accommodating his explanations to the intelligence of his auditors, would enlighten and cultivate the public mind and taste, more than any other educational means which Government could employ. I have seen Professor

Thomsen going round his museum with a group of visitors, and when a peasant girl stopped to look at an ancient brooch of which she had recognised the use from its being not unlike her own, he took out the article from the glass case, explained to her, and showed to her, the various kinds of pins and brooches used in the age of bone, in the age of bronze, in the age of iron, and the gradual progress to silver, gold, and precious stones, and delivering on the spot an instructive lecture upon the fastenings of garments in the early ages, and with as much zeal, and attention, as if it had been a princess and her suite, instead of a peasant girl, her betrothed, and her village friends, who were standing around him. There is good policy, and tact, in the affability and zeal with which the professor, and gentlemen belonging to this establishment, show and explain every article, as if by preference, to the country people from the provinces who visit the museum. They are the class most in the way of finding in their fields, while ploughing and digging, the articles which the professor wants, and now, in all parts of the country, they carefully preserve,

and send in, whatever they suppose may be valuable or curious for their museum, as the peasants, from the affability of the Professor, consider it. We have no such men as Professor Thomsen.

The origin of this museum is remarkable. In the Cathedral of Roeskilde, some years ago, there was a quantity of trumpery, bits of wood, the gatherings of many years, a wooden figure or two, old coffin lids, and such rubbish, and the clergymen of the cathedral ordered the whole to be sold by auction. It was purchased in lots for fire-wood, and one lot contained a wooden figure which the buyer put up in his garden. It was purchased from him for a couple of shillings, painted light blue, and destined, when restored to the likeness of a human figure, to adorn the bows of some brigantine in the coasting trade. But in adapting the figure to this new position by the persuasive edge of the carpenter's axe, the breast was opened and in it was found a box of enameled gold of small size, or value, but containing what evidently was received, and treasured up in the middle ages, as a chip of the holy cross. The relic had been placed, in some remote age, in the bosom of this wooden figure, intended probably for the Virgin, or one of the Apostles, and must have been of inestimable value in the 11th or 12th century. Mr. Thomsen and some other antiquaries formed an association for collecting and preserving such remains of former days as might be found in churches, or elsewhere, and depositing them in a public museum. The government sanctioned and aided the plan, appropriated a suite of rooms to receive the articles, and pays the full value, to the finder, of the gold or silver contained in any coins,

D D

chains, ornaments, or other objects, and thus saves many curiosities which under the old law, similar to ours, vesting all such found treasure in the Crown, would not have escaped the crucible. Private donors contributed the two or three articles of antiquity they might possess, towards a museum in which their generosity was recorded, and their gifts preserved to the remotest times. The public spirit was awakened. The collection grew larger from day to day. The peasants took a pleasure in sending to Professor Thomsen whatever they found that they thought curious. Antiquarian research had long

been a national taste in Denmark. Suhm, Torfæus, Magnusen, Wormæus, and many other eminent Icelandic scholars and antiquaries, had acquired celebrity, and the favours of government, in this line of study. It had become general, and characteristic of the learned men of Denmark of the last century, because, under autocratic governments, however mild and parental, it is always more safe and agreeable to write about the past, than the present. The interest in the mythological and historical saga was beginning to flag, the subject was exhausted, and the antiquarian muse had ceased even to conjecture meanings and dates in the invaluable collection of Icelandic manuscripts in the royal library, when this new and fresh branch, which may be called the material branch of the antiquary's studies, was brought into full bearing, and all the world in Denmark became antiquaries, because all the world can dig, and rummage in tumuli, pick up curiosities, and acquire immortal fame by sending them to the care of Professor Thomsen of the Museum of Northern Antiquities.