Danish dominions increase, every year, by | The most remarkable mines in Norway are about; and Norway, which has the worst the gold mines of Edsvold, the silver mines of climate and soil, by about exceeding the Konigsberg, the copper mines of Ræraas, and common increase by nearly of the whole the iron mines of Arendal and Krageræ, the population. Out of 26,197 persons who died cobalt mines of Fossum, and the black-lead in Denmark in 1799, there were 165 between mines of Englidal. The court of Denmark is 80 and 100; and out of 18,354 who died in not yet cured of the folly of entering into comNorway the same year, there were 208 indi-mercial speculations on its own account. From viduals of the same advanced age. The country population is to the town population in the ratio of 13 to 137. In some parts of Nordland and Finmarken, the population is as low as 15 to the square mile. the year 1769 to 1792, 78,000 rixdollars per annum have been lost on the royal mines alone. Norway produces marble of different colours, very beautiful granites, mill, and whet-stones, and alum. Within the last twenty or thirty years, the The principal manufactures of Denmark are Danes have done a great deal for the improve- those of cloth, cotton-printing, sugar refining, ment of their country. The peasants, as we and porcelain; of which latter manufactures, have before mentioned, are freed from the soil. carried on by the crown, the patient proprieThe greater part of the clerical, and much of tors hope that the profits may at some future the lay tithes are redeemed, and the corvées period equal the expenses. The manufactories and other servile tenures begin to be commuted for large and small arms are at Frederickfor money. A bank of credit is established waerk and Elsineur; and, at the gates of Coat Copenhagen, for the loan of money to per-penhagen, there has lately been erected a cotsons engaged in speculations of agriculture ton spinning-mill upon the construction so and mining. The interest is 4 per cent., and well known in England. At Tendern, in Slesthe money is repaid by instalments in the wick, there is a manufacture of lace; and very course of from 21 to 28 years. In the course considerable glass manufactories in several of 12 years, the bank has lent about three mil- parts of Norway. All the manufacturing arts lions of rixdollars. The external and domestic have evidently travelled from Lubeck and commerce of grain is now placed upon the | Hamburg; the greater part of the manufac most liberal footing. The culture of potatoes turers are of German parentage; and vast (ce fruit modeste) has at length found its way numbers of manufacturing Germans are to be into Denmark, after meeting with the same met with, not only in Denmark, but throughout objections which it experienced at its first in- Sweden and Russia. troduction from every nation in Europe. Hops are a good deal attended to in Fionia, though enough are not yet grown for the supply of the country. Tobacco is cultivated in the environs of Fredericia, in Jutland, by the industrious descendants of a French colony planted there by Frederick IV. Very little hemp and flax are grown in the Danish dominions. They had veterinary schools previous to the present establishment of them in Great Britain. Indeed, there was a greater necessity for them in Denmark; as no country in Europe has suffered so severely from diseases among its animals. The decay of the woods begins to be very perceptible; and great quantities, both for fuel and construction, are annually imported from the other countries bordering the Baltic. They have pit-coal; but, either from its inferior quality, or their little skill in working it, they are forced to purchase to a considerable amount from England. The Danes have been almost driven out of the herring market by the Swedes. Their principal export of this kind is dried fish; though, at Altona, their fisheries are carried on with more appearance of enterprise than elsewhere. The districts of Hedemarken, Hodeland, Toten, and Romerige, are the parts of Norway most celebrated for the cultivation of grain, which principally consists of oats. The distress in Norway is sometimes so great, that the inhabitants are compelled to make bread of various sorts of lichens, mingled with their grain. It has lately been discovered that the Lichen rangifrus, or rein-deer's moss, is extremely well calculated for that purpose. The Norway fisheries bring to the amount of a million and a half of rixdollars annually into the country. The Holstein canal, uniting the Baltic and the North Sea, is extremely favourable to the interior commerce of Denmark, by rendering unnecessary the long and dangerous voyage round the peninsula of Jutland. In the year 1785, there passed through this canal 409 Danish, and 44 foreign ships. In the year 1798, 1086 Danish, and 1164 foreign. This canal is so advantageous, and the passage round Jutland so very bad, that goods, before the creation of the canal, were very often sent by land from Lubeck to Hamburg. The amount of cargoes despatched from Copenhagen for Iceland, between the years 1764 and 1784, was 2,560,000 rixdollars; that of the returns, 4,665,000. The commerce with the isles of Foeroe is quite inconsiderable. The exports from Greenland, in the year 1787, amounted to 168,475 rixdollars; its imports to 74,427. None of these possessions are suffered to trade with foreign nations, but through the intervention of the mother country. The cargoes despatched to the Danish West Indies consist of all sorts of provisions, of iron, of copper, of various Danish manufactures, and of some East India goods. The returns are made in sugar, rum, cotton, indigo, tobacco, and coffee. There are about 75 vessels employed in this commerce, from the burden of 40 to 200 tons. If the slave trade, in pursuance of the laws to that effect, ceases in the Danish colonies. the establishments on the coast of Africa will become rather a burden than a profit. What measures have been taken to insure the aboli tion, and whether or not the philanthropy of the mother country is likely to be defeated by the interested views of the colonists. are deli cate points, which Mr. Catteau, who often seems to think more of himself than of his reader, passes over with his usual timidity and caution. The present year is the period at which all further importation of negroes ought to cease; and if this wise and noble law be really carried into execution, the Danes will enjoy the glory of having been the first to erase this foulest blot in the morality of Europe, and to abolish a wicked and absurd traffic, which purchases its luxuries at the price of impending massacre, and present oppression. Deferred revenge is always put out to compound interest, and exacts its dues with more than Judaical rigour. The Africans have begun with the French: Jam proximus ardet Ucalegon. Tea, rhubarb, and porcelain are the principal articles brought from China. The factories in the East Indies send home cotton cloths, silk, sugar, rice, pepper, ginger, indigo, opium, and arrack. Their most important East Indian settlement is Fredericksnager.* Denmark, after having been long overshadowed by the active industry of the Hanseatic towns, and embarrassed by its ignorance of the true principles of commerce, has at length established important commercial connections with all the nations of Europe, and has regulated those connections by very liberal and enlightened principles. The regulations for the customs, published in 1791, are a very remarkable proof of this assertion. Every thing is there arranged upon the most just and simple principles; and the whole code evidences the striking progress of mercantile knowledge in that country. In looking over the particulars of the Danish commerce, we were struck with the immense increase of their freightage during the wars of this country; a circumstance which should certainly have rendered them rather less disposed to complain of the vexations imposed upon the neutral powers during such periods. In the first six months of the year 1796, 5032 lasts of Danish shipping were taken up by strangers for American voyages only. The commercial tonnage of Denmark is put at about 85,000 lasts. There appears to exist in the kingdom of Denmark, according to the account of Mr. Catteau, a laudable spirit of religious toleration; such as, in some instances, we might copy, with great advantage, in this island. It is not, for instance, necessary in Denmark, that a man should be a Lutheran, before he can be the mayor of a town; and, incredible as it may seem to some people, there are many officers and magistrates, who are found capable of civil trusts, though they do not take the sacraments, exactly in the forms prescribed by the established church. There is no doubt, We should very willingly have gone through every branch of the Danish commerce, if we had not been apprehensive of extending this article too far. Mr. Catteau gives no general tables of the Danish exports and imports. A German work places them, for the year 1768, as follows:-Exports, 3,067,051 rixdollars; imports, 3,215,085.-Ur. Kunden, par Gatspari. To say nothing of the increased sale of Norway timder, out of 86,000 lasts exported from Norway, 1799, 76,000 came to Great Britain. however, of the existence of this very extraor dinary fact; and, if Mr. Catteau's authority is called in question, we are ready to corroborate it by the testimony of more than one dozen German statists. The Danish church consists of 13 bishops, 227 archpriests, and 2462 priests The principal part of the benefices are, in Norway, in the gift of the crown. In some parts of Denmark, the proprietors of the pri vileged lands are the patrons; in other parts, the parishes. The revenues of the clergy are from the same sources as our own clergy. The sum of the church revenues is computed to be 1,391,895 rixdollars; which is little more than 500 for each clergyman. The court c Denmark is so liberal upon the subject of sectaries, that the whole royal family and the Bishop of Seland assisted at the worship of the Calvinists in 1789, when they celebrated, in the most public manner, the centenary of the foundation of their church. In spite of this tolerant spirit, it is computed that there are not more than 1800 Calvinists in the whole Danish dominions. At Christianfield, on the frontiers of Sleswick and Jutland, there is a colony of Northern Quakers, or Hernhutes, of which Mr. Catteau has given a very agreeable account. They appear to be characterized by the same neatness, order, industry, and absurdity, as their brethren in this country; tak ing the utmost care of the sick and destitute, and thoroughly persuaded that by these good deeds, aided by long pockets and slouched hats, they are acting up to the true spirit of the Gospel. The Greenlanders were converted to Christianity by a Norwegian priest, named John Egede. He was so eminently successful in the object of his mission, and contrived to make himself so very much beloved, that his memory is still held among them in the highest veneration; and they actually date their chronology from the year of his arrival, as we do ours from the birth of our Saviour. Even Mr. There are, in the University of Copenhagen, seven professors of theology, two of civil law, two of mathematics, one of Latin and rhetoric, one of Greek, one of oriental languages, one of history, five of medicine, one of agriculture, and one of statistics. They enjoy a salary of from 1000 to 1500 rixdollars, and are well lodged in the university. The University of Copenhagen is extremely rich, and enjoys an income of 3,000,000 rixdollars. Catteau admits that it has need of reform. In fact, the reputation of universities is almost always short-lived, or else it survives their merit. If they are endowed, professors become fat-witted, and never imagine that the arts and sciences are any thing else but incomes. If universities, slenderly endowed, are, rendered famous by the accidental occur rence of a few great teachers, the number of scholars attracted there by the reputation or the place, makes the situation of a professor worth intriguing for. The learned pate is no: fond of ducking to the golden fool. He who has the best talents for getting the office, has most commonly the least for filling it; and *The Jews, however, are still prohibited from enter ng the kingdom of Norway. men are made moral and mathematical teachers by the same trick and filthiness with which they are made tide-waiters, and clerks of the kitchen. The number of students in the University of Copenhagen is about 700: they come not only from Denmark, but from Norway and Iceland: the latter are distinguished as well for the regularity of their manners, as for the intensity of their application; the instruments of which application are furnished to them by a library containing 60,000 volumes. The Danes have primary schools established in the towns, but which have need of much reform, before they can answer all the beneficial ends of such an institution. We should have been happy to have learned from Mr. Catteau, the degree of information diffused among the lower orders in the Danish dominions; but upon this subject he is silent. In the University of Keil there is an institution for the instruction of schoolmasters; and in the list of students in the same university, we were a good deal amused to find only one student dedicating himself to belles lettres. The people of Holstein and Sleswick are Dutch in their manners, character, and appearance. Their language is in general the low German; though the better sort of people in the towns begin to speak high German.* În Jutland and the isles, the Danish language is spoken within half a century this language has been cultivated with some attention: before that period, the Danish writers preferred to make use of the Latin or the German language. It is in the island of Finland that it is spoken with the greatest purity. The Danish character is not agreeable. It is marked by silence, phlegm, and reserve. A Dane is the excess and extravagance of a Dutchman; more breeched, more ponderous, and more saturnine. He is not often a bad member of society in the great points of morals, and seldom a good one in the lighter requisites of manners. His understanding is alive only to the useful and the profitable; he never lives for what is merely gracious, courteous, and ornamental. His faculties seem to be drenched and slackened by the eternal fogs in which he resides; he is never alert, elastic, nor serene. His state of animal spirits is so low, that what in other countries would be deemed dejection, proceeding from casual misfortune, is the habitual tenour and complexion of his mind. In all the operations of his understanding, he must have time. He is capable of undertaking great journeys; but he travels only a foot pace, and never leaps nor runs. He loves arithmetic better than lyric poetry, and affects Cocker rather than Pindar. He is slow to speak of fountains and amorous maidens; but can take a spell at porisms as well as another; and will make profound and extensive combinations of thought, if you pay him for it, and do not insist that he shall either be brisk or brief. There is something, on the contrary, Mr. Catteau s description of Heligoland is entertaining. In an island containing a population of 2000, there is neither horse, cart, nor plough. We could not have imagined the possibility of such a fact in any part of Europe. extremely pleasing in the Norwegian style of character. The Norwegian expresses firm ness and elevation in all that he says and does. In comparison with the Danes, he has always been a free man; and you read his history in his looks. He is not apt, to be sure, to for give his enemies; but he does not deserve any; for he is hospitable in the extreme, and prevents the needy in their wants. It is not possible for a writer of this country to speak ill of the Norwegians; for, of all strangers, the people of Norway love and admire the British the most. In reading Mr. Catteau's account of the congealed and blighted Laplanders, we were struck with the infinite delight they must have in dying; the only circumstance in which they can enjoy any supe riority over the rest of mankind; or which tends, in their instance, to verify the theory of the equality of human condition. If we pass over Tycho Brahé, and the well known history of the Scaldes, of the chronicles of Isleif, Sæmunder, Hiinfronde, Snorro, Sturleson, and other Islandic worthies, the list of Danish literati will best prove that they have no literati at all. Are there twenty persons in Great Britain who have ever heard of Longomontanus, Nicholas Stenaonis, Sperling Laurenburg, Huitfeild, Gramn, Holberg, Langebeck, Carstens, Suhm, Kofod, Anger? or of the living Wad, Fabricius, Hanch, Tode, and Zaga? We do not deny merit to these various personages; many of them may be much admired by those who are more conversant in Danish literature than we can pretend to be: but they are certainly not names on which the learned fame of any country can be built very high. They have no classical celebrity and diffusion: they are not an universal language; they have not enlarged their original dominion, and become the authors of Europe instead of the authors of Denmark. It would be loss of time to speak of the fine arts in Denmark: they hardly exist. We have been compelled to pass over many parts of Mr. Catteau's book more precipitately than we could have wished; but we hope we have said and exhibited enough of it, to satisfy the public that it is, upon the whole, a very valuable publication. The two great requisites for his undertaking, moderation and industry, we are convinced this gentleman possesses in an eminent degree. He represents every thing without prejudice, and he represents every thing authentically. The same cool and judicious disposition which clears him from the spirit of party, makes him perhaps cautious in excess. We are convinced that every thing he says is true; but we have been sometimes induced to suspect that we do not see the whole truth. After all, perhaps, he has told as much truth as he could do, compatibly with the opportunity of telling any. A person more disposed to touch upon critical and offensive subjects might not have submitted as diligently to the investigation of truth, with which passion was not concerned. How few writers are, at the same time, laborious, impartial, and intrepid! We cannot conclude this article without expressing the high sense we entertain of the importance of such researches as those in | centuries, they would have quickened and which Mr. Catteau has been engaged. They matured the progress of knowledge, and the mus form the basis of all interior regulations, art of governing by throwing light on the spi and ught principally to influence the conduct of every country in its relations towards foreign powers. As they contain the best estimate of the wealth and happiness of a people, they bring theory to the strictest test; and measure, better than all reasoning, the wisdom with which laws are made, and the mildness with which they are administered. If such judicious and elaborate surveys of the state of this and other countries in Europe, had heen made from time to time for the last two rit and tendency of laws; they would have checked the spirit of officious interference in legislation; have softened persecution, and expanded narrow conceptions of national po licy. The happiness of a nation would have been proclaimed by the fulness of its garners, and the multitudes of its sheep and oxen; and rulers might sometimes have sacrificed their schemes of ambition, or their unfeeling splendour, at the detail of silent fields, empty harbours, and famished peasants. THOUGHTS ON THE RESIDENCE OF THE CLERGY.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1803.] obsolete; or, by harassing the clergy with a very severe restriction, to gain a very disproportionate good to the community, would bring the profession into disrepute, and have a tendency to introduce a class of men into the church, of less liberal manners, education, and connection; points of the utmost importance, THIS pamphlet is the production of a gentleman who has acquired a right to teach the duties of the clerical character by fulfilling them; and who has exercised that right in the present instance, with honour to himself, and benefit to the public. From the particular character of understanding evinced in this work, we should conceive Dr. Sturges to pos-in our present state of religion and wealth. sess a very powerful claim to be heard on all questions referable to the decision of practicable good sense. He has availed himself of his experience to observe; and of his observation, to judge well: he neither loves his profession too little, nor too much; is alive to its interests, without being insensible to those of the community at large; and treats of those points where his previous habits might render a little intemperance venial, as well as probable, with the most perfect good humour and moderation. As exceptions to the general and indisputable principle of residence, Dr. Sturges urges the smallness of some livings; the probability that their incumbents be engaged in the task of education, or in ecclesiastical duty, in situations where their talents may be more appropriately and importantly employed. Dr. Sturges is also of opinion, that the power of enforcing residence, under certain limits, should be invested in the bishops; and that the acts prohibiting the clergy to hold or cultivate land should be in a great measure repealed. We sincerely hope that the two cases suggested by Dr. Sturges, of the clergyman who may keep a school, or be engaged in the duty of some parish not his own, will be attended to in the construction of the approaching bill, and admitted as pleas for non-residence. It certainly is better that a clergyman should do the duty of his own benefice, rather than of any other. But the injury done to the community, is not commensurate with the vexation imposed upon the individual. Such a measure is either too harsh, not to become *Thoughts on the Residence of the Clergy. By JOHN TURGES, LL. D. Nothing has enabled men to do wrong with impunity so much as the extreme severity of the penalties with which the law has threatened them. The only method to insure success to the bill for enforcing ecclesiastical residence, is to consult the convenience of the clergy in its construction, as far as is possibly consistent with the object desired, and even to sacri fice something that ought to be done, in order that much may be done. Upon this principle, the clergyman should not be confined to his parsonage-house, but to the precincts of his parish. Some advantage would certainly attend the residence of the clergy in their official mansions; but, as we have before observed, the good one party would obtain, bears no sort of proportion to the evil the other would suffer. Upon the propriety of investing the bench of bishops with a power of enforcing residence, we confess ourselves to entertain very serious doubts. A bishop has frequently a very temporary interest in his diocese: he has favours to ask; and he must grant them. Leave of absence will be granted to powerful intercession; and refused, upon stronger pleas, to men without friends. Bishops are frequently men advanced in years, or immersed in study. A single person who compels many others to their duty, has much odium to bear, and much activity to exert. A bishop is subject to caprice, and enmity, and passion, in common with other individuals; there is some danger, also, that his power over the clergy may be converted to a political purpose. From innu merable causes, which might be reasoned upon to great length, we are apprehensive the object of the legislature will be entirely frus trated in a few years, if it be committed to espiscopal superintendence and care; though, upon the first view of the subject, no other scheme can appear so natural and so wise. out of 11,700 livings, there are 6000 under 80l. per annum; many of those, 201., 30%., and some as low as 21. or 31. per annum. In such a state of endowment, all idea of rigid residence is out of the question. Emoluments which a footman would spurn, can hardly recompense a scholar and a gentleman. A mere palliation is all that can be applied; and these are the ingredients of which we wish such a palliation should be composed : 1. Let the clergymen have the full liberty of farming, and be put in this respect exactly upon a footing with laymen. 2. Power to reside in any other house in the parish, as well as the parsonage-house, and to be absent five months in the year. 4. Penalties in proportion to the value of livings, and number of times the offence has been committed. Dr. Sturges observes, that after all the conceivable justifications of non-residence are enumerated in the act, many others must from time to time occur, and indicate the propriety of vesting somewhere a discretionary power. If this be true of the penalties by which the clergy are governed, it is equally true of all other penal laws; and the law should extend to every offence the contingency of discretionary omission. The objection to this system is, that it trusts too much to the sagacity and the probity of the judge, and exposes a country to the partial, lax, and corrupt admi- 3. Schoolmasters, and ministers bonâ fide nistration of its laws. It is certainly incon-discharging ministerial functions in another venient, in many cases, to have no other guide parish, exempt from residence. to resort to but the unaccommodating mandates of an act of Parliament: yet, of the two inconveniences, it is the least. It is some palliation of the evils of discretionary power, that it should be exercised (as by the court of chancery) in the face of day, and that the moderator of law should himself be moderated by the force of precedent and opinion. A bishop will exercise his discretionary power in the dark; he is at full liberty to depart tomorrow from the precedent he has established to-day; and to apply the same decisions to different, or different decisions to the same circumstances, as his humour or interest may dictate. Such power may be exercised well under one judge of extraordinary integrity; but it is not very probable he will find a proper successor. To suppose a series of men so much superior to temptation, and to construct a system of church government upon such a supposition, is to build upon sand, with materials not more durable than the founda tion. Sir William Scott has made it very clear, by his excellent speech, that it is not possible, in the present state of the revenues of the English church, to apply a radical cure to the evil of non-residence. It is there stated, that 5. Common informers to sue as at present; though probably it might be right to make the name of one parishioner a necessary addition; and a proof of non-residence might be made to operate as a nonsuit in an action for tithes. 6. No action for non-residence to lie where the benefice was less than 801. per annum; and the powers of bishops to remain precisely as they are. These indulgences would leave the clergy without excuse, would reduce the informations to a salutary number, and diminish the odium consequent upon them, by directing their effects against men who regard church preferment merely as a source of revenue, not as an obligation to the discharge of important duties. We venture to prognosticate, that a bill of greater severity either will not pass the House of Commons, or will fail of its object. Considering the times and circumstances, we are convinced we have stated the greatest quantum of attainable good; which of course will not be attained, by the customary error, of attending to what: is desirable to be done, rather than to what it is practicable to do. |