man's virtues is the profound sorrow over her loss, left by Rahbek, recorded in his "Erindringer. There can be no more interesting specimen of his poetry than his

At last, and thou art mine! mine own at last,
Old home, which I have loved in joy and sorrow.
My early spring, my summer here were passed,
And here shall wear away my autumn's morrow.

In thee will I enjoy a rural home,

A peaceful life far from the city's riot;

No city fogs thy cloudless heavens shall gloom,
No din, no city cares disturb thy quiet.

As in a magic glass will I review

In thee each wondrous scene my memory treasures;
Will see each day departed dawn anew,

And even enjoy past sorrows as past pleasures.

Here, 'neath the spreading linden's leafy bough,

Which once was witness of youth's tender smart,
Will I with soul-felt gratitude avow

That household love can heal the wounded heart.

And ye that clothe the margin of the lake,
Blue violets and ye beloved roses,
Blossom with twofold beauty for the sake

Of that dear friend who near to you reposes.

My Camma's garden! where with love I own,
Is the true picture of my life pourtrayed,
A stony desert once with weeds o'ergrown,
Her hand creative into Eden made.

And in each fertile growth and flowret bright,
My heartfelt bliss acknowledges a brother,
Whose joyful smiles yet only more incite

My rapturous heart to bless their gentle mother.

Here, here-oh whither can I turn mine eyes,

But that awake a thousand feelings tender;

A thousand long-lost, sacred memories

Doth every glance, and path, and thought surrender!

These consecrate to me my favourite spot,

These wheresoe'er my steps have gone were wanting;
Beside the Rhine, in Ortung's scenes enchanting,
Still did I wish for thee where thou wast not.

Let travellers see with rapturous amazement
The wide horizon o'er the ship-thronged strand,
Far as old Malmö in the Swedish land-
A Belvedere seen from my humble casement.

Thus seek I not my charms apart from thee,
In thee my anxious bosom's sorrow endeth,
In thee a better star of life ascendeth,
And be thou, therefore, ever dear to me!

Rahbek did not long survive his wife. The charm of the Bakkehuus was gone! The heart-crushed poet stood alone in its solitude, and said, in Goethe's words:

"Ach! wer bringt mir eine Stunde

Jener holden Zeit zurück."

In little more than twelve months after Camma's decease, and in his seventieth year, he also departed.

Perhaps we cannot present a better specimen of Rahbek's prose than his account of

THE GREAT FIRE OF COPENHAGEN, IN 1795.

As, the day after our return from our excursion into the country, I looked out of my window, to learn by the shadow on the grass in the garden what o'clock it was, that I might go at the proper time to my lecture, I suddenly perceived a vast smoke over Copenhagen, where the sky before had been perfectly clear. I packed my papers rapidly together, and hastened towards the city. On the way, I met an old friend of Kiel University, Mr. Paulsen, whom I had not seen for many years. He said to me: "The fire is on the Holm;" and we were both so unconcerned at the event, that I remember well that, smiling, I asked him what Mr. Pitt might probably have given for that? And we continued our discourse about old joys and old friends. I went directly on leaving him into the College, and began my lecture. It was not long before the accompaniment of the tolling bells became too powerful for me, so that I was obliged to cease, and I then hastened to the fire, where I found to my horror that it had already sprung across the street, and had seized on one of the buildings which was not far from Pram's house. I ran at once up to him, and helped him to flit, till the fire on one side flamed up from the canal where, as the deceased Ravert expresses it, the materials which had been thrown into that empty channel had ignited and become a lake of fire; and on the other side the flames were rushing from the cellars of the house first seized. We therefore next made ourselves a way through one or more back yards, through which we continued going till the flames also closed that path.

In this flight I met an acquaintance, Auditor Steenstrup, so well known for his defence of the journeyman printer,

Stephensen. He also was endeavouring to escape with his effects, for he lived near the church of St. Nicolas. I now laid a hand on them, and while I was forwarding the removal of his furniture, I saw the Nicolas steeple, if not in flames, yet beginning to burn; and went and gazed at it, as a remarkable sight, without I, or any of the thousands amongst whom I was now crushed, dreaming for a moment of the danger that impended over us.

I now met with Pram again, who requested me to stay by his goods in the court of the Harmonic Society, while he got a carriage to take them to the Manchester Manufactory outside the gate. I remained there walking about and watching the burning of St. Nicolas's steeple, but without thinking of anything farther, till Pram's goods were fetched away, when I went in the direction of the Oestergade. Here I met my old friend Wolquarts, whom, without in the least thinking how matters might stand with him, I asked in the ordinary way, "How do you do?" But imagine my astonishment, when, shaking his head, he replied: "Ah! Färge Street and Höibro Street are lost! but I hope Läder Street may be saved."

At once I looked up in astonishment, and saw the Nicolas church in full flame. I now hastened away to my friend Schultz, where I found them in the act to flit, but after having made a few journeys with goods, the fire obstructed our way out of the front door. I had taken a large looking-glass to carry, and there went with me a smart young girl, whom I never saw either before or since, and who carried a basket of Copenhagen porcelain. As the people told us that we could not go out of the gateway into Höibro Street, she turned with perfect composure, and went by the back way to Läder Street, but as we would proceed by the regular way into Höibro Street, there fell the gable of a house, if I recollect right, where

Conference Counsellor Jacobi lived, and was precipitated towards it with such a crash and thunder, that we saw plainly there was no venturing in that direction, especially with such brittle wares as we bore. "Will you come this way?" said my companion, not in the least disconcerted, and led me down to Läder Street, again to the nearest cross street, and then turned by the Strand up into Höibro Street.

"May I ask," I now inquired, "where you are going with these things?" "To my father's," she replied, in the same friendly and composed manner, as if she had promised me an angel's dance. "Yes! but pardon me," I said; "but who is your father?" She named a wellknown man in the neighbourhood of Boldhuus Street. "But is not the fire raging there too?" I asked. Yes, truly," she replied; "but everything with us is ready packed, and as soon as the fire approaches us, my father will have the goods carried out to the vessel which lies in the canal, and it will sail away with them." Had my heart had the celebrated pigeon-house capacity, I have no doubt that this very handsome girl, whom I never saw but on this occasion, and have seen nothing whatever of since, would have taken possession of it; but as it was already pretty well occupied, I could only offer her a place in my most respectful memory, whence her noble self-possession, her unostentatious courage, her exalted placidity amid perils and misfortunes, will never be excluded; although in the still heavier calamities which twelve years afterwards struck us, I found these qualities in the days of infinitely greater terrors and tribulations renewed and exceeded in that noble sex, which almost seems, in the small affairs of every-day life, to show itself timid and irresolute, that we may the better acknowledge and value its high-hearted daring in circum

VOL. II.

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