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It came this time from Denmark. The Danish author Baggesen had visited Jena the previous year and returned home a fervid admirer of Schiller. At Copenhagen he had imparted his enthusiasm to Count Schimmelmann and the Duke of Holstein-Augustenburg, who, with their wives, proceeded to found a sort of Schiller-sect.
At last we were so fortunate, at a little after eleven o'clock at night, as to reach Korsör. We had taken twenty-two hours to go sixteen miles. "Glad we were to land; but it was extremely dark, and the lanterns gave very little light. However, all was wonderful to me, who had never been in any other town but Odense. "'Here Baggesen was born, said my father, 'and here Birckner lived.
Wilhelm had wished to accompany him to Roeskelde, but the mother did not desire it. "We have had a pleasure to-day," said Sophie, "a pleasure from which we shall long have enjoyment. Have you seen the new book, the 'Letters of a Wandering Ghost? It is Baggesen himself in his most perfect beauty, a music which I never believed could have been given in words. This is a poet!
They met with heavy hearts and sang the 'Song to Joy', with an added stanza by Baggesen, wherein they pledged themselves to 'be faithful to Schiller's spirit until they should meet above'. When they learned a little later that the author of the 'Song' was alive, after all, and very much in need of money, the two noblemen immediately wrote him a joint letter, offering him, in language of admirable delicacy, a gift of a thousand thalers a year for three years, with no conditions whatever.
The works of Baggesen fill twelve volumes, and consist of comic stories, numerous letters, satires and impassioned lyrics, songs and ballads, besides dramas and operas.
From Hertz my sympathies went over to Christian Winther, from Baggesen to Homer, Aeschylus, the Bible, Shakespeare, Goethe. One of the first things I did as a student was to read the Bible through in Danish and the Odyssey in Greek.
"Doubtless, very heavy blows are dealt!" said Mr. Berger, "the man must be witty Baggesen to the very letter." "The 'Copenhagen Post' is called the pump!" said Hans Peter. "That is superb!" cried Grethe. "Who does it attack besides?" "Folks in Soroe, and this 'Holy Andersen, as they call him." "Does he get something?" said Laide. "That I will grant him for his milk and water.
I was almost dumb with astonishment: never had I thought that my life would take this direction, although I had no correct idea of the path which I had now to tread. I was to go with the earliest mail to Slagelse, which lay twelve Danish miles from Copenhagen, to the place where also the poets Baggesen and Ingemann had gone to school.
The life of Baggesen was a genuine romance, with all its sunshine and shade. He was born in poverty and obscurity, and when a child of seven years old, on one occasion, attracted the momentary attention of the young and lovely Queen Caroline, who took him in her arms and kissed him. "Still, after half a century," he writes, "glows the memory of that kiss; to all eternity I shall never forget it.
* Corsor, on the Great Belt, called, formerly, before the introduction of steam-vessels, when travellers were often obliged to wait a long time for a favorable wind, "the most tiresome of towns." The poet Baggesen was born here.
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