ROMANCE OF A KING'S LIFE. THE LATE MONARCH OF DENMARK. The late monarch of Denmark was born October 6, 1808, twelve months after the bombardment of Copenhagen by the British fleet, at the time when the crown of Denmark did not seem to be worth many years' purchase. His father, too, was but the cousin of the reigning king, who had two daughters, and being only forty years of age, had hope of still possessing male offspring. Under these circumstances, the prospects of young Prince Frederick appeared to be not particularly brilliant; and his father being a proud, though singularly unostentatious man, he was left almost entirely to himself, and permitted to grow up among peasants, sailors, and soldiers, from whom he imbibed strongly democratic tastes. When only four years of age a great misfortune befel the poor boy. His parents, after several years of unhappiness, were separated by a divorce, which decreed that he should be torn from his affectionate mother and be left under the care of strangers. Among strangers, accordingly, he grew up, the father being so entirely engrossed by political affairs, in the course of which the crown of Norway was placed on his head for four short months, as almost to forget the existence of his son. A new marriage, which gave Frederick a step-mother, estranged the parental feeling still more, and the young prince was glad enough when at the age of sixteen, ho was permitted to leave Denmark on travels through Europe, nominally to complete his educacation, in reality to begin it. He duly made the then customary tour de l'Europe, and then settled down for several years at Geneva. Here, in the country of Jean Jacques Rosseau, he imbibed ultrarepublican principles, for the reception of which his previous training, or absence of training, had already well fitted him. With these ideas Prince Frederick went back to Denmark at the age of twenty. Things, meanwhile, had changed at the Danish court in regard to the succession to the throne. The reigning king, now sixty years old, had given up all hope of having male offspring and Frederick's father, Prince Christian, cousin of the monarch, had become heir apparent to the crown. The aged king was exceedingly anxious to marry off his two daughters, the eldest past thirty, and no suitors coming from abroad, he offered them to the only disposable male relations at home-the one the young man just returned from Geneva, the other his uncle, Prince Ferdinand. The young republican Prince would fain have declined the honor of being united to a king's daughter; but a refusal was not permitted to him, and by orders of his father and the King he was married, under strong military escort, to his cousin, Princess Wilhelmina, on the 1st of November, 1828. Frederick took from the first a strong dislike to his wife, which was greatly increased in time by her haughty disposition, utterly foreign to his own habits. Before long he left his royal spouse altogether, taking refuge at a mansion distant from the capital, among his old friends and humble companions. He here made the acquaintance, for the first time, of Louise Rasmussen, a sprightly little damsel of sixteen, the daughter of a poor tradesman, but with some education and more grace and mother wit. Such society was altogether more to his tastes than that of the stiff Court of Copenhagen, at which he did not make his appearance for a long time. By a royal decree of September 10, 1837, he was banished to the fortress of Fredericis, in Jutland. Old soldier and sailor friends were not allowed on visit to Fredericis, and even little Louise Rasmussen could not find her way to the fortress, but with many tears, on the order of her parents, set out on a journey to Paris, where she became an ornament to the corps de ballet. A few days after Frederick's arrival at the place of his banishment, a decree of divorce between him and Princess Wilhelmina was issued at Copenhagen. The death of the King and the ascension of his father to the throne, released Prince Frederick from prison at the end of little more than two years, and he was then appointed Governor of the Island of Funen. But being inclined to fall again into his old ways of living, his royal father soon after insisted that he should marry once more, and after some negotiations, Princess Caroline of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was chosen to be the second wife. In the full bloom of youth, very pretty and highly accomplished, it was hoped she would wean Prince Frederick from his low-born companions, and bring him back to Court, and to a sense of his Crown-princely duties. But this the young Princess signally failed to do. Frederick, although he acknowledged her to be prettier, thought her as proud as his first wife, and before long absented himself more than ever from the Court and his new home. What, probably, greatly contributed to this estrangement was an accidental meeting with an old friend of his youth, Louise Rasmussen. Poor Louise had seen hard times since she left Denmark for France. Though an ornament for some years of the Paris corps de ballet, she was soon shelved on the appearance of greater ornaments, and had to content herself with becoming a member of a wandering troupe of actors, disseminating dramatic art through the little towns of Germany, Hungary, and Bohemia. The speculation with all its bardships and miseries, proved very unsatisfactory in a pecuniary sense, and Louise Rasmussen was glad to drop off the stage of a destitute Hanoverian village, and to proceed on foot to Hamburg. The wealthy merchant city gave her new friends among whom she sojourned for another couple of years, and returned to Copenhagen. Getting to the dangerous boundary of thirty, Miss Rasmussen now resolved to become steady, and accordingly settled down as milliner and dressmaker, working for the shops and for any procurable private customers. One evening, coming home late from her work, she was arrested-at least this is the Copenhagen story -by the sight of a fire, and with wonted energy ranged herself among the human chain of assistants, whose hands passed the pails of water from the canal to the fire engine. She had not been there long when she perceived that a gentleman opposite, busy in handing pails, stared very hard at her as if trying to recognize an acquaintance. She recognized him at once; it was His Royal Highness, Prince Frederick, heir to the throne of Denmark. The conflagration being subdued, Prince Frederick gallantly offered her his arm, to accompany Miss Rasmussen to her humble lodging, and in a few months after she found herself installed in a pretty little villa on the island of Amager, from which, at the end of a year she emigrated to a larger mansion, with numerous servants about her. Here she had the satisfaction of learning the divorce of Prince Frederick from his second wife after a union of five years. Princess Caroline returned to Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and Louise Rasmussen was declared favorite en title. King Charles VIII. died on the 20th of January, 1843, and the same day his son ascended the throne as Frederick VII. One of his first acts was to elevate Louise Rasmussen to the rank of Baroness Danner, which title was advanced soon after to that of Countess. The matter created some discontent at first among the people; but was judged less severely when it was found that the royal favorite used whatever influence she possessed for the benefit of the nation. Besides, the king loudly declared more than once that he would prefer a thousand times giving up his throne than separation from his friend. The Countess Danner became his sole adviser, and her influence grew to such an extent that she was able to persuade the King to make her his lawful wife. The mere announcement of the intention created a storm of indignation throughout the country, leading to protests on all parts, and to strong remonstrance from the Ministers ; nevertheless, Frederick VII was not to be shaken in his purpose, and on the 27th of August, 1850, he gave his hand, in the church of Fredericksburg, to Louise Rasmussen. A short while after, the King, with his consort, visited the southern province of Denmark, and being rather coldly received at one place, his Majesty made a very frank speech at a banquet in his honor. He told the guests that, though a King, he had by no means given up his privileges, as a man, to marry the woman he loved best, and that, in the palace in which he stood, he looked upon his present wife as the only true friend he possessed in the world. The speech, repeated from mouth to mouth, created a profound sensation, and gradually extinguished the ill-feeling against the Countess. At a later period she was again censured for giving herself too much the airs of a real queen; but the reproach was deemed venial, in view of what was generally acknowledged, that she was, indeed, the devoted friend and consort of her royal hus band. She alone succeeded in chasing away the spirit of profound dejection which settled upon the King in the later years of his life, under the burden of physical and mental sufferings, as well as political cares. Frederick VII was thus ennabled to become what even his personal enemies do not dispute-the best monarch Denmark has had these three hundred years. THE CELESTIAL ARMY. BY THOMAS BUCHANAN REID. I stood by the open casement Slowly the bright procession Till the great celestial army, Of the mighty march of souls Onward, forever onward, Red Mars led down his clan; And the moon, like a mailed maiden, Was riding in the van. And some were bright in beauty, And some were faint and small; But these might be, in their greatest height, Downward, forever downward, No more! Oh, say not so! And downward is not just; For the sight is weak and the sense is dim, The stars and the mailed moon, Though they seem to fall and die, Still sweep with their embattled lines And though the hills of death The marshalled brotherhood of souls Still keeps its upward way. Upward, forever upward, I see their march sublime, And long let me remember A bright and blessed sun. ORDER OF NATURE SINCE THE FALL. A Lecture delivered by J. W. Nevin, D. D., January 18th, 1856, in Lancaster. Reported by the Editor of the "Guardian," and afterwards corrected by the author. We have not asked the author's permission to publish it here, but we venture on his gentleness, and take the responsibility of giving to the world this deep, earnest, and scriptural exposition of the Fall, and its consequences. Let it not be read merely but studied. -ED. GUARDIAN. The Fall, as we mentioned at the close of our last Lecture, is a mystery. Though we cannot comprehend it, yet the fact itself is fully and clearly before us. We become acquainted with the fact by reflection on the actual state of the world. It is testified to by universal tradition, in which we see both reminiscences of a better state past, and the hope, or longing, after one to come. These traditions themselves, have their ground in what may be called the voice of the soul. Hence Plato, who, in his philosophy, did not ignore the traditionary, but trace it to the truth which ultimately underlies it, taught that our most important ideas are only a kind of resuscitation of impressions which the mind received in a previous state. Thus there sound ever on in the soul the shadowy reminiscences of its former history. This thought is also beautifully exhibited by Wordsworth in his ode on the "Intimations of Immortality from recollections of early childhood:" "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, The Youth, who daily farther from the east Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, 2 |