HANS ANDERSEN'S PICTURES OF SWEDEN. * THIS volume is so far

of the nature of travels, that it seems founded on an excursion in Sweden : it is, however, rather a

Swedish sketch-book than anything else. Andersen describes some of the most remarkable scenery, paints the manners and characters of the peasantry, selecting individuals as representa- tives of a class ; he also gathers up the traditions connected with a place, or the historical anecdotes relating to a building, giving the reader the cream of the matter in a narrative and dramatic form. Thus, for instance, " Tadstene " opens with a picture of a turf cottage, and an old peasant grandmother, kind and pleasant in a life of some sadness ; happy in death. The reader is next carried to the old monastery, with anecdotes thrown into the form of story, of nuns with earthly lovers, who have suffered within the walls and fled from them, together with an outline of the life of Sweden's Saint Bridget. The palace of Gustavus Vasa is then exhibited, and some of the worser traits in the hero's life paraded for the eclification:of the reader. His selfishly cruel marriage in his dotage, the dishonour and misfortunes of some of his children, are exhibited, not perhaps with exaggeration, but with some of the animus of a Dane, who may not in his heart of hearts forgive the liberator of Sweden the expulsion of the Danish tyrant and his troops. Occasionally Andersen walks among the utilities,—as in his visit to the copper mine by the copper-coloured town of Fah- inn ; though there he touches upon more human interests in the striking accidents that have happened in the mines. Now and then he handles graver topics,—as in the paper on "Faith and Know- ledge "; and sometimes he revels in pure description, mingled with

fanciful or historical reverie. In the " Puppet-Showman " he does not forget his old friends the players. The itinerant is now the

happiest man in the world ; formerly he wanted one thing to make him happy. He was ambitious to be the manager of a real live company : a polytechnic student, whom he fell in with at a coun- try house where he was exhibiting, cured him of his wish by magic, mesmerism, or wine. It is a piece of delicate and goodnatured satire.

" You wish to have your puppets animated ; you would have them be- come real actors and actresses,' said he, and yourself be the manager ? you then think that you would be perfectly happy ? ' "'Now he did not think so, but I thought so ; and we talked for and against; and we were just as near in our opinions as before. But we clinked

our glasses together, and the wine was very good ; but there was witchcraft in it, or else the short and the long of the story would be—that I was in- toxicated.

" That I was not : my eyes were quite clear ; it was as if there was sun- shine in the room, and it shone out of the face of the polytechnic candidate, so that I began to think of the old gods in my youth, and when they went about in the world. And I told him so ; and then he smiled, and I durst have sworn that he was a disguised god, or one of the family! And he was so. My first wish was to be fulfilled : the puppets become living beings, and I the manager of men and women. We drank that it should be so ! He put all my puppets in the wooden chest, fastened it on my back, and then let me fall through a spiral line. I can still hear how I came down, slap! I lay on the floor, that is quite sure and certain, and the whole company sprang out of the chest. The spirit had come over us all together; all the puppets had become excellent artists—they said so themselves—and I was the manager. Everything was in order for the first representation ; the whole company must speak with me, and the public also. The female dancer said, that if she did not stand on one leg the house would be in an uproar : she was master of the whole, and would be treated as such. "She who played the queen would also be treated as a queen when off the stage, or else she should get out of practice; and he who was employed to come in with a letter made himself as important as the first lover. For,' said he, the small are of just as much importance as the great in an artistic whole.' Then the hero demanded that the whole of his part should only be retorts on making his exit, for these the public applauded; the prima donna would only play in a red light, for that suited her best—she would not be blue : they were all like flies in a bottle, and I was also in the bottle—for I was the manager. I lost my breath, my head was quite dizzy ! I was as miserable as a man can be ; it was a new race of beings I had come amongst : I wished that I had them altogether again in the chest—that I had never been a ma- nager. I told them that they were in fact only puppets; and so they beat me to death. That was my feeling. "I lay on the bed in my chamber ; but how I had come there from the polytechnic candidate, he must know best—for I do not. The moon shone in on the floor where the puppet-chest lay upset, and all the puppets spread about —great and small, the whole lot. But I was not floored! I sprang out of bed, and threw them all into the chest ; some on their heads, and some on their legs ; I smacked the lid down, and sat myself upon it : it was worth

?and nne'vte3; omuocreoneeive it ?t yIoucamno!y Noown31-eoutteslsrllenbde:tere,!:"said I; The great merits of Andersen are a poetical feeling, a vivid per- ception of the beauties of nature and the imaginative life that lurks under them, together with the power of presenting his ideas in forms fanciful but vital. His great defects are wildness and want of reticence. He pours out his thoughts in diffuse words, till fertility becomes prolixity and imagination breaks bounds. There is less of this defect in his present book than in his former pro- ductions. The fanciful may stillpredominate too much over the real, and things be presented in forms that owe their existence less to nature than to some combination in the writer's mind ; but Pictures of Sweden are closer in their style, very often more real in their substance and mode of presentation. The author seems to • Pictures of Sweden. By Hans Christian Andersen, Author of " The Impro- cisatore," &c. Published by Bentley.

have got a kind of second manner, with more condensation and strength, without impairing his fancy, his feeling, or his felicity in bringing out the points of his subject. The following is an Anti- Calvinistic, perhaps scarcely an orthodox " Story "; but it is well conceived for the writer's object, well and graphically told.

" All the apple-trees in the garden had sprung out. They had made haste to get blossoms before they got green leaves ; and all the ducklings were out in the yard—and the cat too ! He was, so to speak, permeated by the sun- shine ; he licked it from his own paws ; and if one looked towards the fields., one saw the corn standing so charmingly green! And there was such a twit- tering and chirping amongst all the small birds, just as if it were a great feast. And that one might indeed say it was, for it was Sunday. The bells rang, and people in their best clothes went to church, and looked so pleased. Yes, there was something so pleasant in everything : it was indeed so flue and warm a day, that one might well say, Our Lord is certainly unspeak- ably good towards us poor mortals !'

"But the clergyman stood in the pulpit in the church, and spoke so loud and so angrily ! He said that mankind was so wicked, and that God would punish them for it ; and that when they died, the wicked wont down into hell, where they would burn for ever ; and he said that their worm would never die and their fire never be extinguished, nor would they ever get rest and peace !

"It was terrible to hear, and he said it so determinedly. He described hell to them as a pestilential hole, where all the filthiness of the world flowed together. There was no air except the hot sulphureous flames; there was no bottom ; they sank and sank into everlasting silence! It was terrible only to hear about it : but the clergyman said it right honestly out of his heart ; and all the people in the church were quite terrified. But all the little birds outside the church sang so pleasantly and so pleased, and the sun shone so warm,—it was as if every little flower said, 1 God is so won- drous good to us altogether !' Yes, outside it was not at all as the clergyman preached.

"In the evening, when it was bed-time, the clergyman saw his wife sit so dill and thoughtful. " What ails you ?' said he to her.

" What ails me ?' she replied ; what ails me is, that I cannot collect my thoughts rightly—that I cannot rightly understand what you said ; that there were so many wicked, and that they should burn eternally!—eternally, alas, how long ! I am but a sinful being, but I could not bear the thought in my heart to allow even the worst sinner to burn for ever. And how then should our Lord permit it ? he who is so wondrously good, and who knows how evil comes both from without and within. go, I cannot believe it, though you say it.'

"It was autumn. The• leaves fell from the trees ; th• e grave severe clergy- man sat by the bedside of a dying person ; a pious believer closed her eyes— it was the clergyman's own wife.

" `If any one find peace in the grave, and grace from God, then it is thou,' said the clergyman, and he folded her hands, and read a psalm over the dead body. "And she was borne to the grave : two heavy tears trickled down that stern man's cheeks ; and it was still and vacant in the parsonage : the sun- shine within was extinguished—she was gone.

"It was night. A cold wind blew over the clergyman's head ; he opened his eyes, and it was just as if the moon shone into his room. But the moon did not shine. It was a figure which stood before his bed—he saw the spirit of his deceased wife. She looked on him so singularly afflicted ; it seemed as though she would say something.

"The man raised himself half erect in bed, and stretched his arms out towards her.

" 'Not even to thee is granted everlasting peace. Thou dolt suffer; thou, the best, the most pious!' "And the dead bent her head in confirmation of his words, and laid her hand on her breast.

" And can I procure you peace in the grave ?' " Yes!' it sounded in his ear.

"'And how ?'

" Give me a hair, but a single hair of the head of that sinner whose fire will never be quenched—that:sinner whom God will cast down into hell, to everlasting torment.'

said he.

; so easily thou canst be liberated, thou pure, thou pious one r sad h "'Then follow me,' said the dead ; ' it is so granted us. Thou canst be by my side, wheresoever thy thoughts will. Invisible to mankind, we stand in their most secret places ; but thou must point with a sure hand to the one destined to eternal punishment, and ere the cock crow he must be found.

"And swift, as if borne on the wings of thought, they were in the great city ; and the names of the dying sinners shone from the walls of the houses in letters of fire : ' Arrogance Avarice, Drunkenness, Voluptuousness ;' is short, sin's whole seven-coloured arch.

" Yes, in there, as I thought it, as I knew it,' said the :■letzuraan, ' are housed those condemned to eternal fire.' "

They visit the haunts of weakness, folly, and arrogance. They observe the wretched miser in his den ; they see the felons in their prison ; and the divine himself cannot doom them—nay, he stretches out his hand to save a felon even from human pain.

"The scene changed. "They flew through rich halls and through poor chambers ; voluptuous.. ness and envy, all mortal sins strode past them. A recording angel read their sin and their defence : this was assuredly little for God, for God reads the heart ; He knows perfectly the evil that comes within it and from without, He, grace, all-loving kindness. The hand of the clergyman trembled; he did not venture to stretch it out to pluck a hair from the sinner's head. And the tears streamed down from his eyes, like the waters of grace and love, which quenched the eternal fire of hell.

"The cock then crowed.

" Merciful God! Thou wilt grant her that peace in the grave which I have not been able to redeem.'

" That I now have !' said the dead : it was thy hard words, thy dark, human belief of God and his creatures, which drove me to thee! Learn to know mankind; even in the bad there is a part of God—a part that will conquer and quench the fire of hell.' " And a kiss was pressed on the clergyman's lips : it shone around him. God's clear bright sun shone into the chamber ; where his wife, living, mild, and affectionate, awoke him from a dream, sent from God !"