the admiration of
a bowl sufficiently large to admit its being mistaken for a bath, and
not less delicate in thickness than the rice paper made by natives of
the East, the Dane drew our attention to a rent in the ceiling, and
asked if we would not regret that any accident should destroy a
collection so curious, and the manufacture of which was now lost to
science. We replied altogether, with much indignation, that a man who
attempted the deed would be no better than an assassin, and might,
without reference to an impartial advocate, be hanged from one of the
portcullis' spikes below.

"Do you think so, really, gentlemen?" inquired the Dane, with an odd
kind of a smile.

"We do, we do," we all unanimously said; and Mr. C. wound up with
monosyllabic emphasis,

"Yes!"

"Well, then," with measured tone, answered the Dane, "that rent you see
there was done some forty years ago, and a shell from Nelson's ship did
it."

He stopped to mark the effect this disclosure would have upon us; and,
finding we regretted the policy of our country, but could not control
the cannon-balls of our ships, he continued, smiling,

"Never mind, never mind, he did no harm; and I hope no other Englishman
will again."

Leading us into another small room, the Dane approached a large iron
chest, and raising, with difficulty, its heavy lid, shewed us the
coronation robes of Christian lying at the bottom.

"In these robes," he said, "Christian, the present King of Denmark, was
crowned; and they will never be removed hence until he is dead."

"Why?" we asked.

"It is an ancient custom still preserved in Denmark," he replied, "that
her kings be buried in their robes of coronation."

He closed the lid.

To me, woven with their greatness, the fate of kings is ever one of
melancholy; and the incident I have just recounted so shadowed, in a
moment, the cheerfulness which had accompanied me throughout the day,
that I could not observe with attention any other object of interest
which presented itself, my only wish being to leave Rosenberg as
speedily as I had entered it; nor could I forget the utter desolation of
a man's soul, who, standing in the midst of all earthly magnificence,
knows himself clad as he will be for the coffin. How impotent must seem
all authority! how wan all mirth! how false all the envied supremacy of
his birth!

Finding it was five o'clock, we gave a small fee to the Dane, who still
kept chuckling at the capital trick