enty-seventh
birthday. Stimulated to do his best by the many beautiful works of art
which surrounded him, he found production easy, and the classical beauty
of the Roman school appealed to him. Regretting his wasted years, he set
to work in great earnest, and during the rest of his life produced a
marvellous amount of beautiful work. A rich Scotsman bought his first
important work, and the money thus obtained was the means of starting
him firmly on his upward career. This highly talented Dane founded the
famous Sculpture School of Denmark, which is of world-wide reputation.
Thorvaldsen's beautiful designs--which were mainly classical--were
conceived with great rapidity, and his pupils carried many of them out,
becoming celebrated sculptors also. Dying suddenly in 1844, while seated
in the stalls of the theatre watching the play, his loss was a national
calamity. He bequeathed all his works to the nation, and these now form
the famous Thorvaldsen Museum, which attracts the artistic-loving people
of all nations to the city of Copenhagen.

In the courtyard of this museum lies the great man's simple grave, his
beautiful works being contained in the building which surrounds it.

At the top of this Etruscan tomb stands a fine bronze allegorical
group--the Goddess of Victory in her car, drawn by prancing
horses--fitting memorial to this greatest of northern sculptors.

Holger Drachmann was the son of a physician, and quite early in life
became a man of letters. Following the profession of an artist, he
became a very good marine painter. This poet loved the sea in all its
moods, and was never happier than when at Skagen--the extreme northern
point of Jutland--where he spent most of his summers. His painting was
his favourite pastime, but poetry the serious work of his life. He was a
very prolific writer, not only of verse and lyrical poems, but of plays
and prose works, and was a very successful playwright. Drachmann's
personality was a strong one, though not always agreeable to his
countrymen. He had a freedom-loving spirit, and lived every moment of
his life. Some of his best poems are about the Skaw fishermen, and later
in life he settled down among them, dying at Skagen in 1907. He was a
picturesque figure, with white flowing locks, erratic and unpractical,
as poets often are. Like other famous Danes, he chose a unique
burial-place. Away at Grenen, in the sand-dunes, overlooking the
fighting waters of the Skagerack and Ca