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Doctor;" and, from the gestures of the servants, who
were the best actors, I should imagine contained some
humour. The farce, termed ballet, was a kind of
pantomime, the childish incidents of which were sufficient
to show the state of the dramatic art in Denmark, and
the gross taste of the audience. A magician, in the
disguise of a tinker, enters a cottage where the women
are all busy ironing, and rubs a dirty frying-pan against
the linen. The women raise a hue-and-cry, and dance
after him, rousing their husbands, who join in the
dance, but get the start of them in the pursuit. The
tinker, with the frying-pan for a shield, renders them
immovable, and blacks their cheeks. Each laughs at
the other, unconscious of his own appearance;
meanwhile the women enter to enjoy the sport,
"the rare fun," with other incidents of the same species.
The singing was much on a par with the dancing,
the one as destitute of grace as the other of expression;
but the orchestra was well filled, the instrumental being
far superior to the vocal music.
I have likewise visited the public library and museum,
as well as the palace of Rosembourg. This palace,
now deserted, displays a gloomy kind of grandeur
throughout, for the silence of spacious apartments
always makes itself to be felt; I at least feel it, and I
listen for the sound of my footsteps as I have done at
midnight to the ticking of the death-watch, encouraging
a kind of fanciful superstition. Every object carried
me back to past times, and impressed the manners of
the age forcibly on my mind. In this point of view
the preservation of old palaces and their tarnished
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