8-->of his complete conversion to the principles of romanticism.  Later in the day he presented himself again at Steffens’ lodgings, bringing the lyric with him, “to prove,” as he says, “to Steffens that I was a poet at last beyond all doubt or question.”  His new friend received him with solemn exultation.  “Now you are indeed a poet,” he said, and folded him in his arms.  The conversion of Oehlenschläger to romanticism meant the conquest of Danish literature by the new order of thought.

Oehlenschläger has explained what it was that suggested to him the leading idea of his poem.  Two antique horns of gold, discovered some time before in the bogs of Slesvig, had been recently stolen from the national collection at Rosenborg, and the thieves had melted down the inestimable treasures.  Oehlenschläger treats these horns as the reward for genuine antiquarian enthusiasm, shown in a sincere and tender passion for the ancient relics of Scandinavian history.  From a generation unworthy to appreciate them, the Horns had been withdrawn, to be mysteriously restored at the due romantic hour.  He was, when he came under

the influence of Steffens, absolutely ripe for conversion, filled with the results of his Icelandic studies, and with an imagination redolent of Edda and the Sagas.  To this inflammable material, Henrik Steffens merely laid the torch of his intelligence.

It is impossible to pretend that Borrow has caught the enchanting beauty and delicacy of the Danish poem.  But he has made a gallant effort to reproduce the form and language of Oehlenschläger, and we have thought it not without interest to print opposite his version the whole of the original Danish.

Edmund Gosse.