essly published two or three
dramatic poems not worthy of his pen, and Baggesen entered on a violent
controversy with him in which he stood practically by himself against
the entire reading public, whose sympathies were with Oehlenschlaeger.
Alone and misunderstood, restless and unhappy, he left Denmark in 1820,
never to return. Six years later he died, longing to see his country
again, but unable to reach it.

His first poetry was published in 1785, a volume of 'Comic Tales,' which
made its mark at once. The following year appeared in quick succession
satires, rhymed epistles, and elegies, which, adding to his fame, added
also to the purposeless ferment and unrest which had taken possession of
him. He considered tragedy his proper field, yet had allowed himself to
appear as humorist and satirist.

When the great historic events of the time took place, and over-threw
all existing conditions, this inner restlessness drove him to and fro
without purpose or will. One day he was enthusiastic over Voss's idyls,
the next he was carried away by Robespierre's wildest speeches. One year
he adopted Kant's Christian name Immanuel in transport over his works,
the next he called the great philosopher "an empty nut, and moreover
hard to crack." The romanticism in Denmark as well as in Germany reduced
him to a state of utter confusion; but in spite of this he continued a
child of the old order, which was already doomed. And with all his
unrest and discord he remained nevertheless the champion of "form," "the
poet of the graces," as he has been called.

This gift of form has given him his literary importance. He built a
bridge from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century; and when the new
romantic school overstepped its privileges, it was he who called it to
order. The most conspicuous act of his literary life was the controversy
with Oehlenschlaeger, and the wittiest product of his pen is the reckless
criticism of Oehlenschlaeger's opera 'Ludlam's Cave.' Johann Ludvig
Heiberg, the greatest analytical critic of whom Denmark can boast,
remained Baggesen's ardent admirer; and Heiberg's influential although
not always just criticism of Oehlenschlaeger as a poet was no doubt
called forth by Baggesen's attack. Some years later Henrik Hertz made
Baggesen his subject. In 1830 appeared 'Letters from Ghosts,' poetic
epistles from Paradise. Nobody knew that Hertz was the author. It was
Baggesen's voice from beyond the grave, Baggesen's critic