grees, to enable any one to practise any profession, must be taken at
Copenhagen; and the people of this country, having the good sense to
perceive that men who are to live in a community should at least acquire
the elements of their knowledge, and form their youthful attachments
there, are seriously endeavouring to establish a university in Norway.
And Tonsberg, as a central place in the best part of the country, had the
most suffrages, for, experiencing the bad effects of a metropolis, they
have determined not to have it in or near Christiania. Should such an
establishment take place, it will promote inquiry throughout the country,
and give a new face to society. Premiums have been offered, and prize
questions written, which I am told have merit. The building
college-halls, and other appendages of the seat of science, might enable
Tonsberg to recover its pristine consequence, for it is one of the most
ancient towns of Norway, and once contained nine churches. At present
there are only two. One is a very old structure, and has a Gothic
respectability about it, which scarcely amounts to grandeur, because, to
render a Gothic pile grand, it must have a huge unwieldiness of
appearance. The chapel of Windsor may be an exception to this rule; I
mean before it was in its present nice, clean state. When I first saw
it, the pillars within had acquired, by time, a sombre hue, which
accorded with the architecture; and the gloom increased its dimensions to
the eye by hiding its parts; but now it all bursts on the view at once,
and the sublimity has vanished before the brush and broom; for it has
been white-washed and scraped till it has become as bright and neat as
the pots and pans in a notable house-wife's kitchen--yes; the very spurs
on the recumbent knights were deprived of their venerable rust, to give a
striking proof that a love of order in trifles, and taste for proportion
and arrangement, are very distinct. The glare of light thus introduced
entirely destroys the sentiment these piles are calculated to inspire; so
that, when I heard something like a jig from the organ-loft, I thought it
an excellent hall for dancing or feasting. The measured pace of thought
with which I had entered the cathedral changed into a trip; and I bounded
on the terrace, to see the royal family, with a number of ridiculous
images in my head that I shall not now recall.

The Norwegians are fond of music, and every little church has an organ.