he city, as we drew near, was rather grand, but
without any striking feature to interest the imagination, excepting the
trees which shade the footpaths.

Just before I reached Copenhagen I saw a number of tents on a wide plain,
and supposed that the rage for encampments had reached this city; but I
soon discovered that they were the asylum of many of the poor families
who had been driven out of their habitations by the late fire.

Entering soon after, I passed amongst the dust and rubbish it had left,
affrighted by viewing the extent of the devastation, for at least a
quarter of the city had been destroyed. There was little in the
appearance of fallen bricks and stacks of chimneys to allure the
imagination into soothing melancholy reveries; nothing to attract the eye
of taste, but much to afflict the benevolent heart. The depredations of
time have always something in them to employ the fancy, or lead to musing
on subjects which, withdrawing the mind from objects of sense, seem to
give it new dignity; but here I was treading on live ashes. The
sufferers were still under the pressure of the misery occasioned by this
dreadful conflagration. I could not take refuge in the thought: they
suffered, but they are no more! a reflection I frequently summon to calm
my mind when sympathy rises to anguish. I therefore desired the driver
to hasten to the hotel recommended to me, that I might avert my eyes and
snap the train of thinking which had sent me into all the corners of the
city in search of houseless heads.

This morning I have been walking round the town, till I am weary of
observing the ravages. I had often heard the Danes, even those who had
seen Paris and London, speak of Copenhagen with rapture. Certainly I
have seen it in a very disadvantageous light, some of the best streets
having been burnt, and the whole place thrown into confusion. Still the
utmost that can, or could ever, I believe, have been said in its praise,
might be comprised in a few words. The streets are open, and many of the
houses large; but I saw nothing to rouse the idea of elegance or
grandeur, if I except the circus where the king and prince royal reside.

The palace, which was consumed about two years ago, must have been a
handsome, spacious building; the stone-work is still standing, and a
great number of the poor, during the late fire, took refuge in its ruins
till they could find some other abode. Beds were thrown on the landing-
plac