Ixxii RICHARD CLEASBY. 1834,35*
On the 12th of July he took his first lesson in Danish, and set himself seriously to
work to acquire the language, as well as to drink the imitation Carlsbad waters, which
were now so necessary to his existence.
At Copenhagen or in its neighbourhood Cleasby remained for nearly a year, only
leaving it for a month in the autumn to take a grape-cure on the Rhine; on the return
from which he visited the Grimms at Cassel, when Jacob gave him a letter of intro-
duction to Finn Magnusen, which he delivered on the 27th of October, making the
following entry :
' I delivered Grimm's parcel to Finn Magnusen, whom I found in a very brown-studious
looking room and mood ; but he was very obliging. He has all the appearance of a dry
" Gelehrter." '
On the 24th of November Cleasby moved from the Hotel Royale, where he had
hitherto stayed, into lodgings in the Kongens Nytorv. On the i2th of December he
dined with Ohlenschläger, ' who/ he says, ' at my instigation, and with some assistance
from me in English, translated part of Moore's Lallah Rookh/ On a former occasion,
in making the poet's acquaintance, Cleasby says of him :
' Ohlenschlager is an exceedingly jovial, open-hearted man, but with more of the sensualist in
his look than of the poet of deep feeling. His conversation is light, and even almost flimsy at
times. .... He related to me that he had applied to Sir Walter Scott about publishing one of his
romances in England, which had been very well received in Denmark and Germany, and wished to
have ^"100 for the copyright; but Sir Walter wrote back to say there was no entrepreneurs for
foreign novels. It was before Sir Walter's misfortunes, and Ohlcnschläger seemed to think he
ought to have sent him the ^ioo, as a sum of no kind of consequence to him and of much assist-
ance to a fellow-poet. Such is the generous open nature of Ohlenschlager's disposition, that I doubt
not he would have done it under similar circumstances; but in this he belongs no doubt to the few,
and not to the many.'
On the 25th of February, 1835, Cleasby looked out for lodgings for a month or so
at Roeskilde, ' in order to read in quietude,' and, having found them, went thither on the
3rd of March. On the 2nd occurs the first mention of Ram's name in the Diary, thus :
' Paid Mr. Rafn, the Secretary of the Nordiske Oldskrift Selskab, the fee on becoming a
member, being 25 specie dollars. I was elected on the 3ist of January. Rafn and Finn Mag-
nusen were proposer and seconder.'
On the 3rd of April he returned from Roeskilde, and on the 23rd started for Lund
in Scania, in Sweden, at which University he spent about a month learning Swedish, as
he had already learnt Danish, and becoming intimate with the Professors Reuterdahl,
Agardh, and, though last not least, Nilson, so well known for his geological and ethno-
logical writings. On the loth of June Cleasby left Copenhagen for his annual visit to
Carlsbad, by way of Stettin, Berlin, and Dresden, reaching it on the I5th. He had not
intended to return home this year, but at the close of his cure he received such an
alarming letter from his brother Anthony as to his brother Stephen's health that he
Came home immediately, arriving in London on the 22ncl of July. His brother was
then at Malvern, being threatened with consumption. He found him better than he
had expected, and, after staying in England till the 25th of September, left for Germany
and Dresden, where he arrived on the 5th of October, and he went into lodgings