years had been ended at the accession of Frederick V in 1746. [1543]
National literature, revivified by Holberg, was further advanced
by the establishment of a society of polite learning in 1763;
under Frederick's auspices Danish naturalists and scholars were sent
abroad for study; and in particular a literary expedition was sent to
Arabia. The European movement of science, in short, had gripped the
little kingdom, and the usual intellectual results began to follow,
though, as in Catholic Spain, the forces of reaction soon rallied
against a movement which had been imposed from above rather than
evolved from within.
The most celebrated northern unbeliever of the French period was
Count Struensee, who for some years (1770-72) virtually ruled Denmark
as the favourite of the young queen, the king being half-witted and
worthless. Struensee was an energetic and capable though injudicious
reformer: he abolished torture; emancipated the enslaved peasantry;
secured toleration for all sects; encouraged the arts and industry;
established freedom of the press; and reformed the finances, the
police, the law courts, and sanitation. [1544] His very reforms,
being made with headlong rapidity, made his position untenable, and
his enemies soon effected his downfall and death. The young queen,
who was not alleged to have been a freethinker, was savagely seized by
the hostile faction and put on her trial on a charge of adultery, which
being wholly unproved, the aristocratic faction proposed to try her on
a charge of drugging her husband. Only by the efforts of the British
court was she saved from imprisonment for life in a fortress, and sent
to Hanover, where, three years later, she died. She too was a reformer,
and it was on that score that she was hated by the nobles. [1545] Both
she and Struensee, in short, were the victims of a violent political
reaction. There is an elaborate account of Struensee's conversion
to Christianity in prison by the German Dr. Munter, [1546] which
makes him out by his own confession an excessive voluptuary. It is
an extremely suspicious document, exhibiting strong political bias,
and giving Struensee no credit for reforms; the apparent assumption
being that the conversion of a reprobate was of more evidential value
than that of a reputable and reflective type.
In spite of the reaction, rationalism persisted among the cultured
class. Mary Wollstonecraft, visiting Denmark in 1795, noted that there
and in Norway the press was free, and that new French publications
were translated and freely discussed. The press had in fact been
freed by Struensee, and was left free by his enemies because of the
facilities it had given them to attack him. [1547] "On the subject of
religion," she added, "they are likewise becoming tolerant, at least,
and perhaps have advanced a step further in freethinking. One writer
has ventured to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, and to question the
necessity or utility of the Christian system, without being considered
universally as a monster, which would have been the case a few years
ago." [1548] She likewise noted that there was in Norway very little
of the fanaticism she had seen gaining ground, on Wesleyan lines,
in England. [1549] But though the Danes had "translated many German
works on education," they had "not adopted any of their plans";
there were few schools, and those not good. Norway, again, had been
kept without a university under Danish rule; and not until one was
established at Christiania in 1811 could Norwegian faculty play its
part in the intellectual life of Europe. The reaction, accordingly,
soon afterwards began to gain head. Already in 1790 "precautionary
measures" had been attempted against the press; [1550] and, these being
found inefficient, an edict was issued in 1799 enforcing penalties
against all anonymous writers--a plan which of course struck at
the publishers. But the great geographer, Malte-Brun, was exiled,
as were Heiberg, the dramatic poet, and others; and again there
was "a temporary stagnation in literature," which, however, soon
passed away in the nineteenth century. Meantime Sweden and Denmark
had alike contributed vitally to the progress of European science;
though neither had shared in the work of freethought as against dogma.
ยง 3. The Slavonic States