He became Bj?rnson's friend in 1856 and aided
greatly in opening the way for him in Denmark. Until 1868 Petersen
had much influence on public opinion. Soon after that he came to
America, and did not return to Copenhagen until 1904. He was a
follower of Heiberg, but more liberal.
Note 19.
BERGEN. Written in 1863 for a musical festival in which Bj?rnson and
Ibsen took part. Bergen's unusually favorable situation made it for
a long time Norway's first city in commerce; it has only recently
fallen behind Christiania. It has ever had a large local fleet and
great traffic in its harbor. Founded about 1070 by King Olaf the
Quiet, Bergen was very important in the older history of the land,
as the residence of the Kings, until about 1350, when Hanseatic
control began, continuing until late in the sixteenth century. In
the seventeenth century Bergen was incomparably the first commercial
city in the Danish-Norwegian monarchy; in the eighteenth it was
surpassed by Copenhagen. The people of Bergen have always been
distinctly liberal in thought and feeling.
Holberg, Ludvig (1684-1754), was born in Bergen, but resided in
most of his life in Denmark. His comedies, which founded modern
Danish-Norwegian literature, are indeed immortal.
Dahl, John Christian Clausen (1788-1857), a Norwegian landscape
painter, who, though born in Bergen, went in 1811 to Copenhagen and
from 1818 resided in Dresden.
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