his character in stronger language than we have used. The Life prefixed to the Copenhagen edition is as unsparing in its censure as in its praise:- Ingenio præditus fuit omnium artium et scien"tiarum capaci; fuit enim Philologus, Philosophus, Historicus, 'Jurisconsultus, et Poeta nemini secundus, animo sapiens et 'perspicax, et manu ad quodvis facienda et formanda solertissimus; quas virtutes avaritiâ, lasciviâ, ambitione, et fallaciâ haud parum foedavit, nam nemini diu fidus fuit, nec unquam ' diu eosdem habuit amicos, sed omnia ex præsenti lucro et honore metiebatur.' Mr Laing, who, in the case of his author, is inclined to be apologetic where he cannot be laudatory, sums up his character in a paragraph, containing some nearly as hard words:- Snorro Sturleson must be measured not by our scale of moral and social worth, but by the scale of his own times. Measured by that scale he will be judged to have been a man ' of great but rough energy of mind-of strong selfishness, and 'passions unrestrained by any moral, religious, or social consider"ation a bold, bad, unprincipled man, of intellectual powers and cultivation far above any of his contemporaries whose lite'rary productions have reached us, a specimen of the best and 'worst in the characters of men in that transition age from barbarism to civilization,-a type of the times—a man rough, 'wild, vigorous in thought and deed, like the men he describes in his Chronicle.'-(I. 198.)

Besides the Heimskringla, another work of interest and importance in Icelandic literature is connected with the name of Snorro-the prose Edda—which, though far inferior in value to the poetical collection of the same name, affords a most useful clue through the mazes of Scandinavian mythology. It is probable that Snorro framed the sketch or outline of this composition; but the completion of it seems attributable to others of his family to whom his papers descended. The preface and postscript are manifestly by a later and coarser hand. Along with this Edda are found in the manuscripts the Scalda, and some other grammatical and prosodial treatises, in which it is likely that Snorro had a very slender share; and which obviously belong to that stage of literature where the Gradus and other mechanical appliances are put in requisition to help declining genius to climb when it can no longer soar. The Scalda, including those treatises, is interesting chiefly as explaining the laws of Icelandic versification, and embodying many fragments of poetry that would have otherwise perished. The Snorra or prose Edda, with the Scalda and other writings here referred to, was last edited by Rask at Stockholm in 1818. It has appeared twice in an English garb; once in Percy's Northern

Antiquities' from the French of Mallet; and again, recently, in a rather quaint version by Mr Dasent, the translator of Rask's Icelandic Grammar, and editor of the curious legend of Theophilus.

That the Heimskringla has never till now been translated into English can scarcely be felt as a reproach, if it be considered that the original has only recently been edited for the first time in a correct and creditable form; and that it is rather an unmanageable book, both from its bulk and the difficulty of thoroughly understanding and rendering its idiom and allusions, and the poetical fragments with which it is interspersed. But these difficulties add to the value and merit of the translation with which Mr Laing has favoured us, and which he has executed in an able and agreeable manner.

Nor has Mr Laing here confined himself to the comparatively humble office of a translator. He has increased the importance and interest of the work by a very ample Preliminary Dissertation; of which the main subject is the condition and character of the Northmen in the dark or middle ages; but which digresses far and wide into many connected or collateral topics. This composition, like all that Mr Laing has given to the world, is distinguished for originality and acuteness, and for a boldness of speech and earnestness of style that sometimes approach to eloquence. But it contains much from which we are constrained to withhold all concurrence both of opinion and of feeling. Even a knowledge of Mr Laing's former writings had not prepared us for the extreme partiality of the doctrines he has here proclaimed, and the unnecessary vehemence of expression with which he maintains them. Whoever places himself in the historian's chair, and sits like Rhadamanthus to judge the dead, should bring to his duties a double portion of candour and calmness; and it might surely be thought that in a discussion regarding the comparative characters of nations, as they existed a thousand years ago, it would be easier to keep one's temper than to lose it. Mr Laing, however, seems to have written with very different feelings. Something, no doubt, must be allowed for prejudices of birth, and early association. An intimate connexion with a part of the kingdom which boasts to be a Norwegian colony, and in which Mr Laing is much esteemed, may indeed enlist the enthusiasm of an ardent mind on the side of Scandinavian interests, where they appear to be in jeopardy; but we cannot think that justice to Orkney is incompatible with charity to England; or that the claims of Scandinavia demand an indiscriminate disparagement of a large part of the rest of Europe.

We are satisfied that a great deal of Mr Laing's vehemence

is merely constitutional. But we consider so many of his opinions erroneous, and so many of them fanciful exaggerations, that we feel it to be due to this comparatively obscure portion of history, to consider in some detail the chief topics he has discussed; in the hope of obviating, with some of our readers, the impressions which dogmas so ably and so absolutely inculcated might otherwise produce.

The object or scope of Mr Laing's introductory Discourse is to separate the Teutonic tribes into two great divisions-the Scandinavian and the non-Scandinavian-including in this negative denomination all the high and low German nations, the Saxons, and Anglo-Saxons; in short, the whole of Teutonic Europe, except Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and their colonies. The character and achievements of the Scandinavians, in every department of human exertion and progress, form the subjects of an exalted and elaborate panegyric; while their praise is sought to be enhanced by denying or depreciating the virtues of all their neighbours. In attempting to correct the errors of this estimate, we would, first of all, bring together a few familiar facts, illustrating the relative position of the Scandinavian nations in the great Teutonic family, of which they form a part;-with_reference, especially, to their social and literary character, as interwoven with their religious history.

The researches of living antiquaries have finally brought to light, among the different tribes of Teutonic blood-using that epithet to embrace not only Germans, but also Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians-such features of mutual resemblance, as to demonstrate their original identity in all the material elements of national existence. The induction which has led to this result has been so large and comprehensive, and involves so many concurring testimonies and traces of the truth from separate and distant sources, as to leave no doubt as to the accuracy of the conclusion. It is nowhere historically realized; but the farther back the enquiries are carried, the closer the coincidences appear; though at what point in their progress the apex of the converging lines would be found, may be beyond the reach of our geometry to calculate. The discoveries thus made are so remarkable and important, and are so well fitted to remove prejudices and jealousies, and to encourage sympathy and good feeling among kindred countries, that we hope to be forgiven for dwelling upon them with some earnestness.

First, then, throughout the languages of all the Teutonic nations, we can perceive a striking sisterly likeness, not merely in their roots, or in the general aspect of their words, but in the whole of their forms and inflexions. Those languages, as actually

exhibited to us in writing or speech, are very early divided from each other by such wide differences, that, roundly speaking, each of them, at that stage when they first appear on record, must have been unintelligible except to those who used it as their mother tongue. But on a nearer inspection, the differences are found to be explainable upon definite principles, and when once the key to them is given, the latent analogy is readily unlocked. It is found, that, like the different dialects of Greece, they observe a relative interchange of individual vowels and consonants, according to a regular system. This is so completely the case, that if a vocable be given as it exists in any one or two of the Teutonic tongues, its form in all the others may in general be conjectured with almost unerring certainty. The full extent, however, of this correspondence can only be seen in the older and purer forms in which the languages existed; as recent times have introduced a mass of corruptions and foreign admixtures, which distort or deface the features of resemblance. Without entering with pedantic minuteness into a subject of this nature, we may observe, that the older Teutonic languages all possessed a complicated scheme of inflexions, analogous to what we see in Greek and Latin, but which have been nearly obliterated by modern influences. In their primitive shape, the same word was generally to be found in all the Teutonic vocabularies under a corresponding form;if a noun, it belonged to the same declension in them all-if a verb, to the same conjugation, regular or irregular; and where anomalous in one, it was commonly subject to precisely the same anomalies through all the branches of the family tree. Such facts as these, the further they are developed and made clear, impress us the more with the irresistible conviction, that at the distance of some centuries before the Christian era-we hesitate to say how many or how few, or in what locality the scene should be laid a single Teutonic language must have existed, from which, as from a common centre, all the existing dialects of that name have radiated and diverged.

In like manner, it may be shown that throughout the Teutonic nations the same political and judicial system universally prevailed. The influences of time and place modified these materially in different tribes; but in their proper and primitive type, as far as an approximation can be made to it, their laws resembled each other as their languages did; and all of them, it should be said, embodied the great principles of popular freedom and popular influence ;-those privileges of independence in private life, and publicity in political deliberation, which, in the establishment of Parliaments and trial by Jury, have found their best and most practical consummation in the constitution of England.

Again, before the introduction of Christianity, it is certain that all the Teutonic tribes possessed the same system of religious worship,-the same gods, the same heroes, the same altars and ceremonies, the same hopes and fears of a present and future interposition in human affairs on the part of their divine rulers. In the separation of their various pursuits or places of habitation, different nations, as well as different individuals, might betake themselves to the adoration of one or more deities in preference to others; and fancy or fraud might alter or add to the details of their creed or their theogony. But the original Pantheon was the same with all; however much their choice might come to be narrowed by circumstances or by caprice, or their legends diversified by various readings of the primary text.

The materials which have supplied the foundation of these comparisons have been very miscellaneous in their origin and nature. On the philological question, the remains of the ancient Teutonic languages have afforded clear and conclusive evidence to those who could bring to the examination of them a philosophical command of grammatical analysis; and a substantial identity in language being once established, a great step was gained towards the other objects. As to these, the Roman writers and the ancient Codes and literary monuments of the 'Barbarians' themselves have furnished the most direct information; while throughout the monkish chroniclers of the middle ages, a multitude of references to national manners and traditions have contributed more to the task than might at first sight have been expected. But other and less prominent matters have been diligently collected and compared. An old song or a nursery tale, a land tenure or a law formula, the name of a tree or a plant, of a ruined tower or a decayed market-town, have often afforded instructive glimpses of the past; while a singular agreement between distant and seemingly distinct things, a mystery in one place meeting its solution in another-a broken symbol, of which the fragments, brought together from afar, are found faithfully to correspond; these and similar appearances complete the strength of our conviction, by adding to it the interest of surprise.

The several Teutonic nations stand in very different positions. as to the evidence of their ancient state, afforded by their existing monuments or condition. In some of them the characters of antiquity have been much longer and better preserved than in others. Among the causes contributing to this result, the difference in the periods at which Christianity was introduced among them, may be considered as the most marked and the

most momentous.

The Goths were converted in the fourth century; the Franks