would descend to the abodes of darkness, while that of his master soared to the regions of ethereal light and everlasting bliss. Be this as it may, we may safely conclude that burning and burying the dead were contemporaneous usages, both cinerary urns and skeletons, face upwards, having been found in barrows near Wisbaden, in others, near Darnburg in the Duchy of Weimar, as well as in several barrows raised by the ancient Slavonic inhabitants of Pomerania. Barrow burial, or barrowing-if the term be admissible-was practised not only by the Scandinavians and Germans, but also by several Slavonic and Celtic tribes, as well as by the ancient Greeks and Etruscans, and may probably have originally been founded on some religious dogma, held at a very remote period by the common ancestors of all these nations. From the eastern shores of the Black Sea we may follow lines of barrows in a northeasterly direction through the steppes of Tartary to the wilds of Siberia, and in a north-westerly course through Russia and northern Germany, to Scandinavia and the British Islands. It is somewhat singular that although there are a considerable number of barrows in Silesia, Saxony, Prussia, and the whole of northern Germany, none are to be seen, with the exception of those near Eichstätt, in Austria, Bavaria, Wurtemberg and Baden *. In Iceland and Norway there are very few of these rude monuments; Denmark has a considerable number of them, but in no country are they so abundant as in Sweden.]

When a hero or chief fell gloriously in battle, his funeral obsequies were honoured with all possible magnificence. His arms, his gold and silver, his war-horse, and whatever else he held most dear, were placed with him on the pile. His dependants and friends frequently made it a point of honour to die with their leader, in order to attend on his shade in the palace of Odin.

Nothing, in fact, seemed to them more grand and noble than to enter Valhalla with a numerous retinue, all in their finest armour and richest apparel. The princes and nobles never failed of such attendants. His arms, and the bones of the horse on which Chilperic I. supposed he should be presented to this warrior god, have been found in his tomb. They did

• See Grimm Über deutsche Runen, p. 265,

in reality firmly believe, and Odin himself had assured them, that whatever was buried or consumed with the dead, accompanied them to his palace. The poorer people, from the same persuasion, carried at least their most necessary utensils and a little money, not to be entirely destitute in the other world. From a like motive, the Greeks and Romans put a piece of silver into the dead man's mouth, to pay his passage over the Styx. The Laplanders to this day provide their dead with a flint and every thing necessary for lighting them along the dark passage they have to traverse after death. In whatever degree civilized nations resemble the savage part of mankind, their strongest features are those which respect religion, death, and a future state. Men cannot contemplate these interesting objects coolly, nor uninfluenced by such hopes and fears as shackle and impede the proper exertion of their rea soning faculties. Accordingly all that the theology of the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, those people in other respects so wise, taught them on many points, was only one great delirium, and was (if we consider it impartially) in no respect superior to that of the ancient Scandinavians; if indeed it was not more indecent and extravagant still than theirs.

Odin was supposed to guard these rich deposits from the sacrilegious attempts of rapine by means of certain sacred and wandering fires which played round the tombs. And for their better security the law promulged its severest edicts against all offences of this kind. The nineteenth chapter of the Salic law is full of the different punishments decreed against such as shall carry off the boards or carpeting with which the sepulchres were covered; and interdicts them from fire and water. This law appears to have been well observed in the north during the times of paganism, since, in digging into old burial grounds, there are now frequently found arms, spurs, rings, and different kinds of vases. Such were the contents of the tomb that was opened near Guben in Germany. The person who had been interred there seems to have been a lover of good cheer; for he had carried with him several utensils of cookery, together with flagons and drinking vessels of all sizes. In the British isles, in Germany, in Scandinavia, and in many countries in the northern and eastern parts of Asia, are found monuments of the ancient inhabitants, in the form of little round hills and often surrounded with stones,

on open plains or near some road. It is the received opinion that these are the burying places of giants, and indeed bones larger than the human size are often found in them; but we must remember that as the ancients durst not approach the palace of Odin on foot, and for that reason had their horses buried with them, it is very probable that the bones of these animals are often mistaken for those of men.

CHAPTER XI.

SEQUEL OF THE CUSTOMS, ARTS AND SCIENCES OF THE ANCIENT SCANDINAVIANS.

THE arts, which are necessary to the convenience of life, are but indifferently cultivated among a people who neglect the more pleasing and refined ones. The Scandinavians held them all equally in contempt: what little attention they bestowed on any, was chiefly on such as were subservient to their darling passion. This contempt for the arts, which men's desire of justifying their own sloth inspires, received additional strength from their sanguinary religion, from their extravagant fondness for liberty, which could not brook a long confinement in the same place, and especially from their rough, fiery, and quarrelsome temper, which taught them to place all the happiness and glory of man in being able to brave his equals and to repel insults.

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As long as this inclination had its full sway among a people who were perpetually migrating from one forest to another, and entirely maintained from the produce of their flocks and herds, they never thought of cultivating the soil. In the time of Tacitus, the Germans were little used to agriculture. They cultivate," says that historian, "sometimes one part of the country, and sometimes another; and then make a new division of the lands. They will much easier be persuaded to attack and reap wounds from an enemy, than to till the ground and wait the produce. They consider it as an indication of effeminacy and want of courage to gain by the sweat of their brow, what they may acquire at the price of

their blood."* This prejudice gradually wore out, and they applied themselves more to agriculture. The great consumption of grain in a country, where the principal part of their food and their ordinary liquor was chiefly made of nothing else, could not but produce this effect. In the ninth and tenth centuries we see the freemen, the nobility and the men of great property, directing the operations of husbandry themselves. At length Christianity having entirely extinguished the taste for piracy, and thus restored to the land one half of its inhabitants, laid them under a necessity of deriving from thence all their subsistence.

But the other arts were still depressed under the influence of this prejudice, and were for a long time considered as abject occupations befitting none but slaves; which not only dishonoured the present professors, but even fixed a stain on all their posterity. The Gauls, the Germans, and the Scandinavians never employed in any of their domestic and handicraft trades other than slaves, freedmen, women, or such miserable old men as preferred a dishonourable life to death. They were of course ignorant of all the pleasing conveniences and ornaments of life, excepting such as they either acquired by violence in their piratical excursions, or gained to themselves by foreign service. Their wives spun themselves the wool which made one part of their clothing, and skins supplied the rest. Their habits sat close to their bodies, and were short and neat like those of all the Teutonic nations: not wide, long and flowing, like those of the Sarmatians and eastern people. They were perhaps still less luxurious in their manner of lodging.

In the time of Tacitus, the Germans had not yet built themselves cities, or even towns: "Every one," says that author, "places his house on whatever spot he chooses, near

*Tac. Germ. c. 14, &c.

Vid. Arng. Jon. Crymog. lib. i. p. 52.

In the habits of the ancient Teutonic nations we see evidently the rudiments of the modern European dress. They consisted of a kind of waistcoat, and breeches, or rather a kind of trowsers which came down to the feet, and were connected with the shoes; whereas the ancient Romans were naked at the knee. Upon the pillars of Trajan and Antonine the dresses of such nations as were of Teutonic race bear a great resemblance to those of our common sailors and peasants.-P.

a spring. a wood, or open field, at a distance from any neighbour, either from ignorance in the art of building, or for fear of fire."* When religion permitted temples to be erected to the gods, the concourse of those who came to offer oblations, engaged them to build round about them, and towns insensibly arose. The same thing happened near the castles of their kings, princes, and great men; and lastly, the markets, whither the peasants repaired for the mutual exchange of those few commodities in which the trade of these days consisted, gave birth to a third kind of towns, which still in their names bear evident traces of their origin t. The houses of which these towns consisted were nothing better, for the most part, than cottages supported by thick heavy posts joined together by boards and covered with turf. The very lowest rank of people were not even so well off; having no other defence from the severity of the winter, but only miserable huts. But I again repeat it, that it was only a small part of this people who lived so totally ignorant of the conveniences of life. Their chiefs were early distinguished by edifices sumptuous for those times. Their chief ambition was to have them of vast extent, and the wooden columns that supported them adorned with carved images and runic characters. Fragments of these are still found in Iceland, nor is the sculpture so bad as might be expected. The mountaineers of Norway and Sweden have to this day a remarkable dexterity at carving with the knife, and in the cabinets of the curious are preserved many pieces which surprisingly show how far genius can advance unassisted by art. Such of the Scandinavians as settled in richer countries, soon adopted the luxury of their new fellow-citizens, and were as desirous as they of distinguishing themselves by sumptuous buildings.

We may judge from the foregoing pages of the state of commerce in ancient Scandinavia. It is true, the fondness of the inhabitants for navigation ought to have been favourable to it; but we know that piracy, which is the result of idleness in those who practise it, reduces to idleness those who suffer by it, as it renders all industry useless. We must not, however, suppose that this people carried on no kind of traffic.

*Tac. Germ. c. 16.

+ The general termination of these is koping, i. e. market.