VI.] ANCIENT LITERATURE. 31 



not by cutting the throat of his antagonist, but by ridiculing 

 him in some pasquinade, — sometimes, indeed, he did both ; 

 and when the King of Denmark maltreats the crew of an 

 Icelandic vessel shipwrecked on his coast, their indignant 

 countrymen send the barbarous monarch word, that by way 

 of reprisal, they intend making as many lampoons on him 

 as there are promontories in his dominions. Almost all the 

 ancient Scandinavian manuscripts are Icelandic ; the nego- 

 tiations between the Courts of the North were conducted 

 by Icelandic diplomatists ; the earliest topographical survey 

 with which we are acquainted was Icelandic; the cosmogony 

 of the Odin religion was formulated, and its doctrinal 

 traditions and ritual reduced to a system, by Icelandic 

 archaeologists ; and the first historical composition ever 

 written by any European in the vernacular, was the product 

 of Icelandic genius. The title of this important work is 

 " The Heimskringla" or world-circle, 1 and its author was — 

 Snorro Sturleson ! It consists of an account of the reigns of 

 the Norwegian kings from mythic times down to about a.d. 

 1 150, that is to say, a few years before the death of our own 

 Henry II. ; but detailed by the old Sagaman with so much 

 art and cleverness as almost to combine the dramatic power 

 of Macaulay with Clarendon's delicate delineation of cha- 

 racter, and the charming loquacity of Mr. Pepys. His 

 stirring sea-fights, his tender love-stories, and delightful bits 

 of domestic gossip, are really inimitable ; — you actually live 

 with the people he brings upon the stage, as intimately as 

 you do with Falstaff, Percy, or Prince Hal ; and there is 

 something in the bearing of those old heroic figures who 

 form his dramatis per sonce, so grand and noble, that it is im- 

 possible to read the story of their earnest stirring lives with- 

 out a feeling of almost passionate interest — an effect which 

 no tale frozen up in the monkish Latin of the Saxon annalists 

 has ever produced upon me. 



As for Snorro's own life, it was eventful and tragic enough. 



1 So called because Heimskringla (world-circle) is the first word in 

 the opening sentence of the manuscript which catches the eye. 



