071 the Revolutions of Iceland, Political and Natural. 325 



families brought along with them wealth, information, and 

 withal a certain degree of inquietude as it regarded the future. 

 The main cause of this was the apprehended vengeance of the 

 monarchs they had left, and, to avoid surprise from them, they 

 entertained, in the different courts of Europe, confidential ad- 

 visers, who might observe and report to them whatever in- 

 trigues or political movements occurred. The written commu- 

 nications of these agents were preserved in the annals of the 

 island, in which were likewise inserted all important inter- 

 nal and domestic events. Hence resulted in the course of time 

 a great collection of memoirs, the copies of which were multi- 

 plied, and circulating freely, and thus was there gradually spread 

 over the whole mass of the population a taste for historical 

 studies, which, in spite of occasional alternations of activity and 

 languor, has been perpetuated even to the present day. At the 

 present moment the inhabitants of Iceland are passionately de- 

 voted to the study of their own history, and to that of nations 

 removed to the greatest distance from them ; so that almost 

 under our eyes, and in ages which we may designate mo- 

 dern, the Icelanders have followed the example set them by 

 the most ancient Egyptians, as may be seen in the Critics and 

 TimcBus of Plato. It would even appear that the love of let- 

 ters, which supposes, and induces, this love of serious studies, 

 was common to the people of the northern nations ; for we 

 learn from Thomas Bartholin that, about the year 1450, a 

 royal academy was formed at Copenhagen, which, it will be 

 observed, is nearly two centuries previous to the institution of 

 the most celebrated ac£\demies of Europe. But be this as it 

 may, the Icelandic Sagas (the name attached to these very 

 * early memoirs, in the Scandinavian tongue), have long enjoyed 

 the highest celebrity. Besides several poems, and some cos- 

 mogonies, which are sufficiently absurd, there may be found in 

 them the original traces of the fundamental laws of several con- 

 temporaneous people, and more especially of the English. And 

 thus it is probable that if the Sagas had been investigated for 

 other objects than the acquisition of antiquarian lore, — if they 

 had been studied Avith a view to medical information, they 

 would have disclosed many traditionary statements highly 

 valuable for the science ; for there is no people so barbarous as 



