3^6 On the Revolutions of Iceland, Political and Natural. 



altogether to neglect one of the most important of its concerns, 

 viz. that of its preservation ; and hence the Icelanders, so pe- 

 culiarly careful in every thing which bears on themselves, had 

 the strongest inducements to attempt to transmit to posterity 

 the recital of their own misfortunes, and the record of the means 

 by which they were delivered from them. This subject we re- 

 commend to particular attention. As it happens the Sagas are 

 now chiefly dispersed among the libraries of England, Den- 

 mark, and Sweden, where they whet the curiosity of Europeans. 

 They have been removed from their natural resting-place, like 

 the obelisks of Egypt. Additional ones, however, may still re- 

 main in Iceland, an island, which, at so early a period, wrote 

 its own history, and printed its own productions, an island 

 which has produced great lawyers, and historians, and which, 

 in our own days, has its merchants and travellers who traverse 

 the wide world, and study the laws and political relations of 

 its several nations; an island, in which education is so generally 

 spread that the children of both sexes read and write at the 

 age of eight and ten years, and recite likewise the sublime 

 writings of Greece and Italy; an island, finally, which still 

 reckons amongst its natives men who, profoundly versed in con- 

 temporaneous literature, are not less familiar with that of other 

 days. 



We shall finish in a few words the political history of these 

 people. Iceland being twice the size of Sicily, and the original 

 establishments being far asunder, and not numerous, they at 

 first maintained themselves separately, and in the enjoyment of 

 the most perfect liberty. With time they became both more ex- 

 tended and more numerous, and this twofold progress having 

 approximated them to each other, their relative bearings neces- 

 sarily became more close and pressing. A union of their 

 strength would have made them powerful and formidable ; but 

 discord divided and weakened them. Pride and all the evils 

 it engenders, umbrage, jealousy, animosity, the rivalry of power, 

 the hatred and vengeance of families, armed them the one 

 against the other, and thus with their own hands they opened 

 to tyranny that door which before they had been so careful to 

 foreclose. Favoured by these disputes, which they vvere care- 

 ful secretly to nourish, the kings of Norway invaded them, and 



