226 SKETCH OF THE STATE OF LITERATURE 
Danish philosophers endeavoured to discover where he was buried ; 
but all that they ascertained concerning him is—that Peter Lollius 
flourished in the fifteenth century. From the laws of his country 
and the traditions of its people, Peter collected those moral apoph- 
thegms, those practical maxims, which the Arab teaches his sons, 
which Odin chanted in the Havamal, and which still survive at 
the two extremities of the globe, in the balmy arbours of the East 
and in the gloomy grottoes of the Northern forests. 
These Proverbs are remarkable for their terseness and simplicity. 
©ometimes, a perfect moral sentiment is expressed in one single 
verse ; occasionally, it occupies two: rarely, does it extend to more. 
Peter Lollius arranged his Collection of Proverbs in alphabetical 
order, and translated them into a barbarous and frequently unintel- 
ligible latin version. On its first appearance, his book obtained ex- 
traordinary popularity. It was admitted into all the schools, and 
became a regular class-book. Nevertheless, Christiern Pedersen 
complained grievously that he was obliged, even in the sixteenth 
century, to waste the most precious days of his youth, in studying 
this piece of “detestable Jatinity.” 
“© Den Danske Riimkrenike,’ the Danish metrical chronicle,* was 
the production ef a monk of Sorce,t+ who lived towards the end of the 
fifteenth century. This rhymer’s object was, to produce a more po- 
pular history of Denmark than any then in existence. That of 
Saxo’s was freely used by him, and he unhesitatingly adopted it, 
from beginning to end. Where this work failed him, he borrowed 
his relations from the latin annals ; but, instead of translating the 
narratives of his predecessors, or like them recording events, he 
essayed to give his book a dramatic arrangement. By this method, 
each of the kings is brought on the stage in succession ; and, as 
an actor, he describes the incidenis of his own life, his projects and 
his achievements. This sort of soliloquy yields a temporary gratifi- 
caion, but it soon becomes irksomely monotonous. In other re- 
* This Danish Chronicle, in rhyming verses, was first published in A.D. 
mcccexcy ; and, in 1825, M. Molbeck edited a new edition, to which he 
added an introduction and glossary. 
+ This was brother Nigel, Niel or Black, who composed his original rhym- 
ing chronicle in the Danish language. Here follows its latinized title, “ Ira- 
tris Nigelii Chronica Danica, omnium regum Danie vitam, fecta et bella a 
Dano usque ad Christianum I complexa; reperta in preelio et clade Danorum 
ad Hemmingstedam in Dithmarsia, die 17mo Februarii, A.D. mp.”—See the 
Bibliotheca Historica Dana-Norvegica of N. P. Sibbern, p. 29, and the refer- 
ences there cited. 
