THE ICELANDERS. 



107 



coal is not the least of his labors, for 

 whatever the distance may be to the 

 nearest thicket of dwarf-birch, he must 

 go thither to burn the wood, and to 

 bring it home when charred across his 

 horse's back. His hut is scarcely bet- 

 ter than that of the meanest fisherman ; 

 a bed, a rickety table, a few chairs, and 

 a chest or two, are all his furniture. 

 This is, as long as he^ lives, the condi- 

 tion of the Icelandic clergyman, and 

 learning, virtue, and even genius are 

 but too frequently buried under this 

 squalid poverty. 



But few of my readers have proba- 

 bly ever heard of the poet Jon Thor- 

 lakson, but who can withhold the trib- 

 ute of his admiration from the poor 

 priest of Backa, who with a fixed in- 

 come of less than £6 a year, and con- 

 demned to all the drudgery which I 

 have described, finished at seventy 

 years of age a translation of Milton's 

 "Paradise Lost," having previously 

 translated Pope's " Essay on Man." 



Three of the first books only of the " Paradise Lost " were printed by the 

 Icelandic Literary Society, when it was dissolved in 1796, and to print the rest 

 at his own expense was of course impossible. In a few Icelandic verses, Thor- 

 lakson touchingly alludes to his penury : — " Ever since I came into this world 

 I have been wedded to Poverty, who has now Imgged me to her bosom these 

 seventy winters, all but two ; and whether we shall ever be separated here below 

 is only known to Him who joined us together." 



As if Providence had intended to teach the old man that we must hope to 

 the last, he soon after received the unexpected visit of Mr. Henderson, an agent 

 of the British and Foreign Bible Society, who thus relates his interview : 



" Like most of his brethren at this season of the year, we found him in the 

 meadow assisting his people in hay-making. On hearing of our arrival, he 

 made all the haste home which his age and infirmity would allow, and bidding 

 us welcome to his lowly abode, ushered us into the humble apartment where he 

 translated my countrymen into Icelandic. The door is not quite four feet in 

 height, and the room may be about eight feet in length by six in breadth. At 

 the inner end is the poet's bed, and close to the door, over against a small win- 

 dow, not exceeding two feet square, is a table where he commits to paper the 

 effusions of his Muse. On my telling him that my countrymen would not have 

 forgiven me, nor could I have forgiven myself, had I passed through this part 

 of the island without paying him a visit, he replied that the translation of Mil- 



THE FASTOR OF THINGVALLA. 



