BORGAFIORD. 
22 7 
sembled such as we have in England, and some 
ordinary prints, among which was one of the 
Emperor of the French and by the side of it 
another of the Hero of Trafalgar, served to de¬ 
corate the walls. Shortly after our arrival, rum 
with white wine and Norway biscuit were handed 
round, and, as there was but little time before 
dinner, we amused ourselves in the study, where 
I was shown several valuable and interesting 
works, relating to the ancient history of the 
island, as well in manuscript as in print. There 
were here, also, many of the Latin and Greek 
classics, and of the most esteemed authors in the 
German, French, Swedish, and Danish languages, 
besides, what gratified me more than any thing 
else, a considerable number of our best English 
poets. Here, too, I was shown a translation of 
Miltons Paradise Lost into Icelandic verse, the 
performance of a priest who had lived in the 
eastern part of the island, but whose name I 
cannot now remember. The Tatsroed, who was 
capable of reading the original, did not express 
himself at all satisfied with the translation, and 
I have no doubt of his being a competent judge 
of the subject, having himself, with much eclat , 
turned into Icelandic poetry Pope's Essay on 
Man and Universal Prayer; to the liberal sen¬ 
timents inculcated in the latter of which he was 
so much attached, as to have it sometimes sung 
