$58 Where Nature with Innocence dwelt in her youth, When pure was her heart, and unbroken her truth. "But now the fair rivers of Paradise wind Through countries and kingdoms o'erthrown; Where the Giant of tyranny crushes mankind, Where he reigns,-and will soon reign alone. He stretches his hundred-fold arms, O my Mother! my Mother! beware:- Thy foreign dominions like wild graftings They weigh down thy trunk,---they will tear up thy root: "The root of thine OAK, O my Country! that stands Rock-planted, and flourishing free;· Its br. nches are stretch'd over far-distant lands, Beneath his broad footstep the Ganges is And its shadow eclipses the sea: dry, And the mountains recoil from the flash of his eye." "As homeward my weary-wing'd Fancy Her star-lighted course through the skies, Ah me! what new prospects, new horrors I see the war-tempested flood shores. "For Britannia is wielding her trident today, Consuming her foes in her ire, And hurling her thunder with absolute sway To spread her invincible name; And the tears of the widow are shed on her The blood of our Ancestors nourish'd the From their tombs, from their ashes it sprung; The voice of our Fathers ascends from their This is surely the new Alcæus fancyblest,' this the free and lofty strain after which the fine mind of Collins seemed to feel prophetic longings! It cannot be matter of regret that he has rather chosen to celebrate the glorious martyrs of Switz than those of Thermopylae-the fall of Abercrombie than the death of Epami nondas—that his voice inspires the volu teers of Britain, instead of soothing the manes of the victors of Marathon. In times like these,* "When the welfare of millions is hung i the scale, And the balance yet trembles with fate,” away with the cold pedantry of Greek and Roman allusions: let the songs of or bards come home to our businesses and bosoms,' let them rouse the unconquer able spirit of our forefathers; and let Bri « O Britain! dear Britain the land of my tain, recollecting betimes in whose m it is that she is strong, free, and glorious, clasp with rapture to her bosom th child of liberty, of virtue, and the muse ART. IV.---Select Icelandic Poetry, translated from the Originals; with Notes. By Wa LIAM HERBERT. 8vo. pp. 200. BUTLER tells us that when the waters of Hipprocene are brewed into ale or porter, they make men scribble without skill "Inspire a poet, spite of fate, And teach all people to translate; Tho' out of languages, in which They understand no part of speech." And certainly of these inspired translations and gifts of tongues we have lately, seen instances, which put our French and German teachers in danger of passing for natural-born, Mr. Herbert, the author of the volume before us, is a splendid exception to the prevailing taste in interpretation. knows the language from which he undertakes to make his versions. He has a quired, and with so much command as t compose verse in it, the modern Danish: and he has studied the ancient languag of the north with an attention and a p netration, which the Danish interpretest of the Edda have reason to envy. F the outlandish half of his task, he is qu lified in a rare and superior manner. Ha To any such imitative form of metre, Mr. Herbert preferably substitutes the following. "Wrath waxed Thor, when his sleep was And he found his trusty haminer gone; To seek my hammer round the globe." Thou, Freyia, must lend a winged robe, “Freyia sung. acquirements are not confined to the Scandinavian dialects: he has studied books as well as words: his reading embraces the whole range of the original writers on northern paleosophy, the sagas of the skald, the chronicles of the historian, and the speculations of the antiquary. He announces in his preface, and may he speedily realize the promise! an account of the ancient history and poetry of Iceland. Like the radiations of the boreal dawn, he is adapted, and he aspires, to il lumine these frost-bound regions, and duskier segments of the literary horizon Whether Mr. Herbert's versification and phraseology be so well fitted to secure him rank as a poet, as his learning and fidelity to secure him confidence as a translator, may be questioned. Among his readers there is already a division of opinion. Some think that our language can bear the mixture of iambic and anapastic feet in the same line, without sounding altogether discordant and barbarous others think that it cannot. such a method of versification were that of the original sagas, there would be sufficient excuse for returning to the primæval but exploded rhythms of our fore- Why com'st thou alone to Jotunheim now? fathers. The form of verse is an important part of the characteristic features of many poems; it belongs much to the costume of the composition: an Iliad in rime sounds unnaturally; so would an Orlando Furioso in blank verse. But rime is a Cimbric* not a Gothic invention; we owe it to our Welsh not to our Scandinavian ancestors; we disfigure the poetry of the bard by omitting, and of the skald by introducing, it. It is true that the Thryms Quida begins with a rimed quatrain, or stanza: If "Reidr war tha ving Thor er han vacnadiOk sins hamars um sacnadi:" but this is accidental, and is the only part "Wrath was king Thor And for his hammer Hied around; He shook his beard, He brush'd his brow; The son of earth Grop'd every where.” "That shouldst thou have, though 'twere “Thrym sung. "How fare the Asi? the Alfi how? "Loke sung. "Ill fare the Asi; the Alfi mourn; Fathoms eight beneath the ground; "Loke sung. "My labor is past, mine errand I bring; *Suhm is for making Cimbri into a Gothic word, and for deriving it from Kiæmper, striver. The Asi did all to council crowd, The Asiniæ all talk'd fast and loud; Up then and spoke Heimdaller free, "Now busk we Thor, as a bride so fair; If I let me dight, as a blooming bride." Wear; Round him let ring the spousal keys, Eight salmons, and an ox full-grown, Ne'er saw I bride so keenly feed, Nor drink so deep of the sparkling mead.” Nought has she eat for cight long nights, So did she long for the nuptial rites." He stoop'd beneath her veil to kiss, But he started the length of the hall, I wiss. "Why are the looks of Freyia so dire? It seems, as her eyeballs glisten'd with fire." Then forward lent the crafty Loke, And thus the giant he bespoke; "Nought has she slept for eight long nights, So did she long for the nuptial rites.". Then in the giant's sister came, Who dared a bridal gift to claim; "Those rings of gold from thee I crave, And firmly plight our hands and fay." For our parts we are well satisfied w this method of translation, and st. think it a great acquisition to our inea ture, if the principal mythological s of the Scandinavians were thus to be vi sified; so that we might exactly kr what sort of divinities were those of r Goths in their own estimation, and cording to their native legends. commentaries of antiquaries have m disfigured the heathenism of the net. by endeavouring to find a counterpart Grecian mythology for every Gothic g they thus rub out what is pecuitar, home-born; and foist Corinthian caps upon the faggot-shafts of northern a tecture. There are passages insufficies." clear in this version: such are the tw lines: "For setting oft the story fails, And lying, oft the lie prevails:" which in the notes are said to signify, he, who sits down to drink, forge message: and that he, who lics dow sleep, invents another. Such a m might be reduced to a proverbial foru English, e. g. A sipper is a tripper, a a napper is a rapper: or "Who tells after ale, Knows more than was said.” But this is not a truth of nature; therefore not the meaning of Særms the sayer; it is contradictory to exp ence; for wine makes eloquent, but s refreshes the memory. We suspect interpretation to be incorrect; and the the spirit of the proverb is that er short stay affords time for embellishroc tation and falsehood; on which ach and a long rest for thorough misreprese it is better to receive a message, or a re lation, before the time for indulg A sip wets truth; and a draught drowns her. The sitting and lying of the text are not opposed as food to rest; but as different degrees of the same gratification, as a short bait to a, long one. The words are "Opt sitianda saugor um fallaz, Oft from the sitter tales falls about; and from the recumbent, lies. So that the meaning would be represented by some such words as these: "Who sits down alters, Or thus: "A pint paints, And a quart taints." Or thus: "A mug makes a high-flier, a wise saw likely enough to merit the attention of the tippling divinities of Valhalla. The men in buckram always multiply between glass and glass; the modest hero becomes a Rodomonte; and Rodomonte an epic poet. The second poem is less striking: it is entitled the Battle of Hafur's-bay. The third contains merely the introduction, which Gray left untranslated, to the descent of Odin. The fourth is the dying song of Asbiorn. The fifth is Gunlang and Rafen; a short song, of which the notes contain a very interesting story. The sixth is the combat of Hialmar and Oddur, a singular mixture of prose and verse, admirably annotated. The seventh is the song of Hroke the black. The eighth is the death of Hacon, by Evind Skaldaspiller. It is one of the finest odes extant in any language, and deservedly passes for the triumph of Gothic song. Percy had already given a prose translation of it at page 63 of his five pieces of Runic poetry. The new version of Herbert runs thus: "Gondul and Skogul swiftly flew, "Unmail'd beneath his banner bright "The army's lord had warn'd the isles; "The king of men (before he hied To stir the war with fearless might) To ground his iron mail had cast, The cumbrous harness of the fight. "He sported with his noble train, When roused to guard his native land; Joyful beneath the golden helm Now did the dauntless monarch stand. "His glittering brand the hauberks clove, As if it fell on liquid waves; The falchions clash'd, the bucklers broke ; Long axes bow'd the struggling host; "Behind the buckler warriors bled; "With helmets cleft, and actons pierced, Couching her lance quoth Gondul fair; "The monarch heard the fatal words, "Why thus" (he said) "the war decide? We bade thy mighty foemen fly. "Fair sisters," (cried the virgin bright) Ride we to heaven's immortal domes! Hear, Odin! Lo, to grace thy court The king of men, the victor comes." "Haste, Braga, and Hermoder, haste! To meet the chief" (quoth Odin) “go! Hither he wends, whose sturdy arm Has wrought full many a champion woe." "From war return'd, the battle won, His limbs shed fast a gory stream; Odin," (he cried) "nierge Lord of death, Thy fell decrees full savage seem!” "The peace of heroes shalt thou have; Quaff with the Gods the sparkling beer! Proud bane of earls," (great Braga said) Eight valiant brothers hast thou here." "Our arms" (the generous king replied). "These war-worn hands shall never yield; Helmet and mail be well preserv'd: 'Tis good the trusty blade to wield.” "Then was it known, that Iacon's hand And bless'd the land, on which he mov'd! "Fenris the wolf from Hell unchain'd "Wealth perishes, and kindred die; In the first quatrain of the foregoing translation, it would have been well, for the sake of euphony, to employ the name Gondula, which is already familiarized to the English ear in Richard's Odin. The idea, expressed in the original, that the two Valkries were sent by Tyr, the god of battle, is omitted both by Percy and by Herbert. In the second quatrain Percy introduces the brother of Biorn with his mail; Herbert unmailed. They read the text differently; but the sequel proves Herbert to have chosen the true reading. In the third quatrain Herbert gives "eagle-crested head.' In this case the text would surely have been written und ara hialmi, zot und ar hialmi. It might be rendered first, stood first under his helmet, put on first that piece of armour. Yet we rather suspect it to be a mere ending of the preposition undar hialmi, under helmet. This rendering is not opposed by the repetition in the fifth quatrain, stood under his helmet of gold,' where the termination may be cut off to make room for the new epithet. After the twenty-fourth line a stanza occurs in Percy, wherein he ignorantly introduces a wholly imaginary deity, named by him Bauga, of whom no trace occurs in the Edda, nor in any northern poetry. Mr. Herbert very learnedly proposes a probable reading and interpretation, and very modestly avoids to insert it in his text: his reading however will not scan. It is with diffidence that we offer any hit after Mr. Herbert: yet there would surely be less violence done to the original by reading feigr Tys, the deathdoomed of Tyr, instead of the extant fyrir Tys, which would give to the text this forin. "Tranddoz taurgus Hausi Nordmanna.” < Down trod the shields of the death doomed of Tyr, and their rings, the heels of the hard-footed head of the Normans.' By the rings is probably meant those spiral twists of thick gold wire, which the northern chieftains wore round the arm, and of which they broke off a piece more or less valuable, in proportion as they wished to recompense a follower. This was in fact a form in which they carried money. The concluding quatrain appears to us to have suffered in both interpretations: but it is again with the most hesitating deference that we venture to disagree with Mr. Herbert. Wealth perishes, and friends die : land and people decay: but Hacon shall sit with the Heathen gods, until the morn ing when the trumpet shall sound." This means, surely, until Heimdal shall sound the brazen trump, which is to announce the twilight of the gods. A far nobler conclusion to a sublime ode, than Mr. Herbert's. And melancholy swains bewail,' and, as seems to us, a far closer and more obvious rendering of the original text. 6 The Biarkamal, a short fragment of overrated antiquity, concludes this learn edly commented selection. We regret that the fear of fatiguing and the desire of supplying novelty should in general have induced Mr. Herbert to contine his ver sions to short and inedited pieces. If he would give us a complete Edda, interpret ing anew the often misinterpreted passages, and annotating, with the long-armed power of his arctic erudition, the whole scheme of Scandinavian mythology, he would supply, to the historian and the antiquary, a knowledge hitherto very im perfect of the antient religion of our fore fathers; and, to the poet, the correct basis of that machinery, which he must one day employ to decorate the romantic enterprizes of the heroes of the north. It would require less effort to supersede than to correct the northern antiquities of Percy. A cultivation of these studies will be found to contribute to higher interests than those of archæologic curiosity; and to prepare the bouds of commercial and civil friendship between the nations who once bowed to the name of Odin, and who still partake the Gothic tongue. The investiga tion of septentrional antiquities ought not |