hopelessly irreclaimable heaths. Yet grain is raised, and forests thrive in Sweden and Norway, in a climate immeasurably colder. The fact is that, in a cold situation, the mere absence of companions will prevent trees from flourishing. A small patch of wood will dwindle away, simply for want of that shelter which a large plantation would afford to itself, as a whole, and to every part of it. Where, then, an extensive tract of woodland has been destroyed, it is not an easy task to replace it by fresh planting, especially in countries which, from their atmospheric condition, impose the necessity of more than ordinary shelter. This is simply the problem which has to be resolved in Iceland. The amount of shelter has to be determined under which new plantations may be expected to thrive and supply the place of the perished forests. Some trees are more fitted than others to cope with the rigours of an Arctic winter. The experiment should be commenced with these. When they have grown to a sufficient height and consistency to shelter plants of a less hardy nature, then attention can be turned to the rearing of these latter kinds. The restoration of large patches of woodland seems an absolutely necessary condition, which must precede the hope of raising grain crops. We all know how intimately the atmospheric condition and climate of a country are dependant on the proportion of its area which is under wood. Where there are large forests, thickly planted, moisture is promoted, and storms of thunder and lightning are frequent. The peculiar features of tropical climate are always intensified in thickly wooded tracts. That is a large extent of woodland promotes moisture and heat. The restoration of its forests would do something similar for Iceland. They would temper the severity of the winter and shelter its fields from the severity of the northern blasts; while by retaining much of the heat, that now radiates from a bare surface, they would gradually diminish the general rigour of the climate, and adapt the soil to the production of corn.

Iceland seems to have been discovered in 861, just one thousand years ago. In the spring of that year, Naddodr, a roving pirate, in one of his voyages in the northern seas, while endeavouring to find the Faroes, either through an error in his reckoning, or driven by a storm, made an unknown mountainous coast. He landed, but finding nothing but ice and snow, he departed, calling the coun

try Snowland. Three years afterwards it was visited by two other vikings, Swedes, Gardar and Floki by name. They found a great quantity of drift-ice along the northern shores, whence they called it Iceland. Floki, like most Norse navigators, was guided in his voyage by the flight of ravens, freeing them from time to time, and inferring the position of land from the direction of their flight. In 874, a number of Norwegian nobles, who had rebelled against Harold Harfäger, and been defeated by him at Hafur's Fiord, determined to seek an asylum in this distant country. They were conducted hither by Ingolf and Leif, two famous adventurers, who had been already condemed to banishment for several murders and other atrocities in which they had been engaged. The new colony was first established in the south-eastern corner of the island, but was eventually transferred to the neighbourhood of Reykjavik. Soon after its establishment, it was enriched by Leif with an immense booty, gathered in a successful descent on the coasts of England and Ireland. This'expedition cost Leif dear; for, shortly after his return, he was slain in a quarrel with some of the Irishmen whom he had carried into captivity. Rapidly the colony grew in numbers and strength. Crowds of other emigrants, driven from their homes in Scandinavia by the disorders of the times, betook themselves hither: and in a few years it became a most flourishing and prosperous settlement. Norsemen had few wants, and these few were easily supplied. They waged war on the world; and no warriors have ever lived who practised more consistently or remorselessly than they the Napoleonic principle of making war support itself. Everything which was not required for absolute sustenance was borne home. Thus the population of the colony was steadily and rapidly augmented, partly by immigration, and chiefly by herds of slaves acquired in their excursions, while its material wealth was still more augmented by the rich gleanings swept from every European, and some Moorish lands. But, in so doing, the pirates were laying the foundations of a change of which they little dreamed.

Among the captives were many Christians, monks, priests, and even bishops. The old story was renewed, and gradually the truths of Christianity began to insinuate themselves into the breasts of the descendants of Wodin. When or how the conversion of the Icelanders was accom

plished we do not know precisely. Tradition attributes the principal share in it to a Saxon bishop named Frederick, who came hither A. D. 981. It seems at any rate to have been more complete and instantaneous than that of their brethren on the Continent; for Christianity was formally adopted by the National Assembly in the spring of A. D. 1000. Churches and monasteries rapidly arose, and religion assumed the same dignified and respected position which was accorded to her in the countries of Europe. Simultaneously, or indeed, to speak more correctly, a short time previously, the political condition of the community was settled. The island was divided into four provinces, subdivided into twelve districts, each governed by local magistrates, elected by the people. An annual assembly, or parliament of the whole island, called the Althing, was held in Thingvalla, a place about fifty miles to the N. E. of Reykjavik. Here solemn trials took place, laws were enacted, and disputes arranged. The whole republic was under the nominal headship of a Lagmann. Land was held by udal (or noble) tenure, which was substantially a semi-feudal system. The gradual rise of powerful families, and the concentration of most of the land in their hands soon changed the elective character of the magistracy into hereditary. This led to feuds and deeds of violence, which ended in the surrender of the sovereignty of the island to Hakon, King of Norway, in 1254, three hundred and eighty years after its first colonization by Ingolf. The constitution, however, continued undisturbed, resembling rather the condition of a republic under royal protection, than that of a dependency, until the beginning of the present century, when the Althing was abolished. It was again restored in 1848.

Previously to the introduction of Christianity the Runic characters had been employed in inscriptions on wood, metal, and stone. But their use was limited to these inscriptions; writing, technically so called, there was none. Still the Icelanders had orally preserved their national traditions, and the memory of the prowess of their ancestors, and of the heroes of their race in songs, and in those Sagas which have become identified with the first essays of Runic lore. In the year 1057, however, Isleif, Bishop of Skalholt, introduced the art of writing, together with the Latin alphabet, modified according to the German usage, preserving some few of the old charac

ters for the expression of peculiar sounds. This proceeding, which prevented the Runic alphabet from attaining the dignity of being the medium of a written language, was the decisive point in the literary history of Iceland. A general taste for learning became rapidly diffused. Societies were formed for the purpose of mutual instruction. The new art of writing was immediately employed in the important task of collecting the ballads, songs, and other memorials of the national antiquities, and of recording the historical recollections of the settlement of the island. Nor were the maritime expeditions of the early inhabitants forgotten, which had led to the colonization of Greenland and the other discoveries along the coast of North America, that reflect such immortal honour on the memory of those intrepid navigators. Several able writers also addressed themselves to digesting and commenting the laws and traditional institutions, and to chronicling in clear and simple narratives the events of their own times. The monks, as usual, especially those of the Benedictine monastery of Thingeyra, were large contributors to Icelandic literature; anticipating by five centuries the labours of the Maurist Fatherson a small scale, and a different theatre, it is true; but storing up, withal, priceless_materials for the future student of Norse archaeology. Indeed nothing can compensate for the national loss sustained, at the introduction of Lutheranism in 1550, in the sack of the convents and the wholesale destruction of valuable manuscripts and relics of antiquity.

The position of Christianity in Iceland was eminently favourable to this literary development and to the course which it took. The conversion of the island had been effected almost simultaneously, and without any notable opposition. It had not, consequently, been attended with the same sweeping and indiscriminate hostility to the monuments and traditions of Paganism, which had been elsewhere deemed necessary, and had proved so fatal to their preservation. Accordingly the old Norse theogony still survived in songs and ballads. The old tales of their heathen forefathers were permitted to retain their place in the people's hearts. Deprived effectively of their religious meaning, by the practical hold which the lessons of Christianity had taken on the popular mind, or explained away as mythical allegories, there was no ground for fearing

VOL. L.-No. XCIX.

2

that they could ever recover their ancient reverence. Perhaps, also, the fact that, from the commencement, the clergy were mainly native, was not without its influence. They had not, as was frequently the case on the Continent, come from a foreign land to combat Heathenism, unacquainted with the peculiar character of the people they were seeking to convert, and consequently ignorant of the mode of dealing with those popular prejudices which were arrayed against their ministry. They were never in the position of strangers, at war with the natives, on all those ideas of which a people is most tenacious, and for this reason alone, if for no other, necessarily regarded as intruders. Nor, when the work of conversion was accomplished, were they compelled, in order to secure its permanency, to recruit their ranks from their own country by men, who, whatever may have been the respect paid to them on account of their religious authority, must always have been looked upon as aliens to the tribe. These eircumstances, it may be, were not without their weight in determining the attitude of the Anglo-Saxon and Irish missionaries towards the traditions and monuments of the Teutonic and Scandinavian tribes which they converted to the faith. But they did not exist in Iceland. There the clergy, from the first, were of the people. They knew intimately the habits, instincts, and leanings of their fellow-countrymen. They knew the weak points, as well as the strong ones, of their character; for they were those of their own. Consequently they were in a position, from the first, to deal practically with the tales of Northern Mythology. They knew at once how much of them they should reprobate and denounce, what superstitions they should guard against and eradicate, how much they were to explain away as allegory, how much they might allow to live as the legendary story of events whose true version was lost in the mists of antiquity. They acted accordingly. Nor do they seem to have considered, that any danger to the stability of Christianity could arise from their regarding those Pagan remains with more curiosity, perhaps, for they had a domestic interest in whatever historical value they possessed-but certainly not with greater apprehension as to their practical influence on the conduct of their flocks, than we do those of Ancient Greece or Rome. The event proved the justice of their anticipations; for there is no trace that the Icelanders