came down to meet the strangers, apparently with no very friendly intentions. Shortly afterwards, a tall and venerable chieftain makes his appearance, and, to Gudlief's great astonishment, addresses him in Icelandic. Having entertained the weary mariners very honourably, and supplied them with provisions, the old man bids them speed back to Iceland, as it would be unsafe for them to remain where they were. His own name he refused to tell; but having learnt that Gudlief comes from the neighbourhood of Snaefell, he puts into his hands a sword and a ring. The ring is to be given to Thured of Froda; the sword to her son Kjartan. When Gudlief asks by whom he is to say the gifts are sent, the ancient Chieftain answers, "Say they come from one who was a better friend of the Lady of Froda than of her brother Snorre of Helgafell." Wherefore it is conjectured that this man was Bjorn, the son of Astrand, Champion of Breidavik.

After this, Madam, I hope I shall never hear you depreciate the constancy of men. Thured had better have married Bjorn after all!

I forgot to mention that when Gudlief landed on the strange coast, it seemed to him that the inhabitants spoke Irish. Now, there are many antiquaries inclined to believe in the former existence of an Irish colony to the southward of the Vinland of the Northmen. Scattered through the Sagas are several notices of a distant country in the West, which is called Ireland ed Mekla-Great Ireland, or the White Man's land. When Pizarro penetrated into the heart of Mexico, a tradition already existed of the previous arrival of white men from the East. Among the Shawnasee Indians a story is still preserved of Florida having been once inhabited by white men, who used iron instruments. In 1658, Sir Erland the Priest had in his possession a chart, even then thought an. cient, of "The Land of the White Men, or Hibernia Major, situated opposite Vinland the Good;" and Gaelic philologists pretend to trace a remarkable affinity between many of the American-Indian dialects and the ancient Celtic.

But to return to The Foam. After passing the cape, away we went across the spacious Brieda Fiord, at the rate of nine or ten knots an hour, reeling and bounding at the heels of he steamer which seemed scarcely to feel how

uneven was the surface across which we were speeding. Down dropped Snaefell beneath the sea, and dim before us, clad in evening haze, rose the shadowy steeps of Bardestrand. The northwest division of Iceland consists of one huge peninsula, spread out upon the sea like a human hand, the fingers just reaching over the arctic circle; while up between them run the gloomy fiords, sometimes to the length of twenty, thirty, and even forty miles. Anything more grand and mysterious than the appearance of their solemn portals, as we passed across from bluff to bluff, it is impossible to conceive. Each might have served as a separate entrance to some poet's hell-so drear and fatal seemed the vista one's eye just caught receding between the endless ranks of precipice and pyramid.

There is something, moreover, particularly mystical in the effect of the gray, dreamy atmosphere of an arctic night, through whose un certain medium mountain and headland loom as impalpable as the frontiers of a demon world; and as I kept gazing at the glimmering peaks, and monstrous crags, and shattered stratifications, heaped up along the coast in Cyclopian disorder, I understood how natural it was that the Scandinavian mythology, of whose mysteries the Icelanders were ever the natural guardians and interpreters, should have assumed that broad, massive simplicity which is its most beautiful characteristic. Amid the rugged features of such a country, the refinements of Paganism would have been dwarfed to insignificance. How out of place would seem a Jove, with his beard in ringlets-a trim Apollo -a sleek Bacchus-an ambrosial Venus—a slim Diana, and all their attendant groups of Oreads and Cupids-amid the ocean mists, and ice-bound torrents, the flame-scarred mountains, and four months' night-of a land which the opposing forces of heat and cold have selected for a battle-field !

The undeveloped reasoning faculty is prone to attach an undue value and meaning to the forms of things, and the infancy of a nation's mind is always more ready to worship the manifestations of a Power than to look beyond them for a cause. Was it not natural then tha these northerns, dwelling in daily communion with this grand Nature, should fancy they could perceive a mysterious and independent energy

in her operations; and at last come to confound the moral contest man feels within him, with the physical strife he finds around him; to see in the returning sun-fostering into renewed existence the winter-stifled world-even more than a type of that spiritual consciousness which alone can make the dead heart stir; to discover even more than an analogy between the reign of cold, darkness and desolation, and the still blanker ruin of a sin-perverted soul? But in that iron clime, amid such awful associations-the conflict going on was too terrible—the contending powers too visibly in presence of each other, for the practical, conscientious Norse mind to be content with the puny godships of a Roman Olympus. Nectar, Sensuality, and Inextinguishable Laughter were elements of felicity too mean for the nobler atmosphere of their Walhalla; and to those active temperaments and healthy minds,-invigorated and solemnized by the massive mould of the scenery around them,-Strength, Courage, Endurance, and, above all, Self-sacrifice-naturally seemed more essential attributes of divinity than mere elegance and beauty. And we must remember, that whilst the vigorous imagination of the north was delighting itself in creating a stately dream-land, where it strove to blend, in a grand world-picture-always harmonious, though not always consistent-the influences which sustained both the physical and moral system of its universe, an under-current of sober Gothic common sense, induced it as a kind of protest against the too material interpretation of the symbolism it had employed to wind up its religious scheme by sweeping into the chaos of oblivion all the glorious fabric it had evoked, and proclaiming-in the place of the transient gods and perishable heaven of its Asgaard -that One Undivided Deity, at whose approach the pillars of Walhalla were to fall, and Odin and his peers to perish, with all the subtle machinery of their existence: while man-himself immortal-was summoned to receive, at the hands of the Eternal All-Father, the sentence that waited upon his deeds. It is true, this purer system belonged only to the early ages. As in the case of every false religion, the symbolism of the Scandinavian mythology lost with each succeeding generation something of its transparency, and at last degenerated into a gross superstition. But traces still remained,

even down to the times of Christian ascendency, of the deep, philosophical spirit in which it had been originally conceived: and through its holy imagery, there ran a vein of tender humour, such as still characterizes the warm-hearted, laughter-loving northern races. Of this mixture of philosophy and fun, the following story is no bad specimen :-*

Once on a time, the two Esir, Thor, the Thunder god, and his brother Lopt, attended by a servant, determined to go eastward to Jotunheim, the land of the giants, in search of adventures. Crossing over a great water, they came to a desolate plain, at whose further end tossing and waving in the wind, rose the treetops of a great forest. After journeying for many hours along its dusky labyrinths, they began to be anxious about a resting place for the night. "At last, Lopt perceived a very spacious house, on one side of which was an entrance as wide as the house itself, and there they took up their night-quarters. At midnight they perceived a great earthquake : the ground reeled under them and the house shook.

"Then up rose Thor and called to his companions. They sought about, and found a side-building to the right, into which they went. Thor placed himself at the door; the rest went and sat down further in, and were very much afraid.

"Thor kept his hammer in his hand ready to defend them. They then heard a terrible noise and roaring. As it began to dawn, Thor went out and saw a man lying in the wood not far from them; he was by no means small, and he slept and snored loudly. Then Thor understood what the noise was which they heard in the night. He buckled on his belt of power, by which he increased his divine strength. At the same instant the man awoke, and rose up. It is said that Thor was so much astonished that he did not dare to slay him with his hammer, but enquired his name. He called himself Skrymer. 'Thy name,' said he, 'I need not ask, for I know that thou art Asar-Thor. But what hast thou done with my glove?'

swered: 'I will now try something else; but I wonder who, amongst the Esir, would call that a little drink! What play will you propose?' "Utgard Loke answered: 'Young men think it mere play to lift my cat from the ground; and I would never have proposed this to Esir Thor, if I did not perceive that thou art a much less man than I had thought thee.' Thereupon sprang an uncommonly great grey cat upon the floor. Thor advanced, took the cat round the body, and lifted it up. The cat bent its back in the same degree as Thor lifted; and when Thor had lifted one of its feet from the ground, and was not able to lift it any higher, said Utgard Loke: 'The game has terminated just as I expected. The cat is very great, and Thor is low and small, compared with the great men who are here with us.'

"Then said Thor: Little as you call me, I challenge any one to wrestle with me, for now I am angry.' Utgard Loke answered, looking round upon the benches: 'I see no one here who would not deem it play to wrestle with thee; but let us call hither the old Ella, my nurse; with her shall Thor prove his strength, if he will. She has given many a one a fall who appeared far stronger than Thor is.' On this there entered the hall an old woman; and Utgard Loke said she would wrestle with Thor. In short, the contest went so, that the more Thor exerted himself, the firmer she stood; and now began the old woman to exert herself, and Thor to give way and severe struggles followed. It was not long before Thor was brought down on one knee. Then Utgard Loke stepped forward, bade them cease the struggle,and said that Thor should attempt nothing more at his court. It was now drawing towards night; Utgard Loke showed Thor and his companions their lodging, where they were well accommodated.

"As soon as it was light the next morning, up rose Thor and his companions, dressed themselves, and prepared to set out. Then came Utgard Loke, and ordered the table to be set, where there wanted no good provisions, either meat or drink. When they had breakfasted, they set out on their way. Utgard Loke accompanied them out of the castle; but, at parting, he asked Thor how the journey had gone off; whether he had found any man more mighty than himself? Thor answered, that the

enterprise had brought him much dishonour, it was not to be denied, and that he must esteem himself a man of no account, which much mortified him.

"Utgard Loke replied: 'Now will I tell thee the truth, since thou art out of my castle, where, so long as I live and reign, thou shalt never reenter; and whither, believe me, thou hadst never come if I had known before what might thou possessest, and that thou wouldst so nearly plunge us into great trouble. False appearances have I created for thee, so that the first time when thou meet'st the man in the wood it was I; and when thou wouldst open the provision-sack, I had laced together with an iron band, so that thou couldst not find the means to undo it. After that, thou struckest at me three times with the hammer. The first stroke was the weakest, and it had been my death had it hit me. Thou sawest by my castle a rock, with three deep square holes, of which one was very deep; those were the marks of thy ham

mer.

The rock I placed in the way of the blow, without thy perceiving it.

"So also in the games, when thou contendedst with my courtiers. When Lopt made his essay, the fact was this: he was very hungry, and ate voraciously; but he who was called Loge, was fire, which consumed the trough as well as the meat. And Huge (mind) was my thought with which Thjalfe ran a race, and it was impossible for him to match it in speed. When thou drankest from the horn, and thoughtest that its contents grew no less, it was, notwithstanding, a great marvel, such as I never believed could have taken place. The one end of the horn stood in the sea, which thou didst not perceive; and when thou comest to the shore, thou wilt see how much the ocean has diminished by what thou hast drunk. Men will call it the ebb.

"Further,' said he, ' most remarkable did it seem to me that thou liftedst the cat and in truth, all became terrified when they saw that thou liftedst one of its feet from the ground. For it was no cat, as it seemed unto to thee, but the great serpent that lies coiled round the world. Scarcely had he length that his tai and head might reach the earth, and thou liftedst him so high up that it was but a little way to heaven. That was a marvellous wrestling that thou wrestledst with Ella (old age), for

never has there been any one, nor shall there ever be, let him approach what great age he will, that Ella shall not overcome.

"Now we must part, and it is best for us on both sides that you do not often come to me; but if it should so happen, I shall defend my castle with such other arts that you shall not be able to effect anything against me?"

"When Thor heard this discourse, he grasped his hammer and lifted it into the air, but as he was about to strike, he saw Utgard Loke nowhere. Then he turned back to the castle to destroy it, and he saw only a beautiful and wide plain, but no castle."

It was now just upon the stroke of midnight. Ever since leaving England, as each four-andtwenty hours we climbed up nearer to the pole, the belt of dusk dividing day from day had been growing narrower and narrower, until having nearly reached the Arctic circle, this,— the last night we were to traverse,—had dwindled to a thread of shadow. Only another halfdozen leagues more, and we would stand on the threshold of a four months' day! For the few preceding hours, clouds had completely covered the heavens, except where a clear interval of sky, that lay along the northern horizon, promised a glowing stage for the sun's last obsequies. But like the heroes of old he had veiled his face to die—and it was not until he dropped down to the sea that the whole hemisphere overflowed with glory and the gilded pageant

A fairer or a stranger spectacle than the last Arctic sunset cannot well be conceived. Evening and morning-like kinsmen whose hearts some baseless feud has kept asunder-clasping hands across the shadow of the vanished night,

You must forgive me if sometimes I become a little magniloquent for really, amid the grandeur of that fresh primæval world, it was almost impossible to prevent one's imagination from absorbing a dash of the local colouring. We seemed to have suddenly waked up among the colossal scenery of Keat's Hyperion. The pulses of young Titans beat within our veins. Time itself,-no longer frittered down into paltry divisions,—had assumed a more majestic aspect. We had the appetites of giants-was it unnatural we should also adopt "the large utterance of the early gods?"

Brougham adjured his executors to publish this biography just as he had written it, so that it might be exclusively his own. The executors have complied of course; and the result is about as crude and undigested a heap of materials for a biography as ever was flung before the public. A great part of the volumes is filled with correspondence, pitch

tive, often uninteresting even to political students, and in great measure unintelligible to those who have not present to their minds the details of transactions now almost consigned to oblivion. Instances are not wanting of the carelessness and looseness characteristic of Brougham's mind. Lyndhurst is made in a very circumstantial anecdote to refer to Campbell's lives of the Chancellors many years before they were published. A still stranger blunder has been