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Hymn," after describing the devout emotions that swell his rapt bosom :

"So heave the billows of the sea,

By morning's freshening airs caressed;
So stars, all mute and tremblingly,
Sink downward to old Ocean's breast;
So shoots the spiral flame on high-
So move the pillars of the sky ;—

So floats the breeze when day is dim ;
So roll thy thunders through the sphere-
And THOU-without one word--dost hear
Their silent votive hymn!"

Something in the same style are his reflections on Prayer, in the second volume of "Jocelyn:"

"Oh, angel voice-serene, sublime,

Which bends the soul repentant, riven !
Instinct, not born of earth nor time,

Which teachest us our home is heaven!
Air that enwraps the human soul,
Drawing forth tears that spurn control,

Bidding the o'erfraught bosom swell-
Like southern winds in vernal hours,
That sweep the dew from bending flowers
Or chalice of the violet's bell!
"What, without thee, were this sad life?
A mass, impure, of worthless clay-
Where man, with equal brutes, in strife,
Wins his poor food from day to day!
By thee his trembling wing can rise
Once more into his native skies--

Breathing the air earth's storms above :
By thee he spreads his chainless course,
To drink at its eternal source

The living draught of life and love!
"Thou breathest in the mother's sigh;

The air conveys thy hallowed voice;
The infant lisps thee kneeling nigh-
The forest birds in thee rejoice.
Nature's great heart by thee is stirred,
As with some mystic murmur heard,
Its sense to seraph spirits known;
Each joy each grief-each earnest sigh-
Each song each prayer--beneath the sky-
Is but one hymn in many a tone!"

Notwithstanding the gorgeousness of our author's descriptions, and his propensity to soften and embellish the rude and the stern in natural scenery, his poverty is always more or less tinctured with melancholy, the more annoying to his readers as it is inexplicable. His lyre is ever bathed in tears. It is true he insists

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les pleurs sont pour nous la céleste rosée ; Sous un ciel toujours pur le cœur ne mûrit pas;" Still we submit that a few occasional glimpses of sunshine could do the flowers of genius no harm. M. de Lamartine's soul is successively an imprisoned eagle, a restless breeze, and a stream wailing for its native sea; human life is, in his estimation, a muddy rill, hastening to lose itself in the ocean of Eternity; a spark in flight; a keyless labyrinth; a moment's breath; a word uttered in disdain by the Eternal. The pursuit of Truth (trompeuse verité) is compared to the fantastic employment of one who watches the setting sun, and strives to discover the majestic orb behind his curtaining cloud of gold and purple :

"In streams of light

Gushes the crimson glory-and while there

The gazing eye would meet the imbedded sun,
The silvery shroud dissolves-'tis but a vapour!
Already from our sight the orb has sunk!"

Now we maintain that this perpetual dilating upon blighted hopes, and disappointments, and sorrows-the constant burthens of the poet's song, is at variance with the true spirit of religion, whose tendency is to promote serenity and cheerfulness. Lamartine scorns to paint the natural world in the sombre colours employed by many of his brother bards; we wish he were more indulgent in his representations of the moral world; he should not let Religion wear a brow of gloom. His pensiveness in "Jocelyn" is perhaps in some measure excusable, on account of the sadness of the story, which the curé himself relates.

To conclude: "Jocelyn" may prove popular as a romance; but, except in detached passages, will hardly gain many new admirers for the author's poetry. M. de Lamartine informs us it is but an episode, a single scene from a great work he has in preparation, which is to be a sort of drame epique--a “Poèm Humanitaire. We unite, with many others of his admirers, in praying that the next "Episode" he shall favour us with from his great poem, may be carefully freed from the faults of the one we have noticed; so that we may enjoy and praise it without reservation.

ART. IV. Antiquitates Americana, sive Scriptores Septentrionales Rerum Ante-Columbianarum, in America.

--

Samling af de i Nordens Oldskrifter in deholdte efterretninger om de gamle Nordboers opdagelsereiser til America, fra det 10 de til det 14 de Aarhundrede.

Edidit Societas Antiquariorum Septentrionalium. Hafniae, 1837. 4to. pp. 479.

THIS long-expected volume did not reach our hands in season to receive a notice in our last number. It is a learned, interesting, and important work; and the public are under great obligations to the Royal Society of Northern Antiquarians for their enterprise in bringing it out, and in particular to Professor Rafn, its learned editor, for the variety and richness of the notes by which it is illustrated. To give our readers a general notion of the work, we observe that it contains two Icelandic documents, now for the first time accurately published in a complete form, purporting to be histories written by or for persons who discovered and visited the North American coast early in the eleventh century, confirmed and illustrated by extracts from no less than fifteen other original works and manuscripts, in which the facts set forth in these histories are either mentioned or alluded to. The largest and most important of these documents are the two first-mentioned, one of which is entitled Narratives of Eric Rauda and Greenland; and the other, History of Thorfinn Karlsefne and Snorre the son of Thorbrand.*

The first question that will naturally suggest itself to the reader is, whether these documents are genuine; and the next, why, if genuine, they have not been heard of before? In answer to the first of these inquiries we remark, that the work itself contains evidence of the antiquity and authenticity of the manuscripts from which the publication has been made, sufficient to raise them above any just suspicion. In reply to the second, Professor Rafn, the editor, says that the fact is not as the question supposes; their existence has been known to

*Of the former, the Icelandic title is, "Thaettir af Eiriki Rauda ok Graenlendingum;" the Danish, "Fortaellinger om Erik den Rode og Grönlaenderne;" the Latin, "Particulae de Eiriko Rufo et Groenlandis." It occupies seventy-six pages, and, like all the other Icelandic documents, is accompanied by a Danish and a Latin translation.

Of the other, the Icelandic title is, "Saga Thorfinn's Karlsefne ok Snorra Thorbrandsonae;" the Danish, "Sagaen Thorfin Karlsefne og Snorre Thorbrandsön;" the Latin, "Historia Thorfinni Karlsefni et Snorri Thorbrandi filii.” With the translations, it fills 124 pages.

Icelandic scholars, but these have been comparatively so few, and the means of those few so limited, that they have not been able to give them a suitable examination, much less to be at the expense of publishing them. Notwithstanding all these difficulties, however, many of these, manuscripts have been studied, and their contents laid before the world; so that, in fact, all the leading particulars mentioned in these histories have been long known to Icelandic scholars. Indeed, we presume that all our readers are familiar with the fact that the Norwegians have always claimed the honour of discovering and colonizing North America, long before the time of Columbus; though perhaps most of them have been disposed to doubt the soundness of the pretension.* Of the various topics connected with the evidence on this point, we shall take occasion to speak after we have given a summary of the most important particulars contained in this work.

As preliminary to this, however, we must remind the reader that Iceland was not discovered until A. D. 861, when it was visited by the Norwegians; that it was again visited by them in 865; and that a colony was established there in 874. The tyranny exercised by Harold Harfaga over his Scandinavian subjects, induced multitudes to flock to Iceland, where they found a safe asylum. But the restless spirit of the Northmen would not suffer them to remain idle; they made incursions upon the coasts of Germany, France, and England; and the Shetland, the Orkney, and the Faroe Isles received frequent visits from them. Pushing their voyages in every direction, they discovered Greenland about 984, and immediately planted a colony there.

At the head of the Greenland colony, which was begun in 986, was Eric the Red, who fixed his settlement at Brattalid in Ericsfiord. He was accompanied by Heriulf Bardson. They were soon followed by Biarne, the son of Heriulf, with a company of settlers; but, owing to their ignorance of these northern seas, they made land some days sail to the south of Greenland. They did not land, but coasted northward until they arrived at Greenland, where they spent the winter. About 994,

*For an account of these claims, and the evidence on which they have heretofore been supposed to rest, the reader may consult Wheaton's History of the Northmen, Chap. 2. Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. 1. Mallett's Northern Antiquities, Vol. I. chap. 11. A summary of the arguments may also be found in Robertson's History of America, Vol. I. Note 17. Irving's Life of Columbus, Appendix, No. 13.

For the Icelandic and Greenlandic history in this article, we are indebted to the works of Wheaton and Mallett above referred to, and to Henderson's Travels in Iceland.

Biarne paid a visit to Eric, Earl of Norway; and gave him an account of the lands he had discovered. Eric censured Biarne in strong terms for not having pushed his discoveries further on the same coast, and for not observing them more accurately. After Biarne returned to Greenland, Leif, a son of Eric the Red, purchased Blarne's ship, and commenced a voyage of discovery, A. D. 1000. The crew of Leif consisted of thirty-five men, among whom was one Tyrker, a German. They proceeded from Greenland in the direction in which Biarne had come, until they made the land last seen by him before arriving at Heriulfnes. Here they anchored and went on shore; but they could discover no grass, the coast being a mass of slatey rock, (hella,) whence they called it HELLULAND. The country back presenting nothing but mountains of glaciers. From thence they sailed southwardly, and after holding on their course for some time, again made land, and went on shore. This country was level (slett), had a low coast, presenting here and there bluffs of white sand, and was thickly covered with wood. This they named MARKLAND, or Woodland. The learned editors of the Antiquitates Americana have concluded, as seems to us on probable, if not sufficient, grounds, that Helluland was the Labrador coast, and the Markland of Leif and his associates, Nova Scotia.

Leaving Markland, they sailed south-westerly with a fair wind for two days before seeing land again, when they passed down the side of a promontory stretching east and north; and then turning west between an island and the main land, they entered a bay through which a river flowed, when they came to anchor, and again went ashore. Here they resolved to spend the winter, and accordingly erected houses for that purpose at a place which they called LEIFSBUTHIR, or Leif's Booths. Having completed their winter residences, Leif divided his men into two companies, one of which kept watch at home, while the other explored the country. In one of these excursions Tyrker discovered an abundance of grapes, to which he had been accustomed in Germany. They were so plentiful, that they collected and dried enough to fill their long boat. Leif called the place VINLAND, or Vineland. The collecting of grapes with the hewing and preparing a beautiful kind of timber they found at Vinland, occupied them through the autumn and winter; and early in the spring they returned to Greenland.

The return of Leif to Greenland became at once the general topic of conversation; and Thorwald, his brother, who thought the country had not been sufficiently explored, set sail

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