were, however different in degree, in the same ages. There is a common strain running through all the literature of the period, although individual genius soars far above the flight of its contemporaries. Now the spirit of composition of the Saga is very different from that of the venerable Bede, who was contemporary with the heroes and scalds of the historical Saga, or of Adam of Bremen, or from that of Matthew Paris, who was himself in Norway in 1248; but it is not different from that which spread over Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, after the impulse given to works of imagination by remembrances or traditions of the crusades and of chivalry. There is a manifest distinction in the history of literature to be made between the compositions which preceded, or were contemporary with the first crusades, and those which in the succeeding ages had caught a spark of fire from the east. The Saga are totally different from the dull chronicles of the former period, but are analogous to and in the spirit of the literature of the latter, in which the adventures of heroes or knights were related by troubadours and minstrels. The Saga are not the production of a single genius soaring above the taste and spirit of his times, but are a voluminous body of literature, and consequently the taste and spirit in which they are composed must have been generally diffused, and, in default of the positive proof of manuscript and date, must be taken as indicative of the real age in which they were composed. Torfæus gives a list of 186 Saga, Müller of about 197; but

of all the manuscripts extant, whether on skin or paper, few, Müller states, can be admitted to be of so early writing as the thirteenth century, the greater number of the fourteenth, and some as late as the seventeenth century. It is more easy to believe that men following the taste and spirit of their own age, composed the Saga about the time when they appear to have been actually committed to writing, giving them out as more ancient productions, and probably not materially altering, although embellishing historical facts, and attaching to them the manners and ideas which they thought suitable, than it is to believe that men composed them four centuries before, auticipating the taste and spirit of composition of later and more civilised ages, and that they were transmitted for 400 years by oral tradition, to be then committed to writing in the original unchanged language; and which, in the course of the next 400 years, has changed so much as to be a dead language even in Iceland itself.

In the present literature of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, the Saga occupy so important a place their poets, historians, and antiquaries, draw so largely from this source- that to understand them, a knowledge of the Saga mythology is almost as necessary as that of the Greek to understand the classics. This reference to ideas, manners, and modes of living so vaguely known, is probably unfavourable to the development of the literature of these countries. All that relates to the Scandinavian mythological, or heroic age, is

reserve.

too far removed from our belief and modes of life to be brought home to our feelings or imagination. The genius of Öhlenschlager himself, on whom the Danish critics boast the mantle of Goëthe has descended, fails in the attempt. Thor and Freya are, in European literature, as ineffective poetical machinery as Jupiter and Venus, and must repose on the same lumber shelf. But the foreigner should give his opinion of the literature of a people with He may understand their language for the ordinary purposes of life, and even of science; but the native only can enter into its poetry, and feel its beauties of expression fully. In Swedish and Danish this reserve is particularly necessary, because both languages are remarkably rich in words consecrated to poetry. Belman, the most celebrated of the Swedish poets, is not intelligible even to many of his countrymen; and the Danish, being a language still more cultivated, and in literature standing next to the German, has a poetic diction far removed from the current language of prose. A man may be able to ask for bread and cheese at a roadside alehouse, and chat with the landlady, or read the newspaper, without being exactly qualified to judge of Shakspeare, Goëthe, Öhlenschlager, Belman, Tegner, Frantzen, or whoever may be of the highest literary name in the country.

Westeraas, June. A company of soldiers, as I thought from their appearance, of the footguards, marched into the town yesterday, and the captain and six men were billeted upon my land

lord. They were remarkably fine looking grenadiers, well dressed in white round jackets with yellow epaulets, and blue trousers, and all their appointments seemed substantial, clean, and soldierlike. The only part of their equipment, perhaps, not altogether as good as in our service, was copper instead of block-tin canteens. The soldier's ration may often contract acidity, which renders a copper vessel for his soup less suitable. These men were well set up, evidently well drilled, and at ease under arms. Their evening parade upon the street before our door struck me very much. After the roll was called and the reports and orders delivered, the commanding-officer called one of the soldiers out of the ranks, it appeared to me without turn or selection, and the whole company taking off their caps at once, this man repeated the Lord's Prayer, after which they all sung a hymn very beautifully, and the parade was dismissed. This morning early, about two o'clock, the company mustered before the door again to march to their next halting place before the heat of the day set in. Between sleeping and waking, I heard the same service repeated the Lord's Prayer and a morning hymn sung, before they marched off. The service was not hurried over. It lasted from fifteen to twenty minutes, and was gone through as slowly and solemnly as in any religious meeting. This is a remnant of the military practice of the great Gustavus Adolphus, which has been retained in the Swedish army since the thirty years' war.

I was surprised when my landlord told me today, that these soldiers were not of the guards, but merely a company of one of the ordinary regiments, (the Westmanland) going to the place at which the other companies were assembling for summer manœuvres, and that these men were all Indeldta soldiers; that is, soldiers occupying and living upon such little farms as I had often observed on the road side, as in some way connected with the military establishment. This Indeldta system is peculiar to Sweden. It owes its origin to Gustavus Adolphus, the man who, of all historical characters, has the most strikingly anticipated, both in his military and civil ideas, the improvements of our age. He first brought the formation and movements of military bodies into accordance with the weapon they had to use, the musket. Although matchlocks had been introduced long before his time, the pike or spear had not been entirely exploded, and military formations and movements were all in reference to the latter weapon. Tilly's troops at the commencement of the thirty years' war were formed in line nine ranks deep-the spear of sixteen and even eighteen feet long being still considered the main weapon in the soldier's hands. It probably was so. The matchlock was so heavy, that the soldier trailed an iron fork in his hand to stick in the ground, and rest his piece on when he fired. His powder was carried in cartridges dangling to a bandouilliere or belt, going over one shoulder, at the end of which hung his lighted match. The bullets were carried in a