"Be thou the friend of thy friend, and of his friend; but no man should be the friend of his enemy's friend."

"Hast thou a friend in whom thou confidest, and from whom thon desirest to obtain something, mingle thy heart with his, exchange gifts with him, and visit him oft. The untrodden way is soon overgrown with grass.'

"Put not thy trust in a woman's word; the heart of woman is versatile as the turning-wheel with which it was formed, and deceit nestles in her bosom."

"He who would win a virgin's heart, must whisper to her fair words, praise her beauty, and offer her rich gifts."

"Riches pass away in the twinkling of an eye; the most inconstant of friends are they."

"I have seen the chambers of the rich man filled with goods, and I have seen his children begging their bread."

"The foolish man thinks to avoid his doom if he escapes the peril of war; but old age will put an end to his life, though he be safe from the spear.'

"

"Flocks and herds perish, friends and relations die, we ourselves must die; but one thing I know which never perishes,--the fame of the good man. pp. 75-77.

Of the historical lays in the poetical Edda, the most celebrated is that entitled the Völundar Quida; upwards of twenty other songs, added to this, make up a collection of heroic poems similar to the old Teutonic epic, the Nibelungenlied, and celebrate the wondrous fortunes of the famous artist Völundar, the adventures of various heroes of romance, and of Attila and his Huns. The same personages, clothed indeed with less of mythic splendour, form the heroes of the Teutonic poem.

The scene is infinitely diversified, and includes the complicated history of the Franks, Huns, and Burgundians, in their various wanderings, wars, and conquests on the breaking up of the Roman empire. Not only was the great Scandinavian family which occupied the Peninsula, now forming the kingdoms of Sweden, and Norway, and the isles of the Baltic and the Northern ocean, knit together by the most intimate ties of a common origin and religion, language, manners, laws, and government, but it was closely blended with the fortunes of the Franks, Saxons, and other Teutonic tribes, in the same manner as the Dorians, Ionians, and other cognate nations of ancient Greece, were mutually connected together. Hence, their poetic and mythic fictions bear a strong analogy to each other, and hence the resemblance between their early heroic and popular poetry. This cyclus of epic lays has all the interest of a complicated drama, from the variety of events, and of characters which are introduced and pourtrayed with exquisite skill; the same continually changing from one country to another, and in which might be found the materials of many tragedies and tragic romances. The beautiful allegory of the dragon who conceals the treasure, and, transmitting it from hand to hand, makes it the continual stimulus of new crimes, of constantly increasing atrocity, and illustrates the dreadful power of the auri sacra fames over the heart of man, is the same in the Teutonic as in the Scandinavian collection.'-p. 82.

The prose Edda is an assemblage of various traditions, legends,

and fables, forming a sort of Pantheon, explanatory of the mythology in the poetical collection. Of the Icelandic sagas, some have been handed down from oral tradition, others appeared for the first time in the shape of written compositions. They are generally relations of the actions of distinguished chieftains, mixed up more or less with mythological and poetical embellishments. The more modern sagas strongly resemble the chronicles and Romans of the middle ages, with this exception, that they may in general be considered much superior to the latter, so far as the truth of history is concerned.

The annals of our own country bear sufficient testimony to the wild love of enterprize, and predatory spirit by which the Scandinavians, on the coast of Europe especially, were formerly distinguished. Among them, 'the occupation of a pirate was considered not only lawful but honourable.' They were, moreover, as they still continue to be for the most part, very poor; they lived, when at home, chiefly by fishing and the chase, and hence, as population increased, a usage grew up which ultimately had the force of a law, under which a portion of the people were periodically expelled from heir native soil, in order to provide for themselves elsewhere.

The Scandinavian nations were broken into petty states, like the tribes of Greece in its heroic age, each of which had its chieftain or king, and all of whom were frequently engaged in implacable wars, the result of hereditary feuds. These chieftains, at first elective, by degrees became hereditary. Sometimes the succession was divided, the younger sons retaining the title of kings, and becoming sea-rovers: at others, they agreed, when there were two sons, that they should reign alternately for a limited period, one over the sea, and the other over the land. Thus the practice of searoving became the favourite pursuit, and, it might almost be said, the most graceful accomplishment of princes and nobles, and was surrounded with all the lustre of chivalry. The younger sons of the kings and jarls, who had no other inheritance but the ocean, naturally collected around their standards the youth of the inferior orders, who were equally destitute. Thus the best and bravest of the nation were launched upon the waves, and the chieftains who followed this mode of life are distinguished in the Sagas by the appropriate appellation of Sea-kings: "And they are rightly named Sea-kings," says the author of the Ynlinga-Saga, "who never seek shelter under a roof, and never drain their drinking horn at a cottage fire."-p. 135.

Piratical expeditions were fitted out annually, and in order to provide for these, the coasts of Scandinavia vere, from very early times, divided into districts, each being obliged to furnish a certain number of vessels, which were manned by a compulsory conscription, similar to our own press-gang system. The vessels were, for the most part, of a diminutive size, but very numerous, and it is a striking proof of the salutary influence of Christianity, that these expeditions, so much dreaded by the nations against which they were directed, were continued with undiminished fierceness, until the countries from which they proceeded, were completely comprehended within the circle of the Christian church. Indeed, for some

years before that period, the incursions of these maritime rovers assumed the character of a religious war, in consequence of the attempts made by Charlemagne to force that religion upon the Saxons on the Elbe. Hence the resentment of their neighbours and fellow pagans in Jutland and the islands of the Danish Archipelago, was roused to a pitch of extreme fury, which fell with terrible force upon the churches and monasteries of France and England.

We need not follow Mr. Wheaton through his well-written epitome of the different expeditions undertaken by the Northmen against this country, Scotland, Ireland, France, Italy, and Spain. To one of these enterprises only shall we allude, as it indicates with peculiar force the barbarous bravery with which they were conducted. The leader on this occasion was Hastings, a name celebrated in those days of piracy.

'Hastings proposed to the sons of Ragnar Lodbrook, and his other followers, an expedition against Rome, of whose wealth and splendour they had heard much, without knowing precisely in what part of Italy the capital of the Christian world was situate. He set sail with a hundred barks, pillaged the coasts of Spain on his voyage, and even attacked huz of Mauratania in Africa, penetrated into the Mediterranean, and ravage! the Balearic isles. They finally entered an Italian port, which they mistook for Rome, but which was Luna, an ancient city founded by the Etruscans, and whose high walls flanked with towers, and crowned with public edifices, deceived the northern adventurers. The inhabitants were celebrating the festival of Christmas in the cathedral, when the news was spread among them of the arrival of a fleet of unknown strangers. The church was instantly deserted, and the citizens ran to shut the gates, and prepared to defend their town. Hastings sent a herald to inform the count and bishop of Luna that he and his band were Northmen, conquerors of the Franks, who designed no harm to the inhabitants of Italy, but merely sought to repair their shattered barks. In order to inspire more confidence, Hastings pretended to be weary of the wandering life he had so long led, and desired to find repose in the bosom of the Christian church. The bishop and the count furnished the fleet with the needful succour; Hastings was baptised; but still his Norman followers were not admitted within the city walls. Their chief was then obliged to resort to another stratagem he feigned to be dangerously ill; his camp resounded with the lamentations of his followers; he declared his intention of leaving the rich booty he had acquired to the church, provided they would grant him sepulture in holy ground. The wild howl of the Normans soon announced the death of their chieftain. The inhabitants followed the funeral procession to the church, but at the moment they were about to deposit his apparently lifeless body, Hastings started up from his coffin, and, seizing his sword, struck down the officiating bishop. His followers instantly obeyed this signal of treachery: they drew from under their garments their concealed weapons, massacred the clergy and others who assisted at the ceremony, and spread havoc and consternation throughout the town. Having thus become master of Luna, the Norman chieftain discovered his error, and found that he was still far from Rome, which was not likely to fall so easy a prey. After having transported on board his barks the wealth of the city, as well as the most beautiful women,

and the young

men capable of bearing arms or of rowing, he put to sea, intending to return to the North.

The Italian traditions as to the destruction of this city, resemble more nearly the romance of Romeo and Juliet than the history of the Scandinavian adventurer. According to these accounts, the prince of Luna was inflamed with the beauty of a certain young empress, then travelling in company with the emperor her husband. Their passion was mutual, and the two lovers had recourse to the following stratagem, in order to accomplish their union. The empress feigned to be grievously sick; she was believed to be dead; her funeral obsequies were duly celebrated; but she escaped from the sepulchre, and secretly rejoined her lover. The emperor had no sooner heard of their crime, than he marched to attack the residence of the ravisher, and avenged himself by the entire destruction of the once flourishing city of Luna. The only point of resemblance between these two stories, consists in the romantic incident of the destruction of the city by means of a feigned death, a legend which spread abroad over Italy and France.'-pp. 164-167.

On its return from the Mediterranean, the fleet of Hastings was overtaken by a tremendous storm, which compelled him to seek shelter in the Rhone. Sailing up the stream, he ravaged the towns and monasteries on both sides. This example was followed by myriads of his countrymen, who pursued their way to Spain and Africa, extending their ravages to the coasts even of the Greek empire.

The author gives a full and an interesting account of the progress of Christianity in the North, commencing with the missions of Ebbo, archbishop of Rheims, and Halitgar, a monk, who accompanied him as his associate. Although the labours of these pious men were, to a certain degree, successful, yet the great work of the general conversion of the North was reserved for Ancharius, a Benedictine monk, of the abbey of Corvey, a most excellent instrument for such a purpose. In his episcopal visitations,' we are told, he constantly waited on the poor, at table, before he took his own frugal repast, and often retired from the world with a few select companions, to his solitary retreat, in the convent of Ramslo. Even the love of fame, that "last infirmity of noble minds," and which in his ardent heart was naturally strong, was anxiously suppressed and made subordinate to higher and purer motives of action. He continued to be worshipped (i. e. honoured) as the tutelary saint of the northern nations, until the period of the reformation, and still merits their reverence and gratitude, as their deliverer from a bloody and barbarous superstition, and a benefactor who opened to them the career of civilization.'

Mr. Wheaton, after giving a succinct account of the establishment of the Normans in France, concludes his history with the battle of Hastings, whereby they also obtained a permanent footing in England, thus presenting us, in a single, compact, and welldigested volume, with details which hitherto could only have been gathered, with much labour, from a great variety of sources.

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ART. II. The Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce, written by himself, during a residence in Abyssinia, from the year 1810 to 1819. Together with Mr. Coffin's account of his visit to Gondar. Edited by J. J. Halls, Esq. In two volumes. 8vo. London: Colburn and

Bentley. 1831.

PREVIOUSLY to the publication of the two journals comprised in these volumes, our knowledge of Abyssinia was almost exclusively derived from the travels of Bruce and of Mr. Salt, the late wellknown consul general of Egypt. Of the older writers who have transmitted to us accounts of that interesting country, Father Lobo is perhaps the most celebrated. He accompanied the Patriarch Alphonso Mendez, who was sent into Abyssinia in 1624, and having sojourned there for nine years, he produced a description of the country much superior in clearness and accuracy to the works of any of the travellers who had preceded him. Several Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries visited that portion of Africa, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but their published accounts of it, as well, indeed, as that of Father Lobo, have been but little read in England. The travels of Bruce had at first a very different fate everybody read, but nobody believed them, so novel, for the most part, and so marvellous in some instances, were the facts which he interwove in his narrative. He commenced his journey in Abyssinia towards the close of 1769, and his work was before the public for nearly thirty years before it was brought into some degree of repute, for credibility, by the testimony of Mr. Salt, one of those rare and worthy men, whose evidence is at once admitted upon all hands as sacred and indisputable. Bruce's volumes are not now read so extensively as they were some years ago, when they were very generally assumed to be a parcel of impudent in-. ventions; but by way of compensation to his fame, they are now believed, and more recent travellers have shown that, with the exception of some few points, in which the personal vanity of the writer was concerned, and some others upon which he probably trusted to the reports of others, he has really exhibited a true as well as an animated picture of the country.

Lord Valentia, now the Earl of Mountmorris, who was employed to make a survey of the Western coast of the Red Sea in the early part of the present century, and whose interesting account of his travels in those regions has been before the public some twenty years, was charged also with the task of exploring the interior of Abyssinia. For some reason, however, his lordship preferred to depute Mr. Salt, who was then his secretary, upon that mission, and we have the result of that gentleman's proceedings in the narrative of them, which forms not the least valuable portion of his lordship's work. One of Mr. Salt's attendants upon this journey, which took place in 1805, was Nathaniel Pearce, the author of the principal journal now before us, who had previously been employed

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