slavery, rent is impossible; for where there are no tenants there can be no landlords. There are capitalists and black stock, and what these black stock produce, is no more rent than the profits of a steam-engine or a mill are. In a state of serfdom, again, rent cannot exist it is confounded with wages and profit; so that the social and political condition of a people is a determining cause of the existence or not of rent. Were the slave-holding states of America ever so advanced in general civilization, rent could never exist, for the landowners are capitalists, using them as machines were the lands even sublet, the original owner would be like the sleeping partner in a commercial concern he would have a share in the profits, but in no case could these profits come under the description of rent. Thus it is that the social condition of a people lies at the root of those questions which seem so purely economical.

We accept heartily Mr. Cairnes' definition of political economy. It satisfies the two conditions of a good definition,-it is both comprehensive and precise. "Political economy,"

he says, "is the science which, accepting as ultimate facts the principles of human nature, and the physical laws of the external world, investigates the laws of the production and distribution of wealth which result from their combined action." Viewed as a branch of political science, we cannot estimate its value too highly. The laws of nature and of mind are constant; the laws of commonwealths vary. To bring the variable quantity into harmony with the constant, must be the highest attainment of legislative wisdom.

Before it was suspected that the laws of mind were as constant as those of matter, it was thought that legislation could turn trade into this channel or that. Sumptuary laws, bounties, monopolies, were all clumsy attempts to bring the fixed into line with the varying. But naturam expellas furca -mankind persisted in taking the shortest road to riches, and so legislators desisted; and the triumph of political economy lies in "thus having accepted as ultimate facts the principles of human nature, and the physical laws of the external world," and

inducing legislators to abandon restrictions which only retarded, but never could stop, the course of trade.

Political economy, we said, was a regulative science. It mediates between the constant laws of mind and matter, on the one hand, and the varying laws of nations, on the other. Generally, and of late, the varying laws have given way to the constant. Legislation has ceased to compete with moral and physical laws. With us the political has yielded to the economical; but in America it is still otherwise. Rightly or wrongly, the people of the United States are attempting to create a manufacturing interest in spite of certain physical laws. They bind their economy to their politics, not, as we do, their polities to their economy. The political object of raising a mercantile class, su persedes the economical, of buying in the cheapest market. How far this is sound policy it would be too wide a question here to enter on. It is, at least, worth notice; and it is a further proof that economy is only a branch of the political science, that the laws of wealth are not final, but only auxiliary to other and higher laws of national progress; and that while they can never be lost sight of, they must be viewed in their subordination to the highest law of all, which is for the national interest.

In conclusion, we would remind Mr. Cairnes of the old Greek proverb that "the half is often more than the whole." A subordinate place in political science is the safest position for political economy. To make it a master science is to excite suspicion against it. The Professor, in his zeal to magnify his office, has claimed too much for it. The "wealth of nations," not its logical method, is its claim to respect. We will listen respectfully to its facts; but its "laws," as laid down by modern professors, are often no laws either of matter or of mind, but assumptions from the present state of society, which is neither constant or the same everywhere. The sailors who cast anchor, as they thought, on an islet, and found out, when lighting their fire, that they were on the back of a sleeping whale, could not be more surprised than Ricardo and his school if the terra firma of rent and wages should heave and dive down into the depths of patriarchal

life again. Were Christian socialism a live, and not a sleeping monster, as now, where would rent and wages disappear? and yet the logical method of political economy is pledged to these distinctions of modern society. It does not see that they are factitious only, not essential, laws of human nature. But as we are already reminded that the half is better than the whole, we leave off in the middle of these sug

gestions, which, perhaps may be realized in some future day of the world, when there shall be no masters or workmen, capital or wages, and political economy only be remembered as an ingenious puzzle to keep society going by selfishness, for want of a higher and nobler principle, as dogs turned spits before wheel-work and jacks were thought of.

Ir was suggested in our last chapter, that the most mythological portion of the most classical prose work in the old Norse language, the Ynglinga Saga, with which Snorro Sturleson's Heimskringla, or Chronicle of the Kings of Norway, commences, was by no means so purely Norse as is usually imagined. It was more or less Lithuanic or Prussian. Stranger still, it was not without Indian elements. The specimens of its legends, stories, fables, or (as the current phraseology somewhat more scientifically calls them) myths, were a few out of many. The earlier the reign of the king under whom they occurred, the more purely mythic they were. Towards the end, however, the character of the Saga changes, and the kings with whom it leaves off stand almost on the edge of the field of history. A little light shines over them, though still obscure and flickering. Light, however, there is, inasmuch as we can see our way to evidence of some kind.

The second Saga gives us the reign of a king who may have had an actual skald about him, whose business it was to attend him in his battles, and to celebrate them when they were over. Such, at least, is the conventional character of the Norwegian and Danish poet. He generally saw what he described. It is doubtful, however, whether all were thus minstrels militant, after the fashion of Tyrtæus and Taillefer. It is only certain that some of them were. So, too, were some of the kings

themselves. Indeed it may freely be admitted, that if they were worse poets than Archilochus and Horace they were better soldiers.

The king in question is Halfdan the Black, whose son, Harold the Fair-haired, is especially stated to have had a skald. What the son had, the father may also have possessed. There is no evidence, however, to such being the actual fact; indeed, the Saga of Halfdan the Black, the second of the Sagas of the Heimskringla, is the only one in which no single line of verse is quoted. It is prose from first to last, without a single quotation from a single singer, and, in being thus prosaic, it stands alone.

Up to the death of Halfdan the Black there are but few notices of any expeditions over sea. The time for the so-called Sea-kings has not yet come. But it is not far off. Harold Haarfagre's Saga notices several, especially Rolf, the conqueror of Normandy. Particularly, too, does it claim him as a Norwegian-a fact for which there is no historical evidence whatever. The Rolf of the nearest contemporary historians is a Dane, the proof that the Norwegians were called Danes being very unsatisfactory. The testimony, however, that the Danes were called Northmen (indeed the northern Germans were sometimes so denominated) is decided. I believe it to be a pure piece of patriotic book-work by which Snorro makes the conqueror of Normandy a Norwegian. It is true

enough that he was a Northman true, too, that when Snorro wrote Northman he may have meant Norwegian rather than Dane. But Snorro's notice (for our dates must be carefully attended to) is full 300 years later than the time of Rolf, Rollo, or Rou, and the foundation of the noble, and, afterwards, royal line of the dukes of Normandy and the kings of England. In the Saga under consideration, which, upon the whole, is accurate in the general outline of its narrative, Ireland is mentioned more than once, merely, however, as one of the countries which, like England, Bretland, Valland, Vendland, and Estland, were harried by the Norse corsairs.

We pass over the reigns of Harald Graafeld and Sigurt Hiort to that of their successors.

Of Norwegian kings, whose residence was in Norway, as opposed to those who effected permanent settlement in Great Britain and Ireland, no one seems to have had more to do with Dublin than Olaf, the son of Tryggve, the son of Olaf, the son of Harald Harfagre. He began life as a wanderer on Courland and Livonia, in the domain of the old Prussians, the Slavonians, and the Estonians.

He married, too, the daughter of Burislaf, king of the Vends. He sojourned three years in Vendland, and in the fourth his queen, Geyra, fell sick, and died. After her death Vendland grew hateful in the eyes of Olaf. He had no comfort in remaining-not, at least, in remaining quietly. So he collected a crew, and manned a fleet of war ships, and set out on a plundering expedition, first landing on the coast of Friesland, next among the Saxons, (in Germany), thirdly in Flanders, fourthly in Britain. The exact details of his line of coasting are given, and they help to verify the doctrine so often laid down by the present writer, viz., that whilst the Danes moved across the island, the Norwegians went round it. Olaf Tryggvason did so, at all events. From Friesland he passed over to Northumberland, where he plundered, and in Northumberland he turned his face towards Scotland. Thence he went to the Hebrides, thence to Man, thence to Ireland. Having ravaged Ireland, he landed on the Scilly Isles

at the end of the fourth year of his cruise. A wise man, or fortuneteller-probably a hermit, of British blood-from Cornwall, lived in the Scilly Isles, having a great reputation for accurate prophesy. Olaf tried his skill; but being himself so tall and comely that he could never show himself to even a stranger without being fixed upon as the famous king, he picked out the likeliest man amongst his followers to represent him, and sent him to the fortuneteller with orders to say that he was the king, come to consult him. When he came to the seer, however, he was detected offhand. "Thou art not the king. Go back, and be faithful to him.' The man returned, told his story, and so convinced the king of the prophet's skill that he visited him himself, and asked him if he could foresee what was to become of his kingdom. The seer answers

"Thou wilt become a great king, and do famous deeds. Many men wilt thou bring over to baptism. To know this, listen: on thy return to thy ships many of thy men will conspire against thee, and a battle will follow, in which many of them will fall. Thyself will be wounded, almost mortally, will be carried upon a shield to thy ship, and in seven days will recover.'

All this happened. The king returned, and the men conspired. The wound was given. The sore was healed. The credit of the hermit increased. The king visited him again, and was persuaded to be a Christian.

Olaf let himself be baptized, and all his followers were baptized with him. He remained there and got about him priests and other learned men. Was this in the Scilly Isles ? Scarcely. It was more probably in Cornwall or Ireland. It was manifestly in one of the Keltic parts of Britain. The narrative goes on and says, that when "the king left Scilly he sailed for England;" not, however, as a pirate or invader. He was now a Christian, and England was a Christian country. A thing or parliament was now held (was this in England?) When the thing was assembled a queen called Gyda came to it. She was sister to the king of Dublin, and the king of Dublin was Olaf Cyrre (Olaf Curan), a Northman, whose name will be noticed again. Olaf Cyrre is the best known of all the Scandinavian

kings of Ireland. At present, however, the Olaf under notice is Olaf Tryggvason. The names, be it noticed, occasionally repeat themselves alternately, and Tryggva is the son of an Olaf, just as Olaf is the son of a Tryggva. It is Miltiades the son of Cimon, and Cimon the son of Miltiades over again. Queen Gyda-her more proper title was that of a countess of royal blood-was a widow. Her husband had been an earl in England; and after his death she succeeded to his property and power. A great fightingman named Alfin then made love to her. She answered his addresses by saying she would choose for herself, and she called a thing accordingly. Alfin came there in his very best attire, and Olaf was there too; but he was in his ordinary working, or fighting, gear. He had a coarse top garment, over a coarse and worn suit of clothes. He stood with his men apart from the other Thingsmen; however, the queen, or countess, observed him:

"Queen-What manner of man are

you?"

Olaf-My name is Olaf; I am a stranger here."

Gyda-Wilt thou have me for a wife, if I choose thee for a husband ""

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Olaf To that I will not say no. Who are you, and what is your blood and family?"

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Gyda-My name is Gyda. My father is king of Ireland; my husband was an earl in England. Since his death 1 have held his earldom; have been sought by many; have refused all."

Olaf and Gyda thereupon agreed to be man and wife. Alfin being enraged thereat, challenged Olaf to a holm-gang, or a fight, either single, or with a fixed number of followers. The time and place were settled. Olaf then said to his men, "Do as I do.” He carried a large axe, with which he knocked Alfin's sword out of his hand; and all his men did the same to all the swords of all the men of Alfin. Then Olaf bound Alfin, and his men bound Alfin's men. Their lives, however, were spared, Alfin being ordered to leave the country-empty-handed; for Olaf took his property, and after that lived with Gyda sometimes in Ireland, sometimes in England.

The first of these bards, in point of antiquity, is Braga, surnamed the Old, a poet more after the fashion of Musæus or Linus than of Hesiod or

Pindar-a hero rather than a mere mortal, a mythic rather than a historical personage a god, perhaps, more than even a hero-the analogue of Apollo rather than Orpheus or Amphion. When the great warriors of the north departed this life, and crossed Bifrost, or the rainbow, to take up their residence with Thor and Odin, in Valhalla, where unlimited ale was to be their drink, and fat pork their meat, it was Braga who welcomed them, with his harp and song, and related their actions on earth to their peers and fellows in the sky. As these songs were chiefly sung in the world above, few of them have come down to us. In the Ynglinga Saga Braga is quoted but once, to the effect, that when Odin had settled himself in Odinsee, in the island of Fyen, he sent Gefion across the water into Sweden, where Gylfe was king-King Gylfe, whom we noticed in the preceding chapter, with whom Thor had the trial of strength and wit. It was Gylfe who gave Gefion a yolk of land. Having got this, she went to Yotunheim and became, pro tem., the wife of a giant, and after that the mother of four sons. These she changed into oxen, which she yoked to a plough, and drove through the land which Gylfe had given her. Thus was made that part of the Baltic which lies between Sealand and Sweden. Thus far Braga the Old. The remainder of the narrative is Snorro's, and I give it as a piece of early geology. The promontories of Sealand correspond, says he, with the fiords of Sweden. Is this a tradition? No; it is an inference.

The skalds who, besides Braga, are quoted in the Ynglinga Saga, .., for the earliest portion of Snorro's history, are two in number-Thiodolf of Hvine, and Eyvind Skaldaspiller, the former the older. Eyvind Skaldaspiller is the authority for the genealogy of the Sæmings and portions of the story of Niord. Thiodolf of Hvine is answerable for a great deal more. He is the oldest of the skalds whose name is known-older than any prose writer by more than two centuries. We shall do well to fix his date, and compare the state of literature which it represents with what we find in England amongst the Anglo-Saxons. Thiodolf of Hvine was skald to King Harold Haar

fagre (the Fair-haired), who was cotemporary with Athelstan. He was the first king who ruled over the whole of Norway, having effected, partly by force and partly by policy, the expulsion or subjection of the numerous petty potentates who, as so many lords of the valley, or princes of the fiord, had hitherto held sway over the country. With the consolidation of Harold's power the general history of the Northmen as pirates and colonists is connected. Driven from home, they were forced upon the world at large, and took to the sea. They had, doubtless, done this before. În Harald's time, however, their actions in different and widely-distant countries had become prominent. Iceland is discovered, Normandy colonized, Orkney and Shetland held as Norse earldoms, Scotland harried, England protected only by the power and vigour of Athelstan. But the inglorious days of Ethelred the Unready and his Danegelt are at hand.

However, Athelstan is now on the throne. As the story runs, he sends an ambassador to Harold with a sword, as a gift. Harold accepts the same, and compromises himself by doing so. "You have taken," says the envoy, "our king's sword, and, therefore, art his liegeman." This Harold treated as a jest. Next year he plays his own game. He has a son, named Hakon, whom he entrusts to a brave warrior, named Hauk Haabrok, with orders to use him, in England, much as Athelstan had used the sword in Norway. So Hauk approaches King Athelstan, and presents the boy to him, saying, "Harold the King bids thee foster his servant-girl's child." This angers the king at first; he ends, however, in adopting Hakon, who succeeds his father as king of Norway, under the names of Hakon the Good and Hakon Athelstan's-foster-son. Whilst in England he was baptized, and it was not until his father's death that he returned. Athelstan gave him his outfit a choice of good ships, manned by English sailors.

Now, whatever may be said to the contrary, it is beyond doubt, that before the time of Thiodolf of Hvine, who sang in the reign of Harald Haarfagre, who was the cotemporary of Athelstan, there is, with the ex

ception of the fabulous Braga, neither skald nor sagaman known, by either name or works, throughout the whole length and breadth of Scandinavian Norway, Scandinavian Sweden, Scandinavian Denmark. Signs of the existence of an alphabet are equally wanting; for whatever may be said about the antiquity of the so-called runes, not one of them transcends the date of the introduction of Christianity. Thiodolf of Hvine stands at the head of Norse literature; and Thiodolf of Hvine was eminently in contact with English, or Anglo-Saxon influences. The skalds who sang (we cannot say wrote) before him are like the brave men before Agamemnon. They may have had existence. They may have been numerous. If so, neither their numbers nor their merits have preserved them. non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem habenda est ratio.

De

Though we are not warranted in saying that the Norse metres are of Anglo-Saxon origin, we must remember, that though no Scandinavian skald is known anterior to the time of Thiodolf of Hvine, Anglo-Saxon poems of earlier date are numerouspoems in form and spirit so like the corresponding compositions of the northmen as to look very like the models of them; the metres being the same, the imagery the same, and the subjects allied.

Thiodolf of Hvine composed his chief poem at the command, or request, of Rogvald, Earl of Orkney. It ends with Olaf, the father of the earl himself, and goes up to Odin. It is a pedigree, in short, of the Rognvald family, whom it makes out to be, like the kings of the Iliad, heaven-descended. As truly as a Greek royal line ends in Jupiter, does a Norse ascend to Odin. In genealogies of the kind the three last generations, at the utmost, may be considered as historical.

That Thiodolf was less of a bookman than his Anglo-Saxon contemporaries is likely. He was nearer the days of paganism. He was, perhaps, a pagan. Nevertheless, there is one passage at least, in the fragments of his writings that have come down to us which suggests that he was a man who wrote, in some degree from his learning, as a topographer rather than a simple poet. The story of