these four men. Murchison may be defined as the practical, shrewd, successful man. The noble Sedgwick had the divine gift of genius. Phillips was essentially the politic man; and of Lyell it may be affirmed that his chief characteristics were those of a retiring student. Each worked at the great problems offered by geology in his own way, and to their combined labours is mainly due the wonderful history of the changes which the earth has undergone. We close the memoirs of Murchison's life with a hope that some one will rise to tell the story of the other heroes as ably as Professor Geikie has done his part. ART. VIII.-The Early Kings of Norway; also an Essay on the Portraits of John Knox. By THOMAS CARLYLE. London: 1875. FOUR centuries and a half of time and the reigns of more 6 kings than we can count on our fingers though we had twenty instead of ten, all summed up in two hundred and three pages of large type, form a literary feat which even the genius of Mr. Carlyle fails to accomplish satisfactorily. We cannot help regretting that the Essay on the Portraits of John Knox, interesting though it is, which runs on to another hundred pages, had not been reserved for separate publication, and that the space thus gained had been devoted to Norway and her royal race. But we must take great writers as we find them, and if the author of the Life of Frederick the Great' chooses to show how shortly as well as how lengthily he can treat important periods of history, we must be content to listen to him in the hope of learning something. Let us first inquire from whom Mr. Carlyle himself learnt; what master taught our great master these accidents and elements of Northern History? The main sources of Mr. Carlyle's information, so far as we can gather, are, first, the Heimskringla of Snorro Sturleson, and secondly, the accurate, learned, and unwearied Dahlmann, the German Professor.' These, it must be admitted, would afford materials sufficiently solid to build the very slight superstructure raised out of them in this volume; but when it is added that Mr. Carlyle's knowledge of Snorro is derived from Laing's Translation, which was itself taken from Aal's translation of the original Icelandic, it will be seen that this portion of his work is doubly second-hand, bearing a sad resemblance to that twicecooked cabbage, which, according to the old Greek adage, was 6 6.66 6.66 6 equivalent to death. Nor is the work of the German Professor, accurate, learned, and unwearied though he was, altogether to be relied on. He too was ignorant of the language in which the early history of the Norwegian kings has been handed down to us, not to mention the fact that his History of Denmark was written more than thirty years ago, since which date, inquiry into the history of the North has not stood still either at home or abroad. We could name writers whom Mr. Carlyle has not deigned to consult or to quote, whose inquiries would have thrown more light on his subject than he is aware of, and made his fantastic reproduction of Norwegian history much more lifelike than it is. What can be more puerile and more like a page out of The Percy Anecdotes,' or that still more respectable production The Evenings at 'Home,' than the very first words of the preface to the Early Kings of Norway'? The Icelanders in their long winter had a great habit of writing, and were, and still are, excellent in penmanship," says Dahlmann. . . The Icelanders, it seems, not only made beautiful letters on their paper or parchment, but were laudably observant and desirous of accuracy, and have left us such a collection of narratives-Sagas, literally "Says," as for quantity and quality is unexampled among rude 'nations.' Setting aside their beautiful letters on paper or parchment parchment having been for many centuries their only vehicle for writing, and their letters being in no respect more beautiful than those of other scribes in the Middle Age— it is impossible to give a more false notion of the Sagas and the preservation of Early Northern History than is contained in this passage. In the true Saga age the Icelanders had no 'habit of writing;' they simply told their stories, which were handed down with scrupulous fidelity by word of mouth, and without the use of either ink or pen. When the art of writing came in the true Saga period perished. Just as the printing press extinguished manuscripts, so did manuscripts extinguish Sagas in Iceland and the North. The story once fixed in writing, oral tradition languished. What need to cultivate the memory any more when you had an artificial memory before you in the shape of a written book? Before quitting Mr. Carlyle's preface we cannot forbear to say that he is utterly wrong when he says that next to nothing has been shown in histories of England of the many and strong threads of connexion between English and Norse affairs. The History ' of the Norman Conquest' by Mr. Freeman, and a series of articles on England and Norway in early times, first published years ago by Dr. Dasent in the North British Review,' and since reprinted in his collection of essays called 'Jest and 'Earnest,' would have afforded information much fresher than any to be found in the accurate, learned, and unwearied 'Dahlmann,' and much more original than the crambe repetita' of Snorro Sturleson as presented by Laing. But now we step into the first chapter out of the preface, and stand at once in the awful presence of Harold Harfagr, or Fairhair, who first attempted to consolidate Norway into a kingdom, and ruled the land for more than seventy years, every inch a king. When we say that these seventy stormy years are disposed of in nine pages of wide print, the reader will see how much must be left to the imagination in Mr. Carlyle's sketch. In this book he is the David Cox of history, and his blurred outlines awaken our interest and admiration while they by no means satisfy us. That our sketch may not be so marred, let us say that this mighty prince was born the son of a small kinglet in Westfold, a province of Norway near the modern Christiania, and which lay close to the Swedish border, in the bight of the Bay,' or 'Vik,'* as it was called. It was at the close of the early mythical Viking time, when the old heroes of the Scyldings and the Younglings had fought it out in Denmark and Sweden, when in Sweden. the royal race of Ragnar and his sons had restored the old supremacy of Sweden, and when the king who ruled at Upsala in Svithiod, or Sweden Proper, made claim to be the overking of the North, and as such was certainly acknowledged by Harold's father, Halfdan the Black. From this petty prince and his wife Helga was born, about the year 850, the Charlemagne of Norway, Harold, at first called Shockhead,' and afterwards 'Fairhair.' Round this boy, who was tall and fair and kindly, in after years clustered legends which seemed to foretell his coming glory. His mother dreamt that she stood out in a garden and plucked a thorn out of her sark, but as she plucked it out it grew and grew into a mighty branch, which overshadowed the land, and threw out roots which struck deep into the earth, while its crown reached up to heaven. On every side it burst out in twigs and boughs. Soon afterwards she bore Harold to Halfdan. Halfdan himself was no dreamer, but this dream of his wife begot a wish that he too might dream, * From this word, which we find in the 'wick' and 'wich' in ‘Ber'wick' and 'Greenwich' and many other English names, the Northern pirates of that age were called Vikings' from their habit of lurking in creeks and bays in order to lie in wait for the traders who were their prey. and he betook himself to a wise man. 'Go and sleep in a pigstye,' said the seer; if anything will make a king dream, that will.' The king slept among the swine, and soon fell a-dreaming. He thought he had the fairest hair that man might see. It fell down in locks, some of which touched the ground, some came down to mid-leg, some to his knee, some to his hips, some to his breast, some to his neck, while some only clustered round the crown of his head in small curls. Each lock had its own colour, but one of them was fuller, thicker, fairer, and brighter than the rest. Next morning the seer interpreted the dream to mean that Halfdan's descendants should reign with great glory, though not all with equal fame. That lock, the fairest of all, was in after times taken to betoken the reign of Saint Olaf; and this mention of that pious king probably marks the period when these stories about Halfdan's and his wife's dreams were thrown into shape. When this boy of promise was but ten years old, Halfdan was drowned in the ice when returning from a banquet, and the young Harold was left alone. In The glory of his after life has thrown its beams over his boyhood, but it is likely that at first he had a hard time of it. Even after he had accomplished the task which he set about with such energy and steadfastness, his reign must be considered a failure if judged by the duration of his system. this again he was like the great pattern of the early Middle Age, Charlemagne. The empire in the West and the kingdom in the North fell to pieces after the death of each, because in both cases the system of either ruler existed only in his determined purpose, and had not been assimilated and adopted by the nation as one whole. We agree entirely with Munch in believing that the race of Harold Fairhair was considered, not only by the branches of the race of Ragnar, which ruled both in Sweden and Denmark, but also by his own people, as that of an upstart rebel who had the power but not the right to break away from the old dynasties and make a royal race for himself. This was not accomplished in Norway till the thorough conversion of the kingdom to Christianity in the time of Saint Olaf. With that event, which at once extinguished the last feeling of respect for the monarch of Ragnar's stock who ruled at Upsala, and inspired all Norway with a new spirit of devotion to their martyred king, the independence of the country and its consolidation as a kingdom which could hold its own both in power and in principle with the sister kingdoms of the North, were permanently established. But though Harold was in theory and by right only an upstart king, he had his work to do, and that was hard enough. It was fortunate for him that he was an example of that early vigour both of body and mind which is more common in the South, but which is sometimes found in the North. At ten years old he was strong and tall and handsome, and at the same time shrewd, calculating, and farsighted. His father Halfdan, who was a good lawgiver, had begun to annex the petty kingdoms around him; but on his death all the daw's borrowed plumes fell off, and the young Harold and his guardian and uncle, Guthorm, had much trouble in keeping Westfold. So things lasted awhile, till Harold grew in years and daring, and then he and his uncle fell on their unruly neighbours, slaying some and reducing others to subjection, and in a little while he found himself lord of a wider territory than his father had ever ruled. The dreams were being fulfilled, and the branches of Halfdan's race already overshadowed what would now be called the Province of Christiania, besides stretching north-west into Sogn, beloved of tourists, which outlying province the young king confided to an earl named Atli. It is possible though very unlikely, regard being had to the overbearing and aggressive spirit of the age, that these conquests might have satisfied the adventurous temper of the young king, and that he might have sunk into a lawgiver like Halfdan. But this half-glory was not to befall Harold, and the annals of the time have traced the continuance of his conquests not to policy or kingcraft, but to love. The romantic story is told in two ways, but it is indifferent which we adopt, for both come to the same in the end. There was a fair and proud maiden, by some called Gytha and by some Ragna. The young king saw and loved her, but after the fashion of those days wished to take her not as his full and lawful wife, and sent her a message to that purport. Never,' said the proud girl, will I unloose 'my maiden belt for a king who has no greater realm than a 'few small provinces. Why arises there no king in Norway 'to throw the whole land under his feet like King Eric of Upsala in Sweden and King Gorm in Denmark? Go back and tell King Harold that I will only consent to be his lawful wife if he puts all Norway under him for my sake, and 'rules over it as freely and fully as King Eric over Sweden and King Gorm over Denmark.' The messenger went back and told Harold that this proud maid deserved punishment. Not so,' was his reply, for she has only put me in mind of 'what I ought to have first thought of myself. And now I 'swear by all that I hold holy, and I call the God to witness 'who hath made me and rules all things, that I will never cut |