ent on it by the band
of enthusiasts, and it was truly a little triumph of humanism. Further
editions were reprinted during the sixteenth century at Basic and at
Frankfort-on-Main, but they did not improve in any way upon the first;
and the next epoch in the study of Saxo was made by the edition and
notes of Stephanus Johansen Stephanius, published at Copenhagen in
the middle of the seventeenth century (1644). Stephanius, the first
commentator on Saxo, still remains the best upon his language. Immense
knowledge of Latin, both good and bad (especially of the authors Saxo
imitated), infinite and prolix industry, a sharp eye for the text, and
continence in emendation, are not his only virtues. His very bulkiness
and leisureliness are charming; he writes like a man who had eternity to
write in, and who knew enough to fill it, and who expected readers of an
equal leisure. He also prints some valuable notes signed with the famous
name of Bishop Bryniolf of Skalholt, a man of force and talent, and
others by Casper Barth, "corculum Musarum", as Stephanius calls him,
whose textual and other comments are sometimes of use, and who worked
with a MS. of Saxo. The edition of Klotz, 1771, based on that of
Stephanius, I have but seen; however, the first standard commentary is
that begun by P. E. Muller, Bishop of Zealand, and finished after his
death by Johan Velschow, Professor of History at Copenhagen, where the
first part of the work, containing text and notes, was published in
1839; the second, with prolegomena and fuller notes, appearing in 1858.
The standard edition, containing bibliography, critical apparatus based
on all the editions and MS. fragments, text, and index, is the admirable
one of that indefatigable veteran, Alfred Holder, Strasburg, 1886.

Hitherto the translations of Saxo have been into Danish. The first that
survives, by Anders Soffrinson Vedel, dates from 1575, some sixty years
after the first edition. In such passages as I have examined it is
vigorous, but very free, and more like a paraphrase than a translation,
Saxo's verses being put into loose prose. Yet it has had a long life,
having been modified by Vedel's grandson, John Laverentzen, in 1715,
and reissued in 1851. The present version has been much helped by the
translation of Seier Schousbolle, published at Copenhagen in 1752. It is
true that the verses, often the hardest part, are put into periphrastic
verse (by Laurentius Thura, c. 1721), and Schousboll