ringla_, the _Saga of Olaf Tryggvason_, the _Flatey Book_,
and others.

This sketch does not pretend to indicate the quantity of Old Norse
literature. An idea of that is obtained by considering the fact that
eleven columns of the ninth edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ are
devoted to recording the works of that body of writings.

II.

THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF LATIN.

THOMAS GRAY (1716-1771).

In the eighteenth century, Old Norse literature was the lore of
antiquarians. That it is not so to-day among English readers is due to a
line of writers, first of whom was Thomas Gray. In the thin volume of
his poetry, two pieces bear the sub-title: "An Ode. From the Norse
Tongue." These are "The Fatal Sisters," and "The Descent of Odin," both
written in 1761, though not published until 1768. These poems are among
the latest that Gray gave to the world, and are interesting aside from
our present purpose because they mark the limit of Gray's progress
toward Romanticism.

We are not accustomed to think of Gray as a Romantic poet, although we
know well that the movement away from the so-called Classicism was begun
long before he died. The Romantic element in his poetry is not obvious;
only the close observer detects it, and then only in a few of the poems.
The Pindaric odes exhibit a treatment that is Romantic, and the Norse
and Welsh adaptations are on subjects that are Romantic. But we must go
to his letters to find proof positive of his sympathy with the breaking
away from Classicism. Here are records of a love of outdoors that
reveled in mountain-climbing and the buffeting of storms. Here are
appreciations of Shakespeare and of Milton, the like of which were not
often proclaimed in his generation. Here is ecstatic admiration of
ballads and of the Ossian imitations, all so unfashionable in the
literary culture of the day. While dates disprove Lowell's statement in
his essay on Gray that "those anti-classical yearnings of Gray began
after he had ceased producing," it is certain that very little of his
poetic work expressed these yearnings. "Elegance, sweetness, pathos, or
even majesty he could achieve, but never that force which vibrates in
every verse of larger moulded men." Change Lowell's word "could" to
"did," and this sentence will serve our purpose here.

Our interest in Gray's Romanticism must confine itself to the two odes
from the Old Norse. It is to be noted that the first transplanting to
English poe