there forever grovelled in endless stench and
misery. On the contrary, all who gave themselves to warlike actions and
enterprises, to the conquests of their neighbors, and slaughters of
enemies, and died in battle, or of violent deaths upon bold adventures
or resolutions, they went immediately to the vast hall or palace of
Odin, their god of war, who eternally kept open house for all such
guests, where they were entertained at infinite tables, in perpetual
feasts and mirth, carousing every man in bowls made of the skulls of
their enemies they had slain, according to which numbers, every one in
these mansions of pleasure was the most honoured and the best
entertained."[7]

Thus before Gray was born, Temple had written intelligently in English
of the salient features of the Old Norse mythology. Later in the same
essay, he recognized that some of the civil and political procedures of
his country were traceable to the Northmen, and, what is more to our
immediate purpose, he recognized the poetic value of Old Norse song. On
p. 358 occurs this paragraph:

"I am deceived, if in this sonnet (two stanzas of 'Regner Lodbrog'), and
a following ode of Scallogrim there be not a vein truly poetical, and in
its kind Pindaric, taking it with the allowance of the different
climates, fashions, opinions, and languages of such distant countries."

Temple certainly had no knowledge of Old Norse, and yet, in 1679, he
could write so of a poem which he had to read through the Latin. Sir
William had a wide knowledge and a fine appreciation of literature, and
an enthusiasm for its dissemination. He takes evident delight in telling
the fact that princes and kings of the olden time did high honor to
bards. He regrets that classic culture was snuffed out by a barbarous
people, but he rejoices that a new kind came to take its place. "Some of
it wanted not the true spirit of poetry in some degree, or that natural
inspiration which has been said to arise from some spark of poetical
fire wherewith particular men are born; and such as it was, it served
the turn, not only to please, but even to charm, the ignorant and
barbarous vulgar, where it was in use."[8]

It is proverbial that music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.
That savage music charms cultivated minds is not proverbial, but it is
nevertheless true. Here is Sir William Temple, scion of a cultured race,
bearing witness to the fact, and here is Gray, a life-long dweller in a
staid Eng