bute to
the pleasure of very few. Only a student of history, or a poet, or an
antiquarian, would dwell with loving interest on the lays of
Vafthrudnis, Grimner, Skirner and Hymer (as Cottle spells them).
Besides, they are difficult to read, and must be abundantly annotated to
make them comprehensible. In such works as this of Cottle, a Scott might
find wherewith to lend color to a story or a poem, but the common man
would borrow Walpole's words, used in characterizing Gray's "Odes":
"They are not interesting, and do not ... touch any passion; our human
feelings ... are not here affected. Who can care through what horrors a
Runic savage arrived at all the joys and glories they could
conceive--the supreme felicity of boozing ale out of the skull of an
enemy in Odin's hall?"[12]

In 1804 a book was published bearing this title-page: _Select Icelandic
Poetry, translated from the originals: with notes_. The preface was
signed by the author, William Herbert. The pieces are from Saemund,
Bartholinus, Verelius, and Perinskjoeld's edition of _Heimskringla_, and
were all translated with the assistance of the Latin versions. The notes
are explanatory of the allusions and the hiatuses in the poems.
Reference is made to MSS. of the Norse pieces existing in museums and
libraries, which the author had consulted. Thus we see scholarship
beginning to extend investigations. As for the verses themselves not
much need be said. They are not so good as Cottle's, although they
received a notice from Scott in the _Edinburgh Review_. The thing to
notice about the work is that it pretends to come direct from Old Norse,
not, as most of the work dealt with so far, _via_ Latin.

Icelandic poetry is more difficult to read than Icelandic prose, and so
it seems strange that the former should have been attacked first by
English scholars. Yet so it was, and until 1844 our English literature
had no other inspiration in old Norse writings than the rude and rugged
songs that first lent their lilt to Gray. The _human_ North is in the
sagas, and when they were revealed to our people, Icelandic literature
began to mean something more than Valhalla and the mead-bouts there. The
scene was changed to earth, and the gods gave place to nobler actors,
men and women. The action was lifted to the eminence of a world-drama.
But before the change came Sir Walter Scott, and it is fitting that the
first period of Norse influence in English literature should close, as
i