ancient geography and history; that of perpetuating the memory of our forefathers; and, lastly, that of everlastingly securing to them that honourable station in the history of the world, of science, of navigation, and of commerce, to which they are justly entitled. This has appeared to the Society to be so much the more necessary, since the latest researches have rendered it in a high degree probable, that the knowledge of the previous Scandinavian discovery of America, preserved in Iceland, and communicated to COLUMBUS, when he visited that island, in 1477, operated as one, and doubtless as one of the most powerful, of the causes which inspired the mind of that great man, (whose glory cannot in any degree be impaired by the prior achievement,) with that admirable zeal, which bidding defiance to every difficulty enabled him to effect the new discovery of the New World, under circumstances that necessarily led to its immediate, uninterrupted, and constantly increasing colonization and occupation by the energetic and intelligent races of Europe. For this his memory will be imperishable among the nations of the earth. Yet still we Northmen ought not to forget his meritorious predecessors, our own forefathers, who in their way had difficulties to contend with not less formidable, since without knowledge of the properties of the magnet, without aid of compass, charts, or mathematical science, properly so called, they dared to navigate the great ocean, and thus by degrees discovered, and partly colonised, Iceland in the ninth century, Greenland in the tenth, and subsequently several of the islands and coasts of America, during the latter part of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century." The prospectus goes on to enumerate the principal sources from which the work has been derived, and the measures taken to ensure its completeness. The last of the epochs just mentioned is alone brought under consideration. The "Vinlandia," of Torfæus, published in 1705, and now extremely scarce, is the only work anterior to the Antiquitates Americana, which is specially devoted to the investigation of the Norse discoveries in America. It does not, however, contain the original statements, and the information which it does contain is meagre and incomplete. To supply these deficiencies is the object of the present work, and this has been effected by amassing an immense body of information derived from ancient manuscripts, including not only the materials of the Vinlandia, but several other documents. Of the former class are the historical accounts of Erick the Red, from the Codex Flateyensis, and the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne; of the latter are the various accounts of Vineland, furnished by Adam of Bremen, Are Frode, and Are Marson; to which are added notices of the Icelandic hero, Bioern Asbrandson, and of the Icelandic mariner, Gudleif Gudlaugson, together with extracts from the Icelandic annals of the middle ages, ancient accounts of Greenland and America, fragments of Icelandic geographical works, and an ancient Faroish poem. To this array of early documents are annexed a recent description of several memorials, chiefly inscriptions, found in Greenland and New England, which mutually elucidate, and are elucidated by the Sagas; and the results of recent geographical inquiries, undertaken at the instance of the Society by learned Americans. A chronological conspectus, copious indices, and curious genealogical tables, conclude the volume. To discuss the goodly bill of fare here laid before us, would be more than our literary appetite could accomplish in one month; in other words, were we to undertake even a meagre analysis of this highly interesting quarto, it would cost us a supplementary number-a piece of editorial extravagance in which we are not wont to indulge. Instead, therefore, of running the gauntlet through a whole phalanx of outlandish names, we have selected for present consideration these passages which relate to Ireland (some of which will be familiar to those versed in Johnstone's "Antiquitates Celto-Scandica); premising that the staple of the work is in Icelandic, accompanied by a Danish and a Latin translation, with an occasional sprinkling of other dialects-English, French, Faroese - so that the aspect of our quarto is that of a profane Polyglot. In glancing over the pages of the Antiquitates Americanæ, our attention was arrested by a few words, (p. 211,) of import so direfully humiliating to the "eight millions," of whom we form an atomy, that we had rather the enunciation of them had devolved on any other than ourselves. For-hear it, ye Fahys, ye Flahertys, and ye Fogartys, ye Shanahans and ye Shaughnessys, ye O's and ye Macs-descend from your attics, subside from your iambics-and learn, that you are not Irishmen at all, but only LITTLE Irishmen; for GREAT Ireland, ("Irland eth Mikla,") must be sought in the United States of America (Tab. xvi.)! The same ante-Columbian territory was also called Whitemensland ("Hvitramannaland")—in contradistinction, we suppose, from the land of the aboriginal "red copper rogues," or rovers" and, if GREAT Ireland was the country of the WhiteMEN, is it not with strict, though unconscious, antiquarian propriety, that the "natives" of LITTLE Ireland are so prone to adopt the designation of WhiteBOYS ?* The notices of our "tight little island," contained in the Antiquitates Americana, are few and unimportant. In the progress, however, of these NORSE PAPERS, it will assume a more conspicuous position. Meanwhile, it is interesting to us to see our native city, in which we live and write, looming, however dimly, athwart the Scandinavian fogs-a feeling which will, no doubt, be shared by many of our Dublin readers. From several of the following passages, also, written many centuries ago, it will appear that the metropolis of Ireland enjoyed a large portion of such commerce as then existed-passages which we have the more pleasure in adducing, as they seem to corroborate the well-known assertion of Tacitus, now cited for the myriad-and-first time : "Aditus portusque per commercia et negotiatores melius cogniti." It would appear, also, that there was some call for Limerick gloves at this remote period. The extracts are translated from the Icelandic as • It will appear from the first of the subjoined exracts that the Whitefeet are not exclusively indigenous to Ireland. + The following extract from a letter, written by Sentleger to Henry VIII., in 1543, harmonises but too closely with the accounts which our newspapers at the present day so frequently exhibit, of depredations which materially retard the progress of our fisheries, and other local and national improvements: “Lymerike literally as was compatible with their intelligibility, and therefore exhibit a tolerably fair view of the structure and idiom of that ancient tongue. The first six are from the Saga, or History of Thorfinn Karlsefne.* We thought that among our two-and-thirty counties, none but the odd (or rather even) two were dubbed shires-to wit, Downshire and Tipshire Thorfinn, however, confers that title on a third-our own beautiful Dublinshire (" Dyflinnarskiri"). "A [certain] warrior-king hight Olave, who was called Olave White; he was the son of king Ingiald, son of Helga, son of Olave, son of Gudred, son of Halfdan Whitefoot, king of Upland. Olave harried with piracy westwards, and won Dublin in Ireland and Dublinshire, whereof he was made king. He got [to wife] Auda High-minded, daughter of Ketil Flat-nose, son of Biarn Splay-foot, a mighty man of Norway. Their son hight Thorstein Red. Ólave fell in battle in Ireland; but Auda and Thorstein went then to the Hebrides." Leif, being sent by king Olave to christianize Greenland, was driven out of his course, "They came within sight of Ireland, also they remarked birds from Ireland; then their ship was driven about on the sea." "A [certain] man hight Thord, who dwelt at Hoefda on Hoefdastrand; he had [to wife] Fridgerde, daughter of Thorer Lazy, and of Fridgerde, daughter of Kiarval, king of the Irish. Thord was son of Biarn Butter-crock [!], son of Thorvald Back, son of Asleik, son of Biarn Iron-side, son of Ragnar Shaggy-breeches."+ Thorfinn Karlsefne and Thorhall engaged in a maritime expedition. "Then they sailed northward past Furdustrand and Kialarnes, and would cruize toward the west; then came against them a western storm, and drove them on Ireland, and they were there beaten and enslaved; and there Thorhall ended his life, according to that which chapmen have said." "Then Biarn, son of Grimolf, sailed into Ireland's main, and they came into a snaky sea, and the ship was often sinking under them. They had a boat that was smeared with seal tar, for thereat the seasnake stickes not; they would go into the boat, and then they saw that it would not hold them all; then said Biarn, as the boat admits no more than half of our men, this is my counsel, that we cast lots for the boat, for it shall not go by rank.' This, all thought so nobly offered, that none would gainsay; they did so, and men were chosen by lot, and Biarn was allotted to go into the boat, and half of the men with him, as the boat admitted no more. But when they were come into the boat, there spake an Icelandic man, that was there in the ship, and had folowed Biarn from Iceland: Thinkest thou, Biarn, here to part with me?' haven, very good, and is your Highnes; but muche hindered by certen Yrishmen bordering on either syde of the same, the cytie being threescore myle within the lande."-State Papers. King Henry the Eighth, Part iii. p. 447, note. Karlsefne," a hard word, which neither Professor Rafn's Danish (" den som tegner til at blive en djærv og stor Mand"), nor his Latin ("in quo materia viri esset"), nor yet the English of the Antiquitates itself (" who promises or is destined to be an able or great man"), explains half so well as our own Hibernicism, “the makings of a man," or Byron's more courtly phrase, "a broth of a boy." + The celebrated Ragnar Lodbrog. "Seltjoeru." Tar mixed with seal-oil. Biarn answers, 'So will it now be,' He answers, 'Otherwise didst thou promise my father, then when I went from Iceland with thee than so to part with me; then when thou saidst that one [fate] should befall us both,' Biarn answers, 'It shall not so be; come thou down into the boat, and I will go up into the ship, for I see that thou art so desirous of life.' Biarn then went up into the ship, and this man into the boat, and then they went their ways until they came to Dublin in Ireland, and then they told this tale; but there are more men think that Biarn and his crew perished in the snaky sea, as there has been no trace of them since," The next passage is nearly identical with the last but one. "At that time Iceland was overgrown with wood in the mid-space between the fells* and shores. There were here Christian men, they whom Northmen call Papas; but they afterward went away because they would not live here with heathen men, and left behind Irish books and bells, and croziers; from this it might be judged that they were Irish men; but there was then a very great resort of men hither from Norway, until king Harold forbade it lest depopulation should ensue.”Ari Frode. Ari, son to Mar and Thorkatla, was driven by a storm to Whitemensland. "This, some call Ireland the Great, it lies westward on the sea near Vineland the Good, that is sixt days' sail westward from Ireland. Ari could not go away thence, and was there baptized. This relation Hrafn, the Limerick-farer, first related, who had long been at Limerick in Ireland.”—(Account of Ari Marson, in the Landnamabok). "Now, as was said, south of the Greenland which is inhabited, are deserts, wastes, and ice-bergs; then the Skrælings, then Markland, then is Vineland the Good; next, and somewhat back, lies Albany, that is Whitemensland; thither [there] was navigation from Ireland formerly; there Irish and Icelandic men knew Ari son of Mar and Katla§ of Reykianes, who [a] long [time] was not forthcoming, and was then chosen there as governor by the inhabitants."— (Ditto in a MS. marked 770o). "A [certain] man hight Thorodd, he was born at Medalfellstrand, and an excellent man; he was a great trader,¶ and had a ship on service. Throrodd had sailed [on] a trading voyage westward to Ireland to Dublin. At that time Earl Sigurd, son of Loedver of the Orkneys, harried towards the Hebrides, and all westward to Man; he laid tribute on the Manx; and when they had agreed, the earl left men behind to await the tribute; but it was mostly paid in molten silver; but the earl sailed then away northward to the Orkneys. But when they were ready to sail, who had awaited the tribute, they had a south-west wind; but when they had sailed some time, the wind veered to the south-east and east, and a great storm arose, and bore them northward under Ireland, and their ship was there broken to pieces on an uninhabited island. And when they had FJAELL heissen die Bergkuppen, wo keine Bäume mehr fortkommen (im nördlichen England-FELL). [FJAELL means the mountain-tops where trees cease to grow (in the north of England-FELL)]"-MEIDINGER. + Evidently a mistake for some higher numeral, which the Editor of the work supposes to have been XX, XI, or XV, instead of VI. Esquimaux. § Called Thorkatla in the preceding extract. ¶“Farmadr”—" Wayfaring-man." Thus iμrópoç in Greek, and vector in Latin. arrived there, Thorodd, the Icelander, approached them as he was sailing from Dublin. The earl's men called to the chapmen to help them. Thorodd had the boat lowered, and went into it himself; and when they met, the earl's men called to Thorodd to help them, and offered money to him, that he might convoy them home to the Orkneys to meet Earl Sigurd; but Thorodd thought he could not do that, as he was before bound for an Icelandic voyage; but they pressed hard upon him, for they thought their money and liberty were staked on this, that they should not be caught in Ireland or the Hebrides, where they had harried before."-(Account of Biærn Asbrandson). "A [certain] man hight Gudleif, he was son of Gudlang the Rich, of Straumfiord, brother of Thorfinn, from whom the Sturlungs are descended. Gudleif was a great trader, he had a merchant vessel, Thorolf, son of Earl Lopt of Eyra, another, when they fought with Gyrd, son of Earl Sigvald; then Gyrd lost his eye. It chanced in the days of King Olave the Holy, that Gudleif had sailed [on] a trading voyage to Dublin; but as he sailed westward he thought to sail to Iceland; he sailed towards the west of Ireland, and fell in with a north-east wind, and was then driven far westward over the sea, and to the south-west, so that they wist not of the land." However, they at length saw land, and ventured ashore; and certain " men advanced to meet them; they knew none of the men, but it seemed to them that they spoke Irish." Here follow a number of details (not, however, quite new to us), which will be introduced into our notice of Great Ireland. "After this, Gudleif set sail with them, and reached Ireland late in harvest, and they were at Dublin in winter."-(Account of Gudleif Gudlaugson). The two last passages, which are drawn from geographical sources, are identical "Ireland (is) a large island. Iceland is also a large island to (the north of Ireland)." There is likewise some mention of Ireland in a Faroese poem, which claims separate consideration. Dublin, 9th January, 1839. SONNET.-ENVY. BY ROBERT STYLES. THERE is a poison which the soul corrodes; Envy first fatal curse that marked our fall, |