ors his sovereign could bestow, and possessed of all the gifts of fortune, to retire from the game rather than again set upon the die the European reputation for statesmanship he had just conquered, the fit of despondency soon passed away, and, striking his hand upon the table, he vehemently exclaimed, "But no; at all hazards Italy must be made, shall be made, and made by me!" This was indeed his one and true ambition; for this he sought power, not as an object, but as a means; and standing alone as he did in the grandeur of his own soul, without wife or child to smile upon his solitary hearth, Italy was as mother, and mistress, and daughter are to other and lesser men.

As compared with the years that succeeded, 1857 and 1858 seem tame and barren of events; but if we examine them more closely, we shall see that, as a ship of war does not sail forth upon the open sea without long preparation and toil in the dock-yards, so those years were the necessary forerunners of the more exciting ones to follow, and that without the previous coordination of parts, the great Italian drama could never have been played. The war of notes and protocols must precede that of shells and bullets, while the Italian populations must be disciplined to act unanimously, and take advantage of any opportunity that might present itself. Cavour steadily pursued both objects. In January, 1857, the Emperor Francis Joseph visited Milan, but no envoy of Victor Emmanuel complimented him on his arrival, and when, furious at the coldness of the Lombards, he ordered his diplomatic agents and paid press violently to denounce Piedmont as if her free government and journals were the sole causes, insisting on the modification of the one, and the suppression of the other; the dignified language of the notes and articles that appeared at Turin, upholding the independence of the state, and defending the liberties granted by the statute, made this vituperation recoil upon the heads of its authors, and all Europe applauded when diplomatic intercourse, tamely carried on by chargés d'affaires for the last four years, was entirely broken off. The enthusiasm and affection of Italy for the King and Minister of Sardinia daily increased, and, to train these feelings into engines of practical applicability, the "National Society" now formed itself at Turin, with the tacit consent of the government. This associa.

tion, organized, though for a political purpose, after the model of the Manchester Corn-Law League, comprised all sections of Liberals, and, by its sub-committees, soon spread its ramifications through every city and village of Northern and Central Italy, and penetrated, though less completely, even into the southern provinces, every where pursuing its appointed task of instructing the people by the diffusion of news, and a knowledge of the ways in which liberal institutions work, training them to act together in such force as pacifically to compel their princes either to join Victor Emmanuel in the great purpose of expelling the foreigner, or to bind up their fate with that of Austria, by repairing to her camps, and thus leaving their subjects to act for themselves. When fully known, the history of this society will be one of the future curiosities of literature; here we need only allude to it sufficiently to make clear to our readers the uses to which it was put at a later period by Count de Cavour; for though we can not doubt his having been secretly cognizant of its acts, and many of its leaders were his personal friends, he never took even the smallest part in its proceedings.

The crisis was gradually drifting nearer. Count de Cavour was well aware that open war with Austria must break out sooner or later. He also knew that the material resources of Piedmont could not indefinitely resist the strain put upon them for so many years, and that her army of sixty thousand men, however excellent, even though reinforced by the volunteers of all Italy, could not adequately encounter the imperial forces, and he anxiously looked around him for allies. He was too well acquainted with England, the country of his predilections, to hope active aid from her; France was his only resource. When and how negotiations were opened and carried on, whether the first overtures came from Paris or Turin, are questions which will probably not be fully answered until every individual interested in them shall sleep in the grave, and which we will not even attempt to solve. This much we know. In September, 1858, Count de Cavour visited Napoleon III. at the baths of Plombières, and, after long and frequent conferences, succeeded in convincing him that the state of Italy had in no respect improved during the two years that had elapsed since the Congress of Paris, and that there was no hope of amelioration

them than any other, of wise Njal, and his tragic end. A work from Dr. Dasent on such a subject would command attention even were its merits less; but this claims especial notice as the finest specimen extant of the Icelandic Saga, while the introductory essay supplies very important information respecting the early history, the every day life, and especially the legal usages of the people among whom its sad story took place.

The earliest inhabitants-probably the discoverers of Iceland - Dr. Dasent remarks, were not the Norwegian sea-rovers. Already, in the eighth century, Culdee anchorites had sought that remote solitude, and left traces of their residence in their cells and church-furniture. Positive evidence, indeed, of this earlier occupation by these peaceful anchorites is supplied by Dicuilus, an Irish monk, who, in the year 825, in a work entitled De Mensura Orbis, related that at least thirty years before he had seen and spoken with several monks who had visited the island of Thule, as they called it: "Besides other particulars, the story is accompanied with a calculation of the duration of the seasons and length of days at dif ferent times of the year, which shows clearly that Iceland, and Iceland alone, could have been visited by these anchorites." These first settlers died off, and then, more than half a century after, came the Northmen - stern contrast to the peaceful, solitary, meditative Culdees -heathen men, prompt for battle, and "whose creed was work rather than prayer."

Still it was no savage or servile race that now colonized Iceland. They fled from their fathers' land to avoid the yoke of kingly tyranny imposed by Harold Fairhead that new and galling imposition which made them the king's men at all times, instead of his only at certain times for special service, and that burthen, always so intolerable at first to a rising people, taxation. Although all this might be a a step in the great march of civilization and progress," so it did not seem to these haughty freemen. The Northman fought against it long, and at length, worsted in the struggle, " sullenly withdrew from the field, and left the land of his fathers, where, as he thought, no freeborn man could now care to live." Ingolf was the first settler in Iceland, in

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the year 874, and was soon followed by many of his countrymen :

lands. Now France, now Italy, now Spain feels "Now, too, we hear of the Northman in all the fury of his wrath and the weight of his arm. After a time, he spreads his wings for a wider flight, and takes service under the great Emperor at Byzantium or Micklegarth-the great city, the town of towns and fights his foes from in Sicily and Asia, the Bulgarians and Sclavon whatever quarter they may come. The Moslem

ians on the shores of the Black Sea and in

Greece, well knew the temper of the Northern steel, which has forced many of their chosen champions to bite the dust. Wherever he goes, the Northman leaves his mark, and to this day the lions of the Acropolis are scored with runes which tell of his triumph."

But the Northman was not merely the stern soldier or the fierce Viking. Even before Christianity had set her seal on him, he displayed excellences and virtues which we seek in vain for among the heroes of classical story. "To do things like a man, without looking to the right or the left," was the Northman's boast; and much was included in this. If he killed his foeman, it was openly; if the foeman slept, he must be awakened, and challenged; the evil-doer was to be openly defied; and even "the law of the strong hand" had its limitation. To say "stand and deliver" to the well-armed traveler was allowable, but "to creep to a man's abode secretly, at dead of night, and spoil his goods, was looked upon as infamy of the worst kind." Nor were gentler feelings unrecognized. The slain foeman was not to be left unburied, although a mere strewing of gravel might be the only rite possible to be bestowed. In almost the self-same words as those which, centuries after, the author of Ysaie le Triste uses, the Northman is bidden to be "gentle and generous to his friends and kinsmen; to be stern and grim toward his foes, but even toward them to fulfill all bounden duties; finally, to be neither trucebreaker, talebearer, nor backbiter. To utter nothing against any man that he would not tell him to his face; to turn no man from his door who sought food or shelter, even though he were a foe-such were the features of that steadfast faithful spirit which he brought with him to his new home." Very graphically do we find all these qualities illustrated in the fine saga to which we are about to call the reader's attention.

Clinging to his natural kingship and priesthood as inalienable rights, and trust ing to his own good sword, the Northman steered for Iceland, bringing with him his Odin worship, with the holy pillars of his high seat, the props of his tribunal, and the ornament of his drinkinghall; and sometimes he even brought with him a portion of the sacred soil itself-a foot or two of Norway earth-on which to pitch these holy pillars, or to rear a new shrine in a strange land in honor of the ancient gods." Dr. Dasent considers it idle—as very probably it is"to attempt to trace in the creed which revered Odin and the Esirs as gods, any echo of the Hebrew doctrine of the One True God;" but although the character of Odin and the nature of his Valhalla are singularly true to the character of the Northman, we can scarcely believe that "his creed was home-made." In a passage of great beauty, but too long for quotation, Dr. Dasent very ingeniously shows how, "in the gray dawn of time, came a worship of the elements," for they more potent than the worshiper. Then, as he subdues nature to his service, he adores the god of the fields, or worships the hunter's god; and then, while "for every step which he makes in social progress he fills a new niche in the Pantheon of his faith, he at last rises to feelings and emotions, and adores his own passions as the gods of war, love, and song." But while the truth of all this may be allowed, surely the coïncidence of the Odin creed in some of its most marked peculiarities with that of the ancient world, seems to point to the fact that the religion, like the tales of the Northman, must have been derived from an Eastern and most ancient source. That the stern warrior should adore a god of war, and look forward to a Valhalla, was natural enough; but from whence came the sacrifice and the sprinkled blood, the holy fire too, which was to burn unquenchably on the altar, and that singular mode of taking possession of land,hallowing" it by surrounding it with a ring of fire?

are

In their social condition the Icelanders, though simple and patriarchal in their habits, were far removed from barbarism. Although marriage was a matter of bar gain and sale, the maiden, we find, expected to be consulted as to her willingness; and although the master of the household

seems to have possessed an almost despotic power over his thralls and younger children, the mistress fully shared, and sometimes successfully disputed his authority. When Atli, the homeless man, inquires for Njal and his son, that he may proffer his service, and asks Bergthora, "Hast thou any voice in things here?" "I am Njal's wife," she replies, "and I have as much to say to our house-folk as he," and she forthwith hires him. Hallgerda's unrestrained power over her household involves her husband in continued feuds and losses, but even wise Njal never ventures to suggest that a little control might be beneficial. This equality of men and women is more remarkable, inasmuch as there appears to have been little trace of that chivalrous feeling which produced the " woman worship" of a later period. The households were large, and both master and mistress did not eat the bread of idleness. The stores of provisions were dealt out by the housewife, who also spun, and sewed, and wove, and set her maidens to the same occupations; while the master, although it might be a man of great wealth and power, literally "turned his hand to any thing." "These men were no idlers. They worked hard, and all, high and low, worked. In no land does the dignity of labor stand out so boldly. The greatest chiefs sow and reap, and drive their sheep. The mightiest warriors were the handiest carpenters and smiths. Njal's sons are busy at armorer's work, like the sons of the mythical Ragnar before them. To do something and to do it well was the Icelander's aim in life."

Iceland in these early days seems to have been far more fertile than it now is. Vast flocks of sheep fed on the fells, while wide tracts of meadow-land supplied hay for the winter provision of large studs of horses, and great herds of cattle, that roamed upon the hilis and fells in summer. Hay was the main staple of the Icelander to supply his horses and cattle; but corn and even wheat was also grown, mostly in inclosures near the homestead. "It is needless," remarks Dr. Dasent, "to heap quotation on quotation to support what must be well known to every reader of the Sagas, that corn grew in Iceland in old times, just as wood grew there, and wood big enough to build a few ships, and abundantly enough to be used for charcoal burning." The houses of

this period were simple enough ouildings; one huge apartment, the hall, where the family lived during the day, and where, in portions shut up from the rest, the chief persons slept at night, and outhouses and farm-buildings, all opening upon a yard. Some of these halls were of huge dimensions, even two hundred feet long. Dr. Dasent has given us plans of one of these halls, with its high-pitched opentimbered roof, its low "side-aisles," as we might call them, and the central lofty nave, with long hearths for fire down the middle, with louvres above to let out the smoke; and the benches on either side, with the "high seat," while before them the tables were placed, and to which, on occasion of a great concourse of guests, rows of stools were added. The raised platform, or dais, at the upper end of the hall, also a place of honor, reminds us of the arrangements in the old English hall, which we have little doubt, especially in earlier times, it closely resembled. And in these huge halls the whole household met at meal-times; and here were held those mighty feasts at Yule-tide, and the autumn gatherings of friends and kindred; and the "arvel," or "heir-ale" feasts, when heirs drank themselves into possession of their fathers' lands and goods; and where there was, as Dr. Dasent remarks, "no doubt great mirth and jollity, much eating and hard drinking of mead and fresh-brewed ale," (of the latter the Northman seems to have been as fond as our London forefathers ;)" but these drinks are not of a very heady kind, and one glass of spirits in our days would send a man farther on the road to drunkenness than many a horn of foaming mead." Indeed, Dr. Dasent earnestly contends that this noble, energetic race were by no means the hard drinkers they have commonly been considered. "It is easier," as he truly says, "to rob a whole people of its character by a single word, than to take the pains to inquire into its history;" a remark which we would recommend to more than one of our "philosophic" historians of the Middle Ages. In some cases an apartment was added to the hall which bore the name of " the lady's chamber, or bower;" a word which recalls at once our romance and ballad-lore. This was called "búr," the original of our "bower."

On the legal institutions of the Icelanders, Dr. Dasent supplies much interesting

information. though ready enough to appeal to the sword, they were emphatically a lawloving people. "With law shall our land be builded up and settled," says wise Njal, "and with lawlessness wasted and spoiled." Thus, although the right of re venge, indeed in some cases we may say the duty, was fully recognized, still the law was always ready to interpose with its limitations.

Like all the Northmen,

"Every freeman in Iceland who felt himself aggrieved or injured in any of his rights, had three ways open to him for redress. He might betake himself at once to the man who had done him wrong, and after laying the grievance before him, demand a fine, compensation, this case the matter took the shape of a friendly and atonement in the way of money, [bót.] In agreement, and the difference was soon settled. But it sometimes happened that one or other side claimed what was called 'selfdoom,' the right to make his own award. But if the wrong-doer refused to make any compensation, there were still two ways left of dealing with him. 1st. The injured party might fall the feud, and take vengeance on him by killing back on his right of private war, and follow up him or some near member of the family. Or, he might follow it up at law, and make a private wrong a matter for the consideration of the state. Here, in fact, we see the old freeman waiving both his old natural rights-the right of property and the right of revenge-and appealing to the new organization of things which he had accepted on the establishment of a commonwealth. With regard to the steps in such a trial-the Icelandic lawsuit was based on the evidence of the community, supported by oath. At every step solemn witness was taken, and to fail in producing such witness was to lose the suit."

The forms were very similar to our own, and both in Dr. Dasent's account, and in the narratives of the law proceedings in the venerable Saga itself, we have been repeatedly struck with the resemblance they bear to the ancient laws of London. In all cases of manslaughter, those nearest the spot were summoned on the inquest, and like as among us in ancient times, they were "jurors and witnesses in one." There was the same necessity too of the plaintiff giving "lawful notice of the assault against such and such a man, who fell on such and such a man, and gave him a death-wound." Indeed so technical was the law in this respect, that it required the plaintiff to repeat this notice in almost the same words." Due notice was also to be given to the defendant when the cause would come on. On the open

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