Arnold1 and Tait2 have successively develop ed the intelligence of the youth of EnglandAnderson and Rolfe maintain the dignity of the British bench-Brodies has taken off his limbs with a difference to humanityUrlings is famed for lace--and Gunter presides peaceably over wedding breakfasts. The descendants of Northern Skalds seem to have found a congenial occupation in bookselling, for among our most eminent publishers, viz., Cadell, Colborn, 8 Hall, 10 Orme, 11 and Tait, bear names of Scandinavian origin. "At this moment," writes a noble lecturer on the subject, 12" some sturdy Haavard (Howard), the proprietor of a sixty-acre farm, but sprung from that stock the nobility of whose blood is become proverbial, may be successfully opposing some trifling tax at Drontheim, while an illustrious kinsman of his house is the representative of England's majesty at Dublin.' Mr. Ferguson suggests that a name pretty familiar in Ireland, and not unheard of in other countries, may be Scandinavian. "Connell is a family name in some of the English districts peopled by Danes or Norwegians, "and the respective prefixes 'O' and 'Mac' might indicate a cross between the natives and the Northern settlers." The lecturer from whom Mr. Ferguson quotes is Lord Dufferin, who in January last read at Belfast a very interesting paper on Northern Antiquities, which ought to be published in some more permanent form than the local journals. In the course of the lecture he read two poems of great beauty and power, one suggested to him by Sturleson's account of King Haco's death. The king receives his death wound as he is cutting down the colours of the foe. He commands his followers to lay him beside the bodies of his dead companions and the spoils of the battle-field, and then, having set fire to the vessel, to leave him to his fate. "The wind was blowing off the land. The ship flew, burning in clear flames, out between the islets and into the ocean." The other poem is on the destruction of West Greenland, and is called by its author "a kind of ballad, which was composed in the very waters where the occurrences which it describes took place." We wish that Lord Dufferin would publish these poems. We have read Mr. Ferguson's book with great pleasure, and are all but convinced that an incursion, and, probably, a peaceful colonization of Cumberland and Westmoreland, distinct from any incursion of the Northmen from Northumberland, took place at the time he has indicated, on the west coast of England. To this extent we think his arguments approaches demonstration. That this colonization was of Norwegians rather than of other branches of the Scandinavian family, we regard as doubtful; thinking it is dangerous to draw any very strong inferences from the existing distinctions between languages so closely allied, and which we incline to believe were more nearly one at the period to which Mr. Ferguson's investigation refers. Still even here the probabilities are with him, and we feel that essential service is done to our literature by a work which seeks to bring into distinct light questions of the deepest interest, whether considered ethnologically or with reference to their actual effect on society. It is not unimportant to the individual nor to society to think of the past. While Imagination governs us to the extent which it does in all circumstances in which Man can be placed, it must be important to the individual to feel from what source his blood has sprung. These old sea-kings and vikings of the North in their day did much to regenerate dead Europe. The people who for more than three hundred years were kings of Northumberland, and who for a considerable time were kings of England, who, after the Norman conquest, retained possession of Northumberland, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and part of Lancashire, (which are omitted in Domesday-book as not belonging to England) are surely not to be for (1) Arnalldr.-" Old eagle ?"- -(2) Teitr.—(3) Haldorsen.➖➖➖ · (4) Hrolfr, mighty. (5) Broddi, perhaps from broddr, a spear, dart, goad, anything sharp, a lancet. -(6) Erlingr, industrious.. -(7) Gunther, from gunn, battle.- -(8) Kadall.. -(9) Kolbiorn, Kollr, helmeted, and barn, a child.- -(10) Hallr—hallr, a flint ?—rather halr, "vir liber et liberalis."(11) Omr, a serpent-the Old Eng. worm. -(12) Lecture on "The Northmen, "by Lord Dufferin poems is one singularly wild and fanciful, which refers to a popular belief in one of the mountain valleys :- In this smooth and open dell A thing no storin can e'er destroy, Many readers will thank us for referring to the poem. In the edition of his poems before us it is entitled, Fragment," and classed with what he calls poems of the fancy. Nothing that he has written has to us a greater charm : The Danish boy walks here alone, ¡v. His was the mathematic might That moulds results from men and things; The will that wields all circumstance, VI. Keen as some star's magnetic rays, He burst the palace gates of Time. VII. Bright, swift, resistless as the sun, To vaster fields of Victory. VIII. Thus upward ever, storm and shade IX. "Tis noon above the Tribune's Hall; The white crowds choake each stately way. Who seeks the People's suffrage there?- Even to the pillared Capitol, ""Tis Cæsar, Cæsar wins the day!" X. Now girt with bright centurioned bands, That Romeward he might cast in flame Still worshipping 'mid ruined lands XI. "Tis night within a realm of gloom; The red moon from a sailless sea Looks with a face that seems to mourn O'er Rome's grey column of war forlorn, Caught in the current-clasp of doom, Girt by th' outnumbering enemy. XII. Deject with famine, march, and toil, XIII. But as the white electric storm Of fire and rain-one fated Form XIV. And o'er the currents of the war Cold as the lone and sovereign star XV. Though face to face with black despair Through cloven chasms of carnage rush Gilds from the foeman's forest lair XVI. The lightning blasts the harvest skies, The plague-sun burns in tropic ire, The earthquake rolls the mountains o'er, The comet, splendouring as it flies, Drowns some great orb in flood or fire. XVII. And such was He, a sphere of powers Within grey Nature's mighty mould, XVIII. To break the rude, barbarian soil To yield the conquered spoil for spoil- XIX: Who toiled to blend the lands, and wing Might roll through heaven's expansure, bright XX. Oh, Spirit wrapped in ceaseless storm, Strange comrade thou of death and doom; Cementing still through sleepless strife, The crown of man's prospective life; Still brightening earth's regenerate form, Even in the shadow of the tomb. XXI. Created, cultured, known, and tried True to thy star, thou'st lived and died :- XXII. And now, O meteor of the past, Thy memory spans the world of old, Thy glory gilds the Egyptian gloom, XXIII. High statued on thine Alp of Fame, From death's white snows thou lookest down Upon the conquered land and sea, An image of eternity; The rolling suns illume thy crown, The world's great echoes voice thy name. XXIV. A name still brightening with the Age, Of havoc views along the skies |