tion is at once changed by the mere fact of other orders of society existing; and the odalsman becomes the Cumbrian statesman.

In Norway the greater part of the soil is in the hands of proprietors of from two to three hundred acres, as in Cumberland in the days of the "statesmen," for we fear that this class of proprietors is passing away; and in both countries the same independent spirit existed or was supposed to exist. In both countries there was coldness and reserve of manner; an unfavourable critic would call it churlishness. The caution and shrewdness supposed to distinguish the Yorkshireman, the Cumbrian. and the Scot, is referred to Scandinavian blood. This, too, is expressed by what is a Norse word, slightly changed in intonation" canny"--the precise meaning of which it is not easy to fix, as we are told of "a canny lass" and "a canny wet day" and "canny old Cumberland." The love of litigation is said to distinguish the Anglo-Danes or Anglo-Norwegians from all the other natives of England. This surely is fanciful.

The use of wheaten bread was, till of late, unknown or unfrequent in Cumberland. As in Scotland and in Iceland, oatmeal porridge was the food of the peasantry. We suspect that wherever wheat will not grow, or even where it does, and any thing cheaper than wheat can be purchased, it must be the food of the peasantry, We must exclude from the argument all that relates to food. What the peasantry eat in Cumberland at present cannot give the faintest help to us in ascertaining who their remote ancestors were. Something, however, may be gathered from the words by which they describe their food.

"Cakes,

made of barley, ard called flat bread, similar to the flad bred of Norway, are still in general use. They are also known by the name of scons, a word which may probably be derived from old Norse, scan, a crust."

In their amusements there is some resemblance between the English Lakers and the Norwegians. Both are distinguished for their skill in wrestling; both retain what would seem some relic of the sword-dauce,

(1) Thorp

and in the plays of children are still used some words unintelligible in the language of England, and the meaning of which is supplied by the old Norse. In the local dialects of Cumberland and Westmoreland there is mingled a Scandinavian element in very large proportions, which distinguishes it from the general language of England. An exceedingly valuable part of this book is a glossary of Cumberland and Westmoreland words used in the every-day familiar language of the people, of Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian origin. Whatever be the fate of Mr. Ferguson's speculations as to the people who may have colonized Cumberland in the ninth or tenth century (and we think his theory one exceedingly probable), there can be no doubt of the importance of the glossarial part of the book to every etymologist.

Till of late years the disposition was to attach but little importance to the Danish invasions of England. They were regarded as storms, which, when they had passed over, left no trace. Mr. Worsaae's book has probably been one of the chief works which has led to a different estimate of their importance. Both he and Mr. Ferguson are disposed to trace the dauntless seamanship of England to the inherited "salt blood" of the old sea-rovers. Worsaae has observed that Nelson is a Scandinavian name, and that Lord Nelson was sprung from one of the English counties peopled by the Danes. Mr. Ferguson finds Blake and Rodney in the Blaka and Hrodny of the Scandinavian Vikings. This is not improbable, though other accounts are given of two at least of the names.

Mr. Ferguson says:

It might be curious to speculate further on the northern origin of names. We might ask whether the well-known Dick Turpin1 was not a genuine descendant of one of the Yorkshire vikings-whether Thurtell, the treacherous murderer of his friend, did not preserve the worst form of Scandinavian fero. city. But though a characteristic trait seems sometimes to start up like a family likeness after many generations.--Saxon and Dane have long been blended into one people, and in many and varied spheres the descendants of the Northinen have obtained renown

-(2) Thortill,

9

Arnold and Tait have successively develop ed the intelligence of the youth of England-Anderson and Rolfe maintain the dignity of the British bench-Brodie 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, 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 exist ing distinctions between languages 30 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, aud 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

gotten when we think of the ancestors of existing England. We think of them, too, when we think of the past, and when we look to the future we trust that something of what has been called the "salt blood" of the North shall not be wanting to us.

In our halls is hung Armoury of the invincible knights of old: We must be free or die who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake; the faith and

morals hold

Which Milton held. In everything we are sprung

Of earth's first blood, have titles manifold.

We think it not improbable that there may be local traditions in the Lake country supporting Mr. Ferguson's view. Among Wordsworth's

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
There is a tempest-stricken tree;
A corner-stone by lightning cut,
The last stone of a cottage hut;
And in this cell you see

A thing no storm can e'er destroy,
The shadow of a Danish boy.

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,
The lovely dell is all his own.

I.

II.

III..

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