cause we find in it some manifestations of occurs to us that we ought first to say a few an excessive antiquarian zeal. It contains words to obviate objections which might enough to prove that the American continent arise in the minds of many from the fact of was known to the Northmen at the beginning Esquimaux being found on the shores of of the eleventh century; and we frankly Vinland. That race is at the present day avow that it appears to us to contain much confined to a high latitude, but we see little also, which, whatever be its pretension, proves difficulty in supposing that they extended nothing at all. It is doing an injustice to au- much further south in the tenth and eleventh thentic history to mix it up in the same cat- centuries; and this opinion, grounded on the egory with fiction or incoherent tradition. characters of human skeletons found within We therefore regret to find that M. Rafn has the United States; on the traditions of the yielded so ready and unconditional a cre- Red Indians, and other circumstances, is, we dence to the ancient traditions respecting the believe, the one now generally adopted by Great Ireland or Whiteman's Land, which transatlantic antiquarians. was said to be six days' sail westward from It deserves in the first place to be remarkIreland. It was a Christian country and ed, that the Northmen scoured the western known earlier than Vinland. The North- seas and made discoveries doubtless long an men appear to have received their informa- terior to the period reached by their historical tion respecting it chiefly from the traders to traditions. We learn from Dicuil, an Irish Limerick. Without venturing to deny the monk who wrote in the ninth century a geopossibility of the Atlantic having been cross-graphical work chiefly compiled from the ed by Europeans and Christians before the Roman authors, that the Irish had visited days of Biarne, Leif, and Karlsefne, we con- Iceland already towards the close of the tend that the discovery of Whiteman's Land eighth century, and that half a century earlier differs materially in evidence and authentici- they had been driven from the Feroe islands ty from that of Vinland, and ought not to be where they had settled, by the ravages of the allowed to interfere with or obscure it. Karl- Northmen. We must here venture to exsefne on his return home from Vinland, caught press an opinion that the seafaring Irish were on the shores of Markland as we have alrea- the posterity of Northmen, and not Celts, dy mentioned, two young Skrællings or Es- who never seem to have had a turn for a quimaux. From these he learned, that op- maritime life. Indeed the true Irish boat, the posite to their country was another in which corracle covered with skin, was unfit to go were men who wore white clothes, and who to sea; and as to the construction of larger had long poles with flags (as it was under- vessels, the birch and alder of the Irish woods stood) appended to them. "This country," (for the oak and ash were useless in the insays the old historian, "is supposed to be fancy of art) could hardly supply very eligi. Whiteman's Land." M. Rafn adopts this ble materials. The pine forests of the Northconclusion, and endeavours to prop up the men gave thein such incalculable advantages opinion that there was at that time a Euro- for the construction of good sea-boats, that pean colony further south, by the traditions wherever we hear of bold navigation in those of the Shawanee Indians; which traditions days, we suspect them to have been present. however, manifestly refer, not to the tenth In short we believe that the Tuath na Danân, century, but to the arrival of the Spaniards who settled in Ireland as early as the Chrisin Florida. It appears to us that the coun-tian era at least, and who, according to try "opposite their own" alluded to by the O'Halloran, spoke a Teutonic language young Esquimaux, was no other than Green-(Germanice is his expression) were no other land; and that by the poles and cloths at- than the Danes; and that the intercourse be. tached to them, they intended merely to de- tween Scandinavia and the west of Ireland, scribe the masts and sails of the Whitemen's which gave exercise to so much maritime ships. skill and courage, commenced at a very re

We are careful to prevent the true sour-mote period. ces of the history of carly discovery in the The discovery of Vinland, however, was west, from being contaminated by the streams not made in an obscure age. It may have of fabrication and corrupted tradition which (been preceded by many remarkable voyages flow so copiously in early ages. The more in the west, and we do not venture to deny narrowly we examine the histories of Erik positively that the stories of the Limerick the Red and of Thorfinn Karlsefne, the more merchants respecting the Northmen carried to confidence do we feel in the narrative of dis-Great Ireland and the Whiteman's Land, may coveries there presented to us. A few of have had their foundation in some very early the collateral considerations which tend to transatlantic discoveries. But confining our strengthen our belief in them we shall now attention to what is strictly matter of history, endeavour to lay before our reader. But it we may remark that the discovery of Vin

When he was on the

land was made contemporaneously with the over here in silence. first colonization of Greenland, and the esta- point of leaving Norway and embarking for blishment of Christianity in that country and Iceland, a merchant of Bremen came to him Iceland; and consequently belonged to one to buy a small piece of wood, or if we transof the most interesting periods in the annals late the original literally, a broom-stick: of the North. Some of those engaged in it, Karlsefne gave him to understand that he had as Thorfinn Karlsefne for example, were the done trading, but the merchant offering him ancestors of some of the chief families in Ice- half a mark or pound of gold, which appear. land, including a great number of learned men. It is not surprising, therefore, that it should participate in the full light thrown on the events with which it is connected, and be described with fidelity and minuteness. The histories in which it is recorded, enlarge on the lineage and connections by blood or marriage of the heroes engaged in it; they thus offer themselves to a test of an exact and delicate kind by comparison with numerous other histories, from all which they receive confirmation.

ed a very liberal price, he did not hesitate to sell the stick. This precious wood was probably the beautiful variegated or bird's-eye maple which grows in abundance in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The price paid for the stick was equivalent to sixteen pounds sterling of modern money.

It has been frequently urged as a suspicious circumstance in the history of Vinland, that no communication was maintained with it by the Greenland colonists, and that it was almost immediately lost sight of. But this is Still further it must be observed that the a mistake arising from the ignorance in discovery of Vinland was not a transient which the greater part of Europe remains in event, no sooner past than forgotten. As it respect to Northern literature. It is well was thought likely to prove advantageous, known that all intercourse ceased with the the family of Erik the Red with whom it Greenland colonies in the beginning of the commenced, persevered in promoting it for fifteenth century, and that they were so comsome years. They had a share in all the pletely forgotten that a full century rolled over voyages made to Vinland from the year 1000 before the world awakened to the recollection to 1013, which must therefore be considered that they had once existed. Pestilence, faas one series. Such an order and connec- mine, and piratical ravages were then called tion of events is evidently not the character in to explain their apparently sudden extincof fiction. Icelandic writers of the fourteenth tion. But it is now well understood that the century tell us that the voyages to Vinland gradual disappearance and final dissolution were not found to be profitable; but this in- of the old colonies in Greenland were in reformation appears to be in a great measure ality caused by the royal monopoly of the conjectural. Sanguine hopes and the high trade, which reduced the colony to dependprices which novelties will fetch, may be ea. ence on insufficient and precarious supplies, sily imagined to have influenced the calcula- and narrowed its means of intercourse with tions of the first adventurers. We cannot Europe. Under these circumstances it is believe that Leif realized much profit from not at all surprising that little was heard of his freight of grapes, but why should we Vinland. But the Icelandic annals prove to therefore doubt that he brought home such a us that voyages continued to be made to the cargo? Were not freights of yellow mica, American continent as long as commercial mistaken for gold-dust, imported into London enterprize remained in Greenland, and nearly in the sixteenth century? and have not ship-to the last period of the expiring communicaloads of kaleidoscopes been exported in our tion between that colony and the mother own days to colonial markets which would country. The following brief extracts from be overstocked with a score of such toys? those annals are all that we can find room Karlsefne, when about to sail to Vinland, for :made all his companions partners in the enterprize. Freydisa also, we have seen, bar. gained for half the profits in her expedition. The former realized by his adventure a great fortune with which he purchased an estate in Iceland. As soon as he arrived in Vinland, we are informed, he had timber hewn for his freight and laid along the shore to season. He also obtained from the natives a great quantity of fine furs at the cheapest possible

rate.

With respect to the value of the timber which he brought home, there is an anecdote related of too curious a kind to be passed

"1121.

Erik Bishop of Greenland paid a visit to Vinland. (It deserves to be remarked that there is nothing in this statement which should lead us to believe that there was a colony of Northmen in Vinland.)

1285. Adelbrand and Thorwald, sons of Helge, discovered new land west of Iceland (probably some part of the coast of Labrador).

1288. King Erik despatched Rolf to examine the new land.

1290. Rolf sailed from Iceland whither he had gone in search of persons quali

fied to accompany him to the new Another proof of the fidelity to nature of land. (The death of Landa-Rolf, or those early writers is the simple gravity with Rolf the Discoverer, took place in which they relate their superstitions. The 1295.) 1347. Thirteen large ships arrived at Ice-history of Gudrida the wife of Karlsefne gives land. The ship called the Endridian occasion to a very curious and even some. was driven by the gale on Langanes what poetical display of the popular belief in Point in the eastern Borgarfiord, but præternatural agency. In the history of Erik the crew and part of the cargo were the Red, it is related that her former husband saved. The Bessalang went to pieces Thorstein, after his death, sat up, and, having on the shore at Sida; nineteen of her called her by name, predicted her marriage crew, including Haldor and Guthorm, with Karlsefne and the future greatness of were drowned. A large sum of mo: her family. In the Karlsefne's Saga the imney was lost at the same time. There were six other vessels in port there portant prediction is put into the mouth of a which had been detained by the gifted woman invited to a feast to foretel the winds. There came also from Green- success of the crops, or rather of the fisheland a bark of less size than the com-ries. These two passages are well deserv. mon Iceland vessels. She ran into ing of a close study, and the latter of them Straumfiord, having lost her anchors. probably paints the scene of a Scandinavian There were on board seventeen men divination with more force and exactness who had sailed to Markland and had than any other passage in the whole compass of northern literature. The author takes care to introduce an apology for the share It appears to us not unlikely that in an which his heroine bore in a pagan ceremo. age when there were no maps to perpetuate ny; her father refused to be present at it. local names in the western hemisphere, the Gudrida again saw a witch in Vinland, at the appellation Vinland would soon become ob- time when Karlsefne's followers were nearly solete; and that the Greenland adventurers defeated by the natives; and the Northmen, would naturally give the name Markland on that occasion, having recovered from their (woodland) to all the south-western countries panic, perceived that the great multitudes to which they resorted for the purpose of cut-who seemed to have surrounded them, were ting timber. but fetches or phantoms.

afterwards been tossed about the

ocean."

The general verisimilitude of the Icelandic The discovery of Vinland, we have seen, histories which relate to Vinland is extremely was immediately made known in Norway; remarkable. We find intimated in them, and in the latter half of the eleventh century among other things, the great mortality which Adam of Bremen heard of it from Swein in those early days attended voyages even of king of Denmark. "This discovery," he modern length, arising evidently from dis- emphatically observes, "is not a fable, but comfort or bad provisions. The very im- we know of it from the certain information portant art of preserving health on board ship of the Danes." In a heroic poem composed is of comparatively recent origin, and, we in the Feroe islands, and which M. Rafn has may add with pride, is an invention wholly inserted in his collection, frequent allusion is British. Of the half dozen voyages recorded made to Vinland. The hero Finn sails to directly or incidentally in the Histories of Vinland, at the command of the Irish prinErik the Red and Karlsefne, three were pro- cess Ingeborga, and kills the kings of that ductive of fatal diseases, and in each of those three cases the probable cause of disease is obvious. Thorbiorn when emigrating from Iceland to Greenland had an over-crowded ship: Thorer and his people were shipwrecked and had probably endured much cold and hunger before they were taken off the rock by Leif. Thorstein, tossed about at sea the whole summer, likewise experienced, it may be presumed, much physical suffering. It is also curious to observe that even the chiefs of the Greenland colonists were not secure from the evil of insufficiency of food. The supposed to join Africa. To perceive the wealth of those northern adventurers seems to have consisted much less in the extent of their possessions than in the number of those attached to their persons and who followed their fortunes.

country with sundry dragons. We doubt however whether a poet's testimony can be admitted as proof of any thing beyond the popular persuasion, or whether it even proves so much.

The fragments of ancient Icelandic geo. graphers inserted in the collection are of much greater value. They agree in informing us that Markland and Vinland were to the south of Greenland; and, what is very remarkable, that Vinland, the most remote country known to them in that quarter, was

full force and significance of this strange hypothesis it will be necessary to call to mind some instances of like systematic opinions arising from a similar mixture of ignorance and knowledge. Ptolemy, following Heca

tæus, supposed that Africa extended round themselves to the view of the attentive obfrom the south-west till it joined Asia; and servers of the political and religious horizon this doctrine subsisted, among the Arabs at the Abbé Lamennais, or La Mennais, or De least, till the fourteenth century. Again, La Mennais, aut quocunque nomine gaudet; Lapland was thought to stretch westwards (for we have him in two of his own books through the northern sea, till it became unit- with a duplex movement;) certainly occupies ed with Greenland: and this mode of deline- a remarkable position. There are few perating the northern regions was persisted in sons, even of that nation to which the author by map-makers till near the end of the six- of Paul Clifford has given the appellation of teenth century. It needs no great power of Thinkers, that have ever attained, even amid analysis to perceive that the idea which shoots the recherché disquisition with which they out into this kind of extravagant hypothesis, have enlightened, or darkened thinking,-to is that of the indefinite extent of a land. the distinguished originality of M. L'Abbé When two shores, the limits of whose extent De La Mennais. The plain common sense are unknown, lie opposite to each other, the problem, how far they reach, is speciously resolved by uniting them together. When the Icelandic geographers therefore, tell us that Vinland was supposed to join Africa, they in reality make us acquainted with two facts; first, that it was situated a long way south of Greenland; and secondly, that nothing was known of the extent of its shores, which was supposed to be very great.

Columbus visited Iceland in 1567; and from his general appetence of knowledge it cannot be doubted that he heard of the early voyages of the Northmen and their discovery of Vinland. It has been urged however that the voyage to Vinland, made in a few days from Greenland, a country at that time supposed to be joined to Europe, had little in common with the speculations of Columbus, or calculated to encourage his bold thought of launching across the Atlantic in a tropical latitude. But what could be more to his purpose or better adapted to his views, than the fact that the Northmen, the boldest of navigators, had knowledge of a land in the west which they supposed to extend far southwards till it met Africa? Or could not the intelligent Genoese find some suggestion in the following more accurate statement of an Icelandic geographer? "On the west of the great sea of Spain, which some call Ginnungagap, and leaning somewhat towards the north, the first land which occurs is the good Vinland." It would add little to the merit of Columbus, to maintain that he was incapable of benefiting by so good a hint.

of mankind would certainly have conducted but few persons to the conclusion that the principles of civil and religious liberty might best be advanced under the fostering culture of the Church of Rome; still fewer are there who would imagine that the liberty of private judgment, either in clergy or laity, would be tolerated under the same auspices. But what may not an original thinker effect? The Abbé conceived these matters perfectly practicable, and set about their instant reali. zation. He had conceived the brilliant notion that he could put the popedom into the Movement party, and accordingly started a journal entitled L'Avenir, and a society in connection with the journal, with the formidable title "General Agency for the De. fence of Religious Liberty." By way of still further aiding his own object, the following just description of the Jesuits, the most necessarily devoted to the See of Rome of all her adherents, occupied one of the early numbers of L'Avenir.

'This is neither the place nor the time to criticise the society of the Jesuits, and to seek amid the calumnies of hate, and the encomiams of enthusiasm, pure and vigorous truth. Nothing can be more absurd, more unjust, more revolting than the greater part of the accusations urged against it. We can instance no society of which the members claim more deservedly, admiration for their zeai much, to affirm that their institute, in itself and respect for their virtues. Conceding thus so holy, is exempt at present from many weighty objections,-to say that it is sufficiently adapted the state of modern intellect, to the world's present demands, would be untrue. Still this is neither the place nor the time to canvass this mighty question, and we should feel deep anguish if a single word escaped us that could sadden these venerable men at the present moment, when the fanaticism of impiety persecutes under their name the entire Catholic Church."

The Pope;-whose arm in all ages has been strengthened by the disciples of Loyola, and who knows the manhood of the Jesuit's mind, shut up as it is in the concentred

"Your power is dissipating, and with it the faith. Do you wish to save both? Unite both to humanity, such humanity as eighteen centuries of Christianity have produced. Nothing in this world is stationary. You once reigned over kings, and then kings enslaved you. Separate yourself from monarchs and extend your hand to the people. and what is better, with firm affection. Quit They will support you with the strong arm; the earthly relics of your ancient ruined grandeur; spurn them from you as unworthy of you. You will not long retain them. For what end do you wear these purple rags, save in mockery of what you were? And what use are they save to veil the glorious scars which indicate the holy wars, waged by you in ancient times for the human race against their rulers? Your might is not in exterior pomp, it is internal. It consists in the deep sense of your paternal duties, of your civilizing mission, in a devotedness which knows neither fatigue nor limit to exertion. Resume with the spirit of the early pastors of the Church the simple crook, and if it must be So, even the martyr chain. Victory is certain, but at this cost only."

powers of the order, to be as utterly lost to spiritual, but also inculcates passive obedi the world as the emasculated slave of the ence to the powers whom she authorizes to East to every purpose of virility; who knows stand in that light. Rome had applauded that no state secrets are denied the See, from L'Avenir, and had encouraged its early ef the fatally disclosed confession of the King forts, but Rome could not openly go to the of Spain which expelled them from that length to which the Abbé compromised her country, to those of the Bourbon who re- by language of this character. tained them to the last about his person; and who feels therefore the deep usefulness of the order to his state;-stiil leans to them with undivided trust, and would seek no firmer supporters, could he but safely use them. This however, in the modern state of feelings towards the order is nearly impossible; and hence, save as secret members of his councils, they are as if they did not exist; yet with him are still potent as if they existed openly. The journal that struck at the Jesuit, in effect assailed the Pope; and the Abbé could not but expect that his designating that body as participating in no exist ing state of feeling or in any of the wants of mankind; and describing them, in short, with a few brilliant compliments to their learning and piety, as useless to the community at large, was a course very ill calculated to satisfy either Jesuit or Pope. It certainly is as singular as it is true that we can trace in this body no work of a lofty range of intel. lect. In painful researches, in laborious disquisitions, where shall we find the equal of the Jesuit? But he is neither poet, orator, historian, nor philosopher of a high order.* The conductors of the journal indirectly He had in himself and his objects nothing to came under censure, and, taking a journey prompt to the issues of these things, and he to Rome, they requested an interview with became buried in the learning of the schools the Pontiff. It was granted on the express and estranged from every nobler sentiment stipulation of the forfeiture of the object for and feeling of the heart. To return to M. which it was solicited; namely, all discusL'Abbé: at first this solitary journal of the sion on the object of their visit. In this Roman Catholic hierarchy met with high Pope Gregory proved himself neither Innofavour. It almost appeared that M. L'Abbé cent nor Sylvan. We suspect that his had hit upon the method of contriving, like a Holiness had a shrewd guess at his visiter's celebrated agitator, to keep the Roman Cath- object; olics and the Liberalists together; and that the Holy Father and the democracy of this “Scire volunt secreta domus atque inde timeri.” world (his power being nearly gone with the And with laudable precaution to preserve kings of the earth) might establish a system the secrets of his house his Holiness, as the of prosperous union, and the people be again Abbé observes, persevered a "triste and successfully spirited against their rulers. But morne silence." Disappointed in the issue unluckily the Abbé did not move with suffi. of their journey, and surrounded by persons cient caution, and consequently struck upon the difficult question of the temporal preten. sions of the Holy See. Every one who understands Rome well knows that she not only claims entire rule in things temporal and

who really thought the Abbé and council any thing but what they professed them selves, they drew up a justificatory memoir. This was presented to his Holiness by Car dinal Pacca, and entitled "Mémoire présentée au Souverain-Pontife Greg. XVII. par les Rédacteurs de L'Avenir et les membres du Conseil de l' Agence générale pour la Défense de la Liberte religieuse." On this Memoir we shall offer a few observaexpected

* About six or eight years ago, in a course of lectures publicly announced, we believe, at Salamanca, by one of this learned body upon the Sciences in general, the Holy Father thus addressed his admiring audience. "We shall discuss arithmetic and geometry; all other Sciences lead tions. The Abbé clearly never only to infidelity!" either from the Memoir or the visit to Rome