God of our fathers, Thou who wast, Art, shall be when those eye-wise who flout In the great light that dazzles them to doubt, We sprung from loins of stalwart men Whose strength was in their trust That Thou wouldst make Thy dwelling in their dust Who build a city of the dust,— We who believe Life's bases rest Still, like our fathers, feel Thee near, Sure that while lasts the immutable decree The land to human nature dear Will not be unbeloved of Thee. VIKING TALES OF the North-THE SAGAS OF THORSTEIN, Vik- of 1877. Tegnér's translation of the Fridthjof Saga-if a poetic rendering prose original can be called a translation-is said to be most delightful, and is certainly the most celebrated of the Swedish national poems. Since its publication in 1825 it has run through twenty large editions, of almost every variety of style, in Sweden alone; it has been illustrated and set to music; and it has been translated into nearly every language of Europe, in some of them in more than one version, the present translation by the Holcombs making the nineteenth attempt to give it a satisfactory English dress. A special feature of the poem, one of its great beauties and the chief source of embarrassment to the translators, is the variety of its metres. Tegnér made the experiment, which proved a successful one, of dividing his miniature epic into short lays or cantos, twenty-four in number, adopting for each a versification suited to the theme; and this peculiarity is so essentially a part of the poem no translation can be satisfactory which does not reproduce it faithfully. In fact, it is less the spirit of the poem than the beauty of its diction and the easy flow of its rhythm-precisely the points which are the most difficult for a translator to seize and hold—that that give it its great popularity among the Swedes. The chief merit claimed for the present version is the scrupulous care with which this feature of the poem has been preserved throughout. For the first time in an English version, every canto has been rendered in the same metre and with all the alliterations and feminine rhymes of the original; a task by no means easy, but which, so far as can be judged without a comparison with the original, has been very successfully performed. The versification certainly compares favorably with that of Stephens' translation, now republished by Professor Anderson, which received very high praise from the Swedish poet himself. To enable the readers to judge. between the two translations, we give a few parallel stanzas from each, placing those of Stephens first. The following hexameters are from "Fridthjof's Inheritance:" Vifil had but one son, hight Viking. Now old and decrepit, Just thereupon, from the wood's deep shades, came a grim-looking giant, Fierce from th' old chief, then, he combat claims, or his daughter and kingdom. Vifil's possessions descended to Viking. At Woolen Acre, Old and infirm, there lived a king with a beautiful daughter, See, from the depths of the forest there cometh a giant misshapen, Boldly demanding a hand-to-hand combat, or kingdom and daughter. Far and wide, like the falcon that hunts through the sky, flew he now o'er the desolate sea; And his viking a code, for his champions on borad, wrote he well;-wilt thou hear what it be? Now he floated around on the desolate sea, like a prey-seeking falcon he rode, To the champions on board he gave justice and law; wilt thou hear now the sea-viking's code? The following stanza is from "King Ring's Dirge," written in the old Icelandic metre, with alliterations and feminine rhymes. It may be a question whether English grammar will permit English words to be made to read smoothly in this cramped and artificial verse. Most of the translators have, in rendering this canto, been deterred from making the attempt to preserve its characteristics; and yet, in fact, the metre is about all there is of it. . Th' hero-sprung sov'reign Battle-blade by him, Buckler on arm ; Chafing, his courser The comparison between these extracts, which were taken as the book opened, is certainly favorable to the last translators both for correctness of metre and for smoothness of diction. The Holcombs have in fact done their work very creditably, and in spite of the occasional occurrence of such verses as, Polished with wax and like steel shining; carved on two pillars of elm wood, which will hardly pass for an English hexameter with those familiar with Longfellow's Evangeline, they have given us a very readable translation of the famous Swedish poem. One cannot help wishing, however, that in some places it were a little better. But this is only the nineteenth version, and there is room for others. We may yet have a Fridthjof's Saga which will rise above all criticism. Tegnér's poem is, however, a modern work, modern both in form and in spirit, and there could be no greater mistake than to accept it as a specimen of the Icelandic sagas. Indeed, the "wonderful literature of Iceland" is so little known outside of the small circle of students and poets who have rummaged it, each for his own purpose, and have thrown a sort of aurora borealis tint over it, that the popular impression of its character is, no doubt, erroneous. Any one who takes up this volume of "Viking Tales," by Professor Anderson, with the expectation of finding in it a pair of literary gems, which for some unaccountable reason have hitherto remains in manuscript, will be disappointed. In fact nothing can be more bald, more prosy, more unreadable, except for certain associations, than the average saga. The saga-man was no poet; he possessed neither warmth of fancy nor grandeur of soul. He was simply a story-teller, whose tale was about men. and deeds, told in the most direct manner, with none of the finery and tinsel in which poets like Tegnér and Morris envelop the same heroes and the same exploits. His art was of that crude sort which can only captivate the attention by depicting the extravagant and the supernatural. His heroes are men of immense stature and immense bodily strength; they are giants who perform marvelous exploits by brute force. They leap with ease wide mountain chasms, fight bloody battles under the sea, or stand up in a hand-to-hand fight with an adversary for three and four days. If he wishes to excite detestation for a personage, he paints him as a physical monster, as a huge, misshapen being with a blue tooth an ell and a half long, or with a lip which protrudes an ell beyond his nose. Love has a place in his story, but a very subordinate place. The females are, of course, beautiful, but they appear not to exercise any very potent attraction upon the hardy warriors. They are thrust into the background of the story, while the heroes in the foreground wantonly provoke quarrels, and fight aimless battle, and only retire in to domestic life when they have grown old or hsave become weary of the sea. Considered merely in themselves, and looked at from an art point of view, these sagas are about the least seductive reading that can be imagined. But regarded as "survivals" of an ancient folklore now well nigh extinct, they become invested with a very deep interest. The Icelanders are in many respects at least a thousand years behind the age. In their almost complete isolation from Europe, they have preserved their language, their customs, their stories with a tenacity which has no parallel. Through the Iceland literature, therefore, lies the most direct path to an acquaintance with the mental traits of our own forefathers. Icelandic studies are at the present moment being prosecuted in Europe with considerable zeal, and we rejoice to see that they have taken root in our own midst and that they are apparently flourishing well. In connection with the "Norse Mythology," already published, and the two Eddas, which we see advertised as in preparation, this volume of "Viking Tales" should meet with a sale which will repay both author and publishers, as the perusal of it will certainly repay the reader. THE FIVE SENSES OF MAN. By Julius Bernstein, Professor of Physiology in the University of Halle. 12mo. New York: D. Appleton & Co. This volume of the International Scientific Series has the somewhat rare quality of being both scientific and popular; and its author has admirably succeeded in his endeavors to elucidate difficult scientific questions in such a manner that the general public can understand and appreciate them. The subjects treated are entered into with remarkable minuteness of detail without becoming tedious, and experiments and facts are recorded that, as a general rule, are wanting even in the so-called text-books. The book is divided into four parts, one for each sense, except taste and smell, which are treated of together. The first part treats of the tactile sense, and contains an account of the general anatomy of the human skin that is admirable in its simplicity, and yet gives all the details necessary for a clear understanding of the physiology of the sense of touch. There is one fact, however, that we do not find mentioned in the volume before us, viz: that the Pacinian bodies, which are spoken of as being the terminations of sensory nerve fibres, are also to be found in the mesentery of the cat, in which locality they are very numerous and large, thus giving the microscopist an opportunity to study their nature with greater care than is possible with those found in the skin of the finger of man. This fact makes it rather doubtful that these Pacinian bodies have anything to do with the sense of touch, as there can be no such sense in the internal parts. It is much more probable that these little egg-shaped bodies are ganglions, or small nerve centres, as they are enveloped in a distinct capsule-which has lately been demonstrated by Dr. C. Seiler of Philadelphiaand as some observers are under the impression that they have seen the nerve-fibres pass out, and continue on the other side of the bodies. The second part of the volume contains a full description of all the phenomena connected with the sense of sight; entering as far as necessary into the study of optics, but without burdening the mind of the reader with mathematical formulæ and calculations. The theory of refraction of light, for instance, is explained with such clearness as we have never before met with. In spite of the difficulties which attend the explanation to the non-scientific reader of chromatics and spherical aberration in lenses, we think that every one may understand from Prof. Bernstein's statement how it is that a correct image of the object seen is formed on the retina of the eye. In this connection, Prof. Bernstein speaks of the defects of photographic lenses, and says that on account of the so-called barrel-shaped distortion, or spherical aberration, buildings can not be photographed beyond a certain size of picture. Of late, however, lenses have been made with a very long focus, which will cover a plate of 5 by 3 feet without giving the slightest. distortion in the straight lines of buildings. The subject of adjustment of the eye to objects at different distances is exceedingly interesting, and the mechanism by which such adjustment is ef fected the book in hand lucidly describes. It would carry us too far to enter into every point of interest contained in this part of the volume, and we will therefore only say, that the reader who seeks information in regard to the phenomena of sight cannot find a better guide. As in the Part III. treats of the sense of hearing, and begins by giving a minute description of the intricate anatomy of the human ear, which is illustrated by many excellent wood-cuts. chapters on sight the author enters into the optical principles involved in the appreciation of the outer world by means of the eye, so here those laws of acoustics which explain to us the way in which we are enabled to perceive sounds, are entered into and briefly but clearly described. The physiological part of hearing and the description of Corti's organ is especially interesting, and |