great vessel
which he had in the west was launched, and soon got ready. On Ash
Wednesday the corpse of King Haco was taken out of the ground: this
happened the third of the nones of March. The courtiers followed the
corpse to Skalpeid, where the ship lay, and which was chiefly under the
direction of the Bishop Thorgisl and Andrew Plytt. They put to sea on
the first Saturday in Lent; but, meeting with hard weather, they steered
for Silavog. From this place they wrote letters to Prince Magnus,
acquainting him with the news, and then sailed for Bergen. They arrived
at Laxavog before the festival of St. Benedict. On that day Prince
Magnus rowed out to meet the corpse. The ship was brought near to the
king's palace, and the body was carried up to a summer-house. Next
morning the corpse was removed to Christ's Church, and was attended by
Prince Magnus, the two queens, the courtiers, and the town's people. The
body was then interred in the choir of Christ's Church; and Prince
Magnus addressed a long and gracious speech to those who attended the
funeral procession. All the multitude present were much affected, and
expressed great sorrow of mind."

So far the Icelandic chronicle. Each age has as certainly its own mode
of telling its stories as of adjusting its dress or setting its cap; and
the mode of this northern historian is somewhat prolix. I am not sure,
however, whether I would not prefer the simple minuteness with which he
dwells on every little circumstance, to that dissertative style of
history characteristic of a more reflective age, that for series of
facts substitutes bundles of theories. Cowper well describes the
historians of this latter school, and shows how, on selecting some
little-known personage of a remote time as their hero,

"They disentangle from the puzzled skein
In which obscurity has wrapped them up,
The threads of politic and shrewd design
That ran through all his purposes, and charge
His mind with meanings that he never had,
Or, having, kept concealed."

I have seen it elaborately argued by a writer of this class, that those
wasting incursions of the Northmen which must have been such terrible
plagues to the southern and western countries of Europe, ceased in
consequence of their conversion to Christianity; for that, under the
humanizing influence of religion, they staid at home, and cultivated the
arts of peace. But the hypothesis is, I fear, not very tenable.
Christianity, in even a purer