ld and fierce than the Saxons, and still less scrupulous in their
proceedings, pleased with the appearance of the country which they had
come over to look at, settled themselves in every nook and corner of Old
England in which they could haul up their ships, and find a resting
place for their feet. I cannot help feeling a great respect for those
old sea-kings. They were heathens, and we must judge of them by the
light which they possessed, and not by any standard acknowledged in the
present civilised world. Bold, enterprising, and sagacious, their own
country confined and barren, they looked on the wide ocean as the only
worthy field for the employment of their energies. They loved it for
itself, too; they were born on it, or within the sound of its surges;
they lived on it, they fought on it, and it was their wish through life
to die on it, as if only on its boundless expanse their free spirits
could be emancipated from this mortal coil. This same spirit still
exists and animates the breasts of the officers and men of our navy, of
our vast mercantile marine; and, though mentioned last, not certainly in
a less degree of the owners of the superb yacht fleets which grace the
waters of the Solent, of the Bay of Dublin, of Plymouth Sound, of the
mouth of the Thames, and indeed of every harbour and roadstead round our
shores. No people, unless animated by such a spirit, would go to sea
simply for the love of a sea-life as do our yachtsmen. We may depend
upon it that they are the lineal descendants of those old sea-rovers,
somewhat more civilised and polished certainly, differing as much in
that respect, it is to be hoped, from their remote ancestors as do their
trim yachts, which will go nine knots or more within four and a-half
points of the wind, from the tubbish-looking sturdy craft of the Danes,
which had no idea of sailing any way except dead before the gale.

There was something barbarously grand in the notion of the old Norse
kings which induced them, when worn out with age and fatigue, to sail
forth into mid-ocean, and then, lighting their own funeral pile, to
consume themselves and the stout ship they loved so well in one
conflagration. Seriously, however, we must not forget that they were
influenced by a very terrible and dark superstition, and be thankful
that we live in an age when the bright beams of Christianity have
dispelled such gross errors from this part of the globe. I cannot help
fancying that th