2.)

From these extracts, it appears that the poets who imitated Gray
considered that only "dreadful songs," like his, were to be found in
Scandinavian poetry.

Downman, Herbert and Mathias are also adduced by Dr. Drake as examples
of poets who have gained much by Old Norse borrowings, but these
borrowings are invariably scenes from a chamber of horrors. It occurs
to me that perhaps Dr. Drake had begun to tire of the spiritless echoes
of the classical schools, and that he fondly hoped that such shrieks and
groans as those he admired in this essay would satisfy his cravings for
better things in poetry. But the critic had no adequate knowledge of the
way in which genius works. His one desire in these studies of
Scandinavian mythology was "to recommend it to the votaries of the Muse,
as a machinery admirably constructed for their purpose" (p. 158). He
hopes for "a more extensive adoption of the Scandinavian mythology,
especially in our _epic_ and _lyric_ compositions" (p. 311). We smile at
the notion, to-day, but that very conception of poetry as "machinery" is
characteristic of a whole century of our English literature.

The Mathias mentioned by Drake is Thomas James Mathias, whose book,
_Odes Chiefly from the Norse Tongue_ (London, 1781), received the
distinction of an American reprint (New York, 1806). Bartholinus
furnishes the material and Gray the spirit for these pieces.

AMOS S. COTTLE(1768-1800). WILLIAM HERBERT (1778-1847).

In this period belong two works of translation that mark the approach of
the time when Old Norse prose and poetry were to be read in the
original. As literature they are of little value, and they had but
slight influence on succeeding writers.

At Bristol, in 1797, was published _Icelandic Poetry, or, The Edda of
Saemund translated into English Verse_, by A.S. Cottle of Magdalen
College, Cambridge. This work has an Introduction containing nothing
worth discussing here, and an "Epistle" to A.S. Cottle from Robert
Southey. The laureate, in good blank verse, discourses on the Old Norse
heroes whom he happens to know about. They are the old favorites, Regner
Lodbrog and his sons; in Southey's poem the foeman's skull is, as usual,
the drinking cup. It was certainly time for new actors and new
properties to appear in English versions of Scandinavian stories.

The translations are twelve in number, and evince an intelligent and
facile versifier. When all is said, these old songs could contri