above, like
the English, the inspiring belief that they could conquer the whole
world, and who very nearly succeeded in that--as we have, to our great
blessing, not succeeded--I mean, of course, the Romans.

LECTURE III.
THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.

Let me begin this lecture with a scene in the North Atlantic 863 years
since.

'Bjarne Grimolfson was blown with his ship into the Irish Ocean; and
there came worms and the ship began to sink under them. They had a boat
which they had payed with seals' blubber, for that the sea-worms will not
hurt. But when they got into the boat they saw that it would not hold
them all. Then said Bjarne, "As the boat will only hold the half of us,
my advice is that we should draw lots who shall go in her; for that will
not be unworthy of our manhood." This advice seemed so good that none
gainsaid it; and they drew lots. And the lot fell to Bjarne that he
should go in the boat with half his crew. But as he got into the boat,
there spake an Icelander who was in the ship and had followed Bjarne from
Iceland, "Art thou going to leave me here, Bjarne?" Quoth Bjarne, "So it
must be." Then said the man, "Another thing didst thou promise my
father, when I sailed with thee from Iceland, than to desert me thus.
For thou saidst that we both should share the same lot." Bjarne said,
"And that we will not do. Get thou down into the boat, and I will get up
into the ship, now I see that thou art so greedy after life." So Bjarne
went up into the ship, and the man down into the boat; and the boat went
on its voyage till they came to Dublin in Ireland. But most men say that
Bjarne and his comrades perished among the worms; for they were never
heard of after.'

This story may serve as a text for my whole lecture. Not only does it
smack of the sea-breeze and the salt water like all the finest old Norse
sagas: but it gives a glimpse at least, of the nobleness which underlay
the grim and often cruel nature of the Norseman. It belongs, too, to the
culminating epoch, to the beginning of that era when the Scandinavian
peoples had their great times; when the old fierceness of the worshippers
of Thor and Odin was tempered, without being effeminated by the Faith of
the 'White Christ,' till the very men who had been the destroyers of
Western Europe became its civilisers.

It should have, moreover, a special interest to Americans. For--as
American antiquaries are well aware--Bjarne was o