and often venturing to explain what they do not understand. They may, it is true, give a clear account of fome fimple dogmas; but a religion is chiefly characterized and distinguished by the fentiments it infpires; and can these fentiments be truly represented by a third person, who has never felt the force of them ?

In order then to draw from their present obfcurity the ancient Celtic and Gothic' Religions, which are now as unknown, as they were formerly extenfively received, we must endeavour (if we can) to raise up before us those ancient Poets who were the Theologues of our forefathers: We must confult them in perfon, and hear them (as it were) in the coverts of their dark umbrageous forefts, chant forth thofe facred and mysterious hymns, in which they comprehended the whole fyftem of their Religion and Morality. Nothing of moment would then evade our fearch; fuch informations as thefe would diffufe real light over the mind: The warmth, the ftile and tone of their discourses, in fhort, every thing would then concur to explain their meaning, to put us in the place of the authors themselves, and to make us enter into their own fentiments and notions.

But why do we form vain and idle wifhes? Inftead of meeting with those poems

poems themselves, we only find lamentations for their lofs. Of all thofe verfes of the ancient Druids, which their youths frequently employed twenty years to learn *, we cannot now recover a fingle fragment, or the flighteft relique. The devastations of time, and a falfe zeal, have been equally fatal to them in Spain, France, Germany and England. This is granted, but should we not then rather look for their monuments in countries, later converted to Chriftianity? If the poems, of which we fpeak, have been ever committed to writing, shall we not more probably find them preserved in the north, than where they muft have ftruggled for five or fix centuries more against the attacks of time and fuperftition? This is no conjecture; it is what has really happened. We actually poffefs fome of these Odes †, which

are fo much regretted, and a very large work extracted from a multitude of others. This extract was compiled many centuries ago by an author well known, and who was near the fountain head; it is written in a language not unintelligible, and is preserved in a great number of manuscripts which carry inconteftible characters of antiquity. This extract is the book called the EDDA; the only monument of its kind; fingular in its contents, and fo adapted to throw light on the hiftory of our ancient opinions and manners, that it is amazing it fhould remain fo long unknown beyond the confines of Scandinavia.

To confefs the truth, this work is not devoid of much difficulty; but the obfcurity of it is not abfolutely impenetrable, and when examined by a proper degree of critical ftudy, affifted by a due knowledge of the opinions and manners of the other 'Gothic *' nations, will receive fo much light, as that nothing very material will escape our notice. The most requifite preparative for the well understanding this

leaft light on the Druidical Religion of the Celtic nations But then they are full as valuable, for they unfold the whole Pagan fyftem of our Gothic

ancestors in the difcovery of which we are no lefs interested, than in that of the other.

Celtiques. Fr.

T.

work,

work, but which hath not always been obferved, is to enter as much as poffible into the views of its Author, and to transport ourselves, as it were, into the midst of the people for whom it was written.

It may be easily conceived, that the EDDA firft written in Iceland, but a fhort time after the Pagan Religion was abolished there, must have had a different use from that of making known doctrines, then fcarcely forgotten. I believe, that on an attentive perufal of this work, its true purpofe cannot be mistaken. The EDDA then was neither more nor lefs than a Course of Poetical Lectures, drawn up for the ufe of fuch young Icelanders as devoted themselves to the profeffion of Scald or POET. In this art, as in others, they who had first distinguished themselves, in proportion as they became ancients, acquired the right to be imitated fcrupuloufly by thofe who came after them, and fometimes even in things the most arbitrary. The inhabitants of the north, accustomed to fee ODIN and FRIG GA, GENII and FAIRIES make a figure in their ancient poetry, expected ftill to find their names retained in fucceeding Poems, to fee them act, and to hear them fpeak agreeably to the ideas they had once formed of their characters and functions. From the fame cuftom it arifes, that in our Col VOL. II, Jeges

b

leges, fuch as write Latin poetry cannot to this day rob their verfes of the ornamental affiftance of ancient Fable: But at the expence of reafon, tafte, and even Religion, we fee facred and profane Mythology jumbled together; and falfe Gods and Angels, Nymphs and Apoftles in friendly converfe. If our Icelanders have not given into these abuses, they at leaft, for a long time, composed their poetry in the old taste, and I am even affured that, at this day, the verses that are compofed in Iceland often preserve ftrong traces of it. A knowledge of the

ancient Runic * Mythology continuing thus neceffary for the purpofes of poetry, it would easily occur to a lover of that art, to compile a kind of Dictionary of the Figurative Expreffions employed by the ancient SCALDS; with which the fuc- ceeding Bards were as fond of embellishing their works as our modern Latin Poets are of patching theirs with the fhreds of Horace and Virgil. This dictionary could only become useful, by fubjoining to the figurative expreffion, the Fable which gave rife to the figure. Thus, when they read in the dictionary, that the Earth was poetically filed "the Body of the Giant "YMER;" the Laft Day," the Twilight of "the Gods;" Poetry, "the Beverage of *Celtique. Orig.

"ODIN,"