origin. Thus among the English aristocracy we not only find the old Scandinavian title of Jarl, or Earl, which in the North itself has given way to the German one of Graf, or Greve, but a Northman will easily discover many characteristic traits that remind him of his own ancestors. It is truly remarkable that the love of bodily exercises, games, hunting, and horse-racing, not to mention the predilection for daring sea voyages so strongly prevalent amongst them, was likewise manifested, according to the Sagas or legends, by the rich and powerful in Iceland, and the rest of the Scandinavian fatherlands.

Under these circumstances it would, indeed, have been in the highest degree surprising if the Danish-Norwegian Normans, who conquered England at the same period that their near kinsmen, the Norwegian-Danish Normans, conquered Normandy, who had migrated from the north for the self-same reasons as these kinsmen, and who were subject to the same virtues and vices-if these Normans in England alone, I say, should have been barbarous "robbers and plunderers," trampling on and destroying all that was "great and good," whilst their brothers in Normandy distinguished themselves by an early civilization, and particularly by a lively feeling for poetry and for a further development both of social and political life. It must be remembered that the Danish-Norwegian Normans, who made conquests in England, did not go thither in one great body, but in small divisions, which only by degrees, and in the course of about three centuries, settled themselves in the districts inhabited by the Anglo-Saxons; and that, though far less numerous than the latter, they were not only able firmly to maintain their position among them, but at length even to expel them from a great part of the country north-east of Watling-Stræt. For this proves that the new Scandinavian inhabitants of England, along with greater physical strength and more martial prowess than the Anglo-Saxons possessed, must have been soon able to acquire that skill in the employments of peace, as

well as that higher polish and refinement, which in the long run could alone insure them the superiority and preponderance which they enjoyed over the Anglo-Saxons, not only in the rural districts, but in many towns of the north of England; and secure for them such an influence as they obtained in England's best and greatest city, even London itself.

Further, that those Northmen, who by the Danish conquests became the progenitors of a great part, probably as much as half, of the present population of England, were just as brave men, and just as great lovers of liberty, as their Norman brethren, the ancestors of the English nobility; and that they played a part not much inferior to theirs in the development of England's freedom and greatness, a closer examination will probably place in a clearer light.

SECTION X.

Commerce and Navigation.

THE Northmen, who in ancient times sailed to foreign shores, were far from always being Vikings, bent only on rapine and plunder, and the conquest of new possessions. They were very often peaceful merchants. The remote situation of Scandinavia, and the dangers which the natives of more southern countries pictured to themselves as attendant upon a voyage to that ultima Thule and its heathenish inhabitants, must in ancient days, when navigation was very limited, have deterred foreign merchants from visiting it regularly, and bartering their wares. The Scandinavian tribes, on the contrary, were at that time almost the only seamen. From the want of all that belonged to the exterior comforts and conveniences of life in Scandinavia, the business of a merchant who bartered the products of the north and south, and who brought home with him a knowledge of distant and unknown lands,

must early have become a profitable, and, from the dangers connected with it, an honourable profession. The trading voyages of the merchant were not, indeed, held in such esteem as those of the Vikings; yet from the most ancient times certain established customs were observed in the north for the protection of merchant vessels; and the merchant who, as was frequently the case, had distinguished himself by warlike qualities and shrewdness of understanding, was neither despised in the company of Vikings, nor in the King's hall. Even chiefs of royal descent did not regard it as anything dishonourable to exercise the mercantile profession. Already, in the most ancient times, a number of trading places were scattered round the north, and large annual fairs were held. Once a year the ships of the merchants assembled together from the whole of Scandinavia, perhaps even from the other nearest situated countries, in the Sound of Haleyri, or, as it is now called, Elsinore. Booths were erected along the shore; foreign wares were bartered for fish, hides, and valuable furs; whilst various games, and all sorts of merry-making, took place.

During the Roman dominion in England, and probably even in far earlier times, a tolerably brisk commerce appears to have been kept up between England and the countries of Scandinavia, especially Jutland, Vendsyssel, and the districts round the Limfjord; where also, as a consequence of this, genuine Roman antiquities have been dug up at various times. After the conquest of England by the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons, and still more after the Danes and Norwegians had begun to settle there, this intercourse became still more frequent. We may safely assert that, so early as the close of the ninth and beginning of the tenth century, a very brisk trade must have existed between England and the North. The Scandinavian element was then so well established, that not only did Scandinavian kings reign, and coin money, in the north of England, but even that ex

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tremely important old Saxon city, "North-weorig," which lay in the very heart of England, was called by the Saxon kings themselves, on their coins, by the foreign name of Deorabui" (Deoraby, Dyreby, Derby); although this name, according to the English chroniclers' own statements, was first given to it by the immigrant Danes. Some will even recognise Derby in the name of "Doribi," which stands on a coin of King Ethelwulf of the middle of the ninth century (837-857). At all events it is a certain and remarkable proof of the early and wide-extended influence of the Scandinavian settlers, even in places far in the interior of the country, that "Deorabui " appears repeatedly on coins of King Athelstane (924-940), and of his immediate successors. It was this same Athelstane who is said to have visited Scandinavia, where he learned the language; and who afterwards educated at his court Hagen Adelsteen, the law-giver, who subsequently became the first Christian king in Norway. This fact also indicates the wide-spread and peaceful connection between England and the North, which not long afterwards induced the Norwegian King's son, Olaf Trygvesön, in his treaty of peace with the English king, Ethelred, whose lands he had long harried, expressly to stipulate for certain rights and privileges in favour of the Scandinavian merchant ships in the English harbours.

Even in Alfred the Great's time (A.D. 900) the seas and lands of Scandinavia were but very little known to the Anglo-Saxons; for which reason Alfred, chiefly with a view to trade and commerce, sent Ulfsten and the Norwegian Ottar on voyages of discovery to the Baltic, and along the coast of Norway to the White Sea. That according to the laws of his country an Anglo-Saxon merchant obtained the rank and title of Thane, or Chief, when he had thrice crossed the sea in his own ship, sufficiently attests how desirous the Anglo-Saxon kings were to awaken among their subjects, by means of large rewards, a desire for such voyages. Subsequently, however, during the expeditions

of the Vikings and Normans, when the dangers attending long voyages had become still greater than before for the Anglo-Saxons, owing to the perfectly overwhelming force of the Northmen at sea, the trade, with Scandinavia at least, must have continued to remain in the hands of the Scandinavian merchants; who, as we learn from the Sagas, were continually making voyages, as well from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, as from the still more distant Iceland, to England, and the other countries of the West. Wherever the Normans had won new settlements, Scandinavian merchants likewise established themselves in order to maintain a steady connection with their ancient home. It is for this simple reason that we find in those times so many Danes and Norwegians settled in the most important trading places, not only in England (in London, Southwark, Derby, Grimsby, York, Whitby, and other towns), but also, as we shall see in the sequel, in Ireland and in Normandy, where the city of "Ruda," or Rouen, is spoken of as an important place of trade often visited by the Northmen.

The Scandinavian merchant vessels brought not only the wares of Scandinavia to the British Islands and other countries of the West; they likewise brought merchandise from the remote East. From the most ancient times, indeed, the Northmen had maintained connections with the eastern countries; which was a natural consequence of their having emigrated thence into the North, and left friends behind them there. By means of these connections, metals otherwise totally unknown in the North, and especially gold, were certainly brought thither at a very early period from the mountains of the East. Subsequently, in the fifth and sixth centuries, when fresh migrations from the East had taken place, a closer connection was opened with the eastern Roman Empire, and particularly with Constantinople, so that coins of that empire, and other valuables, began to be circulated in the North. After the Scandinavian colonists, too, had conquered king