find MERCURY, MARS and PLUTO, their own Deities and their own doctrines, among a people who frequently had never heard them mentioned.

But even if there were no cause to diftrust the contemptuous and hasty relations, which the ancients have left us of their barbarous neighbours; and even if the little they have told us were exact, do their writings after all contain wherewith to interest us on the subject of the Celtic ' or Gothic' doctrines? Can a few words describing the exterior worship of a religion teach us its spirit ? Will they discover the chain, often concealed, which unites and connects all its different tenets, precepts and forms? Can they convey to us an idea of the sentiments which such a religion implanted in the foul, or of the powerful afcendancy which it gained over the minds of its votaries. We can affuredly learn nothing of all this in Cæfar, Strabo or Tacitus, and how then can they interest or engage such readers, as only esteem in learning and erudition, what enlightens the mind with real knowledge?

It is only from the mouths of its own profeffors that we can acquire a just knowledge of any Religion. All other interpreters are here unfaithful; sometimes condemning and afperfing what they explain;

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

In order then to draw from their present obscurity the ancient Celtic ' and Gothic' Religions, which are now as unknown, as they were formerly extensively 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 person, and hear them (as it were) in the coverts of their dark umbrageous forests, chant forth those sacred and mysterious hymns, in which they comprehended the whole system of their Religion and Morality. Nothing of moment would then evade our search; fuch informations as these would diffuse real light over the mind: The warmth, the stile and tone of their difcourses, in short, 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 wishes? Instead of meeting with those poems poems themselves, we only find lamentations for their lofs. Of all those verses of the ancient Druids, which their youths frequently employed twenty years to learn *, we cannot now recover a single fragment, or the flightest relique. The devastations of time, and a false 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 Christianity? If the poems, of which we speak, have been ever committed to writing, shall we not more probably find them preserved in the north, than where they must have ftruggled for five or fix centuries more against the attacks of time and superstition? This is no conjecture; it is what has really happened. We actually possess some of these Odes †, which

tunate mistake of confounding the CELTIC and GOTHIC Antiquities. The CELTIC Odes of the Druids are for ever loft; but we happily possess the RuNIC Songs of the Gothic Scalds: These however have nothing in common with the Druid Odes, nor contribute to throw the

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are so 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 manufcripts which carry incontestible characters of antiquity. This extract is the book called the EDDA; the only monument of its kind; fingular in its contents, and so adapted to throw light on the history of our ancient opinions and manners, that it is amazing it should remain so long unknown beyond the confines of Scandinavia.

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

work, but which hath not always been observed, 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 first written in Iceland, but a short time after the Pagan Religion was abolished there, must have had a different use from that of making known doctrines, then scarcely forgotten. I believe, that on an attentive perusal of this work, its true purpose cannot be mistaken. The EDDA then was neither more nor less than a Course of Poetical Lectures, drawn up for the use 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 scrupulously by those who came after them, and sometimes even in things the most arbitrary. The inhabitants of the north, accustomed to fee ODIN and FRIGGA, GENII and FAIRIES make a figure in their ancient poetry, expected still to find their names retained in succeeding Poems, to fee them act, and to hear them speak agreeably to the ideas they had once formed of their characters and functions. From the fame custom it arises, that in our ColVOL. II. leges

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