, 1875-07-28
MISS OTTES SCANDINAVIAN
HISTORY.
( From the Spectator J

Those who know Miss Ott6's name only as
that of the author of tho standard translation
Of Uumboldt's Cosmos, and the scarcely less
valuable versions of the writings of DE Quatre-
FACES and Paul, will be surprised to find 1t APP
pended to an independent work OF a totally al
ferent order. 1t is only fair, therefore, to say
at the outset that the gifted authorizes shows
herself as competent for the one task as the
other, as fitted to decide where angry chronl-
clers differ, as ready to expound the anthroPo-
logiCal dicta of German savants. It's not easy
for a reviewer to do justice to a work so care
fully prepared a. this is; it is not possible Tor
him to check infinitely every date and every
reference. Suffice it to say, that we have made
several such experiments without beng able to
catch Miss Ott6 at fault, and that the whole
book seems compiled with care, and fancy
restrained with almost too great severity.
The publication OF this history Of the North
is certainly well,timed. Every year sends
more of our countrymen to the lakes OF Sweden
and the rivers of Norway intercourse is rapidly
becoming more and more close we are begin
ming to learn something Of the progress OF Scan
dinavian politics, literature, and art; while
our Northern neighbours themselves, as a glance
at their newspapers and their publishers oircu-
lars will tell us, become every year more intent
in their study of our modes of life. Every iG-
tellioent link between ourselves and nations
still so young and healthy as these is manifest
" a boon and they have, or ought to have, a
special attraction for lis in the fact that hi8tori-
cally, pbilologically, ard ethnologically it is I'M
possible for US to separate our past from theirs.
We have therefore peculiar pleasure in recon-
mending this intelligent resume of Northern
history as a book essential to every EngIIshman
who interests himself in Scandinavia.
Save the shadowy reports of Pytheas, a
merchant of Massilia, who seems to have visit
ed the Baltic, nothing was known to the South
of Europe of the lands north of Germany until
the reign of Alfred the great, who prefixed to
his translation Of OrOsus a short account taken
down by him from the lips OF two Norsemen
who visited his Court hut long before this the
Northern tribes had made their existence pain
fully obvious to their more civilised neighbours
by their sudden and violent i~nvasiOns. AS far as
we are now able to Judge, the Danish power
was created by a coalition OF Jutes and Cloths,
who f)cked into the deserted peninsula OF the
Cimbrian Chersonese when the immense emil
grafton of the Angles to Britain had left 1t
d~esolate. There Jutes and Danish Cloths form
ed themselves into a great number CT small
States, ruled by chiefs appropriately called
Smaakongar, or little kings. The same prac-
tice was adopted throughout Scandinavia, and
the petty chiefs seem to have reigned indepen'
IDENTIFY of one another, combining only when a
southwark raid was on hand. By degrees one
king in Jutland and another in the Islands oh.
tanned supreme influence. each over nall OF
Denmark. The legends of this period, sucn as
those handed down by Saxo Grammatcus,
and those embodied in the curious DdnS6e
Riiimkr5uake are innumerable, but to collect
the elements of truth from them is difficult in
deed. The stories of Saxo, however, are ex-
ceedingly original and picturesque, and are
constantly quoted and referred to in all modern
Danish literature; Miss Otto has therefore
narrated the most striking Of them, endeavOur,
ing as clearly as possible to define the
outline of history under the myth. She
very acuteIy suggests that the battle