( xviii )
colleges, such as write Latin poetry cannot to this day rob their verses of the ornamental assistance of ancient Fable: But at the expence of reason, taste, and even Religion, we see sacred and profane Mythology jumbled together; and false Gods and Angels, Nymphs and Apostles in friendly converse. If our Icelanders have not given into these abuses, they at least, for a long time, composed their poetry in the old taste, and I am even assured that, at this day, the verses that are composed in Iceland often preserve strong traces of it. A knowledge of the ‘ancient Runic[1]’ Mythology continuing thus necessary for the purposes of poetry, it would easily occur to a lover of that art, to compile a kind of Dictionary of the Figurative Expressions employed by the ancient Scalds; with which the succeeding Bards were as fond of embellishing their works as our modern Latin Poets are of patching theirs with the shreds of Horace and Virgil. This dictionary could only become useful, by subjoining to the figurative expression, the Fable which gave rise to the figure. Thus, when they read in the dictionary, that the Earth was poetically stiled “the Body of the Giant Ymer;” the Last Day, “the Twilight of the Gods;” Poetry, “the Beverage of
- ↑ Celtique. Orig.
