Skald poetry in the Norse tongue are by this time keenly alive to the import and the charm of that North-Gothic mythology which equals in beauty and interest, and in some respects excels, that of ancient Greece and Rome. Such fragmentary and vagrant acquaintance with a romantic literature needs, however, for due insight and sympathy, to be localized, so to speak-to be identified with the place, the scenery, and the atmosphere in which it was evolved. If we would catch, through the dense and inelastic medium of translation, some faint and fugitive echo of Scandinavian minstrels, if we would seize at least the spirit of their song, we must be able to conceive them in their works and lives, must be helped to reproduce in fancy "The Home of the Eddas." It is precisely this which Mr. Lock has sought to do for us in the record of his sojourn for twelve full months in Iceland. The distinctive merit of his narrative is not an obvious utility to the future tourist, although the hints and counsels are minute and copious, nor the crisp and lively sketches of social intercourse and housekeeping practiced amid the harsh conditions of an Arctic climate, but the patience with which it traces myth and legend to their birthplace, and the felicity with which he detects, beneath the crust of physical transformation and social decline, the Iceland of the Norse heroic age. This task of local identification and resurrection he has been enabled to carry out through his indefatigable industry and fervid enthusiasm for the persons and the scenes of Scandinavian story. What was equally essential to success, he is saturated with an erudition which, so far as we can judge, is accurate, and which certainly infects the reader with a touch of the author's relish.

Interesting and suggestive of profound social metamorphosis is the author's comparison of ancient with modern Icelandic architecture. All the heathen Scandinavian buildings were of timber, lined with paneling inside, and the interstices packed with dry moss to keep out the piercing draughts. These houses were spacious, comprising a number of apartments, including a bath-room-to which there is, at present, no equivalent in Iceland—and all of the rooms were then provided with fireplaces, the early colonists having no lack of fuel. Now, on the other hand, recourse is had by builders to lava-blocks and turf-sods, for, except among the Danish settlers, and a few government houses, there are not a dozen timber-framed

*The Home of the Eddas, by C. G. W. Lock. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co.

dwellings in the country. The old hall, with its broad spaces and lofty rafters, has shrunk into a hovel of turf, on whose small stone hearth a peat-fire is lighted at rare intervals for cooking purposes alone. To the destruction of the Icelandic woods or shaws, Mr. Lock, like all other writers on the subject, attributes almost all the evil that has befallen the island and her sons.

M. W. HAZELTINE.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. CCLXXX.

MARCH, 1880.

THE THIRD TERM: REASONS AGAINST IT.

"Resolved, That in the opinion of this House the precedent established by Washington and other Presidents of the United States, in retiring from the Presidential office after their second term, has become, by universal consent, a part of our republican system of government, and that any departure from this time-honored custom would be unwise, unpatriotic, and fraught with peril to our free institutions."

This is a resolution passed by the House of Representatives on the 15th day of December, 1875. It was offered by Mr. Springer, of Illinois, after consultation with leading friends of the principle, and was carried immediately and almost unanimously, being opposed by the votes of only eighteen members out of two hundred and fifty-one. It received the support and approbation of all parties. Men who quarreled bitterly upon all other political subjects were of one heart and one mind, when it came to be a question whether the custom established by Washington and other Presidents, of retiring after their second term, ought to be respected or could be safely departed from.

And now here, to wit, in the pages of this Review, comes Mr. Howe, of Wisconsin, and on the part of General Grant, for whom he appears, denounces the resolution aforesaid, impugns the doctrine embodied in it, and assails the integrity of its supporters in the most violent manner. I am asked, "Under which king, Bezonian ?" Do I give in my concurrence? If not, what grounds of VOL. CXXX.-NO. 280.

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