veneration, among his countrymen.]

[Footnote 24: 'A voice:' Milton.]

[Footnote 25: 'Warblings:' the succession of poets after Milton's
time.]

* * * * *


VII.--THE FATAL SISTERS.

FROM THE NORSE TONGUE.[1]

'Vitt er orpit
Fyrir valfalli.'

ADVERTISEMENT.--The author once had thoughts (in concert with a friend)
of giving a history of English poetry. In the introduction to it he
meant to have produced some specimens of the style that reigned in
ancient times among the neighbouring nations, or those who had subdued
the greater part of this island, and were our progenitors: the
following three imitations made a part of them. He afterwards dropped
his design; especially after he had heard that it was already in the
hands of a person[2] well qualified to do it justice both by his taste
and his researches into antiquity.

PREFACE.--In the eleventh century, Sigurd, Earl of the Orkney Islands,
went with a fleet of ships, and a considerable body of troops, into
Ireland, to the assistance of Sigtryg with the Silken Beard, who was