The old Danish poets were, for the most part, extremely rude in their
versification. Their stanzas of four or two lines have not the full
rhyme of vowel and consonant, but merely what the Spaniards call the
"assonante," or vowel rhyme, and attention seldom seems to have been
paid to the number of FEET on which the lines moved along. But,
however defective their poetry may be in point of harmony of numbers,
it describes, in vivid and barbaric language, scenes of barbaric
grandeur, which in these days are never witnessed; and, which, though
the modern muse may imagine, she generally fails in attempting to
pourtray, from the violent desire to be smooth and tuneful,
forgetting that smoothness and tunefulness are nearly synonymous with
tameness and unmeaningness.

I expect shortly to lay before the public a complete translation of
the KIAEMPE VISER, made by me some years ago; and of which, I hope,
the specimens here produced will not give an unfavourable idea.

It was originally my intention to publish, among the "Miscellaneous
Pieces," several translations from the Gaelic, formerly the language
of the western world; the noble tongue


"A labhair Padric' nninse Fail na Riogh.
'San faighe caomhsin Colum naomhta' n I."


Which Patrick spoke in Innisfail, to heathen chiefs of old
Which Columb, the mild prophet-saint, spoke in his island-hold -