The list given by Uno Von Troil contains the names of 120 works; and the Reports of the Icelandic Literary Society between 1852 and 1871 show, besides its yearly transactions (Skírnir), the titles of fifty-one publications, some old but mostly modern. Bishop Pètursson (Hist. Eccl. 330) gives a list of six folio pages, containing the titles of Libri Biblici, Catechetici, de Evangeliis, Precum, Conciones, et alii piis usibus Libri. It is interesting, again, to compare this hyperborean literature with that of the little Istrian peninsula. The latter, despite such drawbacks as poverty and political excitement, and the torments of plagues, droughts, famines, invasions, and intestine strife, can point to a roll numbering about 3000 names:[274] England herself is hardly richer in local literature.
Amongst the subjects which Icelandic has treated, we may number proverbs, the “marrow of the language.” The first collection (Orðskviðasafn) was made by Guðmundur Jónsson, and printed in octavo by the Literary Society (Report of 1872). The Cleasby-Vigfusson Dictionary also contains a considerable number which deserve separate publication, for the benefit of those who appreciate this highly ethnological form of literature. Even the Færoe Islands possess their répertoire (Description, etc., by the Rev. J. Lundt: London, Longmans, 1810), and some of them are naïve in the extreme. For instance, “Calumny never dies,” and “Seldom are pigeons hatched from a raven’s egg.” Some five years ago Mr Jón A. Hjaltalín translated into English a collection of Icelandic proverbs, adding to it those of the late Dr Scheving. His plan was: (1.) to give the text; (2.) a literal translation; and (3.) a common translation, e.g.:
Berr er hverr á baki nema bróður eigi;
Bare is every on back unless brother have;
Bare is back where brother is not.
Thus the Advocates’ Library has the largest and the most complete collection of Icelandic proverbs ever made, whilst, mirabile dictu, it is in MS., being unable to find a publisher.
Finally, the days are past since Sir Joseph Banks could collect the three hundred rare and valuable MSS. which were deposited in the British Museum. At present not a single article of literary worth is to be bought on the island.[275]
We will now proceed to Icelandic travellers, and more especially to the English travellers of the present century.[276]
1. Mr (afterwards Sir) William Jackson Hooker, F.R.S., L.S., and F. Wern. Soc. Edin., produced his “Journal of a Tour in Iceland in the Summer of 1809,” 2 vols. 8vo, London, Longmans and Murray, 1811. 2d edition, 1813. The author had lost his notes with the ship which carried him, and wrote much from memory, hence the extreme cacography of the Icelandic words. Henderson (ii. 136, note) finds the work “intolerably free-thinking”—times have changed. The botanical notes are valuable, and the volumes will, despite all their disadvantages, take rank as “classics.”
2. Sir George Steuart Mackenzie, Bart., President of the Physical Class of the Royal Society, etc., published his “Travels in the Island of Iceland during the Summer of the year 1810,” Constable, Edinburgh, 4to; and the book reached a second edition in 1812. He took charge of the geological and mineralogical departments, whilst Dr (the late Sir Henry) Holland and Dr Bright (of Bright’s disease) studied the history and literature, the zoology and botany. The illustrations and statistical tables are highly valuable; and although the Geysir theory is now utterly obsolete, literary Icelanders still consider the volume an authority upon scientific matters.
3. “Iceland, or the Journal of a Residence in that Island during the years 1814 and 1815.” By Ebenezer Henderson, Ph.D., M.R.S. Gottenburgh, Hon. M. Lit. Soc. of Fuhnen, and Corr. M. Scan. Lit. Soc. of Copenhagen. 1st edition, 2 vols. 8vo, Oliphant, Edinburgh, 1818. 2d edition, 1819. A notice of his book will conclude this Section.
4. “Statistisk Udsigt over den danske Stat i Begyndelsen af Aaret, 1825, af Frederik Thaarup, Etatsraad,” 8vo, Kjöbenhavn, 1825, with Atlas. Valuable for tables of figures.