[275] Mr Lidderdale of the British Museum has lately catalogued its Icelandic books, and by another list of all those printed, shows what is wanted to perfect the national collection. The latter possesses some rare volumes which are not in the National Library of Copenhagen.
[276] The most noted of the old writers are the following: Arngrímr Jónsson published a variety of books on local subjects, Brevis Commentarius (1592), Anatome Blefkeniana (1612), Epistola Defensoria (1618), Apotribe Calumniæ (1622), Chrymogæa (1609-1630), Specimen Islandiæ (1643). In 1607 appeared the “Islandia, etc.” of Difmar Blefkens (Blefkenius). The author lived a year at “Haffnefiordt,” and then passed on to Greenland. He greatly scandalised the islanders by making them purify their skins and strengthen their gums like the Celtiberi of Strabo and Catullus, and the coquettes of rural France. In 1608, Ionr Boty printed his “Treatise of the Course from Iceland to Greenland” (Purchas, iii. 520). In 1644, La Peyrère wrote an “Account of Iceland” (Churchill, ii. 432), from which an extract has been made. In 1746, John Andersson, afterwards Burgomaster of Hamburgh, there published his “Nachrichten von Island,” which was translated into Danish and French. His statements were contradicted in 1750 by the Dane Niels Horrebow, “Tilforladeliga Efterretningar om Island med ett nytt Landkort, og 2 Aars Meteorologiska Observationer,” also translated into German and English.
The marking book of the last century was the “Introduction à l’Histoire de Dannemark,” par M. Mallet, à Copenh. 1755, 2 vols. 4to. It was reproduced in English and German. This pioneer of northern literature was born at Geneva, became French Professor at Copenhagen (1752), travelled in Norway and Sweden (1755), returned home and died (1762). The work is obsolete, but Mallet’s “Northern Antiquities,” edited by Bishop Percy, and supplemented by Mr I. A. Blackwell, would form a valuable item of Bohn’s Library (London, 1859), were it provided with a decent index, and purged of the blemishes which now dishonour it. Imagine the effect of such a note as this (p. 42): “The Himalaya, or Heavenly mountains; the Sanskrit, himala, corresponding to the M. Gothic himins; Alem. himil.... Engl., heaven.”
In 1766-67, M. de Kerguelen Tremarec voyaged over the North Sea, and published in 1772 his “Relation d’un Voyage dans la Mer du Nord.” In 1772, Uno Von Troil accompanied Sir J. Banks to Iceland, and wrote a most valuable series of twenty-five letters. They have been reproduced in many collections: the edition always referred to in these pages is the 4to of Robson, London, 1780, kindly given to the author by Mr Bernhard Quaritch. Another important book is that of Eggert Olafsson and Biarní Pállsson (usually Danised to Olafsen and Povelsen), “Reise igienem Island, with Zoega’s Botanical Observations,” 2 vols., Soroe, 1772, 4to; it was translated into German and into French, and a compendium of it, given in English, was largely quoted by Henderson. In 1772, Bishop Finn Jónsson (Finnus Johannæus), the learned author of the “Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiæ (vols. 3, Hafn., now very rare), treated of the “depopulation of Iceland by cold, volcanic eruptions, and famine.” Guðbrandus Thorlacius, Bishop of Hólar, also wrote a “Letter concerning the Ancient State of the Island.” In 1789, Mr (afterwards Sir) John Stanley addressed two “Letters” to Dr Black, which were printed in the “Transactions of the Koyal Society of Edinburgh.”
The various collections of “Voyages and Travels” contain many interesting notices of Iceland. The “Scoprimento dell’ Isole Frislanda, Eslanda, Engroenlanda, Estotilanda, and Icarea, fatto per due fratelli, M. Nicolò il Caualiere et M. Antonio, Libro Vno, col disegno di dette Isole,” appears in Ramusio, vol. ii.; in Purchas, iii.; and in Hakluyt, iii. Hakluyt, i., gives “King Arthur’s Voyage to Iceland” (A.D. 517), and King Malgo’s conquest (A.D. 580), by “Galfridus Monumentensis.” Also “A Briefe Commentary of the True State of Island” (or Iseland, both used indiscriminately), by Jonas Arngrim. Volume iii. reprints “A Voyage of the ships ‘Sunshine’ and ‘North Starre’ (of the fleet of Mr John Davis), to discover a Passage between Groenland and Iseland” (A.D. 1586). J. Harris (Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca; or, a Compleat Collection of Voyages and Travels, 1705 and 1748), in book ii., chap. ii., sec. 30, p. 489, et seq. (edition 1748), offers “A Voyage to the North, containing an Account of the Sea Coasts and Rivers of Norway ... and Iceland, etc.” (circa 1605), “extracted from the Journal of a Gentleman employed by the North Sea Company at Copenhagen.” “A Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages and Travels,” published by Sir R. Phillips (London, 1805), reprints (vol. ii.) “Travels in Iceland, performed by order of His Danish Majesty, etc., by Messrs Olafsen and Povelsen” (the Olafsson and Pállsson before alluded to), translated from the Danish, map and four plates. Kerr (“A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, etc.,” 1811-24) has a chapter (vol. i., sec. I, p. 4, et seq.) on the Discovery of Iceland by the Norwegians in the ninth century about A.D. 861. J. Laharpe (vol. xvi.) quotes Horrebow (1750), Anderson (1746), Jonas Arngrim, and “Flocco, a Norwegian pirate.” The “Allgemeine Historie der Reisen zu Wasser und zu Lande,” etc., Leipzig, 1769 (pp. 1-63, map and plate), contains “Besondere Geschichte von Island.”
[277] In 1837 appeared the first southern attempt at a novel upon hyperborean subjects—“Han d’Islande,” which Jules Janin (Les Catacombes, i. 102) described as “Cette vive, passionée et grossière ébauche d’un homme qui avait Notre Dame de Paris dans la tête et les Orientales dans le cœur.” The great author’s mind must have been very young when he wrote it. This silly and childish farrago bears the same relation to “Notre Dame” as “Titus Andronicus” to the “Tempest” or to “Othello.” Han is an impossible savage, ever with a tempête sous un crâne. Ordener is a ridiculous Timon, and the sudden conversion of Schuhmacher to absurd benevolence is worthy of caricature-loving Dickens. With the exception of a few striking remarks, it shows more of fury and frenzy than of fine wit. It forcibly calls to mind the late Prosper Merimée’s harsh judgment of M. Victor Hugo as a poet: “He is all imagery. There is neither matter, nor solidity, nor common sense in his verse; he is a man who gets drunk on his own words, and who no longer takes the trouble of thinking.” And Han d’Islande explains how the austere old littérateur detected a vein of insanity in the greatest poet of the French Revival, the Romantic School which dates from 1830.
Nor amongst travellers can we reckon M. Jules Verne’s “Voyage au Centre de la Terre,” the least meritorious of the “terribly thrilling” and marvellously impossible series; its scene is chiefly below “Sneffles” (Snæfelljökull), a sniffling disguise, which seems to have been, but is not, invented in jest.
[278] M. Robert was the mineralogist, geologist, and botanist of the expedition; he received special directions from M. Adolphe Brogniart (Professor of Botany in the Museum of Natural History, Paris); he traversed the greater part of the island in 1835-36, and at his request Hr Vahl, a Danish botanist, who had lived long in Greenland, revised the published lists, especially Hooker’s, and drew up a fresh list, corrected to 1840. Since that time, Iceland has been visited by Mr Babington of Cambridge (1846), who also made collections. For others, see Section VII.
[279] The writer could have learned this only from Iceland information, and he should have been more cautious in listening to the islanders, especially when they were criticising what they consider a hostile book. On the other hand, Madame Pfeiffer has left an impression upon the reader that the clergy take money from travellers—which is certainly not the case now, and probably never was general.
[280] Amongst Icelandic travels we cannot include the valuable commercial papers, often alluded to in these pages—(1.) by Mr Vice-Consul Crowe, “Report on the Fisheries, Trade, and General Features of Iceland, for the years 1865-66;” and (2.) by Mr Consul Crowe, “On the Trade and Fisheries of Iceland, for the years 1870-71.” It is evident that the able author has not been in Iceland or he would not say “the schools are excellent and well attended,” when there are absolutely no schools. It is to be regretted that the Foreign Office does not enable writers to correct their proof-sheets; we should then not have in a single page such blemishes as Skrid Sökler (Jöklar); Oræfa Tokull (Jökull); Odadahrann (Ódáða Hraun); and Kekjavik-cum-Keykjavik (for Reykjavik) repeated throughout the paper.