down from a shadowy antiquity, have passed from country to country, from language to language, borrowed, stolen, transmitted in all manner of ways, enriching one body of literature after another, and perpetually scattering seeds as they have blossomed and ripened on a fresh soil! And as gifted minds occasionally break forth, having the power of bringing up, from the eternal mines of truth, original ideas, untried ores, and gems in the matrix,-how beautiful is it to see these mental treasures mingling gradually with the literary currency of one country after another, till they are the property of the whole civilized world!

The causes, which, under the guidance of a divine agency, contribute to these results, are as various as they are wonderful. A solitary scholar travels into a distant land, impelled by a curiosity not planted in all hearts; he has less of inhabitiveness, perhaps, than other men; he returns like the laden bee to his hive. The chances of war plunge another wise man into bondage beneath a foreign sky; the collar is on his neck, but the free mind works, and the exile teaches to his master's children the lore of his own unforgotten home. The plumed warrior leads his host into some venerable land, where the desert wind sweeps the sand over monuments that defy Time, the destroyer, and the low voice of Tradition, and even its uncertain echoes, are nearly hushed; he marches in the selfish glory of military conquest; but from that land of silence, desolation, and seeming oblivion, he brings back, with more vulgar booty, the scholar's food; some dim memorials of dead nations, languages, and religions, from which patient ingenuity may wring out knowledge. Now the victor carries civilization into the peakroofed huts of the Gaul and Briton; and now the barbarian from his vast forests, rushes howling into the splendid abodes of decrepit civilization, to be taught by a subdued people. The light of learning, that once blazed from the plains of Hindostan and the excavated temples of Ellora, amid a people utterly passed away, utterly forgotten even to namelessness, moves majestically westward and illumines the mysterious waters of the Nile; next it gleams placidly among the groves of Academus, and in the fair columns of the Parthenon; then glides to a younger altar, amid the seven hills of the Eternal City, and tinged with many hues caught from various skies, it burns on with a prismatic radiance of mingled histories and mythologies. It cannot be quenched by a tempest from the North; it grows

dim, flickers, and dies down under the strange, long night of the Dark Ages, but is not extinguished. Its indestructible embers lurk in quiet monasteries, fanned by a few humble individuals, unconscious of their own solemn instrumentality; it has kindled other lights, far apart from each other, beside the throne of the heathen Saracen, and amid the snows and volcanoes of lonely Christian Iceland. And when again the shadows withdraw from Europe, how broad becomes the blaze of mental illumination! Every scattered spark kindles its flame, and in how many countries is there light at last! Then the white sails of Commerce are seen studding all the seas of the round globe, and they waft homeward not only the conveniencies and luxuries which artificial man demands, but to the student, the philosopher, the poet, fresh materials for that invisible laborer, Mind. In this oft-told tale, who does not mark the Allpowerful, caring for the intellect with which He has informed these tenements of clay?

At the present day, it is difficult to bear in mind how necessarily the literature of an isolated country, depending only on its own resources, must be meagre and deficient in variety. But who that has perused the relics of Gaelic poetry can help perceiving the fact? Who that compares the Iliad with the Paradise Lost, can avoid seeing the immense advantages of the learned English poet of the seventeenth century over the bards of ancient Greece? From how many countries, arts, histories, mythologies, is drawn the glorious imagery of that epic, which is England's boast. Here, indeed, we find the wealth of " Ormus and of Ind," mingling with tribute from the sacred page, from classic antiquity, from the old traditions of Armorica and Cornwall, the records of later chivalry, the literature of awakened Italy, from the sciences, all dissolved together in the crucible of his own glowing poetic mind, and poured forth in a golden stream along the immortal page. The spirits of the prophets and poets of Judea, of Homer and Virgil, of Dante and Ariosto, of Chaucer and Spenser, hovered in their mantles of inspiration around the sightless old man and breathed upon him-called up by the spells of those patient studies, in which his diligent and unspotted youth had been spent.

To him, therefore, whose object it is to invigorate and carry forward the intellect of his country, we would say, drink from every pure fountain, to which you can gain access. Thence

will be derived a freedom from absurd conventional rules and national prejudices, a knowledge of human nature as modified by different climates and governments, a fertility of allusion and variety of illustration, which will impart unexpected power. Such an one will be far less likely to repeat oracularly old truths in the vain conceit that they are new; and will escape the mannerism of him who has learned all in a single school. How great an improvement has been obvious in American literature, since our scholars have begun to travel abroad, or study faithfully the writings of France, Italy, and Germany at home. But as there are many who have taste and leisure for literary pursuits, but not for the study of languages, the labors of the translator rise into no small importance. The different degrees of facility with which individuals acquire languages is remarkable, and should be taken into consideration in the direction we give our studies; and those on whom the inconveniencies of the builder at Babel seem partially to rest, in an inability to comprehend more than one tongue, should beware of persevering in tasks, which involve much expense of time on a disproportionate object. Time, a treasure incessantly slipping from the firmest grasp, and the powers of the human mind, are both too precious to be so wasted; and, if we may quote so unfashionable an authority as Locke, "Labor for labor's sake is against nature." There are many, whose hours may be better employed with the pen, or in other studies, than in poring over dictionaries and grammars; yet who may eagerly and profitably seek acquaintance with the distinguished writers of other countries, and to them he is a benefactor indeed, who renders the impassable barrier transparent.

We are anxious to recommend the office of the translator to our countrymen, and countrywomen, because we think it might be here pursued with great usefulness; not forgetting how much has already been done in this walk both wisely and well. In the records of the old world, we find that some of the greatest minds have not disdained to give their strength to it. The philanthropic and sagacious monarch, who was the phenomenon of the ninth century, having the good of his AngloSaxon subjects at heart, gave them the benefit of his studies by translations from the Latin into their own rude, half-formed dialect; one of the very first who is recorded to have performed for them this humble, but substantial service, fraught with more consequences than we can now pause to enumerate. It is a

quiet, unobtrusive way of aiding our fellow-creatures; it does not bring the great Me out of the background. The translator may have the honor of being criticised; but he is very apt to find that his best labors are not appreciated; and is seldom heralded before the world by a flourish of trumpets. The love of fame can have little to do with his exertions; the love of money may; but as we look back on the short career of our country, we have faith in higher and purer motives.

The Poem, whose title stands at the head of this article, was not translated by an American pen; but it is the first production of the Swedish muse, which has fallen in our way, and had for us the charm of a literary curiosity. Well acquainted with the useful but unromantic exports of the Baltic shores, with the ship-loads of timber, pitch, iron, potash, and herrings, that, issuing from the jaws of the sweetly named Cattegat and Skaggerack, seek a thousand ports, we have not been in the habit of finding among these precious commodities the intellectual recreation of a leisure hour. The history of Sweden has formed but a small part of the usual course of historical studies in this country. The patriotism of Gustavus Vasa, the insane courage of Charles the Twelfth, the mingled excellencies of Gustavus Adolphus, and the vicious follies of his unworthy daughter, stand out in bold relief on the uninteresting annals of her sovereigns. To many the name of Linnæus represents her men of science in solitary dignity; while that of Emanuel Swedenborg, with mysterious and disputed ray, gleams before others, lonely as the meteor on an unknown heath. Few interesting volumes of travels in these sequestered regions have reached us; and we doubt not that many of our readers will be as much surprised at encountering a highly poetical effusion from a Swedish mind, as if in coursing over the wastes of snowy Lapland at the heels of a rein-deer, they had dashed through a thicket of moss-roses in full bloom. Yet the Germans, somewhat nearer to the lands that once were Scandinavia than ourselves, would tell us that we commit the usual errors of youth, and betray our own ignorance and presumption in thus undervaluing old Sweden. In 1818, she published three hundred and sixty-two works, of which only ninety-one were translations. The wild scenery her mountainous peninsula, presenting spectacles of Alpine magnificence, especially in its Norwegian recesses, (which of late have tempted the tourists of England in their summer yachts,) the stirring romance of her early legends, cannot but

have favored the development of imagination among her literary men. How can they help listening to the

"Voice of the gifted elder time,

Voice of the charm and Runic rhyme,"

to the thousand poetical voices, heard on their sea-worn shores, in their forests of rocking pines and firs, from their rustling midnight skies, when

"the Heavens are bright

With the arrowy streams of the northern light."

Sweden has come, like a corps de reserve, late, but full of vigor, into the literary arena of Europe. The spirit of her people has ever been a strong one. Remote from the throne of the Cæsars, in the happy obscurity of a Terra Incognita, she never beheld the brazen helmets of Roman legions gleaming among her forests. She retained her own fierce form of Paganism till the tenth century. Christianity came at last, but not introduced by southern masters. The nation of warriors, where every husbandman kept his weapons bright, had been taught to consider courage as the first of virtues, and was predisposed to look on a religion of peace with contempt. Wrapped in storms, the gloomy gods of Scandinavia gave way slowly; but the "hammer of Thor" dropped at last, and the buckler of Odin dissolved away under the soft, silvery light, which pursued them through a land of mountains, precipices, and forests, down the steep declivities which terminate in the desolate Frozen Ocean. Then peaceful monasteries arose. The temples of the deified wanderer, the second Odin, who, in some misty, half-fabulous age, had brought his migratory hordes from the shores of the Black Sea, or Caspian, (none knew certainly by what cause driven,) went to decay. His Runic characters, the rites of his superstition, bearing traces of their eastern origin, and his code of laws, once miracles of wisdom, were not hastily forgotten, but fell into neglect. Skokloster, pouring forth the matins and vespers of its holy men, rose on the margin of the same lake which reflected the ruins of old Sigtuna, once the chosen abode of throned Idolatry. But as centuries rolled on, bringing, like the floods, changes on all over which they passed, Protestantism drove out the studious recluses from their cells; still the intellect of a free people was at work. The universities of Sweden were her just pride. Upsala, more an