Northern Antiquities/The French Author's Preface

by Paul Henri Mallet

☛ In the following Preface, our Author, Mons. Mallet, extols the late King of Denmark, Frederick V. as a great patron of literature and promoter of knowledge: it is therefore but justice to that Monarch to mention a few of the literary undertakings which owe their rise and establishment to his bounty and love of Science.

I. He instituted a Society, consisting of four or five gentlemen, who have a salary of 400 l. per annum assigned them, purposely for the cultivation of the Danish Language, and illustration of the Icelandic and Northern Antiquities. They have in their possession a great quantity of manuscripts relative to the latter; and, among the rest, the intire Voluspa. This Society has already published two volumes upon Miscellaneous Subjects; in which are two Dissertations relative to the Icelandic Antiquities.

II. He directed and enabled his Professor of Botany, Dr. Oeder, to publish that magnificent work, the Flora Danica; of which he commanded presents to be made to all the principal clergy, engaging them to contribute their assistance towards perfecting an undertaking so useful and extensive: And, in order to promote the same design all over Europe, he commanded this work to be printed in the Latin and French, as well as German and Danish Languages; and to be carried on till it shall be found to contain the figures and descriptions of all the plants which grow within the limits of the polar circle, and the 53d degree of latitude.

III. He sent the celebrated Mission of Literati to explore the interior parts of Arabia, and to give us a more perfect account of that now almost unknown country, which was once the seat of learning and science: as also to collect whatever reliques could be found of the old Arabian books, history, &c. These Missionaries were Five in number, viz. Mr. Professor De Haven, for Philology and Language: Mr. Professor Forskal (a Disciple of Linnæus) for Natural History; a lieutenant of engineers, Mr. Niebuhr, for Geography and Astronomy: Dr. Cramer, for Medicine, and Mr. Paurenfeind for Drawing and taking Views, &c. The whole design and plan of their voyage may be seen in Mons. Michaelis’s “Recueil des questions proposées a une Societé de Savans, qui par ordre de sa Maj. Dan. font le voyage de l' Arabie, &c." Francf. 1763. 12mo. Of these Five Literati, only one is returned alive out of the East. Their joint observations, however, are in the hands of Mr. Niebuhr the survivor, which he is preparing for the press in the German Language. As some of the travellers died early in their tour, we must not expect to find the original plan entirely compleated. The work will be found most perfect in what relates to Geography and Natural History: but though it must, from the circumstances above mentioned, prove somewhat defective, the world may nevertheless form considerable expectations of it; and it will, as we are assured, be given to the Public in the course of this present year, M,DCC,LXX.

THE

FRENCH AUTHOR’S

PREFACE.

IF it be allowed that the History of a considerable people is in itself useful and interesting, independent of all accidental circumstances; it must also be acknowledged that there are certain points of time, when such a History runs a better chance of being received, than at any other. This is more particularly the case when a general curiosity is excited concerning the nation which is the subject of that history. An illustrious reign^[1], distinguished by whatever can render it dear to a people, and glorious in the eyes of sensible observers, cannot attract the attention of mankind, without inspiring at the same time, a desire of knowing the principal events which have preceded that reign.

This reflection sufficiently justifies my design of publishing a new History of Denmark in the French Language. If I am fortunate enough to succeed in my undertaking, I shall be the more happy, as I shall, in many respects, answer the ends of my present employment, and shall give, at the same time, a proof of my gratitude to the Danish nation, who have so generously adopted me for their fellow-citizen.

I am not ignorant that many persons have executed long ago, either in the whole or in part, a work of the same kind with mine; and I shall, in its proper place, do justice to their diligence^[2]. But as the volume which I now offer to the public relates to a subject which these Authors have treated either very superficially, or not at all; I shall here, in a few words, give my reasons why, at setting out, I have followed a plan somewhat different from theirs.

To run cursorily over a number of events, unconnected and void of circumstances, without being able to penetrate into their true causes; to see people, princes, conquerors and legislators succeed one another rapidly upon the stage, without knowing any thing of their real character, manner of thinking, or of the spirit which animated them, this is to have only the skeleton of History; this is meerly to behold a parcel of dark and obscure shadows, instead of living and conversing with real men. For this reason I have all along resolved not to meddle with the body of the Danish History, till I have presented my Readers with a sketch of the manners and genius of the first inhabitants of Denmark. But I imagined, like those who have preceded me in this attempt, that a few pages would have sufficed for illustrating the most essential of these points; nor was it, till I had examined this matter with new attention, that I discovered my mistake. I then found, that too much brevity would defeat the end I proposed, which was to place my subject in different points of view, all of them equally new and interesting.

In fact, History has not recorded the annals of a people who have occasioned greater, more sudden, or more numerous revolutions in Europe than the Scandinavians; or whose antiquities, at the same time, are so little known. Had, indeed, their emigrations been only like those sudden torrents of which all traces and remembrance are soon effaced, the indifference that has been shown to them would have been sufficiently justified by the barbarism they have been reproached with. But, during those general inundations, the face of Europe underwent so total a change; and during the confusion they occasioned, such different establishments took place; new societies were formed, animated so entirely with a new spirit, that the History of our own manners and institutions ought necessarily to ascend back, and even dwell a considerable time upon a period, which discovers to us their chief origin and source.

But I ought not barely to assert this. Permit me to support the assertion by proofs. For this purpose, let us briefly run over all the different Revolutions which this part of the world underwent, during the long course of ages which its History comprehends, in order to see what share the nations of the north have had in producing them. If we recur back to the remotest times, we observe a nation issuing step by step from the forests of Scythia, incessantly increasing and dividing to take possession of the uncultivated countries which it met with in its progress. Very soon after, we see the same people, like a tree full of vigour, extending long branches over all Europe; we see them also carrying with them, wherever they came, from the borders of the Black Sea, to the extremities of Spain, of Sicily, and Greece, a religion simple and martial as themselves, a form of government dictated by good sense and liberty, a restless unconquered spirit, apt to take fire at the very mention of subjection and constraint, and a ferocious courage, nourished by a savage and vagabond life. While the gentleness of the climate softened imperceptibly the ferocity of those who settled in the south, Colonies of Egyptians and Phoenicians mixing with them upon the coasts of Greece, and thence passing over to those of Italy, taught them at last to live in cities, to cultivate letters, arts, and commerce. Thus their opinions, their customs and genius were blended together, and new states were formed upon new plans. Rome, in the meantime, arose, and at length carried all before her. In proportion as she increased in grandeur, she forgot her ancient manners, and destroyed, among the nations whom she overpowered, the original spirit with which they were animated. But this spirit continued unaltered in the colder countries of Europe, and maintained itself there like the independency of the inhabitants. Scarce could fifteen or sixteen centuries produce there any change in that spirit. There it renewed itself incessantly; for, during the whole of that long interval, new adventurers issuing continually from the original inexhaustible country, trod upon the heels of their fathers towards the north, and, being in their turn succeeded by new troops of followers, they pushed one another forward, like the waves of the sea. The northern countries, thus overstocked, and unable any longer to contain such restless inhabitants, equally greedy of glory and plunder, discharged at length, upon the Roman Empire, the weight that oppressed them. The barriers of the Empire, ill defended by a people whom prosperity had enervated, were borne down on all sides by torrents of victorious armies. We then see the conquerors introducing, among the nations they vanquished, viz. into the very bosom of slavery and sloth, that spirit of independence and equality, that elevation of soul, that taste for rural and military life, which both the one and the other had originally derived from the same common source, but which were then among the Romans breathing their last. Dispositions and principles so opposite, struggled long with forces sufficiently equal, but they united in the end, they coalesced together, and from their coalition sprung those principles and that spirit which governed, afterwards, almost all the states of Europe, and which, notwithstanding the differences of climate, of religion and particular accidents, do still visibly reign in them, and retain, to this day, more or less the traces of their first common original.

It is easy to see, from this short sketch, how greatly the nations of the north have influenced the different fates of Europe: And, if it be worth while to trace its revolutions to their causes, if the illustration of its institutions, of its police, of its customs, of its manners, of its laws, be a subject of useful and interesting inquiry; it must be allowed, that the Antiquities of the north, that is to say, everything which tends to make us acquainted with its ancient inhabitants, merits a share in the attention of thinking men. But to render this obvious by a particular example; Is it not well known that the most flourishing and celebrated states of Europe owe originally to the northern nations, whatever liberty they now enjoy, either in their constitution, or in the spirit of their government? For although the Gothic form of government has been almost everywhere altered or abolished, have we not retained, in most things, the opinions, the customs, the manners which that government had a tendency to produce? Is not this, in fact, the principal source of that courage, of that aversion to slavery, of that empire of honour which characterise in general the European nations; and of that moderation, of that easiness of access, and peculiar attention to the rights of humanity, which so happily distinguish our sovereigns from the inaccessible and superb tyrants of Asia? The immense extent of the Roman Empire had rendered its constitution so despotic and military, many of its Emperors were such ferocious monsters, its senate was become so mean-spirited and vile, that all elevation of sentiment, every thing that was noble and manly, seems to have been for ever banished from their hearts and minds: Insomuch, that if all Europe had received the yoke of Rome in this her state of debasement, this fine part of the world, reduced to the inglorious condition of the rest, could not have avoided falling into that kind of barbarity, which is of all others the most incurable; as, by making as many slaves as there are men, it degrades them so low as not to leave them even a thought or desire of bettering their condition. But Nature had long prepared a remedy for such great evils, in that unsubmitting, unconquerable spirit, with which she had inspired the people of the north; and thus she made amends to the human race, for all the calamities which, in other respects, the inroads of these nations, and the overthrow of the Roman Empire produced.

“The great prerogative of Scandinavia, (says the admirable Author of the Spirit of Laws) and what ought to recommend its inhabitants beyond every people upon earth, is, that they afforded the great resource to the liberty of Europe, that is, to almost all the liberty that is among men. The Goth Jornandes, (adds he) calls the north of Europe the Forge of Mankind. I should rather call it, the forge of those instruments which broke the fetters manufactured in the south. It was there those valiant nations were bred, who left their native climes to destroy tyrants and slaves, and to teach men that nature having made them equal, no reason could be assigned for their becoming dependent, but their mutual happiness.”

If these considerations be of any weight, I shall easily be excused for having treated at so much length, the Antiquities of the nation whose History I write. The judicious public will see and decide, whether I have conceived a just idea of my subject, or whether, from an illusion too common with Authors, I have not ascribed to it more importance than it deserves. I should not be without some apprehensions of this kind, if that were always true which is commonly said, that we grow fond of our labours in proportion as they are difficult. Many tedious and unentertaining volumes I have been obliged to peruse: I have had more than one language to learn: My materials were widely scattered, ill digested, and often little known: It was not easy to collect them, or to accommodate them to my purpose. These are all circumstances, ill calculated, it must be owned, to give me much assurance. But I have likewise met with very considerable assistances; several learned men have treated particular points of the Antiquities of the north, with that deep erudition which characterises the studies of the last age. I cannot mention, without acknowledgment and praise, Bartholinus, Wormius, Stephanius, Arngrim Jonas, Torfæus, &c. I have also consulted, with advantage, two learned strangers, Mess. Pelloutier and Dalin. The first, in his History of the Celtes, has thrown a great deal of light upon the religion of the first inhabitants of Europe. The second has given a new History of Sweden, which discovers extensive reading and genius. In three or four chapters, where the Author treats of the religion, the laws and manners of the ancient Swedes, we find these subjects discussed with unusual perspicuity and elegance.

There are people of that happy genius, that they need only wish in order to succeed, and have every resource within themselves. As for me, I dare hardly reckon among my advantages, the strong motives and inducements I have had to my undertaking. I dare not tell strangers, that I have had the happiness of being encouraged by more than one Mæcenas, and by a Prince, alike knowing, and zealous in the advancement of knowledge. They would judge of me, unquestionably, according to what such numerous and great encouragements ought to have produced, when, perhaps, I hardly find myself capable of discharging the duties which lie upon me in common with all Historians.

Is it necessary that I should take notice, before I conclude, that I am about to delineate a nation in its infancy, and that the greatest part of the other Europeans were neither less savage, nor less uncivilized, during the fame period? I shall give sufficient proofs of this in other places, being persuaded that there is among nations an emulation of glory, which often degenerates into jealousy, and puts them upon assuming a pre-eminence upon the most chimerical advantages: That there glows in their bosoms a patriotic zeal, which is often so blind and ill informed, as to take alarm at the most slender and indifferent declarations made in favour of others.

In the second Volume will be found a Translation of the Edda, and of some other fragments of Mythology and ancient pieces of Poetry. They are singular, and, in many respects, precious monuments, which throw much light upon the Antiquities of the north, and upon those of the other ‘Gothic^[3]’ nations. They will serve for Proofs, and be a Supplement to this Description of the Manners of the Ancient Danes; and for this reason, as well as out of deference to the advice of some persons of taste, I was induced to translate them, and to annex them to it.

1. Our Author here (and below, p. lv.) pays a compliment to the late King of Denmark, Frederick V; with what reason see the preceding page.
2. Our Author probably alludes to a former history of Denmark in the French Language, (dedicated to the present King's grandfather, K. Frederick IV,) intitled, “L’Histoire de Dannemarc avant et depuis l’Etablissement de la Monarchie: Par Mr. J. B. Des Roches, Escuyer, Conseiller et Avocat General du Roi Tr. Chr. au Bureau des Finances et Chambre du Domaine de la Generalité de la Rochelle.” Amst. 1730. 6 Vol. 12mo. To this work is prefixed a Preface Historique pour servir d’Introduction a l’Histoire de Dannemarc; which contains a tolerable display of the Northern Antiquities, &c.
3. Celtes. Orig.