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come to propose to him, having assumed the appearance of one Gest, a man extremely well versed in this art. These are still extant in an old Icelandic romance[1]. But excepting some few, which are tolerably ingenious, they are either totally unintelligible, or built on verbal equivocations. The poets were not limited to this kind only. There is mention made from the earliest ages of Logogryphs[2], and other still more trifling species of wit, for which we happily want even names. Some of them must have cost much labour, and all imply such an acuteness and patience in the inventors, as would hardly be expected from a nation of warriors.
In regard to the old poems, all that is most needful to be known about them, is the peculiar genius, manner and taste that runs through them. Some of them present us with the faithful and genuine mode of thinking of those times, but they are often difficult to understand, and still more to translate. Nevertheless, to satisfy the
