Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/102

1811), was also an antiquary, and has become famous chiefly on account of his exhaustive work on the old Norse poetry, which is still one of the best authorities in this field. Bishop Finn Jonsson (1704-1789) produced in a large work written in Latin a splendid ecclesiastical history of Iceland. Jon Erichsen (1728-1787) developed a marked activity not only as an independent author of archaeological works, but also as editor of similar works by older writers. Björn Haldorsson (1724-1798) compiled an Icelandic-Latin lexicon, which was published after his death by the Danish linguist Rasmus Rask in the year 1814, and which was the most important lexicographical aid to the study of old Norse until it recently was replaced by Konrad Gislason's great Danish-Icelandic dictionary (1851) and by the Old Norse dictionary by Erik Jonsson (1863). The latter is supplemented in reference to the difficult language of the poetry by Sveinbjörn Egilsson's magnificent old Norse-Latin dictionary, the "Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis" (1860). Among the eminent Icelandic scholars Finn Magnusson (1781-1847), one of the most thorough and profound students of northern antiquities, occupies the front rank. In almost every branch of northern antiquities he has produced works of great importance and value, which partly are to be found in countless essays published in various journals, and which partly appeared in stout, separate volumes. His greatest learning is embodied in his work on northern mythology, which he discussed in connection with the mythologies of other peoples (comparative mythology). In many of the details this work furnishes most valuable interpretations, though his theory that Norse mythology is nothing but symbolic expressions of the forces and phenomena of nature, among which symbols the astronomical element predominates, must, when rigidly applied, be considered a failure. Jon Espolin's (1769-1836) annals, which in twelve large quartos (Copenhagen 1821-1855) contain the history of Iceland from 1261 to 1832, furnish excellent proof of the zeal of inquiry and of the deep interest in the