( xvi )
are so much regretted, and a very large work extracted from a multitude of others. This extract was compiled many centuries ago by an author well known, and who was near the fountain head; it is written in a language not unintelligible, and is preserved in a great number of manuscripts which carry incontestible characters of antiquity. This extract is the book called the Edda; the only monument of its kind; singular in its contents, and so adapted to throw light on the history of our ancient opinions and manners, that it is amazing it should remain so long unknown beyond the confines of Scandinavia.
To confess the truth, this work is not devoid of much difficulty; but the obscurity of it is not absolutely impenetrable, and when examined by a proper degree of critical study, assisted by a due knowledge of the opinions and manners of the other ‘Gothic[1]’ nations, will receive so much light, as that nothing very material will escape our notice. The most requisite preparative for the well understanding this
- ↑ Celtiques. Fr.
least light on the Druidical Religion of the Celtic nations: But then they are full as valuable, for they unfold the whole Pagan system of our Gothic ancestors; in the discovery of which we are no less interefted, than in that of the other. T.
