he contributed in addition to leading articles a large proportion of the reviews of current literature and the biographical notices of eminent men;[1] he worked assiduously at his translation of the Norse Tales of Asbjornsen; one of which, "The Master Thief," first appeared in Blackwood's Magazine for November 1851.
The first collected edition of these celebrated stories appeared in 1859 (the preface is dated from his house, No. 6 Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, December 12th, 1858); and the long introductory essay on the origin and diffusion of popular tales, explaining the migration of these stories from Asia to the north of Europe, which he considered to be the best piece of work he ever did, has been pronounced by so competent an authority as Max Müller to be one of the purest specimens of English literature produced in our own or any other age.
A second edition, greatly enlarged, containing thirteen new tales, and an appendix, consisting of Ananzi stories told by the negroes in the West Indies, was called for within three months. A selection from the Norse tales for the use of children, with illustrations, followed in 1862, and a third edition of the unabridged collection was published in 1888.
The Norsemen in Iceland was published in the Oxford Essays, 1858, a volume which, it is interesting to note, also contained Lord Salisbury's celebrated article on Parliamentary Reform.
- ↑ Much of his best and freshest writing perforce lies buried in the anonymous columns of the Times. Some of his contributions to the paper and the principal reviews were published by him in 1873, in two volumes, entitled Jest and Earnest.
