!8₃9- RICHARD CLEASBY. Ixxvii

On the 4th of June Cleasby left Stockholm for Finnland and Russia, on which
journey we forbear to dwell, except to say that wherever he went he saw everything and
every person of any importance to whom he could get access. On the igth of July he
returned to Stockholm. There he found the facsimiles for Lady Charlotte Guest were
ready; and having inspected the Icelandic MSS. in the Royal Library, and made the
acquaintance of Mr. George Stephens, the translator of Frithiof 's Saga, then resident in
Stockholm and an ardent collector of popular tales, but now Professor at Copenhagen,
and a great authority on Runes, one of the most obliging and learned of men, he hired
a servant for a journey to Norway, and set out on his expedition by way of Upsala.
His object was, as we know, to complete his collation of the Codex Argenteus—but
alas ! the fates were against him, as the following entry in his Diary shews :

' Jidy 29///, 1839.—I left Stockholm for Upsala. The librarian, Schröder, was not there,—the
second one, Afzelius, took me to the library, buc could not find the key, precisely as on the last
occasion, and I am inclined to think the reason was that he would not find it, which prevented
my looking at the first 16 pages of the Codex Argenteus, which I wished to do, to see the state
of the leaves, and also p. 118, to see how the Latin Gloss was written at the beginning of Luke's
Evangelium.'

Thence he passed through the Swedish mining districts, and, passing on to Dale-
carlia, was delighted, as all must be, with the primitive people who dwell along the banks
of the two Dal Elvs and round the shores of the lovely Siljan Lake. Crossing the
fells called the Kjölen or Keel, he came down by Veradal on Drontheim, very nearly by
the same route which St. Olaf took when he went to meet his death at Sticklastad.
At Drontheim he passed several pleasant clays with Rector Bugge, and left it on the
loth of August for the South, crossing the Dovre Fjeld, and then turning up by
Romsdale and Guclbrandsdale to Christiania, which he reached on the loth, and thought
not to be compared to Drontheim. Having renewed his acquaintance with Keyser,
Professor of History in the University there, he left Christiania on the i8th for
Gottenburg, by way of Drammen, following the route which he had taken in 1834.
On the 23rd he reached Copenhagen, and thus reviews his Swedish and Russian tour:

' I thus finished, very much to my satisfaction, a most agreeable and, at the same time, instruc-
tive tour, in which I learned much as to the state of the countries I visited, which, doubtless, is not
to be acquired from books. I was everywhere received with great kindness, and all facilities were
given me for the attainment of the objects I had in view, with the sole exception of Petersburg,
where I cannot but allow that the literary introductions I had were but coldly responded to.'

After a little tour among the smaller Danish Isles, during which he was amazed
at the prosperity and ease of the peasantry, he left Copenhagen on the 9th of September
for England, meaning to go by steamer from Hamburg, but the vessel having broken
down at the mouth of the Elbe, he left her, and went home by Lower Germany and
Friesland, and embarked at Ostend on the i3th of that month for London. His return
had been hastened by the intelligence of his father's failing health; but this, it seems,
was a false alarm. After seeing friends, writing to Dr. Bowring, and giving him an
account of the Romance literature in Icelandic in the Royal Library at Stockholm, and
enclosing the facsimiles which Lady Charlotte Guest was anxious to have for her edition