1842. RICHARD CLEASBY. xci

seem able altogether to relinquish the idea of returning to Munich, and I thought this
seemed still more the case with his wife and daughters.' On the 3rd he left Berlin for
the Mark and Pomerania, visiting Greifswald and Stralsund, with both of which he was
much pleased. At the latter he saw outside the Rathhaus door ' a flat stone in form of
a grave-stone, on which Charles XII slept during the siege of Stralsund in 1715; a
hard bed enough.' On the 8th of July he left for Ystad in Sweden by steamer, and
in fifteen hours from Stralsund was back in Copenhagen, where he found, to his great
satisfaction, that Gislason had remained working during his absence, and not gone to
Sweden at all. The next clay he paid him 40 dollars for the month of June. He now
took lodgings for the winter at No. 52, Vesterbro, opposite the entrance to Fredberg's
Alice, from July to the Flitting Day in April, for eight guineas, and settled down to work.
On the 6th of September he determined to explore Jutland thoroughly, and started
laden with letters of recommendation to various residents in that interesting part of
Denmark. Before he left he notes that he 'left Pj.eturson in charge of his 'rooms,
52 Vesterbro, giving him permission to use' his 'bed and remain there till' his ' return.
I also/ he adds, ' gave Gislason leave to take out his bed and be there if he chose/
On the 20th of September he returned to Copenhagen, ' delighted with' his ' little tour,
having most satisfactorily attained the object for which it was undertaken.' He found
his lodgings as he had left them, his Icelandic secretaries not having made use of his
permission to be there. Awaiting him was a letter from Mr. John Shaw Lefevre,
relating to a proposition of Laing, the Swedish and Norwegian traveller, to publish a
work on the Sagas; which he answered on the 28th as follows :

' I did not receive your letter of the ist inst. till yesterday, on my return from a three weeks'
excursion into the provinces, and cannot allow a day to pass without thanking you for your kind-
ness in thinking of me and my labours, and for your desire that the latter should not be interfered
with by another and later hand ; and I will in return proceed to state, without further preface,
according to your request, the more especial field of my Northern toils. My first object is to publish
a Lexicon of the ancient Scandinavian language, as preserved to us chiefly in Icelandic, but also in
small part in Norwegian remains, with an English and Latin translation. Not an inconsiderable
part of these remains have been printed and published, but generally not satisfactorily, and with a
very uncritical treatment of the text, especially when regard is had to the position which this branch
of philological study now occupies; a considerable portion exists only in MSS., and it is my inten-
tion to embrace all we possess, from the earliest documents down to about the close of the I4th or
beginning of the I5th century, about which period the language ceases to retain its ancient form
and texture, influenced by the modern Danish and Norwegian dialects, which, as well as Swedish—
though no doubt each had from olden time some dialectical peculiarities of its own—had long been
more and more separating themselves from the common stock and forming a character proper to
themselves. This period will embrace the Laws, Civil and Ecclesiastical, Snorro's History, the
whole of the Sagas not of later origin than the said period, a considerable collection of legends, a
number of writings of religious or ascetic character, the Younger Edda, some treatises of calendaric
(sic) character, and a few pieces on other subjects. The very extensive and careful study necessary
to such a compilation can scarcely have failed to make me intimately acquainted with the whole
Saga-world, and a future translation of some of them, not without commentary, has not been foreign
to my intentions ; indeed, I did think of giving two or three smaller ones last year, and commenced
with the translation of one, but found the Lexicon extending into a work of such circumference,
that I saw, if I divided my strength, no moderate term would see it finished. Having said thus