To dwell on the character of this monarch, after the ample relation which we have given of his deeds, would be useless. With the exception of his martial prowess, of his enterprising spirit, of his unwearied activity, we see little to praise in him. His numerous adulteries—his feebleness soon after he had passed the meridian of life—his blind policy—have not often been exceeded. Much praise has been lavished on him for his extirpation of piracy; but he is entitled to little. So long as his own shores were not visited by the marauders, he cared not what depredations were committed on others. His chiefs, his very sons, followed piracy as a profession, not merely with his sanction, but at his express command. He has been called the friend of the peasants, or rather of the humble allodial proprietors; but did not policy make him so? If they were plundered by those in authority, could they furnish the new contributions which, as the first of Norway’s feudal sovereigns, he exacted from them? Then, as to his boasted administration of the laws, nothing is more certain than their perpetual neglect: after he had passed his fortieth year, they were inoperative,—despised by his own sons, evaded by the jarls. Nor, however brilliant his conquests, can he be called the founder of the Norwegian monarchy. If he destroyed many tyrants, he replaced them by greater: if he united many independent states into one empire, by his own deliberate act he broke that empire into fragments, and restored the anarchy which he had laboured to destroy. Widely different is his character before and after he had attained the meridian of life. It seemed as if he were led by some evil spirit to undo, in the latter period, all that he had done in the former. But he had no comprehensive views, no sound policy: during the first half of his life he fought for ambition; during the latter, he was the tool of his wives, his sons, and his other favourites. On the whole, we are disposed to consider him as inferior to his father, Halfdan the Black. [Sidenote: 934 to 936.]