of his expert, snowwhite, round-knotted knee. Over that mantle he put on a full, strong, white-topped, wide-round, gold-bordered, straight, and parti-colored coat of mail, well-fitted, and ornamented with many curious devices of exquisite workmanship. He put on a beautiful, thick, and saffron-colored belt of war, embellished with clasps and buckles set with precious stones, and hung with golden tassels; to this belt was hung his active and trusty lance, regularly cased in a tubic sheath, but that it was somewhat greater in height than the height of the sheath; he squeezed the brilliant, gilt, and starry belt about the coat of mail; and a long, blue-edged, bright-steeled, sharp-pointed, broad-sided, active, whitebacked, half-polished, monstrous, smooth-bladed, small-thick, and well-fashioned dagger was fixed to the tie of that embroidered and parti-colored belt; a white, embroidered, full-wide, strong, and well-wove hood was put on him over his golden mail; he himself laid on his head a strong-cased, spherical, towering, polished-shining, branch-engraved, long-enduring helmet; he took his edged, smooth-bladed, letter-graved, destructive, sharp-pointed, fight-taming, sheathed, gold-guarded, and girded sword, which he tied fast in haste to his side." The confusion which exists in the transcripts of the ancient poems between the pagan mythology and the Christian faith, and the superposition of Latin learning and mediaeval thought, is also a great injury to the consecutiveness and vraisemblance of the story, and the effect is as if the tale of the Nibelungen Lied had been told by a monkish chronicler with all the embellishments of a later faith and the ornaments of an artificial style. The poetry has not all perished from the earlier originals, and in many instances there is a vigor of narrative, a poetical power of description, and an elevation of sentiment, which shines through the amplification and verbiage, and redeems the prolixity and tediousness of the story; but, as has been said, the prevailing impression is one of a corrupted and weakened, instead of a strong and original primitive poetry, and a literal translation of an Irish or Scotch Celtic poem or history is not likely to attract the general reader from its purely literary quality. The poetry lies in a heap of dross, and must be painfully smelted out.