Commemorative feasts were established on the days of his more signal victories; and strenuous efforts were made to procure the religious supremacy of Suzdal, by instituting a Metropolitan at Vladimir. The Patriarch of Constantinople would not consent to this act, but later the Metropolitan for the Russia of the Forests was secured. The designs of Andrei were vast and premature. Ten generations of princes, ruling through four successive centuries, were required for their ultimate accomplishment. He outlined in the twelfth century what was executed in the sixteenth by Ivan the Fourth, the Terrible. Like the despots who were to spring from his loins, he had implacable enemies; and he was overtaken by the fate ever impending over the autocrats of the Orient and of Russia. His boyars, exasperated beyond measure by his iron tyranny, assassinated him in his favorite residence of Bogoliuboro (1174). [To be continued.] * * * * * When a thought presents itself to our minds as a profound discovery, and when we take the trouble to examine it, we often find it to be a truth that all the world knows.—_Vauvenargues. A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SCANDINAVIA. By L. A. SHERMAN, Ph. D. III.—THE EASTERN VIKINGS—THE BEGINNINGS OF LITERATURE. We have watched, in the dim twilight preceding the dawn of history, the coming of the first Norsemen to the sea. They are a spirited and fearless people, and they have chanced, if chance it is, to come to that sea on which navigation is most hazardous and difficult. We marvel they so quickly learn the arts of seamanship, and make the fierce new element their dwelling place. They seem now to have reached the country of their choice: its natural beauties kindle in their breasts an immediate and romantic response of affection. They are enamored of its wild haunts, its fjords and mountains, and they are inspired by the surging fury of the storm. But we witness, after a few centuries of comparative inaction, a strange transformation. The whole Norse people, without concert, without occasion, becomes a nation of wandering pirates. They urge forth their dragon ships, no matter whither, if only they shall find new foemen or new coasts. With the outbreak of this passion for booty and adventure we mark the beginning of the viking-age. We then count two weary centuries of violence and bloodshed, of plunder and conquest. A new continent is discovered and colonized, a Danish dynasty is set up in England, a Norwegian duchy is endowed in France. Thus we witness the decline—not in defeat, but in triumph, not by overthrow from without, but by suppression from within—of viking-supremacy in the West. It remains to speak of another chapter of viking-history, enacted during this same period in the East, and by vikings of the land.