We find also the old quality of defiance well perpetuated. In his work on monarchy (written about the middle of the fifteenth century), Sir John Fortescue thus compares the Frenchman and the Englishman: “It is cowardice and lack of heart and courage that keepeth the Frenchman from rising, and not poverty; which courage no Frenchman hath like to the Englishman. It hath been often seen in England that three or four thieves, for poverty, have set upon seven or eight true men, and robbed them all. But it hath not been seen in France that seven or eight thieves have been hardy to rob three or four true men. Wherefore it is right said that no Frenchman be hanged for robbery, for that they have no hearts to do so terrible an act. There be therefore more men hanged in England, in a year, for robbery and manslaughter, than there be hanged in France for such cause of crime in seven years.” We pass now to inquire what literary monuments or record the Northmen of the viking era have left behind them. They wrote, as is well known, by means of an alphabet of runes. These were sixteen in number, corresponding in value to our F, U, Th, O, R, K, H, N, I, A, S, T, B, L, M, and Y. Their origin is unknown. From the Scandinavians they were borrowed by the Germans and Anglo-Saxons, and though never a common means of communication, were nevertheless at one time written and understood from Constantinople to Iceland. They are found preserved especially in monumental inscriptions, of which we take the following specimens from Stephens’s _Runic Monuments_, and Wimmer’s _Runeskriftens Oprindelse_: 1.—INSCRIPTION ON STONE AT SYLLING, DRAUNNEN, NORWAY. [Illustration] _Roman equivalents._ s a i l g æ r (th) r-h u i l i r-h e r-k u (th) g a t i e (th) i n a a s l a k r-m a r k a (th) i m i k _Translation._ Salgarth rests here. God keep thee! Aslak marked me. 2.—INSCRIPTION ON THE SO-CALLED SNOLDELEV STONE, FOUND 1768, NOT FAR FROM ROSKILDE, DENMARK. [Illustration] _Roman equivalents._ kun-ualtstain-sunar-ruhalts-(th)ular-osalhaukum _Translation._ Gunvald’s stone, son of hoald, speaks (or speaker—priest) at Salhowe. Of the literature proper of the early Northmen, we will consider first the Sagas. These record the exploits of great chieftains, and are sometimes of historical value. They were never written out in runes, but owe their preservation to the Norwegian colonists who settled in Iceland. Some of them were composed there, but the greater part seem to have been brought over from the continent; and all were kept alive by tradition, like the Odyssey and the Iliad, until the age of writing. In our last chapter we alluded to the attempts made by the vikings who discovered Vinland, to establish a colony there. For our first specimen we will translate from the Saga of Thorfin Karlsefne that part which describes the voyage of a band of these colonists, and their landing, as some believe, on the shores of Cape Cod.