In order more fully to carry into effect the plans of this society, the cöoperation of several of the most eminent antiquarians and literary men of Great Britain and the United States has been solicited, to which they will, no doubt, readily accede. The Saga literature, which was cultivated to so great an extent in that distant and isolated spot, while all Europe was in a state of darkness, had a great influence in civilizing and promoting the cultivation of letters throughout the north of Europe. The Icelanders were a maritime people, inheriting their love of commerce and adventure from the hardy Scandinavians who planted their colony. Their continued intercourse with the coast of Norway led them to seek adventures elsewhere. The Faroe Islands, the Orkneys, Great Britain, and Ireland, were visited, and a continued trade kept up between them. The two former were Scandinavian colonies, and spoke a dialect of the ancient language. With the introduction of Christianity into the North, the later Latins, Gothic characters of the Anglo-Saxons, came into general use; and to this we owe the transcripts, made chiefly in Ireland, of the sagas and poetry of the pagan times of the North, and also of the northern history during the middle ages. These sagas are divided into four classes, the mythic, mythico-historical, historical, and romantic. The volumes already published, are the following: Foramanna Sögur, eleven volumes; Oldnordiske Sagær, eleven volumes; Scripita Historica Islandorum, six volumes. These contain historical sagas, recording events which transpired on the continent; a history of the Norwegian kings from Olaf Fryggvuson to Magnus, Lagabæta, embracing a long period of years, and terminating in the year 1274; the history of the Danish kings, from Harold Bluetooth to Canute VI., or the period between the middle of the tenth and the commencement of the thirteenth centuries, with critical notes and commentaries on the narrations and sagas of several northern writers. _Iselendinga Sögur_, two volumes, contains the historical sagas, recording events which have transpired in Iceland; giving also a particular account of the first colonization of the island, in Icelandic. _Faëreyinga Saga_, or the History of the Inhabitants of the Faroe Islands; in Icelandic, the Faroe-dialect, and Danish. _Fornaldar Sögur Nordrlanda_, three volumes; _Nordiske Fortids Sagær_, three volumes. The latter six volumes comprise all the _mytho-historical sagas_, recording events in the North, assignable to the period anterior to the colonization of Iceland, or the era of authentic history; in Icelandic and Danish. _Krakumal sive Epicedium Ragnaris Lodbroci_, or Ode on the Heroic Deeds and Death of the Danish King, Ragnar Lodbrok, in England; in Icelandic, Danish, Latin, and French.