Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/100

82 which also in many ways have been of help to later antiquarian scholars—than by the remarkable zeal with which he collected manuscript chronicles, correspondences, and other original documents for elucidating the history of the North. For accomplishing this he had the most excellent opportunity, as he was sent to Iceland as member of a commission whose duty it was to make a new register of the lands in reference to taxation, and he employed his sojourn of nearly ten years there hunting up old documents with an indefatigableness which is unparalleled. He was armed with a royal letter commanding the Icelanders to deliver to him whatever they might possess in the form of old manuscripts. He did not content himself with simply publishing this royal order, but he travelled himself from farm to farm gathering in each place all that could be discovered in the shape of valuable records, and it was found that in spite of the large number which had been sent to Denmark and Sweden in the seventeenth century there still remained a vast aftermath. Thus he carried off to Copenhagen a collection of manuscript which was unique in the North. Unfortunately the greater part of it perished in the flames of the disastrous fire in Copenhagen, in the year 1728. What was rescued and what he afterward was able to collect, he left by will to the University of Copenhagen, and when we look at this ""—which still is the largest ever made by one man—in its present condition and consider that it is but a third part of what there was before the fire, then we are able to form some idea of the loss which science here suffered. His property he also donated to the university in the form of a legacy to be employed in the publication of the contents of the library, and as a result of this beneficence several important antiquarian volumes have made their appearance.

Another distinguished contemporary of Torfæus was