Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/101

Rh (1667-1727), the grandson of the above-mentioned Arngrim Jonsson, eminent both as linguist and poet, and especially renowned on account of critical, linguistic and archæological inquiries into ancient jurisprudence. His great work in this field, for which he prepared more than a hundred essays, and which was in all respects his chief undertaking, remained unfinished on account of his too early death.

Throughout the eighteenth century the enthusiasm for antiquities continued, and with it the linguistic and historical studies whose chief representatives in the learned epoch we have mentioned. During the last century a large number of books on antiquities, language and history, were written, but many of them have never appeared in print. All of them, both those published and the unpublished ones, furnish the most gratifying evidence of the great care with which all relics of the past were preserved, and of the zeal and untiring industry with which the scholars labored to make them available, though of course many works that in the time of their production were worthy of unstinted praise have now lost much of their value. The Icelanders have also taken a laudable part in the efforts of the nineteenth century to advance the science of northern philology and antiquities, which, after the national movement at the beginning of the century had permeated all the Scandinavian North, has continued to be studied with ever increasing zeal to this day in every northern land. Of the great number of men who have distinguished themselves by comprehensive learning and by the publication of valuable works in this field we can only mention some of the most eminent. The bulk of 's (1726-1767) works were lost in the shipwreck which he suffered in Broad Firth, and in which he himself lost his life; but that part which remains is sufficient to establish his reputation as one of the most eminent antiquaries and also as one of the ablest linguists and jurists of his nation. His brother (1731