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Rh erudite scholar, who discovers in it the architectural marks of the ancient Norse-men; or the child of imagination, taking for a text-book Longfellow's beautiful ballad of the "Skeleton in Armor." To a country of recent date, almost destitute of the vestiges of antiquity, and disposed to prize them in proportion to their scarcity, it is quite a gain to have any object which admits of such description. "The people have been disputing these twenty years," said Goethe, "as to who is the greatest, Schiller or myself. Let them go, and be thankful that they have such fellows to dispute about."

The discovery of our Northern Continent by the Scandinavians, about the year 964, two centuries previous to the expedition of Madoc, the Welsh prince, is matter of grave history. Irving, in his "Life of Columbus," derives proof from the Sagas, or Chronicles of the north, that, beside their settlements in Greenland, they established themselves around the river St. Lawrence, and in Newfoundland, called by them Eslotiland. That they penetrated also into Nova Scotia and New England, seems to rest on stronger foundation than conjecture.

Professor Rafin says: "Of the ancient structure at Newport, from such characteristics as remain, we can scarcely form any other inference than one, in which I am persuaded that all who are familiar with Old Northern Architecture will concur, that this building was erected at a period decidedly not later than the