Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/51

 powerfully upon the great mass of the English people, although uneducated, and unable to receive its influence and impression direct, than German literature, although much more abundant, works upon the people of Germany. The circulation of ideas stops there at a certain class, and the mass remains unmoved by, impenetrable to, and unintelligent of the storms that may be raging on the surface among the upper educated people. The literature of the Northmen in their own tongue undoubtedly kept alive that common feeling and mind—that common sense on matters of common interest, which in England grew up into our national institutions. They had a literature of their own, however rude, a history of their own, however barbarous,—had laws, institutions, and social arrangements of their own; and all these through a common language influencing and forming a common mind in all; and when men, or the children of men whose minds had been so formed, came to inhabit, and not merely to conquer, but to colonise a very large proportion of the surface of England, we may safely assume that what we call the Anglo-Saxon institutions of England, and the spirit and character on which alone free institutions can rest, were the natural productions of this national mind, reared by the Northmen in England, and not by the Anglo-Saxons.

What were the peculiar circumstances in the social condition of this branch of the Saxon race, which kept alive a national literature, history, spirit, and character, and peculiar laws and institutions, while all that was peculiar to or distinctive of the other branch had long been extinguished in Germany, and in a great measure in England? This question can only be answered by looking at the original position of this northern branch of the same stock, on the European soil.

The race of men who under Odin established them-