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Scandinavicafor the 18th-century Common Reader 239
The Magazine lists Thorkelin's works to date, to help
readers appreciate their extent and their minute accuracy.
They include such items as the edition of the twelfthcentury
Jus Ecclesiasticum lslandiae (1775), the Jus
Publicum Norwegiae (1777), the Analecta quibus Historia,
Antiquitates, Jura, Regni Norwegeci illustrantur, cum
glossario (1778), the edition of VaflmUJnismal of 1779·
The antiquarian's appetite is further whetted by d. reference
to a geographical lexicon of the middle ages ad
mentern et lin guam Islandorum Scriptorum now in the
press, and to an edition of the laws of the Icelandic
Republic ready for the press - "works both curious and
important" .
The Magazine proceeds to turn its review into an
onslaught on the lack of encouragement to historical
studies prevalent in our own country. In Denmark a
Thorkelins scholarly research receives every support,
but "in Great Britain the best and most curious manuscripts
are allowed to rot in silence" . In Denmark, over
2001 Icelandic histories have been published and Professors,
Judges, Antiquaries, even the King himself,
encourage the work. But here no Irish or Welsh manuscripts
have been published, no legacies are bequeathed
to help such studies, there are not enough libraries, and
it has been left to Mr Thorkelin, now in London, to publish
an Icelandic and English history of the Kingdom of
Northumbria from the eighth century to the tenth. It
was thanks to Danish royal interest that the "precious
History of Snorro Sturlason" was being completed and
the Elder Edda already in the press. The article concludes
with a forthright attack on a one-sided concern
with the ancient classical world. Our writers shun the
history of the Heptarchy "from the confusion of their
own ideas concerning so many small kingdoms: but
the history of the Grecian republics has the same
disadvantages, and yet we know it perfectly. We know
all we can know about Greece and Rome: - when shall
we know anything about our own early history? "