The Home of the Eddas. By Charles G. Warnford Lock.
(Sampson Low and Co.)-Mr. Lock was not au ordinary summer tourist in Iceland (for that is the equivalent of the Home of the Eddas). He represented a commercial undertaking, his relations to which do not concern us, except so far that they ended in putting him on a foot- ing. which travellers do not commonly have, or indeed care to have, in the countries which they visit. He was compelled to spend a winter in Iceland, and to do this not as an honoured guest in tho best houses of the country, but as one compelled to earn his own livelihood. This, in- deed, he actually did, and found it easier than would have been thought, making enough by teaching English to support himself in tolerable comfort. Thanks to these circumstances, the record of his sojourn in the country has a peculiar value. It is manifest that the writer of these experiences got below the surface of life, and saw in undress, so to speak, what the ordinary traveller never is permitted to behold, except en grande tenue. The result, as it is portrayed in these pages, is in; teresting, but not with a pleasing interest. The condition of the clergy, especially, is described in a way which will be a surprise-it is not too much to say, a shocking surprise-to readers who have only known hitherto of thorn by the half-bantering but generally kindly notices of former travellers. Happily, it would not be easy to match elsewhere such drunken and profligate creatures as some of them are described as being. The book is worth reading, all the more, perhaps, because it makes one more satisfied to know Iceland by book rather than by personal experience.
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