The bodies of the three were at Skalholt all winter; in the spring of 1551 they were brought home to the North like the relics of martyrs.

Vengeance had already been taken for them, and it was Jón's daughter Thorun who set it going.

Among the men of the North who went South for the fishing that winter were some who meant to have the life of Christian, the Danish deputy. They got him at Kirkjuból, out at the end of Rosmhvalanes, and surrounded the house, wearing hoods and masks-a modern precaution. Before breaking into the house they asked and got leave from the owner: "Yes, break away, if you pay for it after." Christian and some other Danes were killed. It was reported that they came back from their graves, which made it necessary to dig them up and cut their heads off, with further preventive measures.

Ships of war came out, too late; and it is notable that the commander who was sent from Denmark to bring Bishop Jón Arason before King Christian III. was the same Kristoffer Trondsson (a great sea-captain in his day) who had enabled Archbishop Olaf Engelbrektsson of Nidaros to escape from Norway to the Netherlands, in April, 1537, out of the same king's danger.

The case against Jón Arason is found in the form of a speech supposed to have been delivered by Christian, the Danish deputy, in Skalholt, the day before the beheading of the bishop and his sons. This is scarcely less remarkable than the letter of Gizur Einarsson as an historical document of the Reformation. The following is a good sample :

"Likewise it is known to many gentlemen how Bishop John and his sons have set themselves to oppose the native people of this land, who have been at cost to

venture over sea and salt water, sailing to transact their due business before our gracious lord the King, and many of them from their long voyage and their trouble have received letters from his Majesty, some upon monasteries, some upon royal benefices, which same letters of his Majesty might no longer avail or be made effective by no means, but as soon as they came here to Iceland, Bishop John and his sons have made the King's letters null and void, and many a poor man has had his long journey for nothing and all in vain.”

On the other hand, it must be observed that with the exception of some contemporary rhymes upon his death none of the records which bring out the heroic character of Jón Arason were written by Catholics. The curious impartiality of the old Icelandic historians is still found working with regard to the Protestant Reformation, and it is Lutheran opinion in Iceland that thinks of Jón Arason as a martyr.

XXXII

JACOB GRIMM

STUDENTS of language might some time consider the problem of value which offers itself when conventional words are required to express a genuine sentiment. It is one of the troubles of advancing age, that what was hackneyed in youth becomes hackneyed ever more and more: there are customary phrases prescribed for solemn occasions, and respectable speakers will repeat them and feel no discomfort, and respectable audiences will accept them as their due. But in the Philological Society, where no word is lifeless, how can the President repeat merely the ordinary formulas about the great honour done him by his election? Yet what less, or more, can he say? Less would seem churlish, and more might seem too effusive. I can only assure the Society that I am deeply sensible of the honour, and grateful to them for their generous confidence.

Naturally when one is called to fill a place of dignity and responsibility, one thinks of those who have held it before; valiant men who have gone, and who leave the encouragement of their good work to those that come after. Might I claim the auspices of Henry Sweet for my tenure of this presidential chair? I think I might; I have many proofs of his friendship; his ingenuous and humorous judgment of studies not

his own, or not peculiarly his own, has often been pleasant to me and is perpetually good to remember. I pay my homage once more to Skeat, the unwearied athlete of philology; he carried into this business the speed of nature which gained for his unknown progenitor the significant old Danish nickname or surname of which Skeat was always rightly proud. And sitting in this siege perilous need I doubt that Furnivall would have been glad to see me here? Glad to provide fresh duties for the President; enjoying his troubles and always ready to share them.

I ask leave of the Society to read a short essay on one of the greatest of our ancestors, whose work I very imperfectly know and am in very few particulars competent to judge, but who has been much in my mind ever since I took to Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic; a great example of the life of a student-Jacob Grimm, one of the men whom one comes to know personally through their writings. I may say that I have a reason of my own for thinking reverently of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, because the first written communication I ever had from Vigfússon and York Powell was the joint inscription on the copy of their Grimm Centenary pamphlet which they gave me when it appeared. I was late in making the acquaintance of Vigfússon ; I grudge the time when I might have known him, might have learned from him, and did not; but I did know him for some years before I bade him farewell, and I have his "G.V." written along with "F.Y.P." on the little book dedicated to the memory of the brothers Grimm-in which he tells of his visit to Jacob Grimm in Berlin in 1859. I do not think I am wrong when I say that this paper is suggested by Vigfússon and York Powell and is an expression of the same

regard as they had for the scholars who showed the

way.

Philology with Jacob Grimm 1 was part of a study to which I think he gives no particular name. It was history, it was Germany, it was the Middle Ages, the Humanities, Nature, the Human Race. He began his proper work as a lawyer. The Grammar is dedicated to Savigny, his professor at Marburg; in January 1805, when Grimm was twenty, Savigny called him to Paris to help him with the history of Roman Law. We may thus look on the Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer and the Weisthümer as the works of Jacob Grimm that came most naturally and directly from his early university work.

But while he practised method and clearness in the study of law, his real interests were in language and the history of literature. Savigny had his part in this also; it was through him that the brothers Grimm made acquaintance with Arnim and Brentano; Des Knaben Wunderhorn has something of Savigny in it. Jacob Grimm made his profit out of Napoleon and the new kingdom of Westphalia; as librarian to King Jerome at Wilhelmshöhe he had the lightest of duties and plenty of time for his own reading. He wrote and published the little book on the Meistergesang (Gottingen, 1811: preface dated Cassel 19th August 1810), and in this he declares his mind; the principles of his later work may be found here. It is the summary of a literary argument that had been going on for some years, so that the work has little of improvisation in it; it is all mature and well considered. He confesses

1 Most of this essay was written before I read the very interesting book of M. Tonnelat, Les frères Grimm, leur œuvre de jeunesse, 1912. I wish to acknowledge my obligations to the author for much more than I have here borrowed from him.