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THROUGH FINLAND. 301
demic bowers, far diftant from the din of arms. Finland had hede
conftantly expofed to the incurfions of its neighbours. The Finns
were themfelves invaders in the beginning of the chriftian era, and
were afterwards in their turn invaded by their neighbours, the
Ruffians, the Swedes, and the Danes, who carried on a predatory
war againft them, laying all wafte in their incurfions. At length
the Finns were at once converted and fubjugated by the fword of
Eric the ninth, king of Sweden, who having, in the year 1156,
made them the fervants of the chriftian religion, annexed their
country to Sweden. From that time their fituation became im-
proved, and poetry, which even before that epoch had cheered
<< the dull abode of the fhivering natives,’ extended its influence,
and taking the lead of letters, was purfued by them with a dili-
gence and fuccefs, which, every thing confidered, is very remark-
able.
The fpecies of verfe employed by them 1s called runic, from the
ancient Gothic word runoot. It is compofed of lines of eight
trochees, or long and fhort fyllables, which do not rhyme with
corre{pondent endings, but are allitterative, or have like begin-
nings, that is to fay, have two at leaft or more words which
agree ina letter or fyllable. To explain this kind of verfe, we
will give the reader a fpecimen from the only poem exifting in
the Englifh language compofed in this allitterative ftyle, which
is “* The Vifion of Pierce Plowman,” a curious monument of
ancient poetry, written in the fourteenth century, and printed for
the fecond time in 1550. The poem begins thus,
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