The feast begins, the skull goes round,
Laughter shouts--the shouts resound.
The gust of war subsides--E'en now
The grim chief curls his cheek, and smooths his rugged brow.

(P. 171.)

From Sterling comes this imitation of Gray:

Now the rage of combat burns,
Haughty chiefs on chiefs lie slain;
The battle glows and sinks by turns,
Death and carnage load the plain.

(P 172.)

From these extracts, it appears that the poets who imitated Gray
considered that only "dreadful songs," like his, were to be found in
Scandinavian poetry.

Downman, Herbert and Mathias are also adduced by Dr. Drake as examples
of poets who have gained much by Old Norse borrowings, but these
borrowings are invariably scenes from a chamber of horrors. It occurs
to me that perhaps Dr. Drake had begun to tire of the spiritless echoes
of the classical schools, and that he fondly hoped that such shrieks and
groans as those he admired in this essay would satisfy his cravings for
better things in poetry. But the critic had no adequate knowledge of the
way in which genius works. His one desire in these studies of
Scandinavian mythology was "to recommend it to the votaries of the Muse,
as a machinery admirably constructed for their purpose" (p. 158). He