descended from an illustrious Coxe's Træ Danith (a) family, was born about the middle of the 12th century. Stephens, in his edition of Saxo-Grammaticus, printed at Sorœ, indubitably proves, that he must have been alive in 1156, but cannot ascertain the exact place and time of his birth. See Stephens's Prolegomena to the Notes on Saxo-Grammaticus, p. 8, to 24; also Holberg, vol. i. p. 269; and Mallet's North Antiquity, vol. i. p. 4. On account of his uncommon learning, Saxo was distinguished by the name of Grammaticus. He was provost of the cathedral church of Roskild, and warmly patronized by the learned and warlike Abalos, the celebrated archbishop of Lund, at whose instigation he wrote the History of Denmark. His epitaph, a dry panegyric in bad Latin verses, gives no account of the era of his death, which happened, according to Stephens, in 1204. His history, consisting of 16 books, begins from the earliest account of the Danish annals, and concludes with the year 1186. According to the opinion of an accurate writer, the first part, which relates to the origin of the Danes, and the reigns of the ancient kings, is full of fables; but the eight last books, and particularly those which regard the events of his own times, deserve the utmost credit. He wrote in Latin;

(A) Some authors have erroneously conjectured, from his name Saxo, that he was born in Saxony; but Saxo was no uncommon appellation among the ancient Danes. See Olaus Wormius Monumenta Danica, p. 186, and Stephens's Prolegomena, p. 10. Latin; the style, if we consider the barbarous age in which he flourished, is in general extremely elegant, but rather too poetical for history. Mallet, in his *Histoire de Danemark*, vol. i, p. 182, says, "that Sperling, a writer of great erudition, has proved, in contradiction to the assertions of Stephens and others, that Saxo-Grammaticus was secretary to Abfalon; and that the Saxo provost of Roskild was another person, and lived earlier."