Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/785

 enterprise was displayed by the commercial classes, and that in material prosperity the people made sure and rapid progress.

In 1848, when the difficulty about Schleswig-Holstein led to war between Denmark and Germany, the Swedes sympathized cordially with the Danes, of whom they had for a long time ceased to be in the slightest degree jealous. Swedish troops were landed in Fünen, and through the influence of the Swedish Government an armistice was concluded at Malmö. The excitement in favour of Denmark soon died out, and when the war was resumed in 1849 Sweden resolutely declined to take part in it. The outbreak of the Crimean War greatly alarmed the Swedes, who feared that they might in some way be dragged into the conflict. In 1855, having some reason to complain of Russian acts of aggression on his northern frontiers, the king of Sweden and Norway concluded a treaty with England and France, pledging himself not to cede territory to Russia, and receiving from the Western powers a promise of help in the event of his being attacked. The demands based on this treaty were readily granted by Russia in the peace of Paris in 1856.

Charles XV. (1859-1872) mounted the throne after his father's death. Nearly two years before his accession he had been made regent in consequence of Oscar I.'s ill-health. Charles was a man of considerable intellectual ability and of decidedly popular sympathies, and during his reign the Swedish people became enthusiastically loyal to his dynasty. In 1860 two estates of the realm—the peasants and the burghers—presented petitions, begging him to submit to the diet a scheme for the reform of the constitution. This request he willingly granted. The main provisions of the plan offered in his name were that the diet should consist of two chambers,—the first chamber to be elected for a term of nine years by the provincial assemblies and by the municipal corporations of towns not represented in those assemblies, the second chamber to be elected for a term of three years by all natives of Sweden possessing a specified property qualification. The executive power was to belong to the king, who was to act under the advice of a council of state responsible to the national representatives. This plan, which was received with general satisfaction, was finally adopted by the diet in 1866, and is still in force.

Early in the reign of Charles XV. there were serious disputes between Sweden and Norway, and the union of the two countries could scarcely have been maintained but for the tact and good sense of the king. He also exercised a steadying influence in 1863, when his people expressed passionate sympathy with the Poles in their insurrection against Russia, and with the Danes in their war with Prussia and Austria.

Charles XV. died in 1872, and was succeeded by his brother Oscar II., who still reigns (1887). Under him Sweden has maintained good relations with all foreign powers, and political disputes in the diet have never been serious enough to interrupt the material progress of the nation.

Swedish literature, as distinguished from compositions in the common norræna tunga of old Scandinavia, cannot be said to exist earlier than the 13th century. Nor until the period of the Reformation was its development in

any degree rapid or copious. The oldest form in which Swedish exists as a written language is the series of manuscripts known as Landskapslagarne, or “The Common Laws.” These are supposed to be the relics of a still earlier age, and it is hardly believed that we even possess the first that was put down in writing. The most important and the most ancient of these codes is the “Elder West Gota Law,” reduced to its present form by the law-man Eskil about 1230. Another of great interest is Magnus Eriksson's “General Common Law,” which was written in 1347. These ancient codes have been collected and edited by Prof. Schlyter. The chief ornament of mediæval Swedish literature is Um Styrilse Kununga ok Höfdinga (“On the Conduct of Kings and Princes”), first printed, by command of Gustavus II. Adolphus, in 1634. The writer is not known; it has been conjecturally dated 1325. It is a handbook of moral and political teaching, expressed in terse and vigorous language. St Bridget, or Birgitta (1302?-1373), an historical figure of extraordinary interest, has left her name attached to several important religious works, in particular to a collection of Uppenbarelser (“Revelations”), in which her visions and ecstatic meditations are recorded, and a version, the first into Swedish, of the five books of Moses. This latter was undertaken, at her desire, by her father-confessor Mattias (d. 1350), a priest at Linköping. The translation of the Bible was continued a century later by a monk named Johannes Budde (d. 1484).

In verse the earliest Swedish productions were probably the folk-songs. The age of these, however, has been commonly exaggerated. It is doubtful whether any still exist which are as old, in their present form, as the 13th century. The bulk are now attributed to the 15th, and many are doubtless much later still. The last, such as “Axel och Valborg,” “Liten Karin,” “Kampen Grimborg,” and “Habor och Signild,” deal with the adventures of romantic mediæval romance. Almost the only positive clue we hold to the date of these poems is the fact that one of the most characteristic of them, “Engelbrekt,” was written by Tomas, bishop of Strengnäs, who died in 1443. Tomas, who left other poetical pieces, is usually called the first Swedish poet. There are three rhyming chronicles in mediæval Swedish, all anonymous. The earliest, Erikskrönikan, is attributed to 1320; Karlskrönikan is at least 120 years later; and the third, Sturekrönikorna, was probably written about 1500. All three have been edited by G. E. Klemming. The collection of rhymed romances which bears the name of Queen Euphemia's Songs must have been written before the death of that lady in 1312. They are believed to date from 1303. They are versions of three mediæval stories taken from French and German sources, and they deal respectively with King Arthur and the Table Round, with Duke Frederick of Normandy, and with Flores and Blancheflor. They possess very slight poetic merit in their Swedish form. A little later the romance of King Alexander was translated by, or at the command of, Bo Jonsson Grip; this is more meritorious. A brilliant and pathetic relic of the close of the mediæval period exists in the Love Letters addressed in 1498 by Ingrid Persdotter, a nun of Vadstena, to the young knight Axel Nilsson. The first book printed in the Swedish language appeared in 1495.

The 16th century added but little to Swedish literature, and that little is mostly connected with the newly founded university of Upsala. The Renaissance scarcely made itself felt in Scandinavia, and even the Reformation failed to waken the genius of the country. Psalms and didactic XXII. - 95