Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/787

 As personal friends and pupils of the former, the brothers Columbus deserve special attention. Each wrote copiously in verse, but Johan (1640-1684) almost entirely in Latin, while Samuel (1642-1678), especially in his Odæ Suethicæ, showed himself an apt and fervid imitator of the Swedish hexameters of Stjernhjelm. Of a rhyming family of Hjärne, it is enough to mention one member, Urban Hjärne (1641-1724), who introduced the new form of classical tragedy from France, in a species of transition from the masques of Stjernhjelm to the later regular rhymed dramas. His best play was a Rosimunda. Lars Johansson (1642-1674), who called himself “Lucidor the Unfortunate,” has been the subject of a whole tissue of romance, most of which is fabulous. It is true, however, that he was stabbed, like Marlowe, in a midnight brawl at a tavern. His poems were posthumously collected as Flowers of Helicon, Plucked and Distributed on various occasions by Lucidor the Unfortunate. Stripped of the myth which had attracted so much attention to his name, Lucidor proves to be an occasional rhymster of a very low order. Haquin Spegel (1645-1714), the famous archbishop of Upsala, wrote a long didactic epic in alexandrines, God's Labour and Rest, with an introductory ode to the Deity in rhymed hexameters. He was also a good writer of hymns. Another ecclesiastic, the bishop of Skara, Jesper Svedberg (1653-1735), wrote sacred verses, but is better remembered as the father of Swedenborg. Peter Lagerlöf (d. 1699) cultivated a pastoral vein in his Elisandra and Lucillis; he was professor of poetry, that is to say, of the art of writing Latin verses, at Upsala. Olof Wexionius (1656-1690?) published his Sinne-Afvel, a collection of graceful miscellaneous pieces, in 1684, in an edition of only 100 copies. Its existence was presently forgotten, and the name of Wexionius had dropped out of the history of literature, when Hanselli recovered a copy and reprinted its contents in 1863. We have hitherto considered only the followers of Stjernhjelm ; we have now to speak of an important writer who followed in the

footsteps of Rosenhane. Gunno Eurelius, afterwards ennobled with the name of Dahlstjerna (1661-1709), early showed an interest in the poetry of Italy. In 1690 he translated Guarini's Pastor Fido, and in or just after 1697 published, in a folio volume without a date, his Kunga-Skald, the first original poem in ottava rima produced in Swedish. This is a bombastic and vainglorious epic in honour of Charles XI., whom Eurelius adored; it is not, however, without great merits, richness of language, flowing metre, and the breadth of a genuine poetic enthusiasm. He published a little collection of lamentable sonnets when his great master died. Eurelius struck the lyre several times in honour of Charles XII., but these poems have all perished. He was a true patriot, and grief at the defeat of Poltava is said to have cost him his life. Johan Runius (1679-1713), called the “Prince of Poets,” published a collection entitled Dudaim, in which there is nothing to praise, and with him the generation of the 17th century closes. Talent had been shown by certain individuals, but no healthy school of Swedish poetry had been founded, and the latest imitators of Stjernhjelm had lost every vestige of taste and independence.

In prose the 17th century produced but little of importance in Sweden. Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632) was the most polished writer of its earlier half, and his speeches take an important place in the development of the language. The most original mind of the next age

was Olof Rudbeck (1630-1702), the famous author of Atland er Manhem. He spent nearly all his life in Upsala, building anatomical laboratories, conducting musical concerts, laying out botanical gardens, arranging medical lecture rooms—in a word, expending ceaseless

energy on the practical improvement of the university. He was a genius in all the known branches of learning; at twenty-three his physiological discoveries had made him famous throughout Europe. His Atland (or Atlantika) appeared in four folio volumes, in Latin and Swedish, in 1679-98; it was an attempt to summon all the authority of the past, all the sages of Greece and the bards of Iceland, to prove the inherent and indisputable greatness of the Swedish nation, in which the fabulous Atlantis had been at last discovered. It was the literary expression of the majesty of Charles X., and of his autocratical dreams for the destiny of Sweden. From another point of view it is a monstrous hoard or cairn of rough-hewn antiquarian learning, now often praised, sometimes quoted from, and never read. Olof Verelius (1618-1682) had led the way for Rudbeck, by his translations of Icelandic sagas, a work which was carried on with greater intelligence by Johan Peringskjöld (1654-1720), the editor of the Heimskringla. The French philosopher Descartes, who died at Christina's court at Stockholm in 1650, found his chief, though posthumous, disciple in Anders Rydelius (1671-1738), bishop of Lund, who was the master of Dalin, and thus connects us with the next epoch. Charles XII., under whose special patronage Rydelius wrote, was himself a metaphysician and physiologist of merit.

A much more brilliant period followed the death of Charles XII. The influence of France and England took the place of that of Germany and Italy. The taste of Louis XIV., tempered by the study of Addison and Pope, gave its tone to the academical court of Queen Ulrica Eleonore, and Sweden became completely a slave to the periwigs of literature, to the unities and graces of classical France. Nevertheless this was a period of great intellectual stimulus and activity, and Swedish literature took a solid shape for the first time. This Augustan period in Sweden closed somewhat abruptly about 1765. Two writers in verse connect it with the school of the preceding century. Jacob Frese (1691-1729), whose poems were published in 1726, was an elegiacal writer of much grace, who foreshadowed the idyllic manner of Creutz. Samuel von Triewald (1688-1743) played a very imperfect Dryden to Dalin's Pope. He was the first Swedish satirist, and introduced Boileau to his countrymen. His Satire upon our Stupid Poets may still be read with

entertainment. Both in verse and prose Olof von Dalin (1708-1763) takes a higher place than any writer since Stjernhjelm. He was inspired by the study of his great English contemporaries. His Swedish Argus (1733-34) was modelled on Addison's Spectator, his Thoughts about Critics (1736) on Pope's Essay on Criticism, his Tale of a Horse on Swift's Tale of a Tub. Dalin's style, whether in prose or verse, was of a finished elegance. His great epic, Swedish Freedom (1742), was written in alexandrines of far greater smoothness and vigour than had previously been attempted. When in 1737 the new Royal Swedish theatre was opened, Dalin led the way to a new school of dramatists with his Brynhilda, a regular tragedy in the style of Crébillon père. In his comedy of The Envious Man, he introduced the manner of Molière, or more properly that of Holberg. His songs, his satires, his occasional pieces, without displaying any real originality, show Dalin's tact and skill as a workman with the pen. He stole from England and France, but with the plagiarism of a man of genius; and his multifarious labours raised Sweden to a level with the other literary countries of Europe. They formed a basis upon which more national and more scrupulous writers could build their various structures. A foreign critic, especially an English one, will never be able to give Dalin so much credit as the