Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/790

Rh Crusenstolpe (1795-1865), of whose work it has been said that “it is not history and it is not fiction, but something brilliant between the one and the other.” As an historian of Swedish literature Per Wieselgren (1800-1877) has composed a valuable work, and he has made other valuable contributions to history and bibliography. In history we meet again with the great name of Geijer, with that of Jonas Hallenberg (1748-1834), and with that of Anders Magnus Strinnholm (1786-1862), whose labours in the field of Swedish history were extremely valuable. Geijer and Strinnholm prepared the way for the most popular and perhaps the greatest of all Swedish historians, Anders Fryxell (1795-1881), whose famous Berättelser ur Svenska Historien appeared in parts during a space of nearly sixty years, an extraordinary example of persistent and uninterrupted work. As a legal historian the first place is easily maintained by Karl Johan Schlyter (b. 1795). Hans Järta (1774-1847) was a statesman who wrote with vigour on economical subjects. In science it is only possible to mention the celebrated names of Jöns Jakob Berzelius (1779-1848) the chemist, Elias Fries (1794-1878) the botanist, Karl Adolf Agardh (1785-1859) the physiologist, and Sven Nilsson (1787-1883) the palæontologist.

In the generation which has just passed away, the first poet of Sweden, without a rival, was Johan Ludvig Runeberg (1804-1877), who divides with Tegnér the highest honour in Swedish literature (see ). The other leading verse-writers were Karl Vilhelm Böttiger (1807-1878), the son-in-law and biographer of Tegnér; Johan Borjesson (1790-1866), the last of the Phosphorists, author of various romantic dramas; Vilhelm August von Braun (1813-1860), a humorous lyrist; “Talis Qualis,” whose real name was Karl Vilhelm August Strandberg (1818-1877); and August Teodor Blanche (1811-1868), the popular dramatist. But Runeberg is the only great

poetic name of this period. In prose there was not even a Runeberg. Novel-writing was sustained at no very high level by Karl Anton Wetterbergh (b. 1804), who called himself “Onkel Adam,” by Emilie Carlén (b. 1807), whose autobiography has lately appeared, by Oskar Patrick Sturzen-Becker, “Orvar Odd,” (1811-1869), by August Blanche, and by Marie Sofia Schwartz (b. 1819). Lars Johan Hierta (1801-1872) was the leading journalist, Johan Henrik Thomander, bishop of Lund (1798-1865), the greatest orator, Matthias Alexander Castrén (1813-1852) a prominent man of science, and Karl Gustaf af Forsell (1783-1848) the principal statistician of this not very brilliant period. Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884) is distinguished as the Finnish professor who discovered and edited the Kalevala. It is impossible to give an exhaustive list of names in so short a sketch as this.

Swedish literature is not in a very lively condition at the present time. The most popular living poet is the Finn, Zakris Topelius (b. 1818). Of a higher artistic merit are the finished lyrics of Count Karl Snoilsky (b. 1841). King Oscar II. (b. 1829) is a genuine poet of the second order, as his father Charles XV. was of the third. Karl David af Wirsén (b. 1842) is an active writer on the conservative side. The best living author of Sweden is undoubtedly Viktor Rydberg (b. 1829), who has written masterly novels and historical works. The latest influences from Denmark and France are beginning to be represented by Strindberg the novelist, and by Fru A. Ch. Edgren, the most successful Swedish dramatist of the moment. The revival of literature which has been so marked in the other two Scandinavian countries has not yet spread into Sweden.



 SWEDENBORG, or (1688-1772), was born at Stockholm January 29, 1688. His father, Dr Jesper Svedberg, subsequently professor of theology at Upsala and bishop of Skara, was a pious, learned, and a brave man, who did not escape the charge of heterodoxy, and believed himself to be in constant intercourse with angels. Emanuel shared as a child his father's piety, and his parents thought that “angels spoke through him.” His education embraced the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, and, above all, mathematics with the natural sciences, but seems to have been curiously defective in theology. Endowed with unusual intellectual powers and an iron constitution, he acquired vast stores of learning in all those branches. Having completed his university course at Upsala, in 1710 he commenced the customary European tour, visiting England, Holland, France, and Germany, studying especially natural philosophy, though alternating it with the composition of Latin verses, little of the poet as there was in his nature. In 1715 he returned to Upsala, and devoted himself to natural science and various engineering works. From 1716 to 1718 he published a scientific periodical, called Dædalus Hyperboreus, a record of mechanical and mathematical inventions and discoveries. In 1716 he was introduced to Charles XII., who appointed him assessor in the Swedish college of mines. Two years later he distinguished himself at the king's siege of Frederikshall by the invention of machines for the transport of boats and galleys overland from Stromstadt to Iddefjord, a distance of 14 English miles. The same year he published various mathematical and mechanical works. At the death of

Charles XII. Queen Ulrica elevated him and his family to the rank of nobility, by which his name was changed from Svedberg to Swedenborg. The next years were devoted to the duties and studies connected with his office, which involved the visitation of the Swedish, Saxon, Bohemian, and Austrian mines. In 1724 he was offered the chair of mathematics in the university of Upsala, which he declined. Gradually his inquiring and philosophical mind led him to wider studies than those of his profession. As early as 1721 he was seeking to lay the foundation of a scientific explanation of the universe, when he published his Prodromus Principiorum Rerum Naturalium and had already written his Principia in its first form. Thirteen years later, in 1734, appeared in three volumes Opera Philosophica et Mineralia, the first volume of which (his Principia) contained his view of the first principles of the universe, a curious mechanical and geometrical theory of the origin of things. The same year followed Prodromus Philosophiæ ratiocinantis de Infinito et Causa Finali Creationis, which treats of the relation of the finite to the infinite and of the soul to the body, seeking to establish a nexus in each case as a means of overcoming the difficulty of their relation. From this time he applied himself to the problem of discovering the nature of soul and spirit by means of anatomical studies. He travelled in Germany, France, and Italy in quest of the most eminent teachers and the best books dealing with the human frame, and published, as the results of his inquiries, among other works, his Œconomia Regni Animalis (London, 1740-41) and Regnum Animale (The Hague, 1744-45, London, 1745). But a profound change was coming over