Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/397

Rh (1788-1852) was also a zealous champion among the Phosphorists, he too being one of the founders of Aurorabund. He gained his chief celebrity as controversialist, for his other works, a few stories and the novels "Familien Falkensvärd" and "Aurora Königsmark," have no great value.

Among the Phosphorists the following are yet to be mentioned: (1791-1844) was a somewhat gifted poet, whose idyls and descriptions of nature, are original and graceful. In his "Mollbergs Epistlar" and other bacchanalian poems he took Bellman for his model. His novel, "Nahum Frederik Bergströms Krönika" is one of the best in Swedish literature. (1790-1866) after having failed in his first youthful performance, a didactic poem, "Skapelsen" (the creation), published in 1846 the tragedy, "Erik XIV." The latter was soon followed by several other dramatic works, "Solen sjunker" (the sun sets), "Ur Karl XII's Ungdom" (Prom the youth of Charles XII), "Brödraskulden " (the brother's guilt), and "Erik XIV's son." All these plays, which are apparently imitations of Shakespeare, and which show here and there a spark of genius, have but little life and action, but contain many beautiful lyric passages. (1785-1854) wrote under the pseudonym fine descriptions of nature, with fine elegiac coloring, and teeming with romantic mysticism and idyllic genre-pictures. (1790-1870) wrote some very beautiful poems, and (1783-1849) some fine church songs.

The two following poets were no real Phosphorists, but still they belong essentially to this group. (1793-1823) is one of the strangest phenomena in Swedish poetry. He was chiefly lyric, and what he wrote in this field is a true picture of his own character as developed by