Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/420

402 ager från igåand "La Veranda," evince the skill of the master, and many of his poems are very fresh and graphic. As authors of songs we have still to mention (1808-74) and  (born 1817). The latter's collection of excellent humorous songs is known throughout the North under the name, "Gluntarne " (The Youths), for which he also composed the melodies.

The development, which had begun with the struggle between the old and the new schools, closed with Runeberg, who, after the decease of Tegnér, ascended the poetical throne of Sweden. He was born in Finland, "the thousand laked land," which had already before given Swedish literature several prominent authors, and poets like Frese, Creutz, and Franzén. In these predecessors of Runeberg we can already trace a Finnish element in the idyllic-elegiac style, which was peculiar to them, though it came out distinctly and powerfully for the first time in Runeberg's poetry. The former were, notwithstanding this marked national stamp, essentially Swedish poets, but the latter belongs at least as much to Finland as to Sweden.

The Grand Duchy of Finland, which until 1809 belonged to Sweden, and was then ceded to Russia, is chiefly inhabited by Finlanders, a people related to the Magyars, and having nothing in common with the Scandinavians or Russians, and only the seventh part of Finland's population is Swedish. When the country was conquered by the Swedes in the Middle Ages, Swedish culture introduced in connection with Christianity took such deep roots that the intellectual life in Finland has from that time been mainly Swedish in its character. The university which Queen Christina founded in Åbo, in 1640, and which in 1828 was transferred to Helsingfors, was in all essentials Swedish, and the Swedish Finlanders considered themselves Swedes. But it was only on the