Page:Selected Orations Swedish Academy 1792.djvu/103

Rh code, seconded and supported by his example, will finally settle and decide the opinions of a reflecting age, which no longer regards the study of polite literature as tending to cast a damp upon the martial spirit of a manly people. The country which has given birth to heroes, now delights to deck with literary laurels the warrior brow; and in the fine arts, so often accused of enervating the mind, sees only that mild influence which, by smoothing the ruggedness of virtue, gives her charms which the Graces alone can bestow. Cloathed in the resplendent robes of genius, and invested with the magnificent grandeur of history, Virtue will henceforward present herself to a people, whose veneration shall amply compensate her past oppression. Her future triumph is secured; and by poetry and eloquence transmitted to after ages, the memory of her immortal actions shall brighten to the admiring view of far remote posterity.

by the dawn of the age of from a long night of torpidity, the Swedish Muses find here a peaceful asylum. Charmed with inhabiting a temple, which he has dedicated to their service, happy in assembling at the cheerful call of a genius, who animates them by his example no less than his munificence, they repair towards the North in a garb far more becoming, than when, following the footsteps of our ancient warriors, they engraved on the rude tombs of pirates the Runic praise. Now their only difficulty is to select an object from the multitude of heroes who press forward to immortality; while at the foot of that throne, where formerly, in rude and