Page:Selected Orations Swedish Academy 1792.djvu/29

Rh performance, since its author is no more), the fire, the impetuosity of love, the language of sentiment, the riches of nature, and the power of beauty, are felt and acknowledged. In other poetic compositions, tenderness, vivacity, sportiveness, and warmth, have united with terms the most expressive of delicate love, of refinement, of raillery, and of mirth. Our satire is not destitute of point, our tales are not wanting in elegance, nor our fables deficient in a noble simplicity of style. If some branches of Swedish literature remain still uncultivated, if several have not attained to maturity, we have every reason to hope that the period of their perfection will soon arrive; since the experience of history informs us, that genius never fails to flourish when fostered by the dew of royal munificence.

is not, however, as a collective body, that this academy can expect to enrich our language with those masterpieces which are still wanting to our literature: such works can only be produced by the fire and force of a single genius. But if, among the members of this learned society, some appear, who have received from the hand of nature superior abilities, who, from a knowledge of men and an acquaintance with books, have acquired a solid taste, and have been encouraged by public approbation—by what new degree of force will they be animated, when incited in the career of glory by him to whose hands the nation has committed the task of rewarding merit? Should even the glory of arriving at the sublimest heights of Parnassus be reserved to no person of our number, yet we cannot deceive ourselves when we presume, that the recompenses we distribute may one day excite a genius, who shall reach the point which