Page:Selected Orations Swedish Academy 1792.djvu/82

82 How much will he, who formerly regarded not himfelf as one of the favourites of fortune, be ftimulated in the career of letters, by the honour of an admiflion into a fociety, compofed, as this is, of men the moft diftinguifhed for genius and abilities, which the Swedifh nation can boaft I He will certainly regret no longer the time which he has confumed in the cultivation of polite learning. Permit me. Gentlemen, on this occafion, to recall to your memory fbme of thofe illuftrious charadlers, by whom genius may be faid to have been introduced into the world* There have been nations more ancient than the Greeks, who poflefled fcience; but, to the boaft of genius, no people can eftablifh a prior claim. Homer is the greateft prodigy in the reign of genius. In no man did the poetic fire bum with equal conftancy. In other writers the flsunc of genius i$ only vifiWe l^ iftttrvals. The major part of even their moft mafterly compofitions,. is filled witht the play of words, with quaint points, with all thoft inferior: g^tWi, which can never reach the fuWimity of genius 5 but thofo djulUtions o£ a poetic fancy, which agitated other authors in the compofition, of their: bcft works, appear, in the breaft of HoMKRy to have operated as an uniform principle. If this be true, he was the moft fortunate of mea. In otheji writers it is too vifible, that the foul, which animates their works, is not that principle which aduates the.