etymological system can be formed in any of the modern languages. Though we are by no means favourable to the etymological niceties and lingual trifling of many modern scholars, (by which science is little benefited,) yet we venture to assert without fear of contradiction, that lawyers like Savigny, and historians like Raumer and Hallam might gain immense stores of learning in history and laws from this long-neglected mine. They might, for instance, compare the old German and Anglo-Saxon with the primitive northern provincial legislation, provided they possessed a competent knowledge of the language, as is the case with Jacob Grimm, of Cassel. The popular poetry of the Scandinavians rivals that of the English and Scotch in beauty and intrinsic worth. The sublimity, pathos, proud contempt of death, and lively love for freedom which they express, are the true impressions from the popular character. The appellation of northern Frenchmen has been recently given to the Swedes; but nothing can be more absurd. The comparison can only be partially justified among the highest class, which, through the influence of Gustavus III., strengthened by the philosophy of Voltaire and Helvetius, may in some measure have assumed a frivolity of manner, for which polite demeanour and gentleness of disposition cannot always atone. But, throughout Europe, the higher classes bear a close resemblance to each other in point of manners, cultivation, and employment of time, and can never be fairly taken as a criterion by which to judge of national character. In no European country is the great body of the people less infected with pernicious refinement and immoral contagion than in Sweden; and we believe this moral superiority is supported by proportionate mental cultivation. His legislative right gives the peasant a knowledge of history and of the constitution of his country, while in other parts of Europe the peasantry are either the serfs of the nobility, or wretched dependants on an overbearing aristocracy, or have totally disappeared as an independent class. No where is this element of a sound social order represented as an important part of the nation except in Sweden, where it forms the most incorrupt and powerful portion of the people, and therefore justly participates in the legislation.

A country, whose inhabitants have never borne a foreign yoke, and who have always broken the chains of despotism,—a country which has remained free from those two great cancers of the social order, the feudal system and bondage,-a country which, although poor in gold and silver, is rich in iron, and in men capable of handling it most effectually, a country where sciences and arts, language and literature, have for centuries been cultivated, surely deserves to be better known to its neighbours,

In

In the annals of all mankind the clear day of history is preceded by the mystic twilight of mythology; through the veil of which the historical inquirer beholds the blending of truth and fancy. In the mythological tales of every country, the traces of a higher knowledge of divine things are clearly perceptible; but, in proportion as people degenerate from the source of truth, the more various, confused and sensual become these allegories. They are converted into hieroglyphics, which none understand, because the key to such understanding is no longer to be found. The northern mythologies, like the Greek, contain the idea of an omnipotent Father of gods and men; and, as far as they have reached us, prove to be poetical images from popular creeds or higher esoteric doctrines symbolically represented.

In the north as in the south, Christianity put an end to this primitive poetry; and the giant shapes of the northern world returned to their misty regions, whence the Scalds had drawn them forth; yet for a long time was the hammer of Thor celebrated, and the praise of Odin and Freia chaunted by the enraptured poet.

Odin taught this Asen the Runick and songs. The priests only understood the charms of incantations; and we believe with Gejer, that the Asamàl, which is mentioned in the Edda, was the art of the Scalds, which had been introduced by Odin and his Asen, and confined only to the initiated. It presents us with that rich mythology, which, in power of imagination, in exuberance of images, seems to surpass even the Greek predecessor. Neither Homer's description of the gods, nor Hesiod's theogony, can stand the comparison with the awful Voluspa, which, as the trumpet-sound of the past, relates the creation of all things, and announces, with the enthusiasm of the prophet, the final ruin of the heavenly empire, the last day of gods and men, when a new reign of everlasting bliss will commence under the Father of all. But when the government of the kings ceased to be theocratical, and when the northern mythology became more sensual, descending from the upper into the lower regions, as we find it in the younger or prosaic Edda, so that the magnificent Asgard rather resembled the court of a king with his Thignarmen or Jarls, than the godly seat of the wise Odin, then the court-poets or scalds began to flourish; and then kings were celebrated, their deeds compared to those of the gods, the scalds forming a particular tribe which belonged to the suite of the king. They were as necessary to his fame as his berserkers, and therefore the welcome visitants at the feast, which they embellished with tale and song. From them

and

and the narratives of his predecessors, Snorre Sturleson, the noble Icelander, composed, in the 13th century, his history of the kings since the time of Odin, called Heims Kringla,' which will for ever remain a model of noble simplicity of style, and of pleasant and lively diction. He has preserved in it many

couplets of the ancient scalds.

In the old or poetic Edda, also called the Sämund's Edda, because the Icelander Saemund, surnamed Frode, who died in 1133, collected the tales and songs of which it consists, we find the remnants of the ancient poetry of the priests, to which the younger Edda (which is probably written by Snorre Sturleson, and is only a kind of prosaical mythology with an Ars Poetica, called 'Skulda') refers; but the last part of the more ancient or Saemund's Edda, is formed by the heroic tales, which show that, besides the priest and court poetry, there also existed a popular poetry. The tales of Sigurd Fofnisbane and Brynhilde, of Volsungen and Niflungen, Völund and Helge, are fragments of old popular traditions, whose origin may be traced from the highest antiquity, and which passed over into the poems of the kindred Teutonic people. We are indebted to the Icelanders for the preservation of the language and literature of the old northern people; for when the zeal for the propagation of Christianity led to the destruction of the dark and impious recollections of the gentile times, and monkish science and rhymes had chased away the old literature and language, they found an asylum in the distant Iceland, which became the pantheon of the Northern Gods and heroes. Norwegian noblemen, who fled before the powerful arm of their King Harald Harfager, brought indeed the Christian religion to Iceland; but this did not prevent the Icelandic people from preserving the monuments of a venerable antiquity, as well as their old classical language, whence only modern historians are enabled to avail themselves of the true northern traditions.

The last Scald mentioned in history was the Icelander Sturle Thordson, of the court of Birger Jarl, about the middle of the thirteenth century. Whilst the Troubadours in the south of Europe were celebrating the courage and glory of chivalry, and the love and beauty of their 'ladyes,' the voice of poetry was mute in the Scandinavian peninsula. For three centuries the people carried on a bloody struggle for freedom, and Swedish history presents but dry lists of northern kings, and some old traditions in rhymed chronicles. The old provincial laws, however, and popular songs, all of a deep tragic character, which were preserved by the people, prove that the rage of factions, and the tyranny of foreign intruders, could never destroy entirely the sense of the people for poetry. A new morning dawned with Gustav

Erichson

Erichson Wasa, the Bruce of Sweden. The Reformation brought a new life into the north; the ice of monkish torpidity was broken, and the stream of imagination and knowledge began again to flow; but it took some, time before it could regain its wonted channel.

The two Reformers, Olaus and Laurentius Petri, who were distinguished for ecclesiastical eloquence, were the first who proceeded to the study of history with sound critical judgment. Olaus Petri combated with success the erroneous views of the last Catholic bishop, Johannes Magnus, who in his historical work on Sweden had accumulated the most gross falsehoods. The two Petri were followed by the Messenius, father and son: the first endeavoured, like Shakspeare, but with inferior talent, to embody the history of his country into dramatic composition. Olaus Rudbeck would have been more useful to his country by the extensive knowledge he displayed in the Atlantis, if he could have guarded himself from the extravagances of his imagination. Men like Skytte, Schäffen, Loccenius, Peringsköld Stiernhök, are, in the history of Sweden, of worthy and exalted memory. Their indefatigable researches in history and antiquities have paved the way to modern historians, more than the latter venture to acknowledge.

The two Peringsköld especially revived the study of Icelandic literature. Under the protection of Charles XI., who certainly exerted himself more than all his predecessors for literature, the elder Peringsköld succeeded in republishing Snorre Sturleson, and many of the most beautiful northern traditions. Charles XII., a man of considerable knowledge, did not advance the noble cause which his father had so strenuously advocated. The sound of arms frightened away the Muses. Dahlin, a greater historian than poet, was the forerunner of the brilliant period under Gustav III. He published, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, the first literary periodical in Sweden, and the several societies which were formed for the cultivation of sciences prove the intellectual progress of the nation.

Stjernhjelm, a contemporary of the great Gustav Adolph, of Oxenstjerna, and the whimsical Christina, was the first poet of note. His performance, Hercules, in hexameters, indicates a bold and powerful mastery of his native tongue; but the influence of the German language was too visible. This influence increased so much at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, that Swedish poets, as Columbus and Lars Johnson, preferred to write their verses in that dialect. The Italian language was at this time studied by Swedish noblemen who visited the southern universities.

Dahlstierna

Dahlstierna introduced the Italian stanza, and translated the Pastor Fido of Guarini; and Nicodemus Tessin, the great architect, and builder of the palace at Stockholm, together with David Klöcker Ehrimstrahl, the painter, both favourites of Charles XI., owed to a long stay in Italy their highly cultivated sense for the fine arts.

With the reign of Gustav III. begins a glorious period for Swedish literature. His panegyrists, as well as his detractors, have done injustice to this prince; he had an earnest wish to render his people happy, although he did not always choose the proper means. When he ascended the throne, the French language was predominant on the continent; he had become himself, during his stay in France, an enthusiast for Voltaire, Corneille, Racine, and Molière; and Boileau seemed to him to wield the sceptre of good taste and sound criticism, and he proposed them to the Swedish as models. Hence the poetry of this time bears a French physiognomy, although a few, like Bellmann, Kellgren, Lidner, and Thorild, preserved a national character. The king was indefatigable in his endeavours to encourage talent, and inexhaustible in his rewards. All the eminent men of the nation flocked round the court; the nobility was distinguished for literary attainments, as the Counts Creuz, Gyllenborg, Oxenstjerna, Baron Adlerbeth, and Silverstolpe, amply prove. He liberally supported and patronized the two universities, Upsala and Lund, established several academies, and did not consider it derogatory to his dignity to contend for the prizes with the distinguished men of his time. It is well known, that his discourse on Thorstenson carried the prize of the Academy.

Whatever may have been the political conduct of Gustav III., as long as the memory of Linnæus, Ihre, and Sergel (who first distinguished himself as a sculptor) will live, that king can never be forgotten who fostered them into excellence. Without his liberal support, Bellmann could not, procul negotiis,' have wielded his humorous thyrsus, and Kellgrèn and Lidner would have grovelled in want and distress, and never ventured, in bold flight, towards the empyrean of poetry.

Since the death of Gustavus III. literary activity has been continually increasing in Sweden: the taste for literature and the fine arts is generally spread. Sweden rivals in this respect England, France, Germany, and Denmark. The erudite researches of the Danish Suhm, Nierup, Finn Magrusson, Müller, and of the German Büsching, Von der Hagen, Docen, and the two brothers Grimm, in the northern antiquities, induced in Sweden the study of language and literature, which since the time of Peringsköld had been neglected. The periodical Iduna pub

lished