II. THE NOON OF GALLICISM. THE PERIOD OF GUSTAVUS AND THE ACADEMY.

Gustavus III. was a man of unquestionable talent, and as an orator he might be said to possess decided genius. His eloquence has rarely found a rival in the annals of Sweden. He was a master of rhetoric, but no real poet. It is not often that an accomplished orator and a good poet meet in the same person. An orator may and ought to possess imagination and poetical feeling, without these qualities, oratory degenerates into dry declamation; but the exertion and mode of intellectual development in the poet are widely different to the arts which are requisite for a popular orator. But Gustavus III., even in his poetical tendencies, was fast bound to the French system, in which the law of regularity fettered the free soarings of genius, and where versifying, taking the place of invention, soon fell down to common-place. Gustavus was, however, the true friend of literature, and did whatever lay in his power, according to his own views, to promote it, and to honour and reward literary men. Following up the plan of his mother, Louisa Ulrika, and the inculcations of his tutor Tessin, he established, in 1786, the Swedish Academy, which, for the remainder of the century and for some time longer, continued to dictate, in a great degree, the taste of the public. It is not to be denied that Swedish literature owes much to Gustavus and this school, so far as polish of language, and a horror of barbarism, and grossnesses are concerned. As in our Addison and Pope, so in the Swedish writers of this period, polish, harmony, exquisite finish of diction, and a promulgation of sound, just, and philosophical sentiments, are the distinguishing qualities, and have produced

their good effects on the literature of each country. But little that can be called genius, at least of the higher grade, little of the more intrinsic, ethereal, creative spirit of poetry--of what Wordsworth calls so admirably "the vision and the faculty divine," are, or can properly be looked for amongst them. Their souls were bound down within a certain sphere by the inexorable chains of their system.

Of this mid-day of the Gallic era, Gustavus himself, Kellgren, Leopold and Oxenstjerna, are the chiefs. Gustavus wrote a number of dramas, the chief of which are "Gustavus Wasa;" "Gustavus Adolphus and Ebba Brahe;" "Siri Brahe;" "Helmfelt ;" Gustavus Adolphus's Magnanimity;" "Frigga," a comedy; "The Jealous Neapolitan ;" "Alexis Michaelovitsch" and "Natalia Narischkin;" "The Deceived Pacha," and "The One for the Other," two comedies; also a farce, called "The Birth-day."

In their original prose form, these dramas possess considerable merit, and are still read with interest. They make no pretences to poetry, but are rather rhetorical, for Gustavus is the greatest master of rhetoric amongst the monarchs of Sweden. But the King had an ambition to see them in a poetic form, and he employed Kellgren to work up into operas, his "Gustavus Wasa," "Gustavus Adolphus and Ebba Brahe," and "Queen Christina." Leopold also threw his "Helmfelt" into the operatic form. In this artificial shape, they lost the natural freshness and freedom of the original cast, and are still preferred in their prose form.

Kellgren is essentially a lyrical poet, and the greatest of this period. There is that genial warmth, feeling and grace of manner about him, which make it probable that under more favourable circumstances he would have risen

much higher in the ranks of Sweden's lasting poets. Kellgren was born in 1741, in West Gothland; and was educated at the University of Åbo, where he became a teacher in 1774 of belles-lettres, and in 1777 went to Stockholm, where, with his friend Carl Lenngren, he commenced "The Stockholm Post," which for nearly fifty years exercised a powerful influence on the opinion and intelligent progress of the public mind. He soon attracted the attention of the King, who nominated him a member of the Academy, and made him his private secretary, with an income which permitted him to devote himself chiefly to his poetical labours. He died in 1795, at the early age of forty-four.

Kellgren was a witty and keen satirist, as his "Enemies of Light," "My Laughter," "Man only a Genius when he is Mad," sufficiently testify. His operas are not equal to his satires, and are far inferior to his lyrics, which are full of original poetic vigour, a clear, vivacious and rich feeling. Some of these betray a tendency to escape from the bondage of his time, and open up a new spring-time in Swedish poetry. Nay, in his later days, he even expressed in some of his inspired pieces his suspicion that his poetic career had been a mistake. Had he lived longer, he would probably have had to rank amongst the transition poets of the next section. As it is, his "New Creation," Spring Song," "To Frederika," "To Christina," " Regret," "Despair," "The Valley," his fragment of "Sigwarth and Hilma," with some others, will always give him a high rank amongst Sweden's true poets. For his own fame and the fame of the age, his early death was a serious loss. A growing feeling was within him, that the spring of true poetry lay deeper in the human heart than his school supposed, and this made his productions more and more simple and true to nature

than those of his cotemporaries. As he approached his end, he began in earnest to utter his voice from the depths of his soul; and of that end he had a melancholy foreboding. He had for some time begun to study the literature of Denmark and Germany, which were then in Sweden regarded as barbarous, and a friend who had lent him some German poems met him one morning with tears in his eyes, and asked him the reason of his obvious distress. "Ah!" said Kellgren, pointing to the open volume of Klopstock, "I have lived in vain, and wasted my time on things of no value." His friend sought to comfort him by the hope of a long life, and the opportunity of repairing the evil. "No!" replied he, "with me it is all over! I shall die soon!"

In his prose writings the same characteristics are discernible: you perceive a spirit in captivity to the ideas of his age, and struggling to break loose. In his preface to "Fredman's Letters," you are struck with the clear, intuitive glances of a genius which betray rather than express the feelings of a man who is not easy in his bonds, but has not the strength to break them.

Carl Gustav Leopold, after the death of Kellgren, continued to sway the literary sceptre during the remainder of the century. He was born in Stockholm, in 1756, but went as a child to Norrköping, whither his father removed. He went thence to the school of Söderköping, and in 1773, to the University of Upsala, but was obliged to leave it for want of means. On his return to Norrköping, he became acquainted with Professor Liden, who gave him the promise of becoming the overseer of the library which he had given to the University of Upsala. Leopold was sent to Greifswald, where, in 1782, he took his degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and became librarian to the Council in Stralsund, and in 1784, received his

promised post in Upsala. When Gustavus III. desired to have his drama "Helmfelt" converted into an opera, Leopold undertook it, and executed it so much to the King's satisfaction, that Gustavus desired to have him nearer to him. He was named a member of the Academy, made librarian at Drottningholm; in 1789, secretary to the King, and 1790, attended him as favourite and courtpoet to Finland. On the murder of Gustavus III., Leopold was brought before the Council of the Regency on a charge of holding Jacobinical opinions, but was acquitted, and retired to Linköpung till the young King Gustavus Adolphus (Gustavus IV.) entered on his government, when he was again employed; and on the revolution of 1809, was ennobled, and in 1818, became Secretary of State. These honours, however, did not compensate him for much domestic trouble, the excitable temperament and final loss of mind of his wife, and his own blindness during the last seven years of his life. He died in 1829, the last of the Gustavians.

Leopold was a copious writer; his collected works consisting of six volumes. He had attempted almost every species of poetry but the epic; but he is best known for his dramas and his miscellaneous poems. His dramas are too much formed on the principles of his school to please now. They are: "Odin, or the Migration of the Asar," and "Virginia," both tragedies; "The Petition," an occasional piece; and two translations, "The MetreMania" and "The Speaking Picture." These plays, judged by our present rules of art, are too high-flown, too rhetorical, and have not enough of the reality of life and nature, the genuine emotions of the human heart, and the genuine conflicts of human passion.

His odes have many of the same faults-bombast, repulsive Court flattery, and frigid reasoning in place of