a completely developed system which he has left us, but genial fragments delivered in a most characteristic form. It is like the cannonade of a man-of-war-an explosion of brilliant and novel ideas-a flash here and a flash there, quick, like strokes of lightning, without any connection with each other, but always well directed and hitting their mark.

In Atterbom's first volume of "Swedish Seers and Poets," will be found a clear and concise analysis of his theory of the fine arts, and a warm eulogium of him as Sweden's most profound and original thinker in art— standing in his own age, as Schelling said of Winkelmann, 'solitary as a mountain.” We there learn what he calls the free arts, they are architecture, painting, sculpture and poetry. He terms these free arts, because they are not built at all upon human necessities-that is, the lower necessities of men, but may be used or let alone, and yet man exist. They are created only out of the love and desire of genuine beauty. Men may protect themselves by walls and roofs from the weather, and yet know nothing of architecture, which is that part of the building art which relates to the expression of beauty in building. We fear that Ehrensvärd's theory would not satisfy Ruskin, however, in its fundamental principle; in which he contends that, in the pursuit of perfect beauty, we do not find it in any individual objects of nature; but that, as a work of man, beauty can only be produced by an extraction of the elements of beauty, as we find them scattered, as it were, through existing nature, blended with what is imperfect and degenerated, and by their reunion into a perfect whole, a something more beautiful than Nature herself. Ruskin will deny, and we think justly, that anybody can produce anything more beautiful than specimens of the

same thing which he may find in nature; and Lord Byron was of the same opinion when he said:

"I've seen much finer women, ripe and real,
Than all the nonsense of the stone ideal."

That, however, is Ehrensvärd's theory, and what is singular enough, he has omitted from his list of free arts, music and dancing. This has puzzled the readers of all kinds. Had he forgotten them? Had he no taste for them? Did he regard them not as free or fine arts?" has been asked by thousands. Probably not-probably he felt that it was impossible to exclude them at the same time from the list in accordance with his own definition. So much, however, is clear, that he has neither mentioned them in his writings on this head, nor anywhere else. It is also known, through facts communicated by Beskow, that Adlerbeth put to him the question expressly why he had passed them over, and he gave no reply. As a whole, however, his writings on the subject deserve the careful study of all lovers of art, and are noble and ennobling as it regards art.

Benjamin Höijer, the profound thinker of Upsala, followed up the attempts of Ehrensvärd, by establishing a periodical organ to diffuse the new ideas on art and true beauty in literature. He started "The Literary Gazette," and afterwards, "The Universal Literary Gazette;" but was persecuted and hampered by the Government, and continually prohibited from proceeding, the King announcing that he would only have one literary journal in the kingdom, which he put into the hands of Wallmark.

CHAPTER XVI

THE NEW SCHOOL, COMMENCING IN 1809.

WE have reviewed the causes in various countries which overthrew the French taste; the natural impatience of the human mind of mere school restraints, and of artificiality; the effects of the French Revolution, and the renewed acquaintance of young men of genius in various nations with the old and simple ballad literature. In Germany, philosophy, through Kant, Fichte and Schelling, had acquired a profounder field of labour, and had opened up more extended views of science and art. The latter had, through the labours of Winkelmann, Lessing, Herder, Goethe and Schiller, become more correctly understood. The Schlegels, Tieck and Novalis followed these, displaying to the public the beauties of the art of the middle ages, and of other times and countries. In Denmark, Oehlenschläger, following Evald, and excited by Steffens, had begun to work up the ancient myths into new forms of singular loveliness. In England, the reliques of ancient poetry were doing their destined work on a race of young intellectual giants. Still, however, in Sweden, the Academy defended itself for a time, manfully against the new spirit of the age. The spirit-destroying

doctrines of the French Encyclopedists, had failed of its object, religion received a new impulse, natural philosophy took a healthier tone, history was loosed from the chains of rhetoric, and everywhere men cried out for fact, reality, practical virtue, character and freedom. But the Academy stood fast, resisting the introduction of all novelty as leading to disorder and false taste, overlooking the good and the true which lay in the new direction, whether in the Romantic or the Gothic Schools.

Fortunately, a political revolution took place in Sweden, and an almost entire freedom of the press followed in its train. A society, under the name of "The Friends of Literature," which had been organized some years before in Upsala, to which belonged Atterbom, Hammarsköld and Livijn, in 1807 had resolved itself into a new association, called the Aurora League, at the head of which was Atterbom, and the chief members of which were Palmblad, Ingelgren, Hedborn, Sondén; all men who stood forward as the most doughty champions in the great strife. So soon as the freedom of the press took place in 1809, the fruit of these small literary confederacies became apparent. "The Polypheme," a literary paper, was published the following year in Stockholm, edited by Askelöf. This journal vigorously attacked Wallmark's journal, ridiculing Wallmark, who had published a poem called "The Hand," as the poet of the ten fingers, and was zealously supported. In 1810, a periodical called "The Lyceum," was issued, in which Höijer wrote. this a slashing attack. was made upon the writings of Leopold, who still lived, and stood a determined partizan of the Academy. In vain Wallmark replied in rage and astonishment at the audacity of these new times and men ; the spirit of innovation grew amain. In the same year, 1810, arose the afterwards so famous journal,

In

"Phos

phorus," the herald of day, the morning-star. This was originally the organ of the Aurora League, and Atterbom was at its head. A deadly war now raged between the old and the new school, and was maintained remorselessly till the latter triumphed.

We need not here farther pursue the history of this contest than to state, that the earlier combatants distinguished themselves by the name of "Phosphorists," from their leading journal, "The Phosphorus," and that the new school eventually became divided into several sections or subordinate schools-the "Phosphorists," or Romantic School, the Gothic School, and what may be called the Miscellaneous School. The first were styled Romantic, because, like Rückert in Germany, they displayed a tendency to Eastern character; the second, because they assumed a pathetic ground, and celebrated in their works national, or at least Scandinavian or Gothic themes; the third, because they partook more or less of the taste of both. All, however, more or less, were romantic; and it is now our remaining task to notice the most prominent writers of this modern school, with some regard to their own selfarrangement.

Two of these writers, and amongst the most distinguished, are considered to constitute a class of themselves. These are Franzén and Wallin. They arose as larks in the early morning of the new day; still carrying on their wings the shadows of the past night, yet free-songed as angels in heaven, and neither classing themselves, nor entirely classable, with the after literary sects which arose. One was a Bishop, the other an Archbishop, and the Archbishop is, as was fitting, more renowned for his spiritual lays— the most renowned, in fact, of Sweden's religious bards.