DISCOURSE
BY
COUNT T. G. OXENSTIERNA,
Gentlemen,
If a warm attachment to pursuits, to which this Academy is devoted, were a qualification sufficient for becoming a member of it, no one perhaps would have a stronger claim than myself to a place in this assembly. Wholly engrossed by the happiness of such a situation, I should feel a pleasure, which the comparison of my own defects with your distinguished talents, would be unable to disturb. In the contemplation of my unmerited good fortune, I should be sometimes diverted from reflection upon the distance, which separates your productions from the trifles which, though they have served occasionally to amuse a vacant hour, were little calculated to attract the public attention.
Des-
