learning by that patriotic ardour which illustrates every action of his life, unites to the beauty of style the utmost delicacy of taste, and upon whose talents I mould still further enlarge, did I not apprehend that the tribute of gratitude, which truth demands at my hands, would be thought a studied encomium upon him, to whom I am indebted for my education.
To unite, in an advanced age, the most social temper of mind and the most elegant taste for composition, with the direction of a political department, which requires more industry than abilities, more accuracy than genius—a department which appears even calculated to extinguish these qualities, is a singular circumstance, a circumstance which proves more powerfully than any encomium, how much that senator,[1] to whom I now allude, is likely to ornament and instruct the academy. The effects of his genius, preserved in the transactions of the kingdom, have already procured him a reputation, which, however, he is desirous of sharing with this society.
No person, however, can have a better title to become a member of an institution, destined to purify the Swedish language, than a nobleman[2] who has so frequently addressed the general assemblies of the kingdom; who, with so elegant an arrangement, so luminous a perspicuity, and so irresistible an energy, has so often delivered his sentiments to his
- ↑ The senator Count Hermansson, who was twice President of the Exchequer.
- ↑ The senator and field-marshal Count A. Fersen, who has been three times Speaker to the Diet.
