THROUGH SWEDEN. 
i°3 
fund for the prizes than the generofity of the queen dowager, by 
whom it wars inftituted, w r ould have been diffolved at her death, 
if her fon Guftavus III. had not taken it under his protection. 
He not only furnifhed it with a fund for various prizes every year, 
but alfo for penfions to feveral of the members. The province of 
this academy was extended by the king to foreign literature, Egyp¬ 
tian, Greek and Roman antiquities, the fcience of emblems, and 
the fuperintendancy over medals, infcriptions, and all public mo¬ 
numents in the kingdom. The number of members is fixed at 
fifty: fixteen foreign, fourteen honorary, and twenty ordinary 
members; the laft named are profefled men of letters. In the 
firft mentioned clafs I find the names of the Cardinal de Bernis, 
French ambaffador at Rome before and at the time of the French 
revolution, in the years 1/8Q and IfQO; the Duke of Nivernois; 
P. F. Suhm, who has lately publifihed large collections, written in 
Latin, of the Scandinavian antiquities; and Mr. Pallas, formerly 
profefibr in the Imperial academy at Peterfburg. In the lift of 
honorary members are to be found Count Frederic Sparre, chan¬ 
cellor of the kingdom. This is the fame gentleman who, as was 
faid, believed that he fhould mount up to heaven like Elijah, a cir- 
cumftance which places his acutenefs and intelligence in an unfa¬ 
vourable light. He is the fubject of no bad, though only a punning 
epigram, comprifed in four Swedifh verfes. There is a box in the 
opera-houfe called cell de boeuf, or ox's eye , in which Count Sparre 
fometimes fat. It is on this point that the epigram turns. Its 
import is this“ Mathematicians have affumed as a maxim, that 
“ the 
