THROUGH SWEDE NT. 
115 
dantry. Thefe never think of changing their own forms : nature, 
they fancy, and the courfc of human affairs ought to bend to 
their forms and inftitutions; and they would deem it below their 
dignity to fubmit their eftablifhed notions to experiment and ob- 
fervation. The plan of the national inflitute of France is too li¬ 
beral, comprehend ve and grand, to be the work of fchoolmen. 
The divifions of fcience and fcientifical purfuits in the academy 
at Stockholm appear to have been made with a view to give ge¬ 
neral fatisfadion, and to open a door for the reception of all men 
who fhould be of confequence enough to add luftre to the fociety 
by their rank, or rich enough to bribe, or mean enough to gain 
the members by flatteries. There is not a gentleman of landed 
eftate who may not become a member of the firft clafs, nor a 
merchant who has not very plaufible pretenfions to be chofen into 
the fecond; every entomologift and ornithologift, every collector 
of fifhes or infeds, may belong to the third or fourth dais. By 
various diviflons and fubdivifions of the department of mathema¬ 
tics, any clerk or Ample arithmetician, any conftrudor of triangles 
or compiler of almanacks, might have been introduced into the 
fifth clafs, if this abufe had not been refilled by Mr. Melander- 
hielm and other gentlemen of true philofophical difcrimination. 
Thus the feventh clafs is open to every compofer of ballads, novels, 
madrigals, vocabularies and grammars. The great number which 
compofe this academy has been made the fubjed of much boaft 
in Sweden. It fhould however be confidered that the more co- 
Q, 2 pious 
