THROUGH SWEDEN. 
i 17 
ifland, as a prefent to the cabinet of natural hiftory, were on that 
account made academicians. Phyficians in the ifland of St. Bar- 
thelemi have been rewarded for fimilar fervices in the fame man¬ 
ner : even poft-mafters have been complimented with the title of 
member, merely to enfure the fafe conveyance of letters and 
parcels. Such are the fopperies and abfurdities that have been 
committed in Sweden by a fociety of philofophers! The name 
of academician, or fellow of a learned fociety, ought not to be 
beftowed upon any other qualification or character than that 
of a man of letters. But thefe qualities are not attached to rank 
and fortune, or other advantages; nor can they be created by the 
diploma of an academy. It is therefore ridiculous and inconfiftent 
with good fenfe to place men in fituations for which they are 
not fit. Let the academies found orders, and grant to their fa¬ 
vourites crolfes or any other particular marks of diftin&ion; all 
thefe may be innocent: but they fliould not pretend, by the magic 
of their election, to make philofophers of men who perhaps fcarce 
underftand the meaning of the expreffion. 
Intrigue, cabal, and envy of real merit, the little vices of feme 
academies and learned foeieties, have an unavoidable tendency to 
expofe them to the attacks of wit and ridicule. The farcaftical 
epigrams to which the ignorance and dulnefs of individual acade¬ 
micians have given birth in different countries, would form an 
excellent jeft-book, and be more generally and indeed more juftly 
admired than a great part of their memoirs or tranfadlions. All 
the world knows the epitaph on Pirron: 
“ Ci 
