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94 TRAVELS
but on the birth of the’prefent king’s fon the old mode of exor-
cifm was revived ; and the devil was expel. ordered to quit the
body of the prefent prince royal.
The liberty of the prefs in Sweden at the prefent moment is
entirely fubdued; the reign of ignorance and bigotry gains
ground, and will perhaps foon be as unlimited, and produce the
fame difmal gloom as now prevails in Spain and Portugal. Guf-
tavus III. while he publicly encouraged the freedom of the prefs,
privately bound it in fetters. He liked to be thought a liberal
and philofophic prince ; and he did not apparently reftrain authors
from writing whatever they pleafed: but ftill they were expofed
to many unknown confequences, if they happened to publifh any
thing offenfive to the court. At prefent a cenforial commiffion is
eftablifhed, which mutilates works, or fuppreffes them altogether
at pleafure: and what is ftill worfe, and unheard of in any other
country, when the cenfors have paffed a work, its publication may
be prohibited by wat king afterwards. An inftance of this kind
happened during | my {tay at Stockholm, in the cafe of a work,
entitled, ‘«‘ Thoughts on the Reftoration of the Old Monarchy
«© in France.” After this ftatement of facts, it will not be diffi-
cult to conjecture the fituation of the fciences and of philofophy
in a country where fuch meafures are purfued by the government.
The contraft in thefe refpects between Sweden and Denmark, is
ftrongly marked by the number of journals and other periodical
publications iffuing from the prefs annually in the two countries.
In Denmark I reckoned up more than twenty; but as for the
neighbouring
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