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THROUGH SWEDEN. 103
fund for the prizes than the generofity of the queen dowager, by
whom it was inftituted, would haye 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, Greck 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 profeffed 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 1789 and 1790; the Duke of Nivernois ;
P. F. Suhm, who has lately publithed large collections, written in
Latin, of the Scandinavian antiquities; and Mr. Pallas, formerly
profeffor 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 Swedith verfes. There is a box in the
opera-houfe called wil de beuf, 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
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