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SURVEY OF ITS HISTORY.
99
Swedish rule has nevertheless left its traces. It survived in grateful memory
almost everywhere amongst the lower classes of the population, at that period
so often repressed and down-trodden elsewhere. The admirably ordcrèd Swedish
administration was incontestably taken as a model by the states (Prussia and
Russia) that succeeded Sweden as the possessors of the above-named countries;
and the nobility of Livonia is undoubtedly indebted in the main to the political
education it received from the Sweden of that time for the influential position
they assumed in the history of Russia throughout the whole of the eighteenth
century.
The seventeenth century marks, indeed, for Sweden a period of expansive energy
unknown before. We have already mentioned her illustrious rulers and statesmen.
Swedish military science at this time marked an epoch by the genius of such
generals as Gustavus Adolphus, Gustavus Horn, Banér, Torstensson, and King
Charles X Gustavus; amongst the field-marshals of Charles XII may be mentioned
Lewenhaiqit, and Sweden’s last national hero, Magnus Stenbock, who preserved
Skåne for his country. But Sweden began at that time to show great names
in the sphere of culture also: we may mention Stiernhielm, the father of
Swedish poetry, Stiernhöök, the great historian of law, Rudbeck, the famous
polyhistor, and the two mechanical geniuses, Dahlberg, the leader of the famous
march across the frozen Belts, and one of the three great European
fortress-builders of the period, and Polhem, the precursor of the great band of Swedish
inventors of later days. It is also significant of the enlightened Swedish
government of the times that a number of the most illustrious men of the century in
foreign lands were offered Swedish hospitality and Swedish protection, and even
positions in the Swedish service. The names of Hugo Grotius, Pufendorf,
Descartes, and Comenius may here be sufficient. The greatest honour for this step
Drottningholm Castle. On Lake Miilcixem^-
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