GEIJER, ERIK GUSTAF, said by a Swedish critic to be equally eminent as a poet, a thicker, and an historian, was born at the iron foundry of Ransiiter, in Ransliter chapelry, province of Wermeland, Sweden, on the 12th of January 1783. His father, the proprietor of the foundry, was the descendant of a family which had emigrated to Sweden from Austria in the time of Gustavus Adolphus, and by esta blishing foundries had peopled the district Geijer, iu his Minnen,' or ' Reminiscences,' has given a vivid description of the wild country of his birth and the hearty patriarchal manners which prevailed in it, to both of which he was strongly attached. At twelve years old lie was sent to the school of Carlatad, five Swedish miles south of his birthplace, and at sixteen to the University of Upset ; during his residence at which however, lie enjoyed nothing so much as his fre quent visits home, where he used to declare his conviction that the solemn academical disputations of Upsal would be the laughing-stock of future ages. At the age of twenty he was still without a degree, and when his friends, who were anxious to see some fruits of his studies, applied to a family of consideration to secure him the place of toter, they received for answer that inquiries had been made at the university as to his character, and that he was found to be a " yonth without steadiness." The rejection, and the motive assigned for it, stung Geijer to the soul. He resolved to do something to raise his reputation from so low a point, and without informing any one of his design, went to the parsonage, begged to look over a file of old news papers, and ascertained that the subject of the great prize offered that year by the Swedish Academy was the Areminuct,' or eulogy of Sten Sture, the administrator of the kingdom before the time of Gustavus Vasa. There was an imperfect copy of Dalin's History of Sweden' at the foundry-house ; this he studied in secret, found mews to possess himself of some paper, which was scarce in those quarters, and as fast as he wrote his essay, concealed the sheets in the unsus pected hiding-place of an old clock-case. It needed some contrivance to get the essay sent off by post without taking any one into his con fidence, but this too was done. Some months after his sister asked him what made him turn so red on a sudden as he was reading the newspaper. He had come on an advertisement requesting the author of the essay on Sture, with a certain motto—the same which he had selected—to make himself known to the academy. He had won the prize, and from that day was looked on in a different light by his family and all his friends. In the next year, when ho visited Stock holm, ho was introduced to many of the leading literary men, and universally regarded as a youth of high promise. In the same year (1804), on a visit to his native Wermeland, he became acquainted, ou a hunting excursion, with another young Wermelander, a student of the University of Lund, and they took a long ramble together, sleeping occasionally in barna, and keeping up a continual disputation. This student, who became a friend for life, was Esains Tegel6r, afterwards bishop of Wcxio, now universally regarded as the greatest poet whom Sweden has produced. "11'e never talked together, then or after wards," Geijer said in later life in his eulogy on Tegner, " without dis puting ; and as we never came to agree, perhaps the solution may be, that we never understood one another. How this might be with Tegndr I know not, but I at least believed that I understood him." In 1806 Geijer took his degree, and soon after obtained a post iu the National Archives ; but he was anxious to travel in foreign countries, and in 1809 obtained his wish by visiting England as travelling tutor to a youth of the name of Von SchinkeL He staid about a twelvemonth in this country, two months of which were spent in studying English at Stoke Newingtou. Several of Geijer's letters from England were printed by himself in his IMinnen' in le34 ; others have appeared since his death in the collected edition of his writings now publishing. In one of them, dated from Bath in 1810, and first printed in 1855, he says, " I came to England with strong prejudices against the people. It is a nation, I thought to myself, in which a love for gain and a narrow selfishness has quenched all that is beautiful and noble. Mine was a Swedish notion of selfishness, drawn from an imperfect state of society, where the connection between the publio and private advantage is often far from obvious. Here every man knows that connection ; and there is no honester man in the world than the selfish industrious Englishman, from the merchant to the day-labourer. This result may be owing to prudeuce as well as to principle, but such is the cage. No foreigner can come hero without admiring the honour and the mutual confidence that prevail in commerce and in life." Ou his return to Sweden, Geijer was soon engaged in the editorship of a 'magaziue having the name of Iduna,' set up by a society of twelve, of whom he was one, and his brother another, who christened themselves 'the Gotha' The main idea of their union was that of reviving the manners and spirit of their Gothic, ancestors, and some of their rules and ceremonies were suffi ciently childish; but for these the founder, one of their friends named Adierbeth, was chiefly responsible. The 'Iduna' contained in its
earliest numbers poema by Geijer—' The Viking," The Last Cham. pion,' &c.—which were full of vigour and spirit, which became imme• diately popular, were translated into Danish and German, and atill retain their place in all selections of Swedish poetry. In subsequent numbers the early cantos of Teendra Frithjof' appeared for the first time. Aa in the case of many other Swedish periodicals, there seems to have been no intention of continuing the lduna,' however success• ful, for an indefinite space of time : it was brought to an end after ten numbers, and the society of the Goth', which was painfully kept up by the exertions of Adlerbeth for many years after the other members had grown tired of it, was finally buried in his grave on his death in 1844. Geijer put forth, in 1813, a translation of ' Macbeth ;' and between 1814 and 1816 was associated with Afzelius in the publi cation of a collection of Swedish popular ballads, 'Svenska Folkvisor,' in 3 volt, to which however Geijer contributed little more than introductory matter. He had held from 1810, when he was elected during his absence in England, a subordinate post in the University of Upsal, and for some years was in search of a position that would enable him to marry. In 1816 he was appointed adjunct or assistaut to Fant [Faxr), the professor of history at the University of Upsal, on his retirement ; he then married a lady to whom he had been engaged before his journey to England, and in the next year, on the death of Fent, he succeeded to the full professorship. His first lectures had an unexampled popnlarity, aud the lecture-room was crowded, not only with students, but with the beat society of Upaal, including ladies.' These early lectures were different both in matter and manner from those which his more matured knowledge and taste afterwards approved : as he grew more profound he became less popular, but he still continued the pride of the university and the favourite of the students. His success with the eulogy of Sten Sturo had proved his genius, but bad not proved the steadiness he was charged with wanting, and as a professor he was not remarkable fur regularity in the discharge of his duties. His musical tastes Interfered a good deal with his other pursuits, and it was remarked that when he had once got to a pianoforte, it was nut easy to get him away from it. He had also frequent leave of absence for the purpose of prosecutiog historical researches. One of the most prominent incidents in his academical life was an academical trial to which be was subjected on account of his theological opinions. In an edition which he published about 1820, of the works of Thorild, a Swedish philosophical speculator, some passages in the introduction by Geijer, which was entitled, 'A Philosophical or Unphilosophical Confession of Faith,' were regarded by some of his colleagues as hostile to the doctrine of the Trinity, and the author was denounced to the univer eity authorities, but a long examination terminated in an acquittal, which was celebrated as an important trinmph of liberty of thought and liberty of the press in Sweden. Geijer says, in a passage In one of his writlur, " I am not a Church-Christian; I am not a Bible-Christian, 1 am, so to speak, a Christian on my own account," and he concludes a statement of his way of thinking in theology with the declaration, "If this is Christianity, I am a Christian." The trial to which he had been subjected did not prevent his being twice offered a bishopric, that on the second occasion being iu his native diocese of Carlatad, a dis tinction the more flattering that in Sweden a bishop must in the first instance be nominated by the clergy. He declined on both occasions. "Perhaps if I accepted," he wrote to a friend, "they might have a blameless middling bishop, but there would bo an end of Erik Gustaf Geijer. It is not pride that speaks, but humility and conscience. I am afraid of this dignity, this new path, these new duties. Better keep on working in tho circle where I run at home, and know that I work to some purpose. For the University of Upsal I am somebody. That would loan more than 1Vermelaud gained." Ceijer was in fact for many years in a distinguished position as the bead of Swedish historical literature. He planned a great history of the country to supersede that of Dalin and Lagerbring, who have been fur Sweden what Hume and Sruollett have been for England ; and it was univer rally acknowledged that his introduction to the great work, the first volume of 'Sven Rikes Hafdcr,' or Records of Sweden,' promised a masterpiece. Unfortunately the great work was never carried further.