FANT, ERIK MICHAEL, an investigator of the early political and literary history of Sweden, whose labours are of considerable value, was born at Eskiletuna in Sudermanland, on the 9th of January 1754, studied at the university of Upsal, became assistant-librarian there in 1779, and Professor of History in 1781. He retired in 1816 on a pension, which he enjoyed for a very short time, dying at Upaal on the 23rd of October 1817. His life was written by his friend and pupil J. H. Schroder, the present librarian of Upsal, and is included in a small volume published by him in 1839 under the title of Tal och Minnestechningar.' The most important work with which Fent was connected was the collection entitled Seriptores rerum Svecicarum medii mvi.' He had originally projected it with his friend Nordin when both of them were sub-librarians at Upaal, but the project slept for want of encourage ment for forty years, and Bishop Nordin was dead when Fent at the age of sixty-two retired from his professorship with the view of devoting himself to the realisation of their youthful project, and died before the publication of the first volume. That volume was issued in 1813, and a second was published in 1828 by Geijer and Schroder. The work appears to have advanced no farther than these two folios, but even in this imperfect state it is an indispensable book in every Swedish library. It contains the only editions of several con temporary histories, bearing on the introduction of the Reforma tion into the North. A peculiar feature in the literature of Sweden consists in the number and importance of its academical theses or dissertations, which are nearly as various in their subject-matter and in their mode of treatment as the articles of English reviews. The name
of Font is attached to no less than three hundred and twenty-eight of these compositions. Two names appear on the title-page in connection with each thesis—that of the Prreaes,' generally the professor of the branch of knowledge to which it belongs, and that of the 'Respondent,' or candidate for a degree ; and by a very unfortunate rule of academi cal etiquette the reader is generally left in the dark as to whether the Prmaes or the Respondent is the author of the thesis.
Fent is spoken of by friends at tho university acquainted with the facts of the case, as the author of a of Greek Literature in Sweden,' to which his name is appended as Respondent, and of ' Annals of Swedish Typography, in the 16th Century,' to which his name is appended as Presses. Many of tho other dissertations, which are said to be of very unequal merit, and with some of which he may have had no other concern than that of lending his name, are on equally curious subjects—miscellaneous Swedish biography, the history of Gustavus Adolphus, the history of the Reformation in Sweden, &e. He pub lished nlao some more ambitious attempts at a continuation of the history of Sweden, by Lagerbring, as a general outline of Swedish history, &a., but these do not appear to have enhanced his reputation.