FRANZAN, FRANS-MICHAEL, an eminent modern Swedish poet and prosaiat, was born on the 9th of February 1772 at Uleaborg, in Finland, at that time a province of the Swedish crown. Finland, both before and since its compulsory union with Russia, has been fruitful of poets to Sweden, though possessed of a language of its own of an entirely different character. Ituneberg, at present the head of Swedish poetical literature, is a Finn, and the first effort of Franz6n that attracted attention was his poetical eulogy on Creutz, also a Pump who combined the unusual characters of a poet and a diplomatist, and passed much of his life as ambassador at Paris. The Att. and Camilla' of Creutz had introduced an ease and elegance, before unknown, into Swedish poetry, and the eulogy on its author by Frataz6n produced a commotiou in the literary world of Stockholm, by the originality and vigour of its tone, which was in strong contrast to that of the school of Leopold, then dominant, who was au ingenious imitator of French models. The eulogy obtained, In spite of its originality, the great prize of the Swedish Academy. This was in 1794, at which time, and for nine years previous, Franz6n had been a student at the Finnish university of Abo. In the following year ho set out on a tour to Denmark, Germany, Franca and England, and chanced to be a witness of the great fire of Copenhagen, which destroyed a third part of the city. In Paris he ventured on a piece of composition in French verse, which was printed in a French perio dical, and which he reprinted thirty years afterwards in the introduc tion to his Swedish poem, founded on a tale of the revolution, 'Julie de St. Julien.' During his absence he was elected librarian to tho University of Abo, and afterwards professor of literary history. After the transfer of Finland to Russia by the war of 1809, he resolved to remove to Sweden, where he remained for the rest of his life. At first he officiated as pastor of Kumla, in the diocese of Strengnam, a parish remote from the capital, but be was afterwards minister of the church of Clara at Stockholm, where the poet Chormus had preceded him; and iu 1834 he was chosen Bishop of Hernosand. While still a resident in Finland, he had been chosen one of the eighteen of the Swedish Academy, a distinction of the same importance for a literary man in Sweden, as to bo a member of the Royal Academy here for an artist in England. In 1824 he became its secretary, and remained BO for ten years, during which it was part of his duty to write a series of biographical notices, which were much admired for their literary merits. Ho appears to have resigned the secretaryship on his
elevation to the bishopric, which be held till his death in October 1847. Laing in his travels in Sweden gives an account of his meeting with Bishop Franzdn on board of a steam-boat, when going on a visit to his northern diocese, and speaks of the general affection and veneratiun with which he was regarded.
Archbishop Wallin, Bishop Tegndr, and Bishop Franzdn were three of the most distinguished poets of Sweden in the present century. They were all three associated in the new Swedish version of the Psalms, to produce which a commission was appointed in 1814, and respecting the excellence of which there is but one voice, it being generally regarded as the best in Europe. It is singular that so little reference has been made to this fact in the frequent discussions that have taken place on the expediency of obtaining a new poetical version of the Psalms in English. The poetical works of Franzdn were collected in five volumes at Orebro in 1824 and subsequent years. The most successful are decidedly the songs and shorter pieces, many of the songs enjoying a high popularity both in Sweden and Finland. Their prevailing character is sweetness. The longer narrative poems, one of which 'Sten Sture,' extends to twenty cantos and fills an octavo volume, are of a somewhat dry simplicity, both of style and incident, approaching far too nearly to the level of prose. Franzdn was regarded by Swedish writers as belonging to neither of the two rival schools of poetry in his time and country, the 'Academic' or Classical, and the 'Phosphoristie or Romantic, but as standing at the head of a third or neutral party. His sermons, of which four volumes were published, are unusually animated; he was also the author of some controversial writings against: the doctrines of the Rationalists, called forth by the controversy reepectiog Straus's 'Life of Jesus.' The biographical sketches from his pen already mentioned have boen collected under the title of Minnesteckningar.' In the introductory speech before the Swedish Academy prefixed to them, the reader remarks a tone of courtly deference in speaking of Charles XIII., and even of the Russian government, to avoid living under which he left Finland, the absence of which would perhaps have inspired a higher notion of the dignity of Franzdn'a character.