Sketch of the Life and Career

of the

Author of “Fridthjof’s Saga.”

By F. M. Franzén,

Bishop of Hernösund, Sweden.

Being Written During the Life of Tegnér, It Has Been
Brought Down to His Death by the
American Editors

        Three of the provinces of Sweden vie with each other in claiming to themselves the name, so glorious for the whole kingdom, so beloved by the whole nation,— Tegnér. The first is the iron-veined Wermland, where the great bard, was born and grew in years. The second, the fruitful Scania, at whose famed university he suddenly sprang forth an accomplished teacher, instead of what he had been, an extraordinary and for the most part a self-taught pupil, and whence his poetical renown flew through the whole of Sweden, and soon through Europe itself. The pleasant Smaland is the third. Here, as the chief of its diocese and the guardian of its educational institutions, he has gained yet greater consideration and yet fresher honors. Indeed, he belongs originally to this bishopric, partly through his father, who was born there, and partly by his name, which is ancestors took form the village of Tegna (Tegnaby), at present a part of the diocese estates. Thus his very name seems to have announced to Tegnér his future station.
        His father, who was also called Esaias Tegnér, and who was a good preacher, a cheerful companion and an active agriculturist, had been nominated to the rectory of Millesvik. It was while he was yet waiting till he could occupy the parsonage, and was living at the house of the assistant minister at Kyrkerud, in the living of By, that his spouse, whose maiden name was Sara Maria Seidelius, bore him on the 13^th of November, 1782, his fifth son, Esaias.
        While not yet nine years old he lost his father, and for want of means, his elder brothers having all to be supported as students, Assessor Branting, a Smaland man, consequently from the same province, and probably also a near friend of his father, took the lad into his office-room. He soon acquired whatever belonged to his employment, and accompanied his foster-father to all the meetings for the collection of the taxes. As the bailiwick was extensive, theses journeys taught him to know and admire the beauty with which his province reflects its woods and mountains in its many lakes. A proof of this we find in his fine poem, “To my Home-region,: the first which introduced him to the notice of the public.
        Tegnér cannot himself remember when he first began to write verse. While yet a child he sang of every event at all remarkable in his uniform life. Nay, he even undertook a considerable poem under the name of “Atle,” the subject of which was taken from “Björner’s Kämpadater.” Thus the same collection of old sagas, in which at a more mature age he found the rough sketch of his “Fridthjof.”
        The northern sagas were among his first and dearest acquaintances at a time when, ignorant of every language but his mother tongue, he read everything he could meet with, particularly in history and the belles-letters. He sat with a book in his hand wherever he happened to find himself, sometimes on a stone and sometimes on a ladder; and one day during harvest, when he was to watch a field-gate, he altogether forgot his task, so swallowed up was he in what he was reading, let the cattle wander through into the yet unmown meadow.
        Thus grew he up like a wild apple-tree in the forest, till he was fourteen years of age. Then was it that Branting, who had long remarked his passion for reading, accidentally discovered the profit he drew from it. One evening, as they were traveling home from Carlstad, and the stars were shining bright above them, his foster-father, who was a pious man of the good old-fashioned school, took occasion to speak of the handiworks of God, and of the evident omnipotence and wisdom he had discovered therein. The boy’s answer showed a knowledge of the system of the world, and of the laws for the motions of the heavenly bodies, at which the old man was astonished. How do you know that? He inquired. I have read about it in Bastholm’s “Philosophie för Olärde: (Philosophy for the Unlearned), he replied. Branting was silent; but some days after he observed: You must become a student. How decisive were these words! How important, not only in the life of Tegnér, but in the literature of his country, in which his name has created a new epoch! And how manifold is the good, both in the church and in the schools of Sweden, which must have been lost had it not been for that one sentence! It was on that expression that depended all the renown and pleasure which his works, translated as they have been into so many languages, have excited throughout Europe. Well does the memory of the honorable Branting deserve the distinction to be handed down to posterity conjoined with the name of his immortal foster-son. But was it his work alone? Though we cannot, it is true, regard it as direct inspiration that he should being talking about the stars to the simple office-boy, in whose mind lay concealed so great a subject, still, in the whole of this circumstance generally we must acknowledge the guiding hand of Providence,–that hand so evident, but so oft unseen, in the life of the individual, no less than in the history of the world.
        To study had long been the secret longing of the boy, but he had not dared to represent his wishes, And even now, however great his joy at this glimpse of unexpected light, he could not help objecting his want of means. God will provide for the sacrifice, answered Branting. You are born for something better than what you can become with me; you must go to your eldest brother, he will guide your studies, and I shall not forget you.
        This promise he fulfilled, not only by considerable sums to assist in keeping him at the university, but by a fatherly sympathy in all that regarded him: and this notwithstanding he was now compelled to abandon the hope he had long secretly cherished, of being able to leave him his place, together with his youngest daughter.
        In the month of March, 1796, Esaias removed to his brother Lars Gustaf, who was then a candidate of philosophy, and was living at Wermland. The latter, a man who had already distinguished himself for uncommon learning, who at the university promotion was a rival of his younger brother, Elof, for the first degree, and who, as many thought, ought to have gained the preference, now became the tutor of the youngest. The wonderful progress which he made is a proof what determined resolution united to commanding talent can accomplish, especially in the warming season of impetuous youth.
        After nine months; instruction from his brother, who employed the old solid method of teaching, he was able to study for himself. He now, during the course of 1797, made himself familiar with a multitude of Latin authors, particularly the poets. The latter fixed themselves so firmly in his uncommonly strong memory, that he to this day can repeat large extracts from their works. In Greek also, and in French, he advanced rapidly without any assistance.
        So early as the following year, however, when he had not yet completed his sixteenth winter, the youth was compelled to undertake the instruction of others in order to find means for his own further education. The iron master (owner of iron works) Myhrman, who was afterward councilor of mines, invited him to become the tutor of his children. In this also was a special dispensation, which influenced not only his private and immediate circumstances, but also his future happiness. The spot, too, at which he resided was distinguished for a wild but imposing scenery. It belong to those extensive woodlands to which “Yfvakarl,” (1) as Karl (Charles) the Ninth is called in this district, summoned his colonists from Finland. The owner of the work was an intelligent and persevering iron founder, but at the same time a man uncommonly educated for his employment. Being himself well versed not only in several modern languages, but also in the Latin tongue, his library contained even several Greek classics. Among these was a folio, which soon became the object of the poetical stripling’s most zealous researches. It was a Homer. Notwithstanding all the difficulties thrown in his way by the many anomalous dialects, and by his own still imperfect knowledge of the language as a whole, and of is various peculiarities, he was not be dismayed. Even then the great characteristic of his mind was never to give way; besides which it exhibited all that energy which distinguishes a great genius. With Xenophon, also, and with Lucian he became familiar. But the bard who principally divided his time and attention with old Homer was his Horace; and here it was he first became acquainted with his writings, In the midst of all this he by no means neglected the literature of France, whose most classical productions adorned this gentleman’s shelves. Thus it was that he was even now laying the foundation of that independence with which he afterward withstood all one-sided or narrow-minded judgements over the literature both of antiquity and of modern times. But as he did not find a single German poet in this library, and only learned that language through the medium of common elementary books, he acquired a prejudice against it which did not for a long time become entirely dissipated. With English, on the contrary, he became poetically acquainted through McPherson’s translation of Ossian. This work produced such an effect upon his imagination that he learned the language without help.
        In the usual pleasures and amusements of youth, and in society in general, he mixed little, if at all. Nor, indeed, did he miss them, for his books gave him full employment. He even seldom allowed himself time at this period to write verses. A report, however, of Bonaparte’s death in Egypt occasioned his composing a lyric poem which gave Myhrman, who exceedingly admired the French hero, great hopes of the youthful minstrel. But the production thus grounded on so false a rumor has never yet been published. (2)
        Having now reached his seventeenth year, he repaired to Lund, in the autumn of 1799, and commenced his academic course. His object at first was only to prepare for his entrance into the royal chancery. Still he would give a public proof of his proficiency in the Greek and Roman languages, and accordingly wrote a Latin treatise on Anacreon. Armed with his document he hastened to Dr. Norberg, a scholar famous for his oriental erudition, and to whose professorship the literature of Greece also belonged at that time. This interview produced never-changing impression on the mind of the young student, not only through the encouraging kindness with which he had received him, but through his whole bearing and manners, which united the charms of original genius with a naive and innocent simplicity. From the beautiful picture which Tegnér was prefixed to the poem dedicated to him “Nattvardsbarben” (3) (the Children of the Sacrament), we may be at least allowed to copy the following features:

        Yes! The East’s fast friend art thou, the North’s proud glory,
        A man of fable’s vanish’d days of gold,
        And speech and manners hast of patriarchs hoary,
        and, wise as eld, the child’s pure heart does hold.

        Norberg is one of those men who have had the greatest influence on Tegnér’s career. By counseling him to change his studies at once from the civil official examination to the degree of master of arts, he kept him at the university, fixed him to literary pursuits, and prepared the way for him to the station which he now occupies in the pale of the Swedish church.
        Norberg offered him gratis instruction in Arabic. But the learning of the East ad no attractions for the young skald. The great orientalist was also a perfect master of the Roman tongue, and contended for the palm with Professor Lundblad, whose Latin school was then in its highest luster. The style of the former resembled that of Tacitus in shortness, expressiveness and antithetic pregnancy of diction. The latter, on the other hand, who had studied in Leipzig, and had there formed himself on the model of Ernesti, had introduced his Ciceroniannism into Sweden. To this school it was that, both by example and by precept, he strictly kept the young men who were under his charge. To choose between these two “masters of their art” was not so easy for the stripling student. Tegnér decided for the Lundblad party, being induced to take that step by his brother Elof, who was then reader (docens) at the university, and who was considered one the very finest pupils Lundblad had produced.