Now that we have finished our Carolinian romance, shall we hear something of the author? He is certainly a brilliant poet, for his story which we have been reading is no deep-planned and long worked-over effort, but was written in the few days after a severe sickness when the author could not yet leave his couch. He wrote it to occupy his mind, and beguile the time. How is he esteemed in Sweden? Will it be thought incredible when I say no old hero, not even Charles XII., is reverenced there more deeply, no name is cherished so fondly,—that no man so nearly seems worthy to be called the father of his country, as this same poet-bishop, Esaias Tegnér? All this is hard to explain, so many-sided was the life he led. We need to realize that he was more active as a bishop and party-leader than a poet. Then to appreciate him in the last capacity we must go among the Swedes themselves. We shall find in him the bond of unity of a whole nation, in that he has sung best the ancient glory of the race, and discovered to the world the heroic integrity of the Northern character. We shall note that it is he whose words are most, next to the Bible, on the lips of every Swede. If we go into a peasant’s cottage, far from railways and culture, we shall be sure to find some one who has not only heard of the great poet, but can even repeat for us whole cantos from his “Frithiof’s Saga,”—perhaps all of “Axel” itself. And nobody even sets about learning these poems by heart: they cling to the memory in spite of the reader. But we must begin our history. Who were Tegnér’s parents? What was their rank in life? C. W. Böttiger, Tegnér’s son-in-law, who wrote a short life of the poet, shall answer for us:—