most of the Swedish clergy in the middle of the eighteenth century so
far outwent even that of the English Church that the laity were left
to themselves; while "gentlemen disdained the least taint of religion,
and except on formal occasions would have been ashamed to be caught
church-going." [1533] But this was a matter rather of fashion than
of freethought; and there is little trace of critical life in the
period. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, doubtless,
the aristocracies and the cultured class in the Scandinavian States
were influenced like the rest of Europe by the spirit of French
freethought, [1534] which everywhere followed the vogue of the French
language and literature. Thus we find Gustavus III of Sweden, an ardent
admirer of Voltaire, defending him in company, and proposing in 1770,
before the death of his father prevented it, to make a pilgrimage to
Ferney. [1535] It is without regard to this testimony that Gustavus,
who was assassinated, is said to have died "with the fortitude
and resignation of a Christian." [1536] He was indeed flighty and
changeable, [1537] and after growing up a Voltairean was turned for a
year or two into a credulous mystic, the dupe of pseudo-Swedenborgian
charlatans; [1538] but there is small sign of religious earnestness
in his fashion of making his dying confession. [1539] Claiming at
an earlier date to believe more than Joseph II, who in his opinion
"believed in nothing at all," he makes light of their joint parade of
piety at Rome, [1540] and seems to have been at bottom a good deal
of an indifferentist. During his reign his influence on literature
fostered a measure of the spirit of freethought in belles lettres;
and in the poets J. H. Kjellgren and J. M. Bellman (both d. 1795)
there is to be seen the effect of the German Aufklärung and the
spirit of Voltaire. [1541] Their contemporary, Tomas Thoren, who
called himself Torild (d. 1812), though more of an innovator in
poetic style than in thought, wrote among other things a pamphlet
on The Freedom of the General Intelligence. But Torild's nickname,
"the mad magister," tells of his extravagance; and none of the Swedish
belletrists of that age amounted to a European influence. Finally,
in the calamitous period which followed on the assassination of
Gustavus III, all Swedish culture sank heavily. The desperate energies
of Charles XII had left his country half-ruined in 1718; and even
while Linnæus and his pupils were building up the modern science of
botany in the latter half of the century the economic exhaustion of
the people was a check on general culture. The University of Upsala,
which at one time had over 2,000 students, counted only some 500 at
the close of the eighteenth century. [1542]