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The Academy of eighteen. This was founded by the late King in 1780, on the modelof the French academy : it has frequent meetings in the great hall of the exchange ;the King is generally prefent, and, notwitftanding vifible to all, is confxdered to be in aclofe box. Thefe aflemblies are badly attended, at lead fuch was the cafe the day onwhich we were prefent, although the King was there, and it was his birth-day : a poeti-cal work received a crown. This academy is compofed as all academies fliould be, nota member but is a man of fenfe and intelligence.
The King's library, is at the cattle, in an angle of the fmall court which forms a ter-race towards the river; it is open to the public, and confittsof three galleries of tolera-ble length. Its fituation will doubtlefs be changed, as it is not that defigned by theKing for this collection ; it contains no more than about five hundred manufcripts, andtwenty thoufand volumes. The mod valuable manufcripts are, Codex Evdngeliorum,bought at Madrid in 1690, and efteemed a work of the ninth century ; it is generallycalled Codex aureus, on account of the number of golden letters it contains; the leavesare alternately purple, with gold letters, and white ; the capital letters are all of themblack. This manulcript was bought by Sparwenfeld, a Swede , who travelled by orderof Charles XI. : he journied as far as Africa in fearch of monuments which might elu-cidate the hiftory ot the Goths and Vandals. Two other verv curious manufcripts ofwhich we fhall fpeak at large at the clofe of this article. Of the books the moil valua-ble are, the Vulgate ufed by Luther ; the margin and every part which could be writ-ten on, covered with notes in his own hand writing; it was printed at Lyons in 1521,and taken at Wittenberg. The firlt edition of Homer, printed at Florence in 1488,in good prefervation, the margin moll beautiful on paper. • Speculum huniantz falvationn,with figures in wood, printed on one fide only. Cicero de officiis , on vellum, 1466Mentz, by Full and SchoefFer. The fourth volume of the Atlantica of Rudbeck , asfar as page two hundred and ten, the reft wanting, i 702 ; this volume is excefliveiyrare, the work being burnt in the printer’s hands ; at moll there are but three copiesof it extant (prefently we will give a differtation on this work). Liferi Pdygamia trl-umphatrix, printed at Lund in 1682, and publicly burnt at Stockholm .
By the fide of the library is a fmall chamber, in which are thirteen large volumes infolio, containing original drawings of different fchools, claffed ; the molt ancient are ofthe fchool of Florence, by Giotto , born in 1276 ; of that of Sienna, the adoration ofthe Kings, in biftre, a capital defign of Balthazar de Sienna ; of that of Bologna , ofFrancis Francia ; of the fchools of different cities of Italy , of Francis Morazzone in thefixfeenth cefttury ; of the Genoefe fchools, the Neapolitan , and Spanilh, of Luca Can-giafi, born in 1527 ; of the Fietuilh, German, and Dutch fchools, of Albert Durer in.1470, and Lucas of Leyden in 1494; of the French fchool, of Vouet , born in 1522.Of the Roman fchool are twenty-fix pieces by Raphael, fixteen by Giulio Romano ; theLombard, fix by Corregio ; the Bolognefe, fifty-five by Annibal Carracci, ten by Lewis ,thirty-two by Augujhn, twenty-feven by the Guido, four by the Dominicini , thirty-fixby Guercino .—Of the Venetian fchool, fixteen by Titian, five by Tintoret , and twelveby Paul Veronefe. —Of the Spanilh and Neapolitan , one of Salvator Rofa, three of So-.limcne, one, of Murillo. Of the Fleoailh and Dutch , twenty-two of Rubens, twentv-oneox Vandyke, and ten of Teniers : there is none of Rembrandt’s. Of the French , twenty-three by Le Pouffin, a hundred and twenty-feven of .Callot, nine of Le Sueur, twenty ofLe Brun, feven of Le Moyne. The whole collection confifts of three thoufand andtwenty-five pieces. The mod ancient drawing made in Sweden , in 1631, by PhilipLembke, is of the number.
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