Foreign News

“Letters from abroad would not be satisfactory to me, I confess, unless they breathed a strong spirit of regret for not being in England.”

Summer Amusements in Sweden &c.
with a note upon winter in Stockholm.
(from the Sporting Magazine, 1804)

THE season of summer is the time when the nobility and gentry retire to their country houses, which are fitted up with great magnificence and luxury. Those villas are for the most part pleasantly situated, and embellished by works of art, which second and improve the efforts of nature. You there find hot-houses, in which they raise peaches, pine-apples, grapes, and other fruits. All kinds of wines, liquors, and other delicacies, are lavished at the table of a Swedish gentleman, or rich manufacturer, or merchant, in the country

On the twenty-fourth of June, or Midsummer-day, the king and royal family come to the park, near Stockholm, where they take up their abode in tents for the remainder of the month, that is, for the space of nearly a week. A camp is formed on the garrison of Stockholm, composed of two regiments of foot-guards, some companies of horse-guards, and a corps of artillery. Along the lines of the camp they raise poles of posts adorned with branches of cyphers, and sometimes scutcheons with mottos or devices. At the foot of the posts are placed barrels of beer on wooden frames. About six or seven o'clock in the afternoon, on a particular signal, the barrels are opened, when each soldier is presented with a pipe, a loaf of bread, two herrings, and some money. All this is done at the expense of the officers. In the mean time the military music plays, and the soldiers begin to drink and dance. Upon each of the barrels sits a soldier, in the form of a Bacchus, or of some other figure more or less ridiculous. Those that are dressed up in this manner first taste the liquor, and propose the toasts, which are generally numerous, and constantly accompanied with the cry of vivat, answering to the English huzza. When any of the royal family, or a general officer, chance to pass by, their healths are drank, and always with the same accompaniment of vivat. A kind of masquerade ensues for a short time, during which the soldiers amuse the people that flock round them in the lines of the camp, with songs; and indulge themselves in various freaks and acts of merriment. On the beating of the retreat every thing is submitted to the reign of order. Such festivals, without diminishing respect, certainly tend to excite in the soldiery and people an interest and attachment to the royal family.

The Swedish dinner-parties are expensive arrangements of shew and formality. It will often happen, that out of forty or fifty people, who appear in consequence of an invitation sent with all possible ceremony, and perhaps a week or a fortnight before the appointed day, scarcely three of four know one another sufficiently to make the meeting agreeable. A foreigner may fare still worse, and have the misfortune of being seated near a person totally unacquainted with any language but his own.

Before the company sits down to dinner, they first pay their respects to a side-table, laden with bread, butter, cheese, pickled salmon, and liquor, or brandy, and by the tasting of these, previous to their repast, endeavour to give an edge to their appetite, and to stimulate the stomach to perform its office.

After this prelude, the guests arrange themselves about the dinner-table, where every one finds at his place three kinds of bread; flat and coarse rye bread, white bread, and brown bread. The first sort is what the peasants eat; it is crisp and dry; the second sort is common bread; but the brown, last mentioned, has a sweet taste, being made with the water with which the vessels in the sugar-houses are washed, and is the nastiest thing possible.

All the dishes are at once put upon the table, but no one is allowed to ask for what he likes best, the dishes being handed round in regular succession; and an Englishman has often occasion for all his patience, to wait till the one is put in motion on which he has fixed his choice.

The Swedes are more knowing in this respect, and, like the French, eat of everything that comes before them: and although the different dishes do not seem to harmonize together, yet such is the force of habit, that the guests find no inconvenience from the most opposite mixtures. Anchovies, herrings, onions, eggs, pastry, often meet together on the same plate, and are swallowed promiscuously -- The sweet is associated with the sour, mustard with sage, confection with salt meat, or salt fish.

As a kind of contrast to the diversions of summer, let us now hear Mr. Acerbic describe the appearance of winter in streets of Stockholm.

"The snow," says he, "that begins to fall in the latter weeks of autumn, covers and hides the streets for the space of six months, and renders them more pleasant and convenient than they are in summer or autumn, at which seasons, partly on account of the pavement, and partly on account of the dirt, they are often almost impassible. One layer of snow on another, hardened by the frost, forms a surface more equal and agreeable to walk on, which is sometimes raised more than a yard above the stones of the street. You are no longer stunned by the irksome noise of carriage wheels; but this is exchanged for the tinkling of little bells, with which they deck the horses before the sledges. The only wheels now to be seen in Stockholm are those of small carts, employed by men-servants of families to fetch water from the pump in a cask. This compound of cart and case always struck me as a very curious and extraordinary object, insomuch that I once took the trouble of following it, in order to have a nearer view of the whimsical robe in which the frost had invested it, and particularly of the variegated and fantastical drapery in which the wheels were covered and adorned. This vehicle, with all its appurtenances, afforded to a native of Italy a very singular spectacle. The horse was wrapped up, as it seemed, in a mantle of white down, which under his breast and belly, was fringed with points and tufts of ice. Stalactical ornaments of the same kind, some of them to the length of a foot, were also attached to his nose and mouth. The servant that attended the cart, had on a frock which was encrusted with a solid mass of ice. His eye-brows and hair jingled with icicles, which were formed by the action of the frost on his breath and perspiration.

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