Note 14 — JOURNEY TO LAPLAND. (continued 2)

John Messenius, famous for his learning and his misfortunes, was professor of law and politics at Upsal, in the reign of the great Gustavus Adolphus, who had a high esteem for him, and who exerted all his wisdom, and even his power, to allay the envy and hatred of some of the colleagues of this able man, especially of John Rudbeck, a malignant though learned theologian. The king in vain endeavoured to pacify Rudbeck by preferment, while he removed Messenius to Stockholm, and made him a member of the new council established there. The latter was formally accused of being a secret partisan of the deposed catholic king Sigismond, and was condemned to a perpetual prison, where he composed a great work entitled Scandia illustrata, published at Stockholm between the years 1700 and 1714. Messenius died in 1636. His son Arnold might be justified for detesting those who had persecuted his illustrious father, but not for the folly of expressing his feelings in satirical publications against people in power. For this he paid with his life on the scaffold in 1648, and his own son, aged about 17, suffered with him.