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342
Influence of foreign opinions
and literature. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Intrigues to precipitate the
queen’s abdication. [1G44-
the promotion of learning, without pretence of con-
descension. Reverence for the noblest treasures
of humanity is the only spirit which honours mu-
tually both the protector and the protected. No-
thing exalts a man, liow highly soever he may be
placed, which is not felt to be above him. Thus
all pride finds cause of humbleness, and then only
does it approve its own rectitude. In the schools
of learning, which were among the fruits of the
times of Gustavus Adolphus and Christina in Swe-
den, the principal subjects of tuition were theology
and Latin. The first names which Sweden has to
show in science and inventive art begin to appear;
the most eminent were Stiernhielm, at once philo-
sopher, geometer, philologist, and poet, and Stierii-
hoek, the father of Swedish jurisprudence. Among
the crowd of learned foreigners invited to Sweden,
Loecenius and Scheffer gained an honourable right
of citizenship.
This picture is not without its shadows. We
may discern an inundation of foreign influences in
almost all directions—the result of the political
situation. But just as Sweden’s sudden political
greatness lacked an inner core of strength, so the
foreign elements of civilization cast no very deep
roots. Independent footing in science and art
Sweden did not obtain until late, when her gaze
was no longer directed abroad, but reverted on
herself. Now the alien forces operated rather to
perversion than progress, and it would be easy to
indicate the breaches of the natural order, as well
in manners and sentiments as in political relations;
but the language alone speaks sufficiently on this
head—mongrel and barbarous, larded with German,
Latin, and French phrases and forms, in a word,
that which is exemplified in the fragments we have
quoted from the records of the age. Christina’s
eye, captivated by novelty, fixed on learned men
to be invited from all the ends of Europe. They
came in flocks with their philology and antiquities,
the fashionable learning of the age; displayed their
arts, wrote dedications and panegyrics, in which
all the elegancies of the Latin tongue were brought
to vie in praise of the queen, jiresented books,
were rewarded and dismissed. For the rest, we
know not what their names liave to do with
Swedish history. Exceptionally one may be named,
far different from the rest, since he is the founder
of the modern philosophy, the great Descartes.
His friend Chanut in 1649 jyrocured his invita-
tion, accepted by the philosopher, to the Swedish
court, where the queen daily for two months re-
ceived him in her library at five o’clock morn-
ing. Descartes died at Stockhohii February 1,
2 Rumor est, Aulam Suecicam viris doctis non amplius
patere et sperni illic litterarum studia, idque culpa nebu-
lonis cujusdam (Bourdelotii), qui Sereniss. Reginie ani-
mura a seriis studiis ad ludicra et inania iraduxerit. Henr.
Valesius to Heinsius, lfi53. Arckenholtz, 1. c. i. 238.
3 So the queen herself declares, in a letter to Bourdelot,
after she had quitted Sweden, in which she thanks him
lor the medical advice he had formerly given her. "
N’ayant
pas oublie que je vous dois la vie, apres Dieu, pour m’avoir
guerie en Suede." Arckenholtz (1. c. iv. 23), wlio has also
preserved a detailed Regimen for Christina, written by
Bourdelot in Latin. On this I have inquired the opinion
of a physician, my friend, who has stated to me, that it is
not drawn up without good sense.
* Vossius writes to Heinsius, Jan. 1, 1653: Bourdelotius
ne ipso quidem Jove sese minorcm existimat. Solus omnia
1050. What impression so profound a doubter
may have made on the queen’s disposition we
remit to inquire, though it has been asserted that
in these conversations she imbibed her bias to
Catholicism. It is certain, however, that it was
not from the whirls of philosophical doubt, but
from those of frivolity and atheism, that Christina
threw herself into the bosom of the Catholic
church. The epoch of indiff’erentism in the queen,
though prepared by some of her philologers, was
indicated by the dismissal of the scholars, and the
ascendancy of the physician Bourdelot 2. This
person, having succeeded in saving Christina’s
life (as she believed) in a severe illness ^, pre-
scribed to her a gayer course of life; but at the
same time inspired her with his own scorn of
religion, and appeared to possess her confidence
for some time so exclusively, that all the favours
of the throne were dispensed by him, and even
De la Gardie’s brilliant day of grace began to be
obscured *. An independent life, in happier lands,
was Christina’s only desire, after she regarded her
political career as closed ; and already, in 1652,
Swedish travellers in Italy heard that she was
e.xpected there ^.
It has been already mentioned that the first
announcement by the queen to the council, in
reference to the divestiture of the crown, was
made on tlie 25th October, 1651. She remained
unshaken by the representations of the council; but
yielded, when the aged chancellor, at the head of
a commission of estates which was assembled at
the time, conjured her to desist from her purpose.
It seems as if she had deferred its execution,
in order for a term to watch the signs of the times.
Her will had overcome all hindrances in the choice
of Charles Gustavus for her successor ; but she
appears not to have been sufficiently attentive
to the character of his confederates. She wished
that her renunciation of the crown should possess
appropriate lustre in its perfect spontaneity. But
it began to transpire, that the act might be de-
prived of this semblance, and that a party was
in full activity to extort it if she halted in her
intent. The incomplete investigations and dis-
coveries, caused by the imprudent pamphlet of
young Messeiiius in the month of December, 1651,
pointed to the leaders of the commotions in the
diets of 1C49 and 1650; and among them especially
to the free baron Bennet Skyttd, who, of all the
council, had separated most widely from his col-
leagues in this matter, and afterwards withdrawn
in expectation of a revolution ^.
Agreeably to her
istic terrarum potest. Mensam habet instructiorem, quam
habet ipse Comes Magnus, vel alius quispiam magnatum in
hoc regno. Is vero comes longe minori est in gratia. Bonus
iste vir( Bourdelotius) non tam clanculum, quin facile omnes
animadvertant, docet et profitetur istic atheismum. Arck-
enholtz, 1. c. i. 240. Montecuculi, in 1654, states, in his
account of the Swedish court, that Christina did not conceal
her unbelief, and hinted that she put no faith in the im-
mortality of the soul. Remonstrances made by her mother,
on this contempt of religion, were ill taken.
5
Autobiography of Edward Ehrensten. Anecdotes of
Celebrated Swedes, v. 30.
6 He had inherited the democratic inclinations of his
father, John Skytte.
" In a conversation with Charles Gus-
tavus, when king, on the form of government of the Greeks,
the lord Bennet extolled those times beyond measure. The
king said,
’
The Greek republics ate each other up, were
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