Upon the whole, all well-regulated minds will turn from a minute view of this famous personage, impressed with no veneration for his character, either as a member of society, a ruler of the people, or a part of the European community. That he possessed the talents of an accomplished warrior, and an elegant wit, it would be absurd to deny, and superfluous to demonstrate. He has left us, in his victories and his writings, the best proofs; and all that is preserved of his conversation leads to a belief that it surpassed his more careful efforts. He ranked unquestionably in the first class of warriors; nor is it doubtful that the system by which, when carried to its full extent, Napoleon's victories were gained, had its origin in the strategy of Frederic, the plan, namely, of rapidly moving vast masses of troops, and always bringing a superior force to bear upon the point of attack. His administration, whether military or civil, was singularly marked by promptitude and energy. Wherever active exertion was required, or could secure success, he was likely to prevail; and as he was in all things a master of those inferior abilities which constitute what we denominate address, it is not wonderful that he was uniformly fortunate in the cabinets of his neighbours. The encouragements which he lavished on learned men were useful, though not always skilfully bestowed; and in this, as in all the departments of his government, we see him constantly working mischief by working too much. His Academy was no less under command than the best disciplined regiment in his service; and did not refuse to acknowledge his authority upon matters of scientific opinion or of taste in the arts. His own literary ac

quirements were limited to the belles lettres, and moral sciences; even of these he was far from being completely master. His practice, as an administrator, is inconsistent with an extensive or sound political knowledge; and his acquaintance with the classics was derived from French translations; he knew very little Latin, and no Greek. To his sprightliness in society, and his love of literary company, so rare in princes, he owes the reputation of a philosopher; and to the success of his intrigues and his arms, the appellation of Great :-a title which is the less honourable, that mankind have generally agreed to bestow it upon those to whom their gratitude was least of all due.

GUSTAVUS III.

THE nephew of Frederic II. was Gustavus III. of Sweden, and he is certainly entitled to rank among the more distinguished men of his age. It was the saying of Frederic," My nephew is an extraordinary person; he succeeds in all he undertakes ;" and considering the difficulties of his position, the adverse circumstances in which some of his enterprises were attempted, his success amply justified the panegyric at the time it was pronounced, and before the military disasters of his reign.

He was born with a great ambition to distinguish, both his country among the nations of Europe and himself among her sovereigns. Inflamed with the recollection of former Swedish monarchs, and impatient of the low position to which the ancient renown of his country had fallen, through a succession of feeble princes, he formed the project of relieving the crown from the trammels imposed upon it by an overwhelming aristocracy, as the only means by which the old glories of Sweden could be revived, and the influence of the Gustavuses and the Charleses restored. The king of the country, indeed, when he ascended the throne, was its sovereign only in name. He had all the responsibility of the government cast upon him; he had all its weight resting upon his shoulders; he had all the odium of executing the laws to suppress sedition, to

levy taxes, to punish offenders. But neither in making those laws, nor in guiding the policy of the state, nor in administering its resources, had he any perceptible influence whatever. The crown was a mere pageant of state, wholly destitute of power, and only supposed to exist because the multitude, accustomed to be governed by kings, required acts of authority to be promulged in the royal name, and because it was convenient to have some quarter upon which the blame of all that was unpopular in the conduct of the government might rest. The real power of the state was certainly in the hands of the Aristocracy, who ruled, through the medium of the States, an assembly of nominal representatives of the country in which the order of the nobles alone bore sway. The Senate, in fact, governed the country. In them was vested almost all the patronage of the state; they could compel meetings of the Diet at any time; they even claimed the command of the army, and issued their orders to the troops without the king's

consent.

When Gustavus was abroad on his travels, being then about 22 years of age, his father died, and from Paris, where the intelligence reached him, he addressed a Declaration filled with the most extravagant expressions of devotion to the constitution, zeal for the liberties of his people, and abhorrence of everything tending towards absolute government, or what in Sweden is termed "Sovereignty;" for the Swedes, like the Romans, regarded monarchy, except in name, as equivalent to tyranny. He vowed that " deeming it his chiefest glory to be the first citizen of a free state" he should regard all those "as his worst enemies who, being traitorous to the country, should upon any pretext what

ever seek to introduce unlimited royal authority into Sweden," and he reminded the States of the oath which he had solemnly sworn to the constitution. Those who read this piece were struck with the overdone expressions in which it was couched; and profound observers did not hesitate to draw conclusions wholly unfavourable to the sincerity of the royal author. On his arrival in Sweden, whither he was in little haste to return, he renewed the same vows of fealty to the existing constitution; signed the articles of the Capitulation tendered by the States in the usual form, articles which left him the name of king and the shadow of royal authority; absolved the States and his subjects from their allegiance should he depart from his engagements, and menaced with his "utmost wrath all who should dare to propose a single degree of addition to the present power or splendour of the crown." At his Coronation, which was postponed to the next year, he volunteered an additional display of gratuitous hypocrisy and fraud, when, having taken the oaths to the constitution, he exclaimed "Unhappy the king who wants the tie of oaths to secure himself on the throne, and, unable to reign in the hearts of his people, is forced to rule by legal constraint!"

Thus did this accomplished dissembler contrive, for above a year and a half, to keep up the appearance of a constitutional king, while in all his works and actions he affected the republican, and even overdid the part. At length his preparations being completed, he cast the mask away, excited an insurrection of troops in two distant fortresses to distract the senate's attention, and having gained over the regiments in the capital, secured the persons of the senators, assembled