Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/273

Rh should have a son, it is not more probable that he should be an Augustus than a Nero."

As she was at the chapel of the castle at Stockholm, assisting at divine service with the principal lords of her court, a man, who was disordered in his mind, came to the place, with a design to assassinate her. This man, who was preceptor of the college, and in the full vigour of his age, chose, for the execution of his design, the moment when the assembly was performing what, in the Swedish church, is called an act of recollection, a silent and separate act of devotion of each individual kneeling, and hiding the face with the hand. Taking this opportunity, he rushed through the crowd, and mounted a balustrade, within which the queen was upon her knees. The baron Brahi, chief justice of Sweden, saw him, and cried out; and the guards crossed their partizans, to prevent his coming farther; but he struck them furiously on one side, leaped over the barrier, and, being close to the queen made a blow at her with a knife that he had concealed, without a sheath, in his sleeve. She avoided the blow, and pushed the captain of her guards, who instantly threw himself upon the assassin, and seized him by the hair: all this happened in a moment of time. The man was known to be mad; they therefore contented themselves with locking him up; and the queen returned to her devotion, without the least emotion that could be perceived by the people, who were much more frightened than herself.

No less ambitious of fame than her father, though neither in the camp nor cabinet, she immortalized her short reign by her attachment to the arts and learned men. Anxious for literary repose, she promoted the peace of Westphalia, in opposition to the wishes of