Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/275

Rh, in a letter, to Charles Gustavus, and of surrendering her crown in full senate.

That prince, during his absence in Germany, had permission to correspond with the queen, and used it to promote his own interest in her affections. Archkenholtz relates, that he declared in one of his letters, that if her majesty persisted in her refusal, he was determined to decline the honours she proposed of nominating him her successor, and for ever banish himself from Sweden, This, however, seems to be only the language of gallantry.

Christina had drawn to her court all the distinguished characters of her time; Grotius, Paschal, Bochart, Descartes, Cassendi, Saumaise, Naude, Vossius, Heinsius, Meiborn, Scudery, Menage, Lucas, Holstenius, Lambecius, Bayle, Filicaïa, and many others: almost all have celebrated her, either in poems, letters, or literary productions of some other kind, the greater part of which are now forgotten.

Christina, however, may be justly reproached with want of taste, in not properly assigning the rank of all these persons, whose merits, though acknowledged, were unequal. She had lately affected a contempt of pomp, power, grandeur, and all the magnificence and splendour of a court. To be thought wise and learned was her chief passion; though she forfeited her title to superior wisdom, by counterfeiting inclinations which she did not possess, and laying a constant restraint on her natural sentiments. Poets, painters, and philosophers were her greatest favourites. She corresponded with the most celebrated scholars in Europe, and purchased the paintings of Titian at an extravagant price, which were then suffered to be clipped, to fit the pannels