Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/89

Rh these. With the exception of Charles Frederick of Holstein, also an inferior character, this new dynasty is in no way related to the former dynasty of Palatine, which, like that of Vasa, we have found so remarkable.

Adolphus Frederick of Holstein, one of the inferior ones above mentioned, married Louisa Ulrica, a sister of Frederick the Great. We find in her a woman of a very different stamp. Among all the richly endowed sisters of Frederick the Great, Louisa Ulrica, Queen of Sweden, stands probably at the head of the list. An idea of her character and attainments can be drawn from several contemporaries here quoted.

The Queen Dowager to whom we had the honor of being presented, a sister of the King of Prussia. . . a princess who resembled her brother as well in the features of her countenance as in those eminent qualities which characterize the house of Brandenburg.

She was accustomed to rule the cabinet with absolute authority in the reign of her husband.

A great and inflexible woman of rare endowment and uncommon cultivation. Really merited the appellation of the 'Minerva of the North.'

Since Louisa Ulrica belongs, of course, among the Hohenzollerns, we have passed rather rapidly over the dynasty of Holstein, which to this point has furnished no great names. The next generation, children of Adolphus Frederick and Louisa Ulrica, gives us four, and among them, third in the list, Gustavus Adolphus III., who was destined to shine as another Swedish king of extraordinary ability.

His ardent mind and fertile genius acted as a perpetual impetus to things that were new, grand and out of the common track. He was so accomplished a gentlemen that there was scarcely a professor of literature or any of the liberal arts but he was able to excel each in his own peculiar study. He was always spoken of as a prodigy of talents.

Lippincott's 'Biographical Dictionary' says that

In addition to his talents as a statesman, he was distinguished as a poet and dramatist.

This literary bent was very strong in his mother as well as in many members of her family.

His sister, Sophia Albertina, 'was possessed of a great share of personal virtue and a capacity as vast and varied as her brother, and unsullied by his vices.' The oldest brother amounted to nothing, while the youngest, as Charles XIII., showed in his ambition, wisdom and skill in the management of the country's affairs much of the family genius.

Gustavus IV., the only son of Gustavus III. and the last of the