CHRISTINA, a daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, was born in 1626, and succeeded to the crown in 1633, when only seven years of age. This princess discovered, even in her infancy, what she afterwards expressed in her memoirs, namely, an invincible antipathy for the employments and conversation of women; and she had the natural awkwardness of a man with respect to all the little works which generally fall to their share. On the contrary, she was fond of violent exercises, and such amusements as consist in feats of strength and activity. She had also both ability and taste for abstract speculations; and amused herself with languages and the sciences, particularly that of legislation and government. She derived her knowledge of ancient history from its best sources: Polybius and Thucydides were her favourite authors. As she was the sovereign of a powerful kingdom, it is not strange that almost all the princes in Europe aspired to her hand. Amongst these were the prince of Denmark, the elector Palatine, the elector of Brandenburg, the king of Spain, the king of the Romans, Don John of Austria, Stanislaus king of Poland, John Cassimir his brother, and Charles Gustavus duke of Deux Ponts, of the Bavarian Palatinate family, son of the great Gustavus’s sister, and consequently her first cousin. To this nobleman, as well as to all his competitors, she constantly refused her hand; but she caused him to be appointed her successor by the states. Political interests, differences of religion, and contrariety of manners, furnished Christina with pretences for [7:6:631]rejecting all her suitors; but her real motives were the love of independence, and a strong aversion she had conceived, even in her infancy, to the marriage yoke. “Do not force me to marry,” said she to the states; “for if I should have a son, it is not more probable that he should be an Augustus than a Nero.”

One of the great affairs that employed Christina while she occupied the throne, was the peace of Westphalia, in which many conflicting interests were to be reconciled, and many claims to be ascertained. It was concluded .in the month of October 1648. The success of the Swedish arms rendered Christina the arbitress of this treaty, at least in regard to the affairs of Sweden, to which the peace confirmed the possession of many important countries. No public event of importance took place during the rest of Christina’s reign; for there were neither wars abroad, nor troubles at home. Her reign was distinguished by an active patronage of learning and genius. She drew about her, wherever she was, all the distinguished characters of her time; Grotius, Pascal, Bochart, Descartes, Gassendi, Saumaise, Naude, Vossius, Heinsius, Meibom, Scudery, Menage, Lucas, Holstentius, Lambecius, Bayle, Madame Dacier, Filicaja, and many others. The arts never fail to immortalize the prince who protects them; and almost all these illustrious persons have celebrated Christina, either in poems, letters, or literary productions of some other kind, the greater part of which are now forgotten, though the general celebrity they conferred in a great measure remains.

Though Christina at first was fond of the power and splendour of royalty, yet she began at length to feel that it embarrassed her; and the same love of independence and liberty which had determined her against marriage at last made her weary of the crown. Accordingly, as it grew more and more irksome to her, she resolved to abdicate; and, in 1652, she communicated 1 her resolution to the senate. The senate zealously remonstrated against it, and was joined by the people, nay even by Charles Gustavus himself, who was to succeed her. She yielded to their importunities, and continued to sacrifice her own pleasure to the will of the public till the year 1654, when she carried her design into execution. Christina, besides abdicating her crown, abjured her religion; an act which was universally approved by one party and censured by another; for whilst the Catholics triumphed, the Protestants were offended. No prince, after a long imprisonment, ever showed so much joy upon being restored to his kingdom, as Christina did in quitting hers. When she came to a little brook, which separates Sweden from Denmark, she got out of her carriage, and, leaping on the other side, cried out in a transport of joy, “At last I am free, and out of Sweden, whither, I hope, I shall never return.” She dismissed her women, and laying aside the habit of lier sex, ,ζ I would become a man,” said she; “yet I do not love men because they are men, but because they are not women.” She made her abjuration at Brussels, where she saw the great Condé, who, after his defection, made that city his asylum. “Cousin,” said she, “who would have thought, ten years ago, that we should have met at this distance from our respective countries?” During her residence in France she excited universal disgust, not only by violating all the customs of the country, but by observing others directly opposed to them. She treated the ladies of the court with the greatest rudeness and contempt; and when they came to embrace her, she being in male attire, cried out, “What a strange eagerness these women have to kiss me! Is it because I look like a man ?”

The murder of Monaldechi is to this hour an inscrutable mystery. It is, however, of a piece with the expressions constantly used by Christina in her letters, with respect to those with whom she was offended; for she scarcely ever signified her displeasure without threatening the life of the offender. “If you fail in your duty,” said she to her secretary, whom she sent to Stockholm after her abdication, “not all the power of the King of Sweden shall save your life, though you should take shelter in his arms.” A musician having quitted her service for that of the Duke of Savoy, she was so transported with rage as to disgrace herself by these words, in a letter written with her own hand: “He lives only for me; and if he does not sing for me, he shall not sing long for any body else.”

Upon the whole, she appears to have been a strange compound of faults and foibles, pushed to the most extravagant excess. She says of herself, “that she was mistrustful, ambitious, passionate, haughty, impatient, contemptuous, satirical, incredulous, undevout, of an ardent and violent temper, and extremely amorous ;” a disposition, however, to which, if she may be believed, her pride and her virtue were always superior.