Discourse on History.

the same with the Spaniards in the reign of Charles the Fifth. The English at this time are no more like the English under Cromwell, than the monks and monseigneurs, with which Rome is now peopled, are like its ancient Scipioes. It is to be doubted whether the Swedish troops would be now so formidable as they were some time ago. It is said of a man, that he was brave at such a time, the same may be said of a nation, that it appeared so and so under such a government, or in such a year.

If any prince or minister should find some disagreeable truths in this work, let them remember that, being public persons, they are to give an account to the public of their actions, and that it is at that price they purchase their grandeur; that history is a witness and not a flatterer; and that the only way to oblige men to speak well of us, is to take care to act well ourselves,

THE

LIFE OF CHARLES XII.

BOOK I.

SWEDEN and Finland together make a kingdom, one third part bigger than France, but nothing near so fruitful, and at this time less peopled. This country, which is two hundred leagues broad, and three hundred long, extends itself from south to north, from the fifty-fifth degree of latitude to the seventieth, under a rigorous climate, that hardly knows either spring or autumn. The winter reigns there nine months of the year; the heats of summer succeed an excessive cold all on a sudden, and the frosts begin again in the month of October, without any of those insensible gradations, which in other countries bring on the seasons by degrees, and make the alteration more agreeable; but to make amends, nature has given to this rude climate a serene sky and a clear air. The constant heat of the sun in the summer produces flowers and fruits in a very short time; and the long nights of winter are tempered by the light evenings and mornings, which last in proportion to the sun's distance from Sweden: and the brightness of the moon, which is not obscured by any cloud, and is farther increased by the reflection of the snow which covers the ground, and very often the aurora borealis, makes it as easy to travel in Sweden by night as by day. The cattle there, for want of pasturage, are smaller than in the southern parts of Europe, but the men are larger; the clear air they breathe makes them healthful, and the rigour of the climate gives them strength: they even live to a greater age than other men, if not enfeebled by the immoderate use of wine and other strong liquors, which the northern nations seem to be the more fond of, as they are denied them by nature.-The Swedes are well made, strong, active, and able to sustain the hardest labour, hunger, and want; they are born warriors, are bold, and have more courage than industry, having long neglected, and not improving much their commerce at present, which alone can give them what their country wants. It was chiefly from Sweden, one part of which is still called Gothland, that the swarm of Goths arose, which, like a deluge, over-spread the face of Europe, and wrested it from the hands of the Roman emperors, who for full five hundred years had usurped the dominion and tyrannised over it.-The northern nations were then much better peopled than at present; because their religion, allowing a plurality of wives, the inhabitants had the power of raising more subjects to the commonwealth; and these women, who knew no disgrace like being barren or idle, being as strong and laborious as the men, were on those accounts more fruitful and longer lived than other women.-Sweden was always free, till about the middle of the fourteenth century. In so long a space of time there were

Life of Charles the Twelfth.

several revolutions in the government, but the alterations were always in favour of liberty. Their chief magistrate had the name of King, a title, to which in different countries are given different powers; for in France and Spain it signifies a person absolute; in Poland, Sweden, and England, one Jimited. This king could do nothing without the senate, and the senate depended upon the states-general, which were often called together. The representatives of the nation in these great assemblies were the nobility, the bishops, and deputies of towns and cities; and in time, the very peasants were admitted into them, a part of the people, in other places, unjustly des pised, and enslaved almost throughout the north.

About the year 1492 this nation, so jealous of its liberty, and still proud of having conquered Rome thirteen hundred years ago, was brought under the yoke of a woman, and a people less powerful than the Swedes. Margaret of Valdemar, the Semiramis of the north, and queen of Denmark and Norway, conquered Sweden by force and cunning, and made but one kingdom of these three vast states. After her death, Sweden was torn by civil wars; she shook off the Danish yoke and put it on again; and by turns was governed by kings and administrators. About the year 1520, she was oppressed in a horrible manner by two tyrants, one was Christiern II. king of Denmark, a monster made up of vices, without one single virtue; the other was an archbishop of Upsal, primate of the kingdom, and as cruel as Christiern. These two, by agreement, seized in one day upon the consuls, the magistrates of Stockholm, and ninety-four senators, and caused them to be executed by the common hangman, under a pretence that they had been excommunicated by the pope, for having defended the rights of the state, against the archbishop; after which the city was given up to be plundered, where the throats of all were cut without distinction of age or sex. Whilst these two men, united only to oppress, and differing when they were to divide the spoil, exercised the most despotic tyranny, and shewed their revenge in every thing that was cruel, a new event changed the whole face of affairs in the north.

Gustavus Vasa, a young man descended from the royal race of that coun try, advancing from the bottom of the forests of Dalecarlie, where he had concealed himself, came to the deliverance of Sweden. He was one of those great geniuses so rarely formed by nature, with all the necessary talents to command over men. His fine person and graceful behaviour gained him friends as soon as he appeared. His eloquence, to which his genteel manner added force, was so much the more persuasive, as it was without art. His natural genius inclined him to form designs which the vulgar called rash, but by great men are only thought bold; his dauntless courage gave them success. He was intrepid with prudence, of a sweet temper in an age of cruelty, and, in short, as virtuous as the head of a party can be.

Gustavus Vaza had been the hostage of Christiern, and detained prisoner against the law of nations; but having escaped from confinement, he wan dered about, disguised like a peasant, among the mountains and woods of Dalecarlie. He was there reduced to work in the copper-mines, to enable him to live and conceal himself: thus buried as he was under ground, he dared even there to form a design of dethroning the tyrant. He discovered himself to the peasants, and presently appeared to them like a person of a superior nature, to whom common men are always ready to pay a willing

Life of Charles the Twelfth.

submission. He made, in a very short time, good soldiers of these savages, with whom he attacked Christiern and the archbishop; and having vanquished them several times, and drove them both out of Sweden, the states, with justice, chose him king of that country, of which he had been the deliverer. He was no sooner settled on his throne, than he undertook another design, more difficult than making conquests. The real tyrants of the state were the bishops, who, being possessed of almost all the riches in Sweden, had made use of their wealth to oppress the subject, and make war upon their kings. This power was the more terrible, as the ignorance of the people had made it sacred. He punished the Romish religion for the crimes of its ministers; and in less than two years brought Lutheranism into Sweden, more by the superiority of his policy, than by his authority. Having thus conquered the kingdom, as he used to say, from the Danes and the clergy, he reigned happily and absolutely to the age of seventy; and then died full of glory, leaving his family and religion on the throne.-One of his descendants was Gustavus Adolphus, called Gustavus the Great. This prince conquered Ingria, Livonia, Bremen, Verden, Wismar, and Pomerania, without reckoning up above a hundred places in Germany, which were given back by Sweden after his death. He shook the throne of Ferdinand the Second, and protected the Lutherans in Germany, wherein he was secretly assisted by Rome itself, which stood much more in awe of the emperor's power, than of that of heresy. It was he in reality, that, by his victories, contributed to the depressing the house of Austria, though the glory of it was given to cardinal Richelieu, who knew well how to draw the reputation of it on himself, whilst Gustavus was contented with having affected it. He was upon the point of carrying his arms beyond the Danube, and perhaps of dethroning the emperor, when he was slain, in the thirty-seventh year of his age, at the battle of Lutzen, which he gained against Walstein, carrying with him to the grave the name of the Great, the lamentations of the north, and the esteem of his enemies. His daughter Christina, born with a most extraordinary genius, chose rather to converse with learned men, than to reign over a people who were ignorant of every thing but war. She became as illustrious for quittingTM the throne, as her ancestors had been for conquering or securing it. The protestants have attacked her memory, as if no one could have great virtues with a belief in Luther; and the papists triumph too much in the conversion of a woman whose greatest merit was her philosophy. She retired to Rome, where she passed the remainder of her time in those arts she loved, and for which she had renounced an empire at twenty-seven years of age.-Before her abdication, she engaged the states of Sweden, (in her stead), to elect her cousin, Charles Gustavus X. son to the count Palatine. This prince added new conquests to those of Gustavus Adolphus; he carried his arms into Poland, where he gained the victory in the famous battle of Warsaw, which lasted three days. He made war for a long time successfully against the Danes, besieged them in their capital, re-united Schonen to Sweden, and settled the Duke of Holstein in the possession of Sleswick, at least for a season; and then, having found a reverse of fortune, and made peace with his enemies, he turned his ambition against his subjects. He formed a design of establishing arbitrary power in Sweden; but died, like the great Gustavus, in the thirty-seventh year of his age, without finishing that work which his son Charles the Eleventh brought to perfection.

Life of Charles the Twelfth.

Charles XI. a warrior, like all his ancestors, was more absolute than any of them. He abolished the authority of the senate, which was declared the senate of the king, and not of the kingdom. He was frugal, vigilant, and laborious; and had qualities that would have gained him the love of his subjects, if his arbitrary temper had not changed those inclinations into fear.

He married in 1680, Ulric Eleonora, daughter of Frederick III. King of Denmark; a virtuous princess, and worthy of greater confidence than her husband reposed in her. From this marriage was born, on the 27th of June 1682, King Charles XII, the most extraordinary man, perhaps, that ever was on earth; who had united in him all the great qualities of his ancestors, and who had no other fault nor misfortune, but that, pursuing them to too great an extravagance. At six years of age he was taken out of the hands of the women, and had given him for his governor Monsieur de Nordcopenser, a wise and learned man. The first book he had to read was Puffendorf, that he might be early made acquainted with his own dominions, and those of his neighbours. He presently learned the German language, which he spoke ever after as well as his mother-tongue. At seven years old he could manage a horse; and the violent exercises which he delighted in, and which discovered his martial inclination, formed in him betimes a vigorous constitution, capable of supporting the fatigues his temper led him to. Although good natured in his infancy, he became invincibly obstinate: the only way to bend him was by touching on his honour; with the word " Glory," any thing might be obtained of him. He had an aversion to the Latin tongue; but when he was told that the king of Poland and the king of Denmark understood it, he learnt it very soon, and retained enough to be able to speak it all the rest of his life. They took the same method to engage him to learn the French; but he could never be prevailed upon to make use of it, even with the French ambassadors, who knew no other language. As soon as he had some knowledge of the Latin, they made him translate Quintus Curtius, which book he had a particular value for, more on account of the subject than the style. The person who explained that author to him, asked him what he thought of Alexander? "I think," said the prince, "that I would resemble him." But, said the other, he lived only two-and-thirty years! "Alr!” replied he, " is not that enough, when one has conquered kingdoms?" They did not fail to relate these answers to the king his father, who cried out, "There is a child that will excel me, and even go beyond the great Gustavus." One day he diverted himself in the king's apartment, with looking on two maps, one of a city of Hun gary taken from the emperor by the Turks, and the other of Riga, the capital of Livonia, conquered by the Swedes about a century past. Under the map of the Hungarian city were these words, taken out of the book of Job; "The Lord gave it, the Lord hath taken it away, blessed be the name of the Lord." The young prince having read them, took up a pencil immediately, and wrote under the map of Riga; "The Lord gave it to me, and the devil shall not take it from me." Thus, in the most indifferent actions of his childhood, some strokes of his invincible resolution would so often appear, which seemed to presage what he would one day arrive at.-He was eleven years old when he lost his mother. This princess died August 5, 1693, of an illness occasioned by some vexations her husband had given her, and by her endea vours to dissemble them. Charles XI. had deprived a great number of his