CHRISTINA, Queen Of Sweden--Chancellor OXENSTIERN.
_Christina_.--You seem to avoid me, Oxenstiern; and, now we are met, you
don't pay me the reverence that is due to your queen! Have you forgotten
that I was your sovereign?
_Oxenstiern_.--I am not your subject here, madam; but you have forgotten
that you yourself broke that bond, and freed me from my allegiance, many
years before you died, by abdicating the crown, against my advice and the
inclination of your people. Reverence here is paid only to virtue.
_Christina_.--I see you would mortify me if it were in your power for
acting against your advice. But my fame does not depend upon your
judgment. All Europe admired the greatness of my mind in resigning a
crown to dedicate myself entirely to the love of the sciences and the
fine arts; things of which you had no taste in barbarous Sweden, the
realm of Goths and Vandals.
_Oxenstiern_.--There is hardly any mind too great for a crown, but there
are many too little. Are you sure, madam, it was magnanimity that caused
you to fly from the government of a kingdom which your ancestors, and
particularly your heroic father Gustavus, had ruled with so much glory?
_Christina_.--Am I sure of it? Yes; and to confirm my own judgment, I
have that of many learned men and _beaux esprits_ of all countries, who
have celebrated my action as the perfection of heroism.
_Oxenstiern_.--Those _beaux esprits_ judged according to their
predominant passion. I have heard young ladies express their admiration
of Mark Antony for heroically leaving his fleet at the Battle of Actium
to follow his mistress. Your passion for literature had the same effect
upon you. But why did not you indulge it in a manner more becoming your
birth and rank? Why did not you bring the muses to Sweden, instead of
deserting that kingdom to seek them in Rome? For a prince to encourage
and protect arts and sciences, and more especially to instruct an
illiterate people and inspire them with knowledge, politeness, and fine
taste is indeed an act of true greatness.
_Christina_.--The Swedes were too gross to be refined by any culture
which I could have given to their dull, their half-frozen souls. Wit and
genius require the influence of a more southern climate.
_Oxenstiern_.--The Swedes too gross! No, madam, not even the Russians
are too gross to be refined if they had a prince to instruct them.
_Christina_.--It was too tedious a work for the vivacity of my temper to
polish bears into men. I should have died of the spleen before I had
made any proficiency in it. My desire was to shine among those who were
qualified to judge of my talents. At Paris, at Rome I had the glory of
showing the French and Italian wits that the North could produce one not
inferior to them. They beheld me with wonder. The homage I had received
in my palace at Stockholm was paid to my dignity. That which I drew from
the French and Roman academies was paid to my talents. How much more
glorious, how much more delightful to an elegant and rational mind was
the latter than the former! Could you once have felt the joy, the
transport of my heart, when I saw the greatest authors and all the
celebrated artists in the most learned and civilised countries of Europe
bringing their works to me and submitting the merit of them to my
decisions; when I saw the philosophers, the rhetoricians, the poets
making my judgment the standard of their reputation, you would not wonder
that I preferred the empire of wit to any other empire.
_Oxenstiern_.--O great Gustavus! my ever-honoured, my adored master! O
greatest of kings, greatest in valour, in virtue, in wisdom, with what
indignation must thy soul, enthroned in heaven, have looked down on thy
unworthy, thy degenerate daughter! With what shame must thou have seen
her rambling about from court to court deprived of her royal dignity,
debased into a pedant, a witling, a smatterer in sculpture and painting,
reduced to beg or buy flattery from each needy rhetorician or hireling
poet! I weep to think on this stain, this dishonourable stain, to thy
illustrious blood! And yet, would to God! would to God! this was all the
pollution it has suffered!
_Christina_.--Darest thou, Oxenstiern, impute any blemish to my honour?
_Oxenstiern_.--Madam, the world will scarce respect the frailties of
queens when they are on their thrones, much less when they have
voluntarily degraded themselves to the level of the vulgar. And if
scandalous tongues have unjustly aspersed their fame, the way to clear it
is not by an assassination.
_Christina_.--Oh! that I were alive again, and restored to my throne,
that I might punish the insolence of this hoary traitor! But, see! he
leaves me, he turns his back upon me with cool contempt! Alas! do I not
deserve this scorn? In spite of myself I must confess that I do. O
vanity, how short-lived are the pleasures thou bestowest! I was thy
votary. Thou wast the god for whom I changed my religion. For thee I
forsook my country and my throne. What compensation have I gained for
all these sacrifices so lavishly, so imprudently made? Some puffs of
incense from authors who thought their flattery due to the rank I had
held, or hoped to advance themselves by my recommendation, or, at best,
over-rated my passion for literature, and praised me to raise the value
of those talents with which they were endowed. But in the esteem of wise
men I stand very low, and their esteem alone is the true measure of
glory. Nothing, I perceive, can give the mind a lasting joy but the
consciousness of having performed our duty in that station which it has
pleased the Divine Providence to assign to us. The glory of virtue is
solid and eternal. All other will fade away like a thin vapoury cloud,
on which the casual glance of some faint beams of light has superficially
imprinted their weak and transient colours.