[REQUIRED READING]
FOR THE
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1882-83.
JUNE.
[A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SCANDINAVIA.]
By L. A. SHERMAN, Ph.D.
[VII.—SWEDISH HISTORY FROM CHARLES XII. TO OSCAR II.]
In the poem of Axel some of our readers may suspect that Tegnér has idealized the exploits and daring of Charles XII. and his enthusiastic guard of honor. Doubtless some allowance must be made for the exaggerations of time, but that Charles XII. stands almost alone in history for indomitable resolution and reckless bravery, seems clear. To estimate his career and character in a word we can not do better than turn to the last pages of Voltaire’s history of his life, from which we quote the following:
“Almost all his actions, even those of his private life, bordered upon the marvelous. He is perhaps the only one of all mankind, and hitherto the only one among kings, who has lived without a single frailty. He carried all the virtues of heroes to an excess at which they are as dangerous as their opposite vices. His resolution, hardened into obstinacy, occasioned his misfortunes in the Ukrane, and detained him five years in Turkey; his liberality, degenerating into profusion, ruined Sweden; his courage, extending even to rashness, was the cause of his death; his justice sometimes approximated to cruelty; and during the last years of his reign, the means he employed to support his authority differed little from tyranny. His great qualities, any one of which would have been sufficient to immortalize another prince, proved the misfortune of his country. He never was the aggressor; yet in taking vengeance he was more implacable than prudent. He was the first man who ever aspired to the title of conqueror, without the least desire of enlarging his own dominions; and whose only end in subduing kingdoms was to have the pleasure of giving them away. His passion for glory, for war and revenge, prevented him from being a good politician; a quality without which the world had never before seen any one a conqueror. Before a battle, and after a victory, he was modest and humble, and after a defeat firm and undaunted; rather an extraordinary than a great man, and more worthy to be admired than imitated.”