In 1870, Charles Dickens was summoned by Queen Victoria to Buckingham Palace in order that she might thank him for the loan of some photographs of scenes in the American Civil War, and on his departure she handed him a copy of her “Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands” with the autograph inscription, “From the humblest of writers to one of the greatest.” In 1883, her Majesty prepared for publication another selection from her Journal, which she dedicated “To my loyal Highlanders, and especially to the memory of my devoted personal attendant and faithful friend, John Brown.” She took a very modest view of her literary work, for, on sending a copy to Tennyson, she described herself as “a very humble and unpretending author, the only merit of whose writing was its simplicity and truth.”
Leaving our own country, it may be noted that Portugal has some claim to be proud of her royal authors, for Diniz was a poet of exquisite taste, “and in the number, beauty, and variety of his songs he proved himself the greatest poet of his Court,” having inherited, it is said, the poetic feeling and power of expression from his father, Alfonso III., who was no mean poet. Indeed, the effects of the influence of Diniz “pervade the whole of Portuguese poetry; for not only was he in his ‘pastorellas’ the forerunner of the greatest pastoral school, but, by sanctifying to literary use the national storehouse of song, he perpetuated among his people, even to the present day, lyric forms of greatest beauty.”[154] It is also said that immense service was rendered by Diniz and his poetic courtiers in developing the Portuguese dialect into a beautiful and flexible literary language; and with the Courts of Love which he introduced into Portugal came the substitution of the Limousin decasyllabic for the national octosyllabic metre.[155]
John I., surnamed “the Great,” encouraged literature, and the “Book of the Chase,” one of the best specimens of early Portuguese prose, was written for him under his own superintendence. Of his sons, Dom Pedro wrote poems, and Dom Edward was the author of two capital prose works entitled “Instructions in Horsemanship” and the “Faithful Councillor.”
Alfonso V., one of the exploring sovereigns, the subduer of Tangiers, wrote much and ably on various subjects, forming an extensive library at Evora; and the sagacious John II. patronised literature, and encouraged Ruy de Pina, the greatest of all the Portuguese chroniclers. And another sovereign who did all he could to promote the welfare of literature was John V., who founded the Academy of History in Lisbon, in 1720.
James I. of Aragon, who was born at Montpellier on Candlemas Day, in his “Chronicle,” written by himself—and forming one of the most remarkable literary works of an eventful age—gives a curious as well as an interesting account of his being named, and relates how his mother, Doña Maria, “made twelve candles, all of one size and weight, and had them all lighted together, and gave each the name of an apostle, and vowed to our Lord that I should be christened by the name of that which lasted longest. And so it happened that the candle which went by the name of St. James lasted a good finger’s breadth more than all the others. And owing to that circumstance, and to the grace of God, I was christened El Jerome.”
Catherine II. of Russia wrote fairy and moral tales in the style of Marmontel, at that time so popular, comedies, and a kind of adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives of Windsor,” her friend, the Princess Dashkov, who was appointed President of the Academy of Sciences, having co-operated with her in these studies.[156] In the “Romance of an Empress”[157] many amusing anecdotes are given of this her favourite pastime, which, it is said, “was in some sort a necessity, almost a physical necessity” to her. When asked why she wrote so many comedies, she replied, “Primo, because it amuses me; secundo, because I should like to restore the national theatre, which, owing to its lack of new plays, is somewhat gone out of fashion; and tertio, because it was time to put down the visionaries, who were beginning to hold up their heads.” In his “History of German Literature,” Kurtz includes the Empress among the German writers of the eighteenth century, as author of an Eastern romance, “Obidach” (1786), and two years later we find her writing burlesque verses on the King of Sweden. It was often asked how she found time to do so much, the answer being she rose at six o’clock.
After his deposition, Gustavus IV. of Sweden, under the title of Colonel Gustafson, was occasionally heard of in various parts of Europe. At the period of the French Revolution in 1830, the pamphlet which he published on that event, and on its connection with Swedish affairs, showed, writes Dr. Doran,[158] that “the ex-king possessed neither charms of style nor power of reasoning. But his literary pursuits were now his sole pleasure, and he wrote “Reflections on the Aurora Borealis, and its Connection with Diurnal Motion,” the small effect produced by which wounded him, it is said, almost as deeply as his loss of a crown.
Another sovereign who in his retirement devoted his time to literature was the ex-king Stanislaus Leczinski of Poland, whose works were published in a collected form, a few years after his death, in four quarto volumes, under the title of the “Works of the Beneficent Philosopher.” But there was no special ability in his writings, which were “respectable but not great.” His collection of “Traits of Moral Character for Everyday Life” was perhaps his most amusing and popular work, each trait commencing with “Have the courage to ——,” and as a whole as practically useful as the Golden Rules of King Charles. Thus, as an illustration, Stanislaus writes: “Have the courage to pay your debts at once; to do without what you do not need; to know when to speak and when to be quiet; to set down every penny you spend, and to look at the sum-total weekly; to pass your host’s lackey without giving him a shilling, when you cannot afford it, and more especially when he has not earned it; to face difficulties, which are often like thieves, and run away if you only look at them.” Such are a few illustrations of his Majesty’s traits of moral courage, but unfortunately some of them he neglected himself, and he suffered accordingly.
Frederick II. of Prussia was an author, but only an average one. Indeed, as it has been observed, “giving him the credit of all that passes under his name, with the single exception of the ‘Seven Years’ War,’ can it be pretended that of his numerous volumes one would ever have been known to posterity, or more than one ever have found a publisher at all, even in Germany, had they been the works of a private hand? The excepted book has considerable merit, by far its greatest value being derived from the accidental coincidence of the sword and the pen in the same hand.” Little praise can be given to his Majesty’s verses, and his letters are only interesting because of the great men with whom he corresponded, and the stirring events in the midst of which they were written.[159]
A work which naturally created considerable notice was Louis XVIII.’s narrative of his escape from France, but in the preface a most candid admission is made, that the work had disappointed all who had expected literary merit in it, that it had destroyed the reputation of the King as an adept in the niceties of the French language, the French critics asserting that it was “vulgarly ungrammatical”; and even the editor “admits that the performance does not place his most Christian Majesty very high in the list of royal authors, as the style is bad, the observations often puerile, and the sentiments far from noble.” The narrative is dedicated in affectionate terms to M. d’Avary, in token of the royal authors lasting gratitude for his services upon the occasion of his escape. But this, whatever merit may be ascribed to it, will, like other similar productions, always be perused with interest from the royal pen which wrote it.