304 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



where seeking truth a reaction from the fallacies of 

 glory which stamp the whole age of Louis XIV. 



An intellectual queen was no phenomenon in Sweden. 

 Louisa Ulrica tried to do in the line of natural history 

 as much as Christina did in classical study. Her 

 letters to the Queen of Prussia teem with remarks, 

 projects, and plans, discussions on painters, and other 

 acquisitions. 1 She writes, 'I expect Lundberg from 

 France, who shall paint the prince ' Lundberg, called 

 ' le roi des pastels,' who, I suspect, also painted the 

 portraits of Linnseus's children which are now at 

 Hammarby. 



Upon his arrival the queen writes, 'Nous avons 

 fait acquisition ici d'un des plus fameux peintres pour 

 les portraits en pastel.' The prince to be painted was 

 Gustav, Crown Prince, born 1746. The other royal chil- 

 dren were Carl, born 1748; Friderich Adolph, 1750; 

 and Sophie Albertine, 1753. These young people acted 

 English plays ; among them that favourite of a former 

 generation, ' The Earl of Warwick.' The court was not 

 altogether dryly learned, but lively with a simple and 

 innocent gaiety. The King Adolf Frideric looked bene- 

 volent, said one of his pages, even when his back was 

 turned. 2 This made it a pleasant sojourn, and court life a 

 beneficial change to our too hard-working Linnseus, who 



1 H. Marryatt. 



2 His coronation medal shows that he had a good profile. On 

 another medal, where he and the queen are side by side, he is much 

 handsomer but less animated than his wife. This medal has the 

 silver mines on the reverse. 



