THE KNIGHT OF THE POLAR STAR 305 



now headed a band of elegant beings princesses, pages, 

 and Court ladies in botanising expeditions to the en- 

 chanting forest recesses on the borders of the Malar Lake. 



4 Where there are crowned heads,' says Disraeli, 

 c there are always some charming women.' And again, 

 Kxcursions are enchanting, especially with princesses 

 for your companions, bright and accomplished.' And 

 in company with this queen, herself so interested, Lin- 

 nanis found science itself doubly interesting. Carlyle 

 speaks thus, in jerky style, of her in later years, when 

 on a visit to her brother : 



' The Queen of Sweden loved her old man ' [Adolf 

 Frideric] ' and her dowager revenues, &c. All went 

 right enough. She had two sons. 1 She was a shining 

 phenomenon, fond especially of literary people Fre- 

 derick II. was fond of her. He says, " I beheld her as 

 if raised from the dead to me ; for an absence of twenty- 

 eight years in the short space of our duration is almost 

 equivalent to death." She revisited her birthplace 

 December 1771 to August 1772. Queen' [Louise] 

 ' Ulrique a solid and ingenuous character (in child- 

 hood a favourite of her father's, so rational, truthful, and 

 of silent staid ways). She was pleasant and pleased 

 during these eight months.' 



Busching says, ' She took me by the hand and led 



me to a window ' [as was her custom with guests whom 



she judged to be worth questioning and talking to], 



w and so placed herself in a corner there that I came to 



1 We know of three. 



VOL. II. X 



