reading of the Act, the king, without giving time or opportunity for any discussion, commanded the Diet to accept it. Only the peasants obeyed. The nobles, in a body, rejected it. The intermediate orders were divided; but Gustavus, assuming that they assented, and having obtained the signatures of their several speakers, insisted on the marshal signing it also, having the constitutional pretext that the assent of three of the orders entailed that of the fourth. The nobles protested; and the 'Act of Security and Union' was not entered in the official minutes of the Diet, but was published, after the close of the session, as a simple edict. This irregular and arbitrary proceeding had however stirred up much angry opposition, and the important question of finance still remained unsettled. The lower orders voted the supply' until the meeting of the next Diet. The nobles would not extend it beyond two years. By armed force, Gustavus overawed their assembly; and by his absolute will, and the consent of the lower orders, affirmed the resolution. Thus,' wrote the French ambassador, has 'Gustavus III. obtained the guarantee of his debts, and the 'freedom from any term for the readjustment of taxation. . . . He has ruined his country. He has burdened it with a debt of twenty-one millions of rix-dollars-about four and a half millions sterling. He has seized on absolute power by force; and by force alone can he keep it.'

Gustavus had now overcome his domestic opponents, and was as much as ever resolved to push the war against his foreign enemies, hoping, in concert with Turkey, to break the power of Russia. But the opportunity which he might have had in July, 1788, no longer existed in 1789; and this and the following summer passed away without his being able to effect anything of moment; whilst, on her side, Catherine contented herself with repelling his attacks, and winning her great successes in the south. It was then that Pitt was compelled, by public feeling in England, to draw back from his intended intervention in favour of Turkey; and that Catherine added to the Russian Empire the fortress of Otchakof, and the stretch of country from the Bug to the Dniester. And meantime, events in France were every day becoming more and more serious. Gustavus was, at first, disposed to look on the violence of the mob and the behaviour of the king as alike. contemptible; nor is it improbable that he complacently contrasted his own strong action with the weak and vacillating conduct of his brother and cousin.' But as time passed on, and the disturbance became a revolution, his affection for France and for Louis impelled him to take some decided line,

and to bear him what support might be possible. To do this, not only peace, but alliance with Russia, was necessary. A cessation of hostilities had been agreed on in August 1790; and Gustavus was anxious to convert it into a definite treaty. He was eager to be at the head of a combined Swedo-Russian army, and to win military glory, at the same time that he upheld the failing cause of monarchy in France. But Catherine carefully distinguished between the empress and the woman, and in State policy permitted no trace of sentimentality. She saw no particular reason for entangling herself in support of the King of France; but by keeping open the quarrel with Sweden, until that with Turkey was settled, she might hope to reap some distinct advantage. Count Stedingk, who was appointed envoy extraordinary to conduct the negotiations at St. Petersburg, was put off, from day to day, on pretexts more or less frivolous; and weeks, months even, dragged along, without the treaty being any nearer a conclusion.

Gustavus, however, buoyed up with hope, and convinced that he would eventually have some 22,000 Swedes and Russians under his command, set out for Aix-la-Chapelle on May 24, and arrived there on June 15, 1791. It was on the 21st that the king and queen of France made their unlucky 'jour'ney' to Varennes. The correspondence relative to this, and to the royal wishes, which for some weeks previously was carried on between Gustavus and his staff on one side, and Marie Antoinette, the younger Fersen, and M. de Breteuil on the other, is of the deepest interest; but it belongs rather to the history of France than of Sweden.

In October, the treaty with Catherine was at last signed; and Gustavus-who had returned to Stockholm in Augustimmediately forwarded to her the plan of a general coalition; according to which the Empire, Prussia, Switzerland, Sardinia, and Spain, each on a different frontier, were to enter France with an aggregate force of some 90,000 men: he himself, the commander-in-chief of the whole, was to land on the coast of Normandy with 16,000 Swedes and 6,000 Russians. It is difficult to say how much of this scheme was honestly meant, how much was proposed with a view to stage effect. But that it was real to some extent that he believed in the possibility of restoring the monarchy to France, and of his having the chief command of a combined force-is quite certain. A letter which he wrote to Catherine, almost accompanying the plan of invasion, puts this even more clearly, and fully illustrates his opinions. It runs :—

'Although the interest which I take in the royal family of France is very great, that which I take in the general good of Europe, more particularly of Sweden, and the cause of all kings, is still greater. All this depends on the re-establishment of the French monarchy; and provided that is re-established, provided that the monster of the Riding School is crushed, and that the chief subverters of all authority are destroyed along with that infamous assembly, and the as infamous haunt in which it was created, it matters nothing whether Louis XVI., or Louis XVII., or Charles X., occupies the throne. . . . The only remedy is the sword and the cannon. It is possible that at this moment the king and queen are in actual danger; but their danger cannot be equal to that of all crowned heads, whom the French Revolution threatens.'

With a great deal more to the same purport. And not only before the Empress of Russia, but also before the public of Europe, did the King of Sweden stand forward as the main prop or stay of royalty; as eager to support it by war, and to thrust back the monarchy on France, even at the point of the bayonet. It is not to be wondered at if the Legislative Assembly accepted as an enemy the man who so loudly proclaimed his hostility. It was a time when the feeling, afterwards so noisily expressed as Mort aux tyrans! was uppermost in a large number of French minds; and it is far from inconceivable that the Jacobin party deliberately condemned Gustavus to death, and took measures to carry their sentence into execution. Gustavus's son and successor believed and maintained that they did; but he was a child at the time, and accepted unquestioningly the principles in which he was educated. And to many others the Cui bono? argument suggested the probability, and the probability suggested the certainty; but there is absolutely no evidence.

The bare facts are simple enough. On the evening of March 16, 1792, at a masked ball at the Opera House at Stockholm, Gustavus was mortally wounded by a pistol-shot, and died, after great suffering, on the 29th. The pistol was fired by a man of noble family, Ankarström, formerly a captain in the Guards, who having retired from active service, and holding a half-civil command in the Island of Gothland, had still been-rightly or wrongly-accused of a traitorous understanding with the Finland mutineers in 1788. He had therefore been sentenced by the king to a term of imprisonment, a sentence which was afterwards almost contemptuously remitted. This contempt, this sentence, and the wrongs his order had sustained in the constitutional changes of 1789, may well have wrought a mind, naturally gloomy, into madness: he is also said --with probable truth-to have lost heavily by a sudden de

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preciation of paper money to an extent of 30 per cent. king, in his eyes, was a tyrant and a robber; and he vowed revenge. With him were joined others--Ribbing, Horn, Liliehorn-all nobles-who had suffered arrest in 1789, or had real or fancied wrongs to avenge; and the king's secretary, Bjelke, who enjoyed much of his master's confidence, persuaded him to go to the ball, and gave timely notice to the conspirators. Oscar, in the opera, may win our affection by beauty of person and sprightliness of music; but if we are to identify him with Bjelke, his role was more utterly villainous than that even of Horn who attracted the king's attention, or of Ankarström who pulled the trigger.

That these men assassinated their king is certain; but whether influenced solely by a sense of private or political wrong, by some ambitious hopes, or by the money of the Jacobins, never has been, probably never will be, known. But though the Jacobins hesitated at no crime which seemed likely to be useful, there is no necessity for supposing them guilty of this. The king had trodden down the constitution, crushed the nobles in their political rights, annihilated their prerogatives, insulted their pride. Hate and suppressed fury were in every mind; and we have had, even within the last few months, an appalling proof that a sense of civil wrong knows no scruples, has no conscience. Nor was the violent termination of a king's reign an unusual thing in Sweden. Many of Gustavus's predecessors had been dethroned or murdered; and his son whothough a mere child-succeeded him in 1792, was himself driven out by a revolution in 1809, and ended his days in exile and obscurity, a private citizen of Basle.

ART. IV.-Archæologia; or, Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London. Vols. XLV., XLVI. 1880-81.

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HE issue of two new parts of the Archæologia' has been welcomed by the Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries with the more satisfaction as some time had elapsed since the publication of the preceding volume. Meanwhile considerable changes have occurred in the personnel of this ancient and honourable Society. The late Earl Stanhope, who had for many years taken a very active and useful part as President of the Society, has been succeeded by the Earl of Carnarvon, whose addresses breathe a spirit of vigour and animation much needed in archæological pursuits, and who has

directed the attention of the Society to several important objects. The accomplished Director of the Society, Mr. Augustus W. Franks, on whom the editorship of the 'Archeo'logia' devolved, has been succeeded in that office by Mr. H. S. Milman, and is now one of the vice-presidents of the Society; and a fresh impulse has evidently been given to the literary labours of the Society as well as to those archæological surveys and excavations which it has always sought to promote and encourage. To many of the Fellows as they cut the leaves of the new volumes it must have been a relief to find that the old lines had not been departed from, the old standard of excellence not one whit lowered, nor the old magnificence in type and form and illustration diminished. certain haughty splendour has been the characteristic of the Archæologia' from the first, and we are happy to see that these volumes maintain their wonted dignity. It is clear that the Society of Antiquaries shows no sign of decadence, and still counts among its Fellows accomplished scholars and sagacious students, just as eager and just as able to lift the veil of Isis as their great predecessors were, into whose places they have stepped, and whose traditions they have inherited. We shall briefly notice the contents of these volumes before we proceed to record the earlier history of the Society.

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Mr. Nesbitt's paper on Wall Decorations in Sectile Work, as used by the Romans,' is not unlikely to exercise an appreciable effect upon our domestic architecture; for our young art students are vigilant and alert, and the demand for new designs is constant; the fashions change from year to year, almost from day to day; Queen Anne's sovereignty in the realms of upholstery is passing, a taste for classical patterns and Italian colouring is reviving. We should not be surprised if antique tesselated pavements on a large scale should come in among us again, or if the foundations of some magnificent villa which has been buried for a millennium should be used a second time by a nineteenth-century Dives, or the mural adornments and splendid extravagance of the Roman nobles become the rage. It is significant that no less than five of the papers in this 45th volume are concerned with matters bearing upon Roman Britain-significant as indicating the eagerness with which every clue for arriving at a more certain knowledge of the character and extent of the Roman occupation is being followed, and as showing how rapidly that knowledge has extended itself during the present century. Lieutenant Peck's notes upon the Roman lighthouse at Dover, with its careful sections and measurements, must be pronounced the most