He was a man of extensive, if not of profound, learning, a theologian of some account, and an aspirant for fame as a dramatist, a wit, a poet, and a historian. But if his claims to admiration as a writer were disputable, none contended his title to applause as a patron of literature and of art. The founder of a despotism in the world of politics, he aspired also to be the founder of a commonwealth in the world of letters. While crushing the national liberties, he founded the French Academy as the sacred shrine of intellectual freedom and independence. Acknowledging no equal in the state, he forbade the acknowledgment, in that literary republic, of any superiority save that of genius. While refusing to bare his head to any earthly potentate, he would permit no eminent author to stand bareheaded in his presence. By these cheap and not dishonest arts, he gained an inestimable advantage. The honors he conferred on the men of learning of his age they largely repaid, by placing under his control the main-springs of public opinion. To conciliate the commons of France, Richelieu even ostentatiously divested himself of every prejudice hostile to his popularity. A prince of the Church of Rome, he cherished the independence of the Gallican Church and clergy. The conqueror of the Calvinists, he yet respected the rights of conscience. Of noble birth and ancestry, his demeanor was still that of a tribune of the people. But it was not by demeanor alone that he labored to win their regard. He affected the more solid praise of large and salutary reformations. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, KING OF SWEDEN. BY FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER. [Known as the Protector of the Protestant Faith, the most brilliant hero of the Thirty Years’ War, and one of the greatest soldiers of modern times, born 1594, killed at the battle of Lutzen, 1632. In 1630, the Swedish king having satisfactorily disposed of the various national difficulties which had so far embarrassed his career, threw the weight of his gantlet into the struggle going on between the Catholic league, headed by Ferdinand of Austria, and the Protestant princes of Germany. The great genius of Gustavus Adolphus, who taught an entirely new system of tactics, made him irresistible, and in two years he firmly established a Protestant ascendancy in German affairs which no power afterward could break. Wallenstein was his most brilliant antagonist. After the death of the Swedish hero, the generals who had been trained in his school continued the war with various vicissitudes till peace was declared, substantially granting the rights for which the Protestant chieftains had been fighting.]