Thus much to illustrate my subject with regard to Russia. There is not much to be added in reference to the other Northern courts. In the autobiography of Christina, Queen of Sweden, which forms part of the ponderous memoirs of that sovereign by Archenholz, she tells the world that when in her youth the Regency of Sweden had determined to provide her with apartments separate from those of the Queen-Mother, the latter opposed it with vehement anger and sorrow, while Christina herself, with all her tender respect for the widow of Gustavus Adolphus, approved of the measure with as vehement delight. “I was afraid,” says the lively Queen, “that she would be a grand obstacle in the way of my studies and exercises, which annoyed me much, for I had an extreme desire to learn.” Besides, adds Christina, “the Queen-Mother took delight in maintaining a number of buffoons and dwarfs in her apartments, which were always full of them, after the German fashion. Such a fashion was insupportable to me, for I have a natural aversion against that wretched class of beings.” Flögel traces the Scandinavian jesters back to the period of the Scalds (the Skial, or wise men), who were also called Spekinge (from _speke_, wisdom), from which, he says, is derived our word _speak_, which, however, is not always in connection with wisdom. The Sapphic verses of the Scalds often conveyed a double meaning, and perhaps this species of wit caused the idea of the bards being a species of jesters. That they were magnificently rewarded there is no doubt, seeing that Hiarne, the Scald, wrote an epitaph on Frotho I. of Denmark, which so delighted the people that they elected the poet to the vacant throne. The people must have been poor judges of poetry, for the epitaph is but an indifferent production. And then the story is doubtful, belonging to the period anterior to that of Harald in the ninth century, all the details of which are mythic and contradictory. One fact, nevertheless, connects the Scald with the jester; both were licensed to sing or speak with impunity. The former might make his harp ring to the intoning of the royal faults, just as the fool might raise the laughter of a court by sarcastic allusion to kingly foibles. And, moreover, there were several Scandinavian Kings who were their own Scalds, as we have seen several princes who were their own fools. The parallel may, perhaps, be allowed to pass; the more, that the wit of the Scald was generally as incomprehensible and cumbersome as that of some of the early court jesters. Fancy the verse which literally runs:--“I hang the round hammered yawning serpent at the tongue of the falcon-bridge, by the gallows of the shield of Odin,” to mean nothing more than, “I put the ring on the finger of the hand, near the arm!” Here was euphonistic folly! And the words, too, were mixed up unconnectedly, having no meaning at all as they originally stood; and through what a