Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1884 — Queen Sophia Charlotte. [ARTICLE]

Queen Sophia Charlotte.

Frederic ILL, son and successor of the Great Elector, is one of the most contemptible personages whom the house of Hohenzollern has produced. He wa3 vain, frivolous, unmanly, and, withal, physically deformed. But the facilities of his age, and the impulses of his own vanity, permitted him to connect his name with one famous and several praiseworthy achievements. He obtained the royal dignity for himself and lxis successors; he founded the University of Halle and the Prussian Academy of Sciences; he gave aid and encouragement to Leibnitz, Pufendorf, Wolf, Spener, Thomasius, and other ingenious scholars; aud he was the husband of Sophia Charlotte. Indeed, the good fortune last named, the possession of an accomplished and enterprising princess, accounts in large measure for all of Frederic’s triumphs, except, perhaps, the acquisition of the crown. That was his own work, and it was one bingularly calculated to call forth all of his zeal and energy. But in the encouragement given to learning and letters and art, the Electress was the leader, while her husband was inspired less by intellectual sympathy than by the desire to add luster to his court. Sophia Charlotte, Frederic’s second wife, was a pi’incess of the house of Hanover, and sister of George I. of England. Her naturally keen and active mind had been developed by an excellent education, and by the advantages of the njost intellectual society which Germany afforded. Leibnitz ■was always a welcome guest at her father’s court, and after her marriage he gave a great part of his time to Berlin, where Sophia Charlotte continued to propound paradoxes, and quiz him about the causes of things. Refugees from Lutheran and refugees from Catholic intolerance were cordially received and tolerated by the Electress’ influence. She patronized Jesuits, and—hor kindness being seasoned with a touch of malicious humor—she’ delighted in betraying Spener* and Yota into theological disputes in her draw-ing-room. She was a firm friend of Schluter, and to his genius anß her management Berlin owes some of its finest monuments and palaces. Besser, Canitz, and other so-called poets found in the Electress a patient listener as they recited their odes and epics. But with all fier merits and accomplishments Sophia Charlotte wanted one quality to which Frederic attached a profound importance, so that although he respected and even feared, he hardly admired her. She had no sympathy with the Elector’s love for spectacular effect. If a magnificent pageant was organized at the palace, the Electress would absent herself entirely, or commit some solecism and throw everything into confusion, or even break up the whole ceremony by going into open revolt at some critical moment. During the coi'onation services at Konigsberg, which Frederic had exerted all his ingenuity to make solemn and imposing, the Electress laughed behind her husband’s great wig, and even took a piuch of snuff at the very point where Frederic expected her to look most grave and decorous. On her deathbed she could not suppress her grim humor. “His Majesty will grieve bitterly when you ai'e gone,” said an attendant. “Oh, yes,” replied the penetrating princess; “but it will give him the chance to get up a magnificent funeral.” A magnificent funeral Bhe received, and—if that coxxld honor the dead—-de-served ; but not long afterward her inconsolable husband consoled himself to a third wife. —Herbert Tuttle, in Harper’s Magazine.