A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Amelia Maria Frederica Augusta
AMELIA MARIA FREDERICA AUGUSTA,
Duchess and princess of Saxony, was born in 1794. Her father, prince Maximilian, was the youngest son of the Elector Frederic Christian. His eldest brother, Frederic Augustus, Elector, and afterwards king of Saxony, ruled this country sixty-four years, from 1763 to 1827. His reign Was one of much vicissitude, as it embraced the period of Napoleon's career. An allusion to the political events of that day is not foreign to the present subject, as the literary abilities and consequent fame of the Princess Amelia could never have been developed under the old order of things in a contracted German court; neither could she have acquired that knowledge of life essential to the exercise of her dramatic talent: born fifty years sooner, she would have ranked merely among the serene highnesses of whom "to live and die" forms all the history. Fortunately for Amelia, the storms that were to clear the political atmosphere began before her birth: from the age of twelve till that of twenty-three she saw her family suffering exile; then enjoying return and sovereignty; her uncle prisoner—again triumphant. During this period her opportunities for observation, her suggestions for thought, her mental education, were most various and extensive. Scenes and characters were studied fresh from life—"not obtained through books." In 1827, her uncle, king Frederic Augustus, died, and was succeeded by his brother Anthony—a rather jolly old person, but exceedingly fond of his' niece Amelia. She possessed much influence over him, and exercised it in a way that gained her great favour with high and low. In 1830, a revolution changed the government from a despotism to a limited monarchy. Anthony died in 1836, when the brother of Amelia became sovereign. Under her uncle's reign it would have scarcely been possible for her to appear as the authoress of acted dramas; but her brother had been brought up under a new order of things, and considered it no derogation for a scion of royalty to extend the influence of virtue and elevated morality by the aid of an art that makes its way to the general public with a peculiar force.
It is a curious circumstance that her first drama, which was offered under the name of Amelia Heiter, was refused by the managers of the court theatre, and only appeared there after its confirmed success on the stage at Berlin.
The Princess Amelia has gained by her plays a popularity deservedly exceeding any of her predecessors or contemporaries in the kind she has undertaken; for it must be remembered she is, though a woman of genius, no poet; her mind is elevated, truth-loving, and eager to convey useful lessons; she possesses a delicate discrimination of character, and infinity of gentle humours; her style is refined, and, at all times, as elegant as the attention to proprieties of the dramatis personæ will permit She attacks selfishness and deception with an unflinching hostility, and her instructions are conveyed by such amusing and natural delineations that they cannot fail to excite a detestation of these vices; and even when such emotions are transient, they are a refreshing dewto the hard soil they cannot penetrate.
Before leaving the account of this illustrious lady, it may be remarked that her family are distinguished by something more than "leather and prunella" from the merely "monarch crowned." The present king, Amelia's brother, has published a work on botany and mineralogy, and Prince John the Younger has translated Dante into German Poetry. She had a grandmother too, another Princess Amelia, or Amalie, whose biography is to be found in a preceding part of this work, who composed operas.