an order of knighthood, instituted in Sweden by Queen Christina, in 1653, at the close of an annual feast, celebrated in that country, called Wirtshafft. This feast was solemnized with entertainments, balls, masquerades, and the like diversions, and continued from evening till the next morning.—That princess, thinking the name too vulgar, changed it into that of the feast of the gods, in regard each person there represented some deity as it fell to his lot. The queen assumed the name of Amarante; that is, unfading, or immortal. The young nobility, dressed in the habit of nymphs and shepherds, served the gods at the table. At the end of the feast, the queen threw off her habit, which was covered with diamonds, leaving it to be pulled in pieces by the masques; and in memory of so gallant a feast, founded a military order, called in Swedish Gafällshafft, into which all that had been present at the feast were admitted, including 16 lords and as many ladies, besides the queen. Their device was the cypher of Amarante, composed of two A's, the one erect, the other inverted, and interwoven together; the whole enclosed by a laurel crown, with this motto, Dolce nella memoria. Bulstrode Whitlock, the English ambassador from Cromwell to the court of Sweden was made a knight of the order of Amarante: on which account it seems to be, that we sometimes find him styled Sir Bulstrode Whitlock.