less for the gay and graceful amusements of court life than for those field sports which make the popular indulgence of the English landholder, a strong sense of the national value of scientific and literary pursuits, piety unquestionably sincere, and morals on which even satire never dared to throw a stain, were the claims of the king to the approbation of his people. In all those points also the contrast of the new reign with those of the two preceding monarchs was signally in its favour.

Horace Walpole, a man rendered caustic by a sense of personal failure, and whose pen delighted to fling sarcasm on all times and men; for once forgets his nature, and gives way to panegyric in speaking of the young king. "The new reign begins with great propriety and decency. There are great dignity and grace in the king's manner. I don't say this, like my dear Madame de Sevigné, because he was civil to me; but the part is well acted. The young king has all the appearance of being amiable. There is great grace to temper much dignity, and a good nature which breaks out upon all occasions."

The choice of Lord Bute as his prime minister tarnished all the king's qualities in the general eye. Insinuations that this handsome nobleman owed his rank at once to the passion of the princess dowager, and to arbitrary principles in the king, insinuations never substantiated, and in their nature altogether improbable, were enough to turn the spirit of that multitude who take their opinions from the loudest clamourer. Wilkes, a man broken in fortune, and still more broken in character, hopeless of returning to the ranks of honourable life, and both too notorious and too intemperate to be fit for any thing but faction, had been buoyed up into a bastard influence chiefly by the national jealousy of Scotland.*

"No petticoat government-no Scotch minister-and no Lord George Sackville," were the watchwords of the time, placarded on the

But Lord Bute had soon ceased to be the object. A nobler quarry was found in the king, The "eagle towering in his pride of place, was by the mousing owl hawked at ;" and though not degraded in the opinion of men of honour and virtue, yet, with the multitude, his intentions were vilified, his personal qualities were turned into caricature, and his popularity was suddenly obscured, if not extinguished, by the arts of a deniagogue, scandalous and criminal in every mode by which the individual can earn exclusion from society.

Princes soon become public personages; and it cannot be denied that his royal highness displayed himself at a sufficiently early age; for in 1765 he received a deputation from the Society of Ancient Britons, on St. David's day. The prince's answer to their address was certainly not long, for it was simply-"He thanked them for this mark of duty to the king, and wished prosperity to the charity." Though probably an earlier speech has been seldom made; for the speaker was not quite three years old. But it was not lost on the courtiers. They declared it to have been delivered with the happiest grace of manner and action; and that the features of future oratory were more than palpable: all which we are bound to believe. In December of the same year he was invested with the order of the garter, along with the Earl of Albemarle and the hereditary Prince of Brunswick.

walls, and echoed by the mob: the three combining all the grievances of a party, afflicted by that most angry of all distempers-the desire o get into place.

CHAPTER III.

The Prince's Education.

THE prince had now reached a period when it became necessary to commence his education. Lord Holdernesse, a nobleman of considerable attainments, but chiefly recommended by his dignity of manner and knowledge of the court, was appointed governor Dr. Markham and Cyril Jackson were the preceptor and sub-preceptor.

Markham had attracted the royal notice by his celebrity as a schoolmaster. At the age of thirty he had soared to the height of professional glory; for he was placed at the head of Westminster School, where he taught for fourteen years. The masters of the leading schools are generally cheered by some church dignity, and Markham received the deanery of Christ Church: from this he had been transferred to Chester; and it was while he was in possession of· the bishopric, that he was selected for the preceptorship of the Prince of Wales.

But this private plan of education was severely criticised. It was pronounced to be a secluded, solitary, and narrow scheme for court thraldom, fitter to make the future sovereign a bigot or a despot, than the generous and manly leader of a generous and manly people.

The old controversy on the rival merits of public and private education was now revived; and, to do the controversialists justice, with less of the spirit of rational inquiry than of fierce and prejudiced partisanship.

The great schools were panegyrized, as breeding

a noble equality among the sons of men of the various ranks of society; as inspiring those feelings of honour and independence, which in after-life make the man lift up his fearless front in the presence of his superiors in all but knowledge and virtue; and as pre-eminently training the youth of the land to that personal resolution, mental resource, and intellectual dignity, which are essential to every honourable career; and are congenial, above all, to the free spirit and high-minded habits of England.

All those advantages must be conceded, though burlesqued and tarnished by the fantastic and selfish tales of extraordinary facilities furnished to the man by the companions of the boy; of the road to fortune smoothed, the ladder of eminence miraculously placed in his grasp, the coronet, the mitre, the highest and most sparkling honours of statesmanship, held forth to the aspirant by the hand of early association.-Hopes, in their conception mean, in their nature infinitely fallacious, and in their anticipation altogether opposed to the openness and manly selfrespect, which it is the first duty of those schools to create in the young mind. Yet the moralist may well tremble at that contamination of morals which so often defies the vigilance of the tutor; the man of limited income is entitled to reprobate the habits of extravagance engendered in the great schools; and the parent who values the affections of his children, may justly dread the reckless and unruly selfwill, the young insolence, and the sullen and heartless disdain of parental authority, which spring up at a distance from the paternal eye. But the question is decided by the fact, that without public education a large portion of the youth of England would receive no education whatever; while some of the more influential would receive, in the feeble indulgences of opulent parentage and the adulation of domestics, an education worse than none. The advantages belong to the system, and to no other;

while the disadvantages are accidental, and require nothing for their remedy beyond increased activity in the governors, and a more vigorous vigilance in

the nation.

But of the education of a British prince there can be no question. It ought to be in its whole spirit public. Under all circumstances, the heir to a throne will find flatterers; but at Eton, or Westminster, the flattery must be at times signally qualified; and his noble nature will not be the less noble for the home truths which no homage can always restrain among the rapid passions and fearless tongues of boys. The chance of his, falling into the snares of early favouritism is trivial. School fondnesses are easily forgotten. But, if adversity be the true teacher of princes, even the secure heir to the luxurious throne of England may not be the worse for that semblance of adversity which is to be found in the straight-forward speech, and bold, unhesitating competitorship of a great English school.

Under Lord Holdernesse and the preceptors, the usual routine of classical teaching was carefully inculcated, for Markham and Jackson were practised masters of that routine; and the prince often afterward, with the gratitude peculiarly graceful in his rank, professed his remembrance of their services.. But, though the classics might flourish in the princely establishment, it soon became obvious that peace did not flourish along with them. Rumours of discontent, royal, princely, and preceptorial, rapidly escaped from even the close confines of the palace; and, at length, the public, less surprised than perplexed, heard the formal announcement, that the whole preceptorship of his royal highness had sent in their resignations.

Those disturbances were the first and the inevitable results of the system. Lord Holdernesse obscurely complained that attempts were made to obtain an illegitimate influence over the prince's mind.