NO. CXXXV. ON THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE.

Regis ad Exemplum Populus componitur.

HOR.

AN opinion has often prevailed, that the education of a prince ought to be totally different from that of other gentlemen, and that any remarkable share of learning would disgrace him. I shall not hesitate to affirm, that they were the enemies of princes who advanced such an opinion; for nothing can contribute more effectually to the general abolition of the monarchial form of government, than to render the character and person of the monarch contemptible. In an age and country enlightened like our own, if a king were the only gentleman unadorned with a liberal education, his kingly office would contribute to render his person less dignified. Though he should sit on his throne, surrounded by his cringing courtiers and his standing army; and though he should number among the provinces of his empire, the regions of the east and the west; yet, in the eyes of every sensible and independent spectator, his personal littleness would be rendered still less, by a comparison with his hereditary and official magnificence.

Every friend therefore to a reigning family, every lover of political tranquillity, and of regular subor dination, will wish to augment the personal accomplishments of that youth who is destined, at some future period, to wield a sceptre. He will recollect, that the mind of a prince comes from the hand of nature, in a state no less rude than the mind of a peasant; and that, if it is not formed by early cul

ture, it will soon become much ruder, more refractory, and more vicious, under the many unfavourable circumstances of an exalted station. It will be.

readily allowed, that a peculiar polish, enlargement, and liberality, is required in him who is to look with a comprehensive eye through all the ranks of society, and estimate the true interests of nations, and of mankind at large. Both the heart and the understanding of such an one should be expanded to the utmost degree of possible dilatation.

But no method of culture is found so much to fertilize the human mind, as that kind of discipline which is called the classical. A prince, therefore, though he should certainly be educated in private, ought to be trained according to the modes which the experience of ages has established as the most successful in a public seminary. No whimsical systems of pragmatical and conceited tutors should be admitted. The boy should be taught his grammar like other boys; for though there is indeed a royal game of the goose, I never have yet heard of a royak method of learning Latin and Greek; and if there be such an one, the success of it still remains among the arcana of state.

An heir to a crown should certainly learn the an cient as well as the modern languages; and he will not be able to learn them effectually, without learning them radically. Away then with the indolence and indulgence which grandeur foolishly claims as a happy privilege! Let the boy, if you wish him to maintain the dignity of a man and a king, be early enured to mental labour. Let his memory, while a

child, be exercised in learning the rules of Lilly's Grammar. Let him be confined to his books and papers all the morning, and part of the evening, from the age of five to nineteen. The maids of honour will cry out shame! the sycophantic herd of young noblemen, who crowd, with all the servility of their own footmen, around a throne, will repine that they cannot have an opportunity of introducing themselves to the familiarity of the future king;but regard neither the foolish exclamations of vanity, nor the mean murmurs of self-interest. Proceed with him regularly from the fables of Phædrus to the philosophy of Cicero, from the Cyropædia of Xenophon to the histories and politics of Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Sallust, and Polybius. Let his sar be familiarized to the fine language and sentiments of Cicero and Demosthenes, and his heart ennobled by the examples of the brightest characters of Greece and Rome.

Why should his superintendants be so cruel as not to cultivate in him a taste for the beauties of poetry, or leave him unacquainted with Homer and Virgil? An elegant taste, an humanized disposition, an enlightened understanding, will adorn him more than the jewels in his crown, or the robes of royalty. It will give him an internal source of happiness, and will teach him rather to seek his pleasures in a humane and generous conduct, than in the display of pomp, or the indulgence of luxury. A prince, with a mind uncultivated, will too often take his chief delight in mischief, in vice, or in unprincely occupations; but he, whose understanding is il

luminated, and heart purified by a right discipline, will deserve a title which has been often unjustly claimed that of Heaven's vicegerent.

When, by the close application of ten or twelve years, a firm and broad basis is laid of ancient learning, let the strippling be introduced to the avenues of all the parts of human knowledge. Let the years which elapse till he is of the age of three or four and twenty, be employed in acquiring proper ideas of all the objects, whether natural or civil, which surround him, under the tuition of a governor, who possesses not only official and titular, but personal authority; under one who is not frightened by the laughter of fashion, of dissipation, or of false philosophy, from filling his pupil's mind with moral virtues, and a sincere, not a political, veneration for christianity.

All this is a general preparation for the particular pursuits which become a king, and these are law and politics. I mean not the narrow system of a mercenary practitioner and a cunning statesman, but the general principles of justice and equity; the wise maxims of government, as it is instituted for the diffusion of happiness and virtue among the individuals of a nation, and not for the extension of émpire, or the accumulation of destructive opulence. What a situation is a throne for the indulgence of the feelings of a christian, and of a compassionate friend to wretched human nature! I would not, indeed, refer a prince for maxims of equity and government to Puffendorf and Grotius, the dull and unfeeling deliberators of questions on which a good heart and understanding can intuitively decide; but

to his own heart and eyes, to his own enlightened reason, to the page of scripture, and to the volumes of authenticated history. Let him appropriate Telemachus.

Princes have been almost uniformly confined intheir views to the narrow systems of worldly politicians and of interested courtiers. False grandeur has fascinated themselves and their subjects. National prosperity has been estimated by fleets and armies, commerce and revenues. The morals, the health, the religion of the individuals, are considerations which do not always claim the attention of a cabinet, but are sometimes discarded as subjects of declamation in the church or in the schools.

Imagination triumphs in the prospect of a golden age, when princes, and all who are concerned in the executive parts of government, shall be early formed, to virtue, to learning, to humanity, to religion. How happy, it has been said, would it be if philosophers, who are justly so called, were kings; or kings, philosophers!

NO. CXXXVI.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE ART
OF PRINTING.

THAT the desire of knowledge for its own. sake, is an adventitious passion, unknown to nature, and to be classed among the refinements of civilization, is an opinion unsupported by experience, and derogatory from the native dignity of a rational creature. Fancy and sentiment, the powers of the intellect, and the feelings of the heart, are, perhaps, by nature equally strong and susceptible in the rude