Chap. VI-Characters who reject Prayer,

CELEBS IN SEARCH OF A WIFE, 304 Chap. VII-Errors in Prayer,

437 Chap. X-Scheme of Prayer proposed for

Young Persons, on the Model of the Lord's

Prayer,

468 Essays on Various Subjects,

471 Moriana,

HINTS

TOWARDS FORMING THE CHARACTER OF A YOUNG PRINCESS.

I call that a complete and generous education, which fits a person to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices both of public and private life, of peace, and of war.- -Milton.

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER. MY LORD.-Could it have been foreseen by the author of the following pages, that in the case of the illustrious person who is the subject of them, the standard of education would have been set so high; and especially, that this education would be committed to such able and distinguished hands, the work might surely have been spared. But as the work was gone to the press before that appointment was announced, which must give general satisfaction, it becomes important to request, that if the advice suggested in any part of the work should appear presumptuous, your lordship, and still more the public, who might be more forward than your lordship in charg ing the author with presumption, will have the candour to recollect, that it was offered not to the learned bishop of Exeter, but to an unknown, and even to an imaginary preceptor.

Under these circumstances, your lordship will perhaps have the goodness to accept the dedication of the following pages; not as arrogantly pointing out duties to the discharge of which you are so competent, but as a mark of the respect and esteem with which I have the honour to be, My lord, your lordship's most obedient and most faithful servant, April 2, 1805.

THE AUTHOR

PREFACE.

If any book, written with an upright and disinterested intention, may be thought to require an apology, it is surely the slight work which is now, with the most respectful deference, submitted, not to the public only, but especially to those who may be more immediately interested in the important object which it has in view.

If we were to inquire what is, even at the present critical period, one of the most momentous concerns which can engage the attention of an Englishman, who feels for his country like a patriot, and for his posterity like a father; what is that object of which the importance is not bounded by the shores of the British islands, nor limited by our colonial possessions ;-with which, in its consequences, the interests, not only of all Europe, but of the whole civilized world, may hereafter be in some measure implicated; what Briton would hesitate to reply, the educa tion of the Princess Charlotte of Wales?

After this frank confession of the unspeakable importance of the subject in view, it is no wonder if the extreme difficulty, as well as delicacy of the present undertaking, is acknowledged to be sensibly felt by the author.

It will too probably be thought to imply not only officiousness, but presumption, that a private individual should thus hazard the obtrusion of unsolicited observations on the proper mode of forming the character of an English princess.-It may seem to involve an appearance of unwarrantable distrust, by implying an apprehension of some deficiency in the plan about to be adopted by those, whoever they may be, on whom this great trust may be devolved: and to indicate self. conceit, by conveying an intimation, after so strong an avowal of the delicacy and difficulty of the task, that such a deficiency is within the powers of the author to supply.

The author, however, earnestly desires, as far as it may be possible to obviate these anticipated charges, by alleging that under this free constitution, in which every topic of national policy is openly canvassed, and in which the prerogative of the crown form no mean part of the liberty of the subject, the principles which it is proper to instil into a royal personage, become a topic, which if discussed respectfully, may without offence, exercise, the liberty of the British

press.

The writer is very far, indeed, from pretending to offer any thing approaching to a sytem of instruction for the royal pupil, much less from presuming to dictate a plan of conduct to the preceptor. What is here presented, is a mere outline, which may be filled up by far more able hands: a sketch which contains no consecutive details, which neither aspires to regularity of design, nor exactness of execution.

To awaken a lively attention to a subject of such moment, to point out some circumstances connected with the early season of improvement, but still more with the subsequent stages of life; to offer, not a treatise on education, but a desultory suggestion of sentiments and principles; to convey instruction, not so much by precept or by argument, as to exemplify it by illustrations and examples; and, above all, to stimulate the wise and the good to exertions far more effectual; these are the real motives which have given birth to this slender performance.

Had the royal pupil been a prince, these hints would never have been obtruded on the world, as it would then have been naturally assumed, that the established plan usually adopted in such cases would have been pursued. Nor does the author presume in the present instance, to insinuate a suspicion, that there will be any want of a large and liberal scope in the projected sys. tem, or to intimate an apprehension that the course of study will be adapted to the sex, rather than to the circumstances of the princess.

If, however, it should be asked, why a stranger presumes to interfere in a matter of such high concern? It may be answered in the words of an elegant critic, that in classic story, when a superb and lasting monument was about to be consecrated to beauty, every lover was permitted to carry a tribute.

The appearance of a valuable elementary work on the principles of Christianity, which has been recently published in our language, translated from the German under the immediate patronage of an august personage, for the avowed purpose of benefit to her illustrious daughters, as it is an event highly auspicious to the general interests of religion, so is it a circumstance very encouraging to the present undertaking.

It is impossible to write on such points as are discussed in this little work without being led to draw a comparison between the lot of a British subject, and that of one who treats on similar topics under a despotic government.-The excellent archbishop of Cambray, with every advantage which genius, learning, and profession, and situation could confer; the admired preceptor of the duke of Burgundy, appointed to the office by the king himself, was yet in the beautiful work which he composed for the use of his royal pupil, driven to the necessity of couching his instructions under a fictitious narrative, and of sheltering behind the veil of fable, the duties of a just sovereign, and the blessings of a good government: he was aware, that even under this disguise, his delineation of both would too probably be construed into a satire on the personal errors of his own king, and the vices of the French government, and in spite of his ingenious discretion, the event justified his apprehensions.

Fortunate are the subjects of that free and happy country who are not driven to have recourse to any such expedients; who may, without danger, dare to express temperately what they think lawfully; who, in describing the most perfect form of government, instead of recurring to poetic invention, need only delineate that under which they themselves live; who, in sketching the character, and shadowing out the duties of a patriot king, have no occasion to turn their eyes from their own country to the throne of Ithaca or Salentum.

HINTS

TOWARDS FORMING THE CHARACTER OF A YOUNG PRINCESS.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

human nature could indeed be wholly effaced, as easily as they are kept out of sight, there We are told that when a sovereign of ancient would at least be some resonable plea against times, who wished to be a mathematician, but the charge of cruelty. But when, on the conwas deterred by the difficulty of attainment, trary, the most elevated monarch must still asked, whether he could not be instructed in retain every natural hope and fear, every af some easier method, the answer which he re-fection and passion of the heart, every frailty ceived was, that there was no royal road to geometry. The lesson contained in this reply ought never to be lost sight of, in that most important and delicate of all undertakings, the education of a prince!

It is a truth which might appear too obvious to require enforcing, and yet of all others it is a truth most liable to be practically forgotten, that the same subjugation of desire and will, of inclinations and tastes, to the laws of reason and conscience, which every one wishes to see promoted in the lowest ranks of society, is still more necessary in the very highest, in order to the attainment either of individual happiness, or of general virtue, to public usefulness, or to private self-enjoyment.

Where a prince, therefore, is to be educated, his own welfare no less than that of his people, humanity no less than policy, prescribe, that the claims and privileges of the rational being should not be suffered to merge in the peculiar rights or exemptions of the expectant sovereign. If, in such cases, the wants and weaknesses of

of the mind, and every weakness of the body, to which the meanest subject is liable; how exquisitely inhuman must it be to provide so sedulously for the extrinsic accident of transient greatness, as to blight the growth of substantial virtue, to dry up the fountains of mental and moral comfort, and in short to commit the illfated victim of such mismanagement to more, almost, than human dangers and difficulties, without even the common resources of the least favoured of mankind.

Yet, must not this be the unaggravated consequence of not accustoming the royal child to that salutary control which the corruption of our nature requires, as its indispensable and earliest corrective? If those foolish desires, which in the great mass of mankind are providentially repressed by the want of means to gratify them, should, in the case of royalty, be thought warrantable, because every possible gratification is within reach, what would be the result, but the full blown luxuriance of folly, vice, and misery? The laws of human nature