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and social manners, which particularly belong to the English character. To those who have witnessed the infantine drawing rooms of the reigning Princes of Germany, at the period of the birth of the three elder children of the Queen of England, could not but be struck with the folly and inutility of subjecting children, in the very earliest stages of infancy, to preside over a ceremony, of which they could scarcely be made to comprehend the meaning, and which was at direct variance. with the feelings of youth.

We are called upon to make the above remarks, in consequence of the Queen, introducing infantine drawing-rooms into this country, the first of which, was held on the 25th of October, 1769, at a time, when the Prince of Wales was little more than six years old-the Bishop of Osnaburg about five, Prince William about four, and the Princess Royal, only in her second year. It never could have entered into the head of any one, but a German Princess, to place four such infants, at the top of a room, decked out in the most outre style of fashion, to have the nobility and gentry of the country introduced to them, and we know not which deserves our reprobation the most, the parties, who could expose their children to such a scene of buffoonery, or those who could so far degrade themselves, as to pay their Court to a set of infants, and deem it an honor to kiss their hands. The reporters, however of those times, inform us, that the royal infants received the company, with the utmost grace and affability, and the Queen was of course, by the chroniclers of the Court, extolled usque ad nauseam, for the extreme attention which she must have paid to the manners of her offspring, to enable them to go through the important scene, with so much credit to themselves, and so few infractions of the rules of politeness.

There were, however, in those times even, some snarling, crabbed, ill-natured persons living, in the character of caricaturists, who considered these infantine drawing-rooms as an excellent subject for the lash of their satirical powers; and,

accordingly, one of them put forth the following caricature, in which the Prince of Wales, with a high toupee and bag-wig, and a long sword dangling at his side, is represented as entering the room, with a kite in his hand; the Bishop of Osna-. burg, with his hobby-horse between his legs; Prince William, spinning his top; and the Princess Royal is behind a screen, receiving some very indispensable assistance from her nurse. It was, however, not long before the Queen discovered, or she was made to know that these drawing-rooms were not congenial with the English taste, and indeed she sometimes found that it was by no means an easy matter to induce the royal boys to undergo the penance of them, and on one occasion, when the three youngsters were engaged in a game of cricket,. and were called upon to dress for the drawing-room, they sent a message back, that the company were to wait till the game

was over.

It has been stated by one of the minor historians of the life of William IV., on alluding to the above circumstance, that these drawing-rooms were adopted by the Queen, for the purpose of "turning the current of public opinion into the peaceful channel, from which it had been diverted by faction." It is true that the throne was at this time shaken to that degree, that it required but the exercise of a very small portion of the powers of the people to overthrow it altogether. The whole of the metropolis was in a state of the utmost commotion; the injudicious and impolitic measures adopted by ministers against Wilkes, roused the indignation of the people to the highest pitch; and the revolutionary spirit manifested in America, brought on by the crooked policy of ministers, and the obstinate, war-loving disposition of the King, actually placed his throne in a state of jeopardy. In what manner then these great political evils could be overcome by two or three royal children holding a drawing-room, of which not a thousandth part of the people knew any thing about, and if they had known it, would only have laughed at it, must be left to be solved by the disseminators of so ridiculous a tale. We cannot, ourselves, trace the slightest connection with the

Prince of Wales, dressed in scarlet and gold, with the insignia of the Order of the Garter; the Bishop of Osnaburg, in blue and gold, with the Order of the Bath; Prince William, in a Roman toga, and the Princess Royal, in a stiff-starched muslin frock, with the determination of the Americans, not to endure the taxation of the mother country. The same histo-rian, however, informs us, that the impression produced by the pleasing spectacle of the scarlet and gold of the Prince of Wales, and the blue and gold of the Bishop of Osnaburg, not forgetting the Roman toga of Prince William, was so very great, that with the view of further conciliating the people, the Prince of Wales was again brought conspicuously before the public, by giving a juvenile ball and supper at Buckingham House; but, as the arm of power, and the gagging system, forced the people to quietude, and America was ultimately lost to the Crown of England, it was evident, as the lawyers would express themselves, that the Queen took nothing by her drawing-rooms, and that the whole benefit derived from them, was a temporary influx of a little money into the pockets of the milliner, the tailor, or the plumassier.

As particularly illustrative of the early character of William IV., we transcribe the following account of the royal children at this time, from one of Mrs. Chapone's letters.

Mrs. Chapone, who was niece of Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Winchester, formerly preceptor to George III, and was in the habit of spending much of her time at her uncle's residence, at Farnham Castle, relates the following anecdotes of the Royal Family, in a letter to Mr. Burrows, dated August 20, 1778.

"Mr. Buller went to Windsor on Saturday; saw the King who inquired much about the Bishop, and hearing that he would be eighty-two next Monday, then,' said the King, I will go and wish him joy'. 'And I,' said the Queen, will go too.' Mr. Buller then dropt a hint of the additional pleasure it would give the Bishop, if he could see the Princes. That,' said the King, requires contrivance; but if I can manage it, we will all go.' On the Monday following, the royal party, consisting of their Majesties, the Prince of Wales, Duke of

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York, Duke of Clarence, the Princess Royal, and Princess Augusta, visited the Bishop. The King,' continues Mrs. Chapone, sent the Princes to pay their compliments to Mrs. Chapone; himself, he said, was an old acquaintance. Whilst the Princes were speaking to me, Mr. Arnold, the sub-preceptor, said, These gentlemen are well acquainted with a certain ode prefixed to Mrs. Carter's Epictetus, if you know any thing of it.' Afterwards, the King came and spoke to us, and the Queen led the Princess Royal to me, saying, "This is a young lady, who, I hope, has much profited by your instructions. She has read them [Letters on the Improvement of the Mind] more than once, and will read them often; and the Princess assented to the praise which followed with a very modest air. I was pleased with all the Princes, but particu larly with Prince William, who is little of his age, but so sensible and engaging, that he won the Bishop's heart, to whom he particularly attached himself, and would stay with him, while all the rest ran about the house. His conversation was surprisingly manly and clever for his age, yet, with the young Bullers, he was quite the boy, and said to John Buller, by way of encouraging him to talk, "Come, we are both boys, you know." All of them showed affectionate respect to the Bishop; the Prince of Wales pressed his hand so hard, that he hurt it.'"

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In regard to the education of Prince William, the same system was adopted with him, as with his elder brothers, but it is an observation, and a very just one, which has been made by some very acute writers, that the British nation, which exercises the utmost jealousy in almost everything that regards its Princes, has been singularly and culpably inattentive to whatever concerns their education. We have, indeed, an instance in the case of the son of the Duke of Cumberland, when the Government on granting a certain sum to defray the expenses of his education, stipulated that he should not be educated out of the country, and when it is considered, that the son of the Duke of Cumberland stands in a very near succession to the throne, it becomes a matter of importance

that he should be educated according to the principles of the English Constitution, and not in accordance with the despotic and arbitrary institutions of the German governments. The country is well aware, how the royal father managed to evade the stipulation imposed upon him, but after all, it was a mere matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, for according to the dictum of the Crown lawyers, the education of Princes is a matter of prerogative, with which the two houses of Parliament have no right to interfere, and consequently, whenever the subject has been agitated in the legislature, as happened in one or two instances, the answers of the friends of the Court to those who perceived, or thought they perceived, something faulty in the system of education pursued with regard to the young Princes, has been, that the education of a Prince of the blood, was a branch of the royal prerogative, and that the mere agitation of the subject was derogatory to the dignity of the Crown. But as we have before hinted, the affair of the Duke of Cumberland was a mere matter of money, the Parliament virtually had it in their power, to lay any restrictions upon him in regard to the education of his son, but the Duke considered it an excellent opportunity of exacting from the people of this country an augmentation of his income, and on what other ground could he apply, than for the education of his son? For himself, he knew that he might knock for ever at the door of the House of Commons, in the character of a royal beggar, and that he would meet with the same treatment, which other beggars generally experience in a more humble state of life. As to the stipulation imposed upon him, he knew he could break it whenever he pleased; and he did break it, for although the people heard of the periodical arrival of Prince George of Cumberland, with his tutor at his heels, in conformity with the stipulation of the English Legislature, yet in reality, it was a mockery; for their appearance in England, was nothing more than a kind of holiday visit, the actual education of the Prince being carried on in Berlin.

We have only to advert to the names of the individuals chosen by George III., for the education of his sons, to arrive

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