at the immediate knowledge of the principles in which they were educated. The political bias of the King was toryism, in its most comprehensive sense. The political partialities of the Queen not only tended to the same point, but imbued as she was with the high aristocratic predilections of the German principalities, it cannot be considered but almost as a natural consequence, that the tutors of their children should have been selected from that class, who were the most conspicuous for the display of those principles, which they themselves professed. The preceptor of a Prince is not always chosen according to the extent of his attainments, or the profundity of his knowledge, for the situation is too often obtained by personal interest, dexterity, and intrigue, to the actual exclusion of direct and acknowledged merit. Fenelon was the tutor of the heir to the Crown of France, his virtue was unimpeachable, his morals without a stain, his maxims of integrity were rigid and inflexible, and on that account he was dismissed the Court. We never heard of a tutor of an English Prince being dismissed from Court for a similar offence.

There cannot be a doubt, and many actions of their life distinctly verify the position, that the mode of education which George III. adopted with his children, was anything but calculated to make them conversant with the great theory of human life, and as to practice, they far too soon emancipated themselves from the galling yoke of dominion, and became comparatively speaking, their own masters, when in some measure, they ought to have been in leading-strings. It is too much a habit of human nature, to make others follow in the track in which we have moved ourselves, and if we minutely consider the mode of education adopted with George III, we shall then be able to trace many of the errors and mistakes which that Monarch made in the education of his children. The chilling restraint and seclusion which his system of education adopted, derived all their severer features from the King himself; who, in certain matters evinced a degree of self-will, characterised by some, as firmness, but which in reality, degenerated into a kind of mulish obstinacy, yet by the King

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himself, it was designated as royal prudence. The effect of this system of education was in after years, more observable in the Prince of Wales, than in any other branch of the royal family. It was the foundation of that system of seclusion, and of a total want of access, which was more in character with the Emperor of China, than that of a Prince, ruling over a free and independent people. In every Court of Europe, it is practicable to lay before the Sovereign any truth, in which the rights of an individual, the good of the nation, or the good of the Sovereign himself are concerned, but the Prince of Wales on account of the faulty system of his education, was, when he came into the possession of the Kingly power, the most inacessible Monarch that ever sat upon the throne of England. It is the fashion of Englishmen to talk of the despotism of Russia, and Germany, but Paul the Emperor of Russia, had his "lion's mouth," into which his subjects threw their grievances, and with all his madness, to his honour be it said, that he attended to the contents of "the lion's mouth," as it was termed in Petersburg, before he admitted the foreign Ambas sadors into his presence. He never neglected, nor refused to give an answer, even to the petition of the humblest of his subjects, nor did he ever hesitate to redress a grievance, as soon as the complainant had established its existence. Even the calumniated Turk, from the midst of his women in his seraglio, receives the complaints of his people, private or political, and although redress may not always be given, the subject has the satisfaction to know that his complaint has been attended to. There is, however, another man, greater than all them, whom we may quote in illustration of the present subject, and that individual was Napoleon Buonapartethe branded despot of Europe; he did, indeed, affect to, and did hold the Princes and Sovereigns of Europe in contempt, but he listened to the complaints of the people, and could be approached by even the most ordinary of men; but the Prince Regent of England was inaccessible, his gates was hermetically barred more to his own disadvantage and loss, than to that of any one, who ever wished to approach him.

It must be admitted that the professional pursuits of the Bishop of Osnaburg, when he fancied himself competent to command an English army against one of the most renowned generals, who ever headed the armies of France; and of Prince William on the quarter-deck of a British man of war, the noblest station in the world, must from their very nature have weaned them from that system of personal exclusion, and that sense of individual importance, which the system of education adopted with them, was so well calculated to inculcate. There is an instance on record, in which three memorials of three different sorts, one for the public interest, one for the Prince's domestic happiness, and the third containing a private claim, could not possibly find access to him. Colonel M'Mahon, his private secretary, would have nothing to do with them. Lord Moira, the private friend of the prince, would have nothing to do with them, and the Secretary of State for the Home Department put them in his pocket, and thought no more about them-and why ?-it was more than their places were worth to break in upon the privacy of the ruler of a people, and the ruler of the English people into the bargain, who had entered upon the duties of his office with the avowed principle, that the crown is held for the benefit of the people, but of which people, cooped up in the seraglio of Carlton House, he knew but little, and cared still less.

A very just and rational ground of complaint existed respecting the system of restraint to which the sons of the King were exposed in their education, and which certainly had a tendency to give an impress to their characters, not exactly consistent with that of a free-born Englishman. On their emancipation from the nursery and the superintendence of Lady Charlotte Finch, who, following the instructions of the royal parents, became in her department as great a martinet, as one of her pupils afterwards showed himself in the army, the three royal brothers were placed under the care of Dr. John James Majendie, till the year 1771, when a separate establishment was formed for the Prince of Wales and the Bishop

of Osnaburg at Buckingham Palace, whilst Prince William and Prince Edward remained at Kew.

We should justly lay ourselves open to the charge of illiberality, and perhaps of falsification, were we here to cast the slightest imputation on the character of the eminent individuals, who were selected as the preceptors of the royal youths. They ought not to be called to an account for the defect of a plan, in the construction of which, it is probable, they never were consulted. The preceptors of the Princes were not left to adopt a system of education according to their own judgment and discretion; but the plan in all its details was strictly laid down for them, accompanied with the most peremptory injunction, not to deviate from it in the slightest degree. The error, therefore, is to be attributed solely to those who framed the system of education, and not to those, who had to carry it into execution, for it would be the height of injustice to the memory of those learned men, were we not openly to declare, that the persons to whose charge the care of the juvenile years of the royal youths was committed, were men eminently qualified for the execution of the important duty reposed in them.

One of the greatest faults attached to the royal family of this country is, that in the election of their official servants, they generally give the preference to foreigners, which is tantamount to saying that, a corresponding degree of talent is not to be found in this country, or that being themselves sprung from a foreign stock, they amalgamate better together, independently of which, there is frequently a sturdiness and an unbending disposition in an Englishman, not very palatable to the taste of German aristocracy.

At the time when the Earl of Holderness was appointed preceptor to the princes, there were men in our chartered schools and universities of the most brilliant talents, and well fitted in every sense for the important task of education: these men, however, were all passed over to make room for the appointment of a Mr de Salzes, as sub-preceptor, who, although

he bore the character of an amiable man, and a profound classical scholar was, as being a native of Switzerland, and knowing little or nothing of English history, or even the first rudiments of the English Constitution, not a very fit person to be entrusted with the education of British Princes. As the children of royalty, they were of course to be educated in the belief of the divine right of Kings, and this was to be taught them by an individual, who had been brought up as a republican; and who in his native mountains had heard of Kings and Courts, but knew little of their nature or character, except from history.

A spirit of nationality reigns in the breast of almost every individual, and the introduction of an alien into any particular establishment, is soon followed by the introduction of another. Thus, when it was determined to appoint a sub-preceptor to Prince William, and Prince Edward, the King consulted Mr. de Salzes, on the choice of the person to be appointed, and it was not to be supposed that Mr. de Salzes would recommend an Englishman, on the same principle, that it was scarcely ever known that a Scotchman recommended an Englishman to a situation, until he despaired of finding one of his own. country to fill it. It might have been supposed that if George III. had not sufficient penetration to discover the merit of some of the dignitaries of the church, by whom he was surrounded, and who, by their classical attainments, were capable of undertaking the task of the education of his two younger sons; that Mr. de Salzes might in his intercourse with some of the learned men, with whom he was daily brought into contact, by virtue of his office as sub-preceptor, have selected a native of this country as worthy of the office of educating the two royal youths-but the very contrary was the result, for being himself a Swiss, he recommended a Colonel Bude, a native of the Pays de Vaud, who had been page to the Prince of Orange, and on his retiring from that situation, entered the Sardinian army. These no doubt, were great and weighty qualifications for the preceptor of a Prince of the blood royal of England; but nevertheless, they prevailed, and Colonel