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in this world without ecclefiaftical riches or dignity; he was defigned as an inftance to prove, that great merit is its own reward, and that temporal diftinctions are allowed, like trifles beneath the notice of heaven, to fall indifcriminately on the deferving and the undeferving, the learned and the ignorant. Erafmus had no mitre; but he had the internal fatisfactions of genius; he had glory, he had liberty.

Though I am fenfible he wants no addition to his fame, and could not receive any from my applaufe, yet I have ventured to pay him this humble tribute, as the oblation of gratitude for the great and repeated pleasure which his works once afforded me in the retirement of a college.

No. CXXXV. ON THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE.

N opinion has often prevailed, that the education of a prince ought to be totally different from that of other gentlemen, and that any remarkable fhare of learning would difgrace him. I fhall not hesitate to affirm, that they were the enemies of princes who advanced fuch an opinion; for nothing can contribute more effectually to the general abolition of the monarchical form of government, than to render the character and perfon 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 ferve only to augment the contempt, and roufe the indignation of his people. Though he fhould fit on his throne, furrounded by his cringing courtiers, and his ftanding army; and though he should number among the provinces of his empire, the regions of the east and the weft; yet, in the eyes of every fenfible and independent fpectator, his perfonal littlenefs would be rendered ftill lefs, by a comparifon with his hereditary and official magnificence. The defects of the perfon would be attributed to the form of his government; and men of the greatest moderation,

deration, if they were exempt from royal influence, would heave an involuntary figh for a republic or a revolution.

Every friend therefore to a reigning family, every lover of political tranquillity, and of regular fubordination, will wish to augment the perfonal accomplishments of that youth who is destined, at some future period, to wield a fceptre. He will recollect, that the mind of a prince comes from the hand of nature, in a ftate no lefs rude than the mind of a peafant; and that, if it is not formed by early culture, it will foon become much ruder, more refractory, and more vicious, under the many unfavourable circumftances of an exalted ftation. It will be readily allowed, that a peculiar polish, enlargement, and liberality, is required in him who is to look with a comprehenfive eye through all the ranks of fociety, and eftimate the true interefis of nations, and of mankind at large. Both the heart and the understanding of fuch an one, fhould be expanded to the utmost degree of possible dilation.

But no method of culture is found fo much to fertilize the human mind, as that kind of difcipline which is called the claffical. A prince, therefore, though he fhould 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 feminary. No whimsical fyftems of pragmatical and conceited tutors fhould be admitted. The boy fhould be taught his grammar like other boys; for though there is indeed a royal game of the goofe, I never have yet heard of a royal method of learning Latin and Greek; and if there be fuch an one, the fuccefs of it ftill remains among the arcana of state.

An heir to a crown fhould certainly learn the antient 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 be exercifed in learning the rules of Lilly's grammar. Let him be confined

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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 fhame the fycophantic herd of young noblemen, who crowd, with all the fervility 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 felf-intereft. Proceed with him regularly, from the fables of Phædrus to the philofophy of Cicero, from the Cyropædia of Xenophon to the hiftories and politics of Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Salluft, and Polybius. Let his ear be familiarized to the fine language and fentiments of Cicero and Demofthenes, and his heart ennobled by the examples of the brightest characters of Greece and Rome.

Why should his fuperintendants be fo cruel as not to cultivate in him a taste for the beauties of poetry, or leave him unacquainted with Homer and Virgil? An elegant tafte, an humanized difpofition, an enlightened understanding, will adorn him more than the jewels in his crown, or the robes of his coronation. It will give him an internal fource of happiness, and will teach him rather to feek his pleasures in a humane and generous conduct, than in the difplay of pomp, or the indulgence of luxury. A prince, with a mind uncultivated, muft neceffarily take his chief delight in mischief, in vice, or in unprincely occupations; but he, whofe underftanding is illuminated, and heart purified by a right difcipline, will deferve a title which has been often unjuftly claimed-that of Heaven's Vicegerent.

When, by the clofe application of ten or twelve years, a firm and broad bafis is laid of antient learning, let the ftripling be introduced to the avenues of all the parts of human knowledge. Let the years which elapfe 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 furround him, under the tuition of a governor who poffeffes, not only official and titular, but perfonal authority, under one who is not frightened by the laughter of fafhion, of diffipation,

diffipation, or of falfe philofophy; from filling his pupil's mind with moral virtues, and a fincere, not a political, veneration for chriftianity.

All this is a general preparation for the particular purfuits which become a King, and these are law and politics. But I mean not the narrow fyftem of, a mercenary practitioner and a cunning ftatefman, but the general principles of juftice and equity; the wife maxims of government as it is inftituted for the diffufion of happiness and virtue among the individuals of a nation, and not for the extenfion of empire, or the accumulation of deftructive opulence. What a fituation is a Throne for the indulgence of the feelings of a christian, and of a compaffionate 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 queftions on which a good heart and understanding can intuitively decide; but to his own heart and eyes, to his own enlightened reafon, to the page of fcripture, and to the volumes of authenticated history.

Princes have been almoft uniformly confined in their views to the narrow fyftems of worldly politicians, and of interested courtiers. Falfe grandeur has fafcinated themselves, and their fubjects. National profperity has been estimated by fleets and armies, commerce and revenues. The morals, the health, the religion of the individuals, are confiderations which do not claim the attention of a cabinet, but are difcarded as fubjects of declamation in the church or in the schools. "What "is it to me," cries aloud the Wisdom of this world, "while his lordship knows how to fuperintend the 66 navy, whether he believes in God or the Devil, and "whether he has kept fuch laws as I neither understand

nor value, the laws of relative and chriftian duty?" A nation thus advances in the devious paths of a false wisdom, till an incenfed Providence, wearied with repeated provocation, vifits it at laft with a curfe. Look from the Ganges to the Thames, and acknowledge the evident vifitation of a chaftifing Providence.

Imagination triumphs in the profpect of a golden age, when Princes, and all who are concerned in the executive

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parts of government, shall be early formed to virtue, to learning, to humanity, to religion. How happy, it has been faid, would it be, if Philofophers, who are juftly fo called, were Kings; or Kings, Philosophers!

No. CXXXVI. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE ART OF PRINTING.

TH

HAT the defire of knowledge for its own fake, is an adventitious paffion unknown to nature, and to be claffed among the refinements of civilization, is an opinion unfupported by experience, and derogatory from the native dignity of a rational creature. Fancy and fentiment, the powers of the intellect, and the feelings of the heart, are, perhaps, by nature equally ftrong and fufceptible in the rude Indian, and in the polifhed member of an established community. Perhaps thefe fimilar powers would be equally fit for exertion, and thefe propenfities equally importunate for gratification, if the favage were not conftantly engaged in providing for that neceffary fuftenance, which, without his own interpofition, is commonly fecured to the philofopher.

The pupil of nature, under all his disadvantages, feels the impulfe of a fpecies of literary curiofity, and feeks its fatisfaction. He poffeffes the faculty of memory; he must therefore, without the co-operation of his will, remember many of the impreffions received by the fenfes he has a power of reflection, which will teach him to reafon and draw inferences, without defigning it, from the objects of his experience and obfervation. He feels within himself an imagination, capable of recalling paft ideas of pleasure and pain, and apt to be delighted by beauty, novelty, and grandeur. Every natural exertion of natural faculties is attended with fatisfaction. He feels it from the unpremeditated exertions of the mental powers; he tacitly acknowledges it to be congenial to his mind, and

of