dialogues to be considered as fit only for boys, since they abound in wit, humour, good sense, and in allusions, which strongly mark the fertility of the mind from which they originate. In a comparative estimate of genius, according to its kinds and degrees, I should not hesitate to place Erasmus in the same class with Lucian. There is, indeed, a seasoning of salt in all his writings, in which the necessity of being grave did not forbid him to be facetious. The Ciceronianus is an admirable specimen of judgment and pleasantry.

His Praise of Folly is a most humorous satire, and reflects no less honour on the inventive powers than on the good sense of its author; as it was written, if I mistake not, in the space of one week, for the amusement of himself and Sir Thomas More, at whose house he was upon a visit. It made its author many enemies; but his genius rose like the arm of a giant against a host of pigmies, and defeated them all after a short conflict. His forgiveness of the vain and angry Dorpius who first attacked him, evinces his magnanimity and goodness of heart. Spite and envy may secretly undermine, but can never make an open and successful attack on the fortress of true genius.

But the epistles of Erasmus will, perhaps, be found to furnish the student in philology with more amusement than any other of his works. They are, indeed, a valuable treasure of curious information. Their clear and lively language, their poignant wit, and goodnatured humour, render it difficult to lay them aside when once we are engaged in the serious perusal of them. They are very numerous, but they are by no means all which Erasmus wrote, He complains, indeed, of being obliged to write so many, that there was not a possibility of taking copies of them all. A great share of knowledge of

the world, and of human nature, as well as of letters and literary characters, may be collected from them by the attentive reader.

But, indeed, to whatever part of his voluminous works we turn our attention, we can scarcely avoid the sentiments of pleasure and surprise. He has written more than many students were ever able to read. He has written so excellently that all the learned, except a few envious contemporaries, from his own times to ours, have uniformly considered him as a prodigy. And let it never be forgotten, that, under Providence, he owed his education and subsequent improvements entirely to himself. He was used ill and neglected in his youth.

He

abounded neither in books nor instructors; but he possessed a genius and a love of letters, before which all obstacles usually give way, like the Alps to an Hannibal.

It adds greatly to our wonder, in contemplating his large and crowded tomes, when we recollect that he spent his life in a most unsettled state, and in constantly traveling from city to city, and from kingdom to kingdom. But his mind was employed in study wherever he went, and he composed many parts of his works as he rode on his horse. He was also attacked by many enemies; and though he was placable, yet as he was also irascible, much of that time and attention, which would otherwise have been devoted to calm contemplation, was necessarily lost in controversy.

He was certainly the greatest man of his time. Popes, kings, archbishops, bishops, and cardinals hide their diminished heads in his presence. One is, indeed, almost tempted to laugh when one surveys a group of stupid personages, with crowns and mitres, riches and titles, sitting on their thrones and in their cathedral, yet bowing with a homage at once abject and involuntary, to the personal meri

of the poor Erasmus. He, indeed, was permitted, by Providence, to pass through his pilgrimage in this world without ecclesiastical riches or dignity; he was designed as an instance to prove, that great merit is its own reward, and that temporal distinctions are allowed, like trifles beneath the notice of Heaven, to fall indiscriminately on the deserving and the undeserving, the learned and the ignorant. Erasmus had no mitre; but he had the internal satisfactions of genius; he had glory, he had liberty.

Though I am sensible he wants no addition to his fame, and could not receive any from my applause, 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.

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 monarchical 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 serve only to augment the contempt, and rouse the indignation

of his people. 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. The defects of the person would be attributed to the form of his government; and men of the greatest moderation, if they were exempt from royal influence, would heave an involuntary sigh for a republie or a revolution.

Every friend therefore to a reigning family, every lover of political tranquillity, and of regular subordination, 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 culture, 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 a one should be expanded to the utmost degree of possible dilation.

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 sys

tems 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 royal method of learning Latin and Greek; and if there be such a one, the success of it still remains among the arcana of state.

An heir to a crown should certainly learn the ancient 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 inured to mental labour. Let his memory 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 ear 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, a humanized disposition,