natural a connexion between the unprincipled domination and profuse magnificence of Louis XIV. and the melancholy fate of his far better and more amiable successor. He will remember the solid answer of the Spartan king, who being reproached by a superficial observer with having left the regal power impaired to his posterity, replied, "No; for he had left it more secure, therefore more permanent." A large and just conception of interest, therefore, no less than of duty, will prompt a wise prince to reject all measures which, while they appear to flatter the love of dominion, naturally inherent in the mind of man, by holding forth the present extension of his power, yet tend obstinately to weaken its essential strength; to make his authority the object of his people's jealousy, rather than of their affection; to cause it to rest on the uncertain basis of military power, rather than on the deep and durable foundations of the constitution.

In order to enable him the better, therefore, to know the true nature and limits of his authority, he will endeavour to develop the constitutional foundations on which it rests. Sovereigns, even female sovereigns, though they cannot have leisure to become fully acquainted with the vast mass of our laws, ought at least to imbibe the spirit of them. If they be not early taught the general principles of our laws and constitution, they may be liable, from the flatterers to whom they may be exposed, to hear of nothing but the power which they may exert, or the influence which they may exercise, without having their attention directed to those counteracting principles, which, in a limited monarchy like ours, serve, in numberless ways, to balance and restrain that power.

It should be worked into a principle in the mind, that it is in consideration of the duties which the

laws impose on a prince, that those laws have

secured to him either dignity or prerogative; it being a maxim of the law, that protection and allegiance are reciprocal. With the impression of the power, the splendour, and the dignity of royalty, the ideas of trust, duty, and responsibility should be inseparably interwoven. It should be assiduously inculcated, that the LAWS form the very basis of the throne; the root and ground-work of the monarch's political existence. One peculiar reason why a prince ought to know so much of the laws and constitution as to be able to determine what is, and what is not, an infringement of them, is, that he may be quick-sighted to the slightest approximation of ministers towards any such encroachments. A farther reason is, that, by studying the laws and constitution of the country, he may become more firmly attached to them, not merely by national instinct and fond prejudice, because they are his own, but from judgment, reason, knowledge, discrimination, preference, habit, obligation, -in a word, because they are the best.

But as this superficial sketch proposes not to be an essay on political, but moral instruction, these remarks are only hazarded, in order to inti mate the peculiar turn which the royal education ought to take. If a sovereign of England be, in such a variety of respects, supreme, it follows, not only that his education should be liberal, large, and general, but that it should, moreover, be directed to a knowledge of those departments in which he will be called to preside.

As supreme magistrate and the source of all judicial power, he should be adequately acquainted, not only with the law of nature and of nations, but particularly with the law of England. As possessing the power of declaring war, and contracting alliances, he should be thoroughly conversant with those authors who, with the soundest judgment, the

deepest moral views, and the most correct precision, treat of the great principles of political justice; who best unfold the rights of human nature, and the mischiefs of unjust ambition. He should be competently acquainted with the present state of the different governments of Europe, with which that of Great Britain may have any political relation; and he should be led to exercise that intuitive discernment of character and talents, which will enable him to decide on the choice of ambassadors, and other foreign ministers, whom it is his prerogative to appoint.

As he is the fountain of honour, from which proceeds titles, distinctions, and offices, he should be early accustomed to combine a due attention to character, with the examination of claims, and the appreciation of services; in order that the honours of the subject may reflect no dishonour on the prince. Those whose distinguished lot it is to bestow subordinate offices and inferior dignities, should evince, by the judgment with which they confer them, how fit they themselves are to discharge the highest.

Is he supreme head of the church? Hence arises a strong obligation to be acquainted with ecclesiastical history in general, as well as with the history of the church of England in particular. He should learn, not merely from habit and prescription, but from an attentive comparison of our national church with other ecclesiastical institutions, to discern both the distinguishing characters and appropriate advantages of our church establishment. He ought to inquire in what manner its interests are interwoven with those of the state, so far as to be inseparable from them. He should learn, that from the supreme power, with which the laws invest him over the church, arises a most awful responsibility, especially in the grand prerogative of be

stowing the higher ecclesiastical appointments-a trust which involves consequences far too extensive for human minds to calculate; and which a sovereign, even amid all the dazzling splendour of royalty, while he preserves tenderness of conscience, and quickness of sensibility, will not reflect on without trepidation. While history offers numberless instances of the abuse of this power, it records numberless striking examples of its proper application. It even presents some, in which good sense has operated usefully in the absence of all principle. When a profligate ecclesiastic applied for preferment to the profligate duke of Orleans, while regent of France, urging as a motive, that he should be dishonoured if the duke did not make him a bishop; "And I,” replied the regent, "shall be dishonoured if I do."

CHAPTER V.

On the importance of studying ancient history.

THOSE pious persons do not seem to understand the true interests of Christianity, who forbid the study of pagan literature. That it is of little value, comparatively with Christian learning, does not prove it to be altogether without its usefulness. In the present period of critical investigation, heathen learning seems to be justly appreciated in the scale of letters; the wisdom and piety of some of our most eminent contemporaries having successfully applied it to its noblest office, by rendering it subservient

* Philip duke of Orleans was declared regent of the kingdom of France during the minority of Louis XV., in 1715. This, however, was contrary to the will of the deceased monarch. The regent died in 1723.—ED.

to the purposes of revelation, in multiplying the evidences, and illustrating the proofs. Thus the Christian emperor, when he destroyed the heathen temples, consecrated the golden vessels to adorn the Christian churches.*

In this enlightened period, religion, our religion at least, does not, as in her days of darkness, feel it necessary to degrade human learning, in order to withdraw herself from scrutiny. The time is past, when it was produced as a serious charge against Saint Jerome, that he had read Homer; when a doctor of the Sorbonne penitently confessed, among his other sins, that the exquisite muse of Virgil had made him weep for the woes of Dido; and when the works of Tacitus were condemned to the flames, from the papal chair, because the author was not a Roman Catholic. It is also curious to observe a papist persecuting the memory of a pagan, on the ground of his superstition! Pope Gregory the Great expelled Livy from every Christian library

on this account !

The most acute enemy of Christianity, the emperor Julian, who had himself been bred Christian and a scholar, well understood what was most likely to hurt its cause. He knew the use which the Christians were making of ancient authors, and of rhetoric, in order to refute error and establish truth. "They fight us," said he, "by the knowledge of our own authors; shall we suffer ourselves to be stabbed with our own swords?" He actually made a law to interdict their reading Homer and Demosthenes; prohibited to their schools the study of antiquity, and ordered that they should confine themselves to the explanation of Matthew and Luke, in the churches of the Galileans.

It can never be too soon, for the royal pupil, to begin to collect materials for reflection, and for

* Constantine the Great.