action. Her future character will much depend on the course of reading, the turn of temper, the habit of thought now acquired, and the standard of morals now fixed. The acquisition of present tastes will form the elements of her subsequent character. Her present acquirements, it is true, will need to be matured by her after-experience; but experience will operate to comparatively little purpose, where only a slender stock has been laid in for it to work upon; and where these materials for forming the character have not been previously prepared. Things must be known before they are done. The part should be studied before it is acted, if we expect to have it acted well. Where much is to be learned, time must be economised; and in the judicious selection of pagan literature, the discernment of the preceptor will be particularly exercised. All those writers, however justly celebrated, who have employed much learning, in elaborating points which add little to the practical wisdom or virtue of mankind; all such as are rather curious than useful, or ingenious than instructive, should be passed over; nor need she bestow much attention on points which, though they may have been accurately discussed, are not seriously important. Dry critical knowledge, though it may be correctly just, and mere chronicles of events, though they may be strictly true, teach not the things she wants. Such authors as Sallust, who, in speaking of turbulent innovators, remarks, that they thought the very disturbance of things established a sufficient bribe to set them at work; those who, like this exquisite historian, unfold the internal principles of action, and dissect the hearts and minds of their personages, who develop complicated circumstances, furnish a clue to trace the labyrinth of causes and effects, and assign to every incident its proper motive will be eminently useful. But, if she be taught to discern the merits of writers, it is that she may become, not a critic in books, but in human nature. History is the glass by which the royal mind should be dressed. If it be delightful for a private individual to enter with the historian into every scene which he describes, and into every event which he relates; to be introduced into the interior of the Roman senate, or the Athenian Areopagus ; to follow Pompey to Pharsalia, Miltiades to Marathon, or Marlborough to Blenheim; how much more interesting will this be to a sovereign? to him for whom senates debate, for whom armies engage, and who is himself to be a prime actor in the drama! Of how much more importance is it to him, to possess an accurate knowledge of all the successive governments of that world, in a principal government of which he is one day to take the lead! To possess himself of the experience of ancient states, of the wisdom of every antecedent age! To learn moderation from the ambition of one, caution from the rashness of another, and prudence perhaps from the indiscretion of both! To apply foregone examples to his own use; adopting what is excellent, shunning what is erroneous, and omitting what is irrelevant ! Reading and observation are the two grand sources of improvement; but they lie not equally open to all. From the latter, the sex and habits of a royal female, in a good measure, exclude her. She must then, in a greater degree, depend on the information which books afford, opened and illustrated by her preceptor. Though her personal observation must be limited, her advantages from historical sources may be large and various. If history for a time, especially during the reign of the prince whose actions are recorded, sometimes misrepresent characters, the dead, even the royal : dead, are seldom flattered; unless, which indeed too frequently happens, the writer is deficient in that just conception of moral excellence, which teaches to distinguish what is splendid from what is solid. But, sooner or later, history does justice. She snatches from oblivion, or reproach, the fame of those virtuous men, whom corrupt princes, not contented with having sacrificed them to their unjust jealousy, would rob also of their fair renown. When Arulenus Rusticus was condemned by Domitian, for having written, with its deserved eulogium, the life of that excellent citizen, Thrasea Pœtus when Senecio was put to death by the same emperor, for having rendered the like noble justice to Helvidius Priscus-when the historians themselves, like the patriots whom they celebrated, were sentenced to death, their books also being condemned to the flames; when Fannia, the incomparable wife. of Helvidius, was banished, having the courage to carry into exile that book which had been the cause of it; a book of which her conjugal piety had furnished the materials." In the fire which consumed these books," says the author of the life of Agricola, "the tyrants imagined that they had stifled the very utterance of the Roman people, abolished the lawful power of the senate, and forced mankind to doubt of the very evidence of their senses. Having expelled philosophy, and exiled science, they flattered themselves that nothing, which bore the stamp of virtue, would exist."*-But history has vindicated the noble sufferers. Potus and Helvidius will ever be ranked among the most honourable patriots; while the emperor, who, in destroying their lives could not injure their reputation, is consigned to eternal infamy. The examples which history records, furnish faithful admonitions to succeeding princes, respect*Beginning of Tacitus's Life of Agricola. ing the means by which empires are erected and overturned. They shew by what arts of wisdom, or by what neglect of those arts, little states become great, or great states fall into ruin; with what equity or injustice wars have been undertaken; with what ability or incapacity they have been conducted; with what sagacity or short-sightedness treaties have been formed. How national faith has been maintained, or forfeited. How confederacies have been made, or violated. History, which is the amusement of other men, is the school of princes. They are not to read it merely as the rational occupation of a vacant hour, but to consult it as a storehouse of materials for the art of government. There is a splendour in heroic actions, which fires the imagination, and forcibly lays hold on the passions. Hence, the poets were the first, and, in the rude ages of antiquity, the only historians. They seized on whatever was dazzling in character, or shining in action; exaggerated heroic qualities, immortalized patriotism, and deified courage. But, instead of making their heroes patterns to men, they lessened the utility of their examples, by elevating them into gods. Hence, however, arose the first idea of history; of sna ching the deeds of illustrious men from the delusions of fable; of bringing down extravagant powers, and preternatural faculties, within the limits of human nature and possibility; and reducing overcharged characters to the size and shape of real life; giving proportion, order, and arrangement to the widest scheme of action, and to the most extended duration of time. CHAPTER VI. Laws-Egypt-Persia. BUT however the fictions of poetry might have given being to history; it was sage political institutions, good governments, and wise laws, which formed both its solid basis, and its valuable superstructure. And it is from the labours of ancient legislators, the establishment of states, the foundation of governments, and the progress of civil society, that we are to look for more real greatness, and more useful instruction, than from all the extravagant exploits recorded in the fabulous ages of antiquity. So deep is the reverential awe which mankind have uniformly blended with the idea of laws, that almost all civilized nations have affected to wrap up the origin of them in the obscurity of a devout mystery, and to intimate that they sprang from a divine source. This has arisen partly from a love of the marvellous, inherent in the human mind; partly from the vanity of a national fondness in each country, for losing their original in the trackless paths of impenetrable antiquity. Of the former of these tastes, a legislator, like Numa, who had deep views, and who knew how much the people reverence whatever is mysterious, would naturally avail himself. And his supposed divine communication was founded in his consummate knowledge of the human mind, a knowledge which a wise prince will always turn to good account. But, however the mysteriousness of the origin of laws may excite the reverence of the vulgar, it is the wise only who will duly venerate their sanctity, |