4

peculiarly fortunate in this respect; the first in the friendship of Sully, the second in that of Oxenstiern. The attachment of Sully to Henry had been tried in the worst of times. When that monarch was reduced to the most mortifying extremities, and it became very doubtful whether he would be able to make good his claims to the crown of France, Sully sold his patrimony to relieve his master's wants. The sincerity of Oxenstiern's affection had also been manifested by substantial proofs. In return they both possessed the unlimited confidence of their respective sovereigns.

and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden were both | ral nature. His companions were the younger branches of the nobility, whose political sentiments were in direct opposition to those professed by the nobleman who had the superintendence of his education, whose aim it appears to have been, to have formed the prince according to his own model, and whose chief anxiety it appears to have been, to prevent his royal highness from receiving any other impression than what he pleased should be given to him. In this instance lord Bute committed an egregious error, for nothing will more powerfully contribute to render a British monarch amply acquainted with the merits of the numerous men of parts in his kingdom, and especially with the talents and virtues of persons of high rank, than to have been long conversant in the world, previously to his accession to the crown. Environed by a young and spirited nobility and gentry, who feel their future consequence in the scale of government, he will find them unawed by any slavish fears in the respect they pay to his person, and will be ac

Let those who inveigh so bitterly against friendships between kings and subjects, cite an example of two princes that were better served, whose affairs were more successfully and more faithfully managed; who were, in short, wiser and happier in the united choice of their friends and ministers, than Henry and Gustavus; they are an illustrious refutation of that austere and gloomy notion, that no sincerity of friendship, no sentimental union, can subsist between a sub-tuated by every motive to live with them as ject and a king.

But what an injurious imputation on the character of princes and of kings! If ever the sternness of republicanism meant a degradation of royalty, it was surely by fabricating this base idea. The hateful notion that a king is incapable of friendly attachment, is founded on the rankest hatred to his station, and in a wicked desire to render it odious by representing sovereignty as incompatible with the feelings of humanity, and warning them as it were to expect no return of benevolence from the possessors of supreme power.

The clamour which was raised against the associates of the prince of Wales, may however be traced more to political intrigue, than to any fear of the destruction or the deterioration of his mo

his companions, and to profit by the lessons of freedom, which he has daily opportunities of learning from those unrestrained effusions with which high-minded youth and conscious independence will naturally inspire them.

By long dwelling among such associates, his mind will be seasoned betimes with just notions of things. He will be taught experimentally to discern the good and the bad qualities that pass in continual variety before his eyes; will form instructive connexions; he will have numerous opportunities to pry into mankind; he will mix with all ranks and professions, and acquire an extensive knowledge of life; and when he arrives at sovereignty, he will have been a man among men, and will be thereby better qualified to rule over them.

drained to liquidate his enormous purchases in
Hanover, and literature and the arts were neg-
lected for the sword or the truncheon. Never
were two characters more dissimilar than those
of George II. and his son Frederick, the father
of our lamented monarch.
The former ap-
peared to found his greatness in camps and
military deeds; he loved to encounter the
bustling front of war, at a distance from his
kingdom, rather than, surrounded by the native
genius of his kingdom, infuse life and vigour
into the arts, the literature, and the declining
commerce of the country. The latter appeared
to hate the horrid dissonance of war: his ideas
of the greatness of a nation rested not on its mi-
litary exploits, nor on the number of killed and
wounded which disfigure its annals. It was to
the arts and sciences that he directed his at-
tention; he collected around him some of the
most eminent literary characters of the age, for
he was convinced that the principal erudition
of a king should consist in literature and
morals. They are the foundation of all that
dignifies human nature; they form the under-
standing to solidity and elegance, and prepare
men for a right perception of propriety, and of
true taste in all their undertakings. It is
chiefly by the encouragement of those arts that
polish and illuminate the mind, that the greatest
princes have manifested the goodness of their
understanding, and obtained the highest re-
putation: even those monarchs, whose educa-
tion, from untoward accidents or shameful
carelessness, has been neglected, if otherwise
endowed with parts, have perceived the ne-
cessity of acting in this manner.

With the demise of the prince of Wales be- | tion of the king. His coffers in England were gan the secluded life of the royal mother of our late sovereign. The king now and then paid her a formal visit, but it was not from personal regard to herself, but to ascertain the truth of some insidious reports which were conveyed to him, respecting the management of the youthful branches of the family. Her happiness appeared to be centred in her children, and she preferred the pleasures of domestic life to the ceremony and turmoil of a court. It appeared to be her particular wish to prosecute the plans laid down by her departed prince for the encouragement of native industry; and the journals of that period represent her as frequently visiting the tapestry manufactory at Battersea, under the direction of Monsieur Parisot; and it appeared to be her ardent wish, that this country might be enabled to rival the French in that difficult branch of the arts. Her royal highness would never allow one of her domestics to appear in any article of foreign manufacture, and so great was the force of her patriotic example in this respect, that the rage for French fashions gradually subsided, and towards the latter period of the reign of George II., the court-dresses were entirely of British manufacture; and, by her influence alone, some very heavy duties were imposed on the admission of French manufactures into this country. It was well for our late monarch that the attention to the commercial interests of the country was so conspicuously displayed by his illustrious mother, as it stamped on his juvenile mind those indelible impressions of the real sources of the greatness of his kingdom, which, at a future period of his life, displayed themselves in so conspicuous a manner. On the other hand, the integrity or the aggrandizement of his favourite electorate appeared to absorb, for a time, the whole atten

The celebrated emperor Charlemagne and Louis XIV. were, at very distant ages from each other, conspicuous instances of this truth. The education of both had been extremely neg-

lected, and they were, in consequence, illiterate; | jesty took his leave; but he called again on the

To which his royal highness returned the following most gracious answer: Gentlemen,

I return you my thanks for this mark of your duty to the king, and of your regard for me. You You may be assured, I shall always be glad to contribute every thing in my power to the success of your laudable attempt for extending the commerce of his majesty's subjects.

the Fourth of France, and what chiefly endears | greatly upon his gracious protection, we cannot but hope the memory of that prince to the French was, for the same benefits from the influence of your royal the paternal ardour with which he was wont highness, the inheritor of all his virtues; and therefore, so frequently to express his celebrated wish, Sir, we beseech you to take this fishery under your prothat he might not die till he had enabled the and prove the most auspicious omen of its success. tection, which will add new vigour to our endeavours, poorest of his subjects to provide a fowl for his Sunday's dinner. What sublimity of patriotism in a homely. expression! Let us compare this speech with that of Frederick prince of Wales, who when he sent one hundred guineas to the distressed weavers of Spitalfields, declared, he hoped he should see the time when there would not be a distressed artisan in the kingdom; and, let impartiality decide whether our late monarch did not lose by the decease of a parent, from whose heart could emanate so patriotic a sentiment. Among the many laudable national undertakings which had been patronised by Frederick, the British fisheries were not the least considerable; on his demise, the president and council of the Free British Fishery waited upon prince George, then prince of Wales, to solicit the honour of nominating him their governor. The answer which his royal highness gave to the deputation, proved that he was worthy to supply the place which had been filled by his illustrious father.

Mr. Serjeant Belfield, recorder of Exeter, having obtained the royal assent, presented his royal highness with the patent of the office of high steward of the city of Exeter, in the room of his deceased father, and with the freedom of the said city, in a gold box of curious workmanship, which his royal highness accepted in a gracious and obliging manner.

The prince of Wales, educated in a state of seclusion, restrained from general intercourse with the world, and surrounded by many whom he disliked, attained that age which, according to act of parliament, enabled him to assume the reins of government on the demise of the

The speech addressed to his royal highness king, and thus the regency bill which had so was as follows:

May it please your Royal Highness,

The president, vice-president, council and society of the Free British Fishery, encouraged by his majesty's royal approbation, humbly approach your royal highness, to entreat your favourable acceptance of being their governor, an honour condescended to by your illustrious and much-lamented father, whose princely virtues were

eminently conspicuous, by his constant attention to, and his generous concern for, the welfare of this kingdom, and the prosperity of its commerce.-As we considered the success of this national undertaking, from which the

particularly excited the attention of the country, became a dead letter, and they who had erected upon it their hopes of aggrandizement, shrunk back into their native nothingness. The household of his royal highness was now established on the model of his late father's, and the following noblemen and gentlemen were appointed officers to it:

Earl of Bute,-groom of the stool.

Earl of Huntingdon,-master of the horse.

Earl of Sussex, lord Down, lord Robert Bertie-old

Earl of Euston, earl of Pembroke, lord Digby,-new | the passions are ardent; and, who will deny lords of the bedchamber. that a prince, standing as he did in the most Messrs. Schutz and Peachy,-old grooms of the bed- elevated situation of society, around which

Thomas Farrant, Esq.,-appointed deputy auditor, in tone of authority into the kind and expresauditor Aislabie's office.