regard, it purifies passion, and exalts love into religion: when we pray for those with whom we have worldly intercourse, it smoothes down the swellings of envy, and bids the tumults of anger and ambition subside : when we pray for our country, it sanctifies patriotism; when we pray for those in authority, it adds a divine motive to human obedience: when we pray for our enemies, it softens the savageness of war, and mollifies hatred into tenderness, and resentment into sorrow. And we can only learn the duty so difficult to human nature, of forgiving those who have offended us, when we bring ourselves to pray for them to him whom we ourselves daily offend. When those who are the faithful followers of the same Divine Master pray for each other, the reciprocal intercession delightfully realizes that beautiful idea of "the communion of saints." There is scarcely anything which more enriches the Christian than the circulation of this holy commerce; than the comfort of believing, while he is praying for his Christian friends, that he is also reaping the benefit of their prayers for him.

Some are for confining their intercessions only to the good, as if none but persons of merit were entitled to our prayers. Merit! who has it? desert! who can plead it?-in the sight of God, I mean. Who shall bring his own piety, or the piety of others, in the way of claim, before a Being of such transcendent holiness, "that the heavens are not clean in his sight?" And if we wait for perfect holiness as a preliminary to prayer, when shall such erring creatures pray at all to HIM "who chargeth the angels with folly!"

In closing this little work with the subject of intercessory prayer, may the author be allowed to avail herself of the feeling it suggests to her own heart? And while she earnestly implores that Being, who can make the meanest of his creatures instrumental to his glory, to bless this humble attempt to those for whom it was written, may she, without presumption, entreat that this work of Christian charity may be reciprocal, and that those who peruse these pages may put up a petition for her, that in the great day, to which we are all hastening, she may not be found to have suggested to others that she herself did not believe, or to have recommended what she did not desire to practise? In that awful day of everlasting decision, may both the reader and the writer be pardoned and accepted, "not for any works of righteousness which they have done," but through the merits of the GREAT INTERCESSOR.

HINTS TOWARDS FORMING THE CHARACTER OF A

YOUNG PRINCESS.

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER.

MY LORD,-Could it have been foreseen by the Author of the following pages, that, in the case of the illustrious person who is the subject of them, the standard of education would have been set so high; and especially, that this education would be committed to such able and distinguished hands, the work might surely have been spared. But as the second volume was gone to the press before that appointment was announced, which must give general satisfaction, it becomes important to request, that if the advice suggested in any part of the work should appear presumptuous, your Lordship, and still more the public, who might be more forward than your Lordship in charging the Author with presumption, will have the candour to recollect, that it was offered, not to the learned Bishop of Exeter, but to an unknown, and even to an imaginary preceptor. Under these circumstances, your Lordship will perhaps have the goodness to accept the Dedication of these slight volumes, not as arrogantly pointing out duties to the discharge of which you are so competent, but as a mark of the respect and esteem with which I have the honour to be, my Lord, your Lordship's most obedient and most faithful servant, THE AUTHOR. April 2d, 1805.

PREFACE.

If any book, written with an upright and disinterested intention, may be thought to require an apology, it is surely the slight work which is now, with the most respectful deference, submitted, not to the public only, but especially to those who may be more immediately interested in the important object which it has in view.

If we were to inquire what is, even at the present critical period, one of the most momentous concerns which can engage the attention of an Englishman, who feels for his country like a patriot, and for his posterity like a father; what is that object, of which the importance is not bounded by the shores of the British islands, nor limited by our colonial possessions;— with which, in its consequences, the interests, not only of all Europe, but of the whole civilized world, may hereafter be in some measure implicated;—what Briton would hesitate to reply, the education of the Princess Charlotte of Wales?

After this frank confession of the unspeakable importance of the subject in view, it is no wonder if the extreme difficulty, as well as delicacy, of the present undertaking, is acknowledged to be sensibly felt by the author.

It will too probably be thought to imply not only officiousness, but presumption, that a private individual should thus hazard the obtrusion of unsolicited observations on the proper mode of forming the character of

an English princess. It may seem to involve an appearance of unwarrantable distrust, by implying an apprehension of some deficiency in the plan about to be adopted by those, whoever they may be, on whom this great trust may be devolved; and to indicate self-conceit, by conveying an intimation, after so strong an avowal of the delicacy and difficulty of the task, that such a deficiency is within the powers of the author to supply.

That author, however, earnestly desires, as far as it may be possible, to obviate these anticipated charges, by alleging, that, under this free constitution, in which every topic of national policy is openly canvassed, and in which the prerogatives of the crown form no mean part of the liberty of the subject, the principles which it is proper to instil into a royal personage, become a topic, which, if discussed respectfully, may, without offence, exercise the liberty of the British press.

The writer is very far indeed from pretending to offer any thing approaching to a system of instruction for the royal pupil, much less from presuming to dictate a plan of conduct to the preceptor. What is here presented, is a mere outline, which may be filled up by far more able hands; a sketch which contains no consecutive details, which neither aspires to regularity of design, nor exactness of execution.

To awaken a lively attention to a subject of such moment; to point out some circumstances connected with the early season of improvement, but still more with the subsequent stages of life; to offer, not a treatise on education, but a desultory suggestion of sentiments and principles; to convey instruction, not so much by precept or by argument, as to exemplify it by illustrations and examples; and, above all, to stimulate the wise and the good to exertions far more effectual;—these are the real motives which have given birth to this slender performance.

Had the royal pupil been a prince, these hints would never have been obtruded on the world, as it would then have been naturally assumed, that the established plan usually adopted in such cases would have been pursued. Nor does the author presume, in the present instance, to insinuate a suspicion, that there will be any want of a large and liberal scope in the projected system, or to intimate an apprehension that the course of study will be adapted to the sex, rather than to the circumstances of the princess.

If, however, it should be asked, why a stranger presumes to interfere in a matter of such high concern, it may be answered in the words of an elegant critic, that in classic story, when a superb and lasting monument was about to be consecrated to beauty, every lover was permitted to carry a tribute.

The appearance of a valuable elementary work on the principles of Christianity, which has been recently published in our language, translated from the German, under the immediate patronage of an august personage, for the avowed purpose of benefit to her illustrious daughters, as it is an event highly auspicious to the general interests of religion, so is it a circumstance very encouraging to the present undertaking*.

It is impossible to write on such points as are discussed in this little

The work here alluded to was printed in 1804, with this title, "An Abstract of the Whole Doctrine of the Christian Religion. By John Anastasius Freylinghausen."

work, without being led to draw a comparison between the lot of a British subject, and that of one who treats on similar topics under a despotic government. The excellent Archbishop of Cambray, with every advantage which genius, learning, profession, and situation could confer the admired preceptor of the Duke of Burgundy, appointed to the office by the king himself-was yet, in the beautiful work which he composed for the use of his royal pupil, driven to the necessity of couching his instructions under a fictitious narrative, and of sheltering behind the veil of fable, the duties of a just sovereign, and the blessings of a good government he was aware, that even under this disguise, his delineation of both would too probably be construed into a satire on the personal errors of his own king, and the vices of the French government; and in spite of his ingenious discretion, the event justified his apprehensions.

Fortunate are the subjects of that free and happy country who are not driven to have recourse to any such expedients; who may, without danger, dare to express temperately what they think lawfully; who, in describing the most perfect form of government, instead of recurring to poetic invention, need only delineate that under which they themselves live; who, in sketching the character, and shadowing out the duties, of a patriot king, have no occasion to turn their eyes from their own country to the thrones of Ithaca or Salentum.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

WE are told that when a sovereign of ancient times, who wished to be a mathematician, but was deterred by the difficulty of attainment, asked, whether he could not be instructed in some easier method; the answer which he received was, that there was no royal road to geometry. The lesson contained in this reply ought never to be lost sight of, in that most important and delicate of all undertakings, the education of a prince.

It is a truth which might appear too obvious to require enforcing, and yet, of all others, it is a truth most liable to be practically forgotten, that the same subjugation of desire and will, of inclinations and tastes, to the laws of reason and conscience, which every one wishes to see promoted in the lowest ranks of society, is still more necessary in the very highest, in order to the attainment either of individual happiness, or of general virtue, to public usefulness, or to private self-enjoyment.

Where a prince, therefore, is to be educated, his own welfare no less than that of his people, humanity no less than policy, prescribe that the claims and privileges of the rational being should not be suffered to merge in the peculiar rights or exemptions of the expectant sovereign. If, in such cases, the wants and weaknesses of human nature could indeed be wholly effaced, as easily as they are kept out of sight, there would at least be some reasonable plea against the charge of cruelty. But when, on the contrary, the most elevated monarch must still retain every natural hope and fear, every affection and passion of the heart, every frailty of the mind, and every weakness of the body, to which the meanest subject is liable; how exquisitely inhuman must it be to provide so sedulously for the This was the reply of Euclid, of Alexandria, to Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt.

extrinsic accident of transient greatness, as to blight the growth of substantial virtue, to dry up the fountains of mental and moral comfort, and, in short, to commit the ill-fated victim of such mismanagement to more, almost, than human dangers and difficulties, without even the common resources of the least favoured of mankind.

Yet, must not this be the unaggravated consequence of not accustoming the royal child to that salutary control which the corruption of our nature requires, as its indispensable and earliest corrective? If those foolish desires, which, in the great mass of mankind are providentially repressed by the want of means to gratify them, should, in the case of royalty, be thought warrantable, because every possible gratification is within reach, what would be the result, but the full-blown luxuriance of folly, vice, and misery? The laws of human nature will not bend to human greatness; and by these immutable laws it is determined, that happiness and virtue, virtue and self-command, self-command and early habitual self-denial, should be joined together in an indissoluble bond of connexion.

The first habit, therefore, to be formed in every human being, and still more in the offspring and heir of royalty, is that of patience, and even cheerfulness, under postponed and restricted gratification. And the first lesson to be taught is, that, since self-command is so essential to all genuine virtue and real happiness, where others cannot restrain us, there, especially, we should restrain ourselves. That illustrious monarch, Gus-, tavus Adolphus,* was so deeply sensible of this truth, that, when he was surprised by one of his officers in secret prayer in his tent, he said, “Persons of my rank are answerable to God alone for their actions: this gives the enemy of mankind a peculiar advantage over us; an advantage which can only be resisted by prayer, and reading the Scriptures."

As the mind opens, the universal truth of this principle may be exemplified in innumerable instances, by which it may be demonstrated, that man is a rational being only so far as he can thus command himself. That such a superiority to the passions is essential to all regular and steady performance of duty; and that true gratification is thus, and thus only, ensured, because, by him who thus habitually restrains himself, not only every lawful pleasure is most perfectly enjoyed, but every common blessing, for which the sated voluptuary has lost all relish, becomes a source of the most genuine pleasure, a source of pleasure which is never exhausted, because such common blessings are never wholly withheld.

The mind should be formed early, no less than the person; and for the same reason. Providence has plainly indicated childhood to be the season of instruction, by communicating at that period such flexibility to the organs, such retention to the memory, such quickness to the apprehension, such inquisitiveness to the temper, such alacrity to the animal spirits, and such impressibility to the affections, as are not possessed at any subsequent period. We are therefore bound by every tie of duty to follow these obvious designations of Providence, by moulding that flexibility to the most durable ends; by storing that memory with the richest knowledge; by pointing that apprehension to the highest objects; by giving to that alacrity its best direction; by turning that inquisitiveness to the noblest

*Gustavus Adolphus, justly called the Great, king of Sweden, was born in 1594, and lost his life in the moment of victory over the Imperialists at the battle of Lützen, Nov. 16, 1632.