would never allow any person to say, that he was of the king's party, which would always imply that there was another party against him; whereas the king prudently desired not to have it thought that there were any parties at all. And, indeed, wise sovereigns will study carefully to repress all narrowing terms and dividing ideas. Of such sovereigns the people are the party.

Princes will have read history with little attention, if they do not learn from it, that their own true greatness is so closely connected with the happiness of their subjects, as to be inseparable from it. There they will see, that while great schemes of conquest have always been productive of extreme suffering to the human race, in their execution they have often led to ultimate dishonour and ruin to the monarchs themselves. Herein a pious mind will recognise the goodness of the Almighty, which, notwithstanding the temptations and impediments that, in this probationary state, obstruct the progress, and render difficult the practice of virtue in private life, has yet held out to those who are endowed with kingly power, a strong inducement to use it for the promotion of their people's happiness, by rendering such designs as tend to the gratification of many vicious appetites, which they are most tempted to indulge, far more difficult of execution than such as are prompted by benevolent emotions, and have in view the advancement of civil and social happiness.

Thus, projects of conquest and ambition are circumscribed and obstructed by a thousand inherent and unavoidable difficulties. They are often dependent for their success on the life of a single man, whose death, perhaps when least expected, at once disconcerts them. Often they depend on what is still more uncertain,-the caprice or humour of an individual. When all is conceived to be flourishing and successful, when the prosperous enterpriser fancies that he is on the very point of gaining the proud summit to which he has so long aspired-or at the very moment when it is attained, and he is exulting in the hope of immediate enjoyment at once he is dashed to the ground, his triumphs are defeated, his laurels are blasted, and he himself only remains,

"To point a moral, or adorn a tale,"

a lasting monument of the folly of ambition, and of the uncertainty of all projects of worldly grandeur.

But the monarch, on the contrary, whose nobler and more virtuous ambition prompts him to employ his superior power in promoting the internal prosperity and comfort of his subjects, is not liable to such defeats. His path is plain; his duty is clear. By a vigilant, prompt, and impartial administration of justice, his object is to secure to the industrious the enjoyment of their honest gains; by a judicious use of his supreme power, to remove difficulties and obstructions out of the way of commercial enterprise, and to facilitate its progress; to reward and foster ingenuity; and to encourage and promote the various arts by which civilised societies are distinguished and embellished; above all, to countenance and favour religion, morality, good order, and all the social and domestic virtues. A monarch, who makes these benevolent ends the objects of his pursuit, will not so easily be disappointed. The reason is obvious; nothing depends on a single individual. His plans are carrying on through ten thousand channels, and by ten thousand agents, who, while they are all labouring

for the promotion of their own peculiar object, are, at the same time, unconsciously performing their function in the great machine of civil society. It is not, if we may change the metaphor, a single plant, perhaps an exotic, in a churlish climate and an unwilling soil, which, raised with anxious care, a sudden frost may nip, or a sudden blight may wither; but it is the wide-spread vegetation of the meadow, which abundantly springs up in one unvaried face of verdure, beauty, and fertility. While the happy monarch, whose large and liberal mind has projected and promoted this scene of peaceful industry, has the satisfaction of witnessing the gradual diffusion of comfort; of comfort, which, enlarging with the progress of his plans to their full establishment, has been completed, not like the successful projects of triumphant ambition, in the oppression and misery of subjugated slaves, but in the freedom and happiness of a contented people.

To the above important objects of royal attention, such a sovereign as we are contemplating, will naturally add a disposition for the promotion of charitable and religious institutions, as well as of those whose more immediate object is political utility; proportioning, with a judicious discrimination, the measure of support, and countenance, to the respective degree of excellence. To these will be superadded a beneficent patronage to men of genius, learning, and science. Royal patronage will be likely not only to contribute to the carrying of talents into beneficial channels, but may be the means of preventing them from being diverted into such as are dangerous; and when it is received as an universally established principle, that the direction of the best abilities to none but the soundest purposes, is the way to ensure the favour of the prince, will be an additional spur to genius to turn its efforts to the promotion of virtue and of public utility. Such are the views, such the exertions, such the felicities of a patriot king, of a Christian politician!

CHAPTER XXI.

The importance of royal example in promoting loyalty.-On false patriotism.

-Public spirit.

A WISE prince will be virtuous, were it only through policy. The measure of his power is the rule of his duty. He who practises virtue and piety himself, not only holds out a broad shelter to the piety and virtue of others, but his example is a living law, efficacious to many of those who would treat written laws with contempt. The good conduct of the prince will make others virtuous; and the virtuous are always the peaceable. It is the voluptuous, the prodigal, and the licentious, who are the needy, the unsettled, and the discontented, who love change, and promote disturbance. If sometimes the affluent and the independent swell the catalogue of public disturbers, they will frequently be found to be men of inferior abilities, used by the designing as necessary implements to accomplish their work. The one set furnish mischief, the other means. Sallust has, in four exquisitely chosen words, given, in the character of one innovator, that of almost the whole tribe,—Alieni appetens, sui profusus. But allegiance is the fruit of sober integrity; and fidelity grows

on the stock of independent honesty. As there is little public honour where there is little private principle, so it is to be feared, there will be little private principle, at least, among young persons of rank, where the throne holds out the example of a contrary conduct.

It is true, that public virtue and public spirit are things which all men, of all parties, and all characters, equally agree to extol, equally desire to have the credit of possessing. The reputation of patriotism is eagerly coveted by the most opposite characters, and pursued by the most contradictory means; by those who sedulously support the throne and constitution, and by those who labour no less sedulously to subvert them. Even the most factious, those who are governed by the basest selfishness, aspire to the dignity of a character, against which their leading principle and their actual practice constantly militate.

But patriots of this stamp are chiefly on the watch to exemplify their public spirit in their own restless way; they are anxiously looking out for some probable occurrence which may draw them into notice, and are more eager to fish for fame in the troubled waters of public commotion, than disposed to live in the quiet exercise of those habitual virtues, which, if general, would preclude the possibility of any commotion at all. These innovating reformers always affect to suppose more virtue in mankind, than they know they shall find; while their own practice commonly exhibits a low standard of that imaginary perfection on which their fallacious reasonings are grounded. There is scarcely any disposition which leads to this factious spirit more than a restless vanity, because it is a temper which induces a man to be making a continual comparison of himself with others. His sense of his own superior merit and inferior fortune, will fill his mind with perpetual competition with the inferior merit and superior fortune of those above him. He will ever prefer a storm in which he may become conspicuous, to a calm in which he is already secure. Such a soi-disant patriot does not feel for the general interests of his country, but only for that portion of it which he himself may have a chance of obtaining. Though a loud declaimer for the privileges of universal man, he really sees no part of the whole circle of human happiness, except that segment which he is carving for himself. He does not rejoice in those plentiful dews of heaven which are fertilising the general soil, but in those which fatten his own pastures. "It is not," says the admirable South, "from the common, but the enclosure, from which he calculates his advantages."

But true public spirit is not the new-born offspring of sudden occasion, nor the incidental fruit of casual emergency, nor the golden apple thrown out to contentious ambition. It is that genuine patriotism, which best prevents disturbance, by discouraging every vice that leads to it. It springs from a combination of disinterestedness, integrity, and content. It is the result of many long-cherished domestic charities. Its seminal principles exist in a sober love of liberty, order, law, peace, and justice, the best safeguards of the throne, and the only happiness of the people. Instead of that selfish patriotism which, in ancient Rome, consisted in subverting the comfort of the rest of the world, the public spirit of a British patriot is not only consistent with Christianity, but (maugre the assertion of a wit*

Soame Jenyns.

already quoted) in a good degree dictated by it. His religion, so far from forbidding, even enjoins him to consider himself as such a member of the body politic, such a joint of the great machine, that, remembering the defect of a pin may disconcert a system, he labours to fill up his individual part as assiduously as if the motion of every wheel, the effect of every spring, the success of the whole operation, the safety of the entire community, depended on his single conduct. This patriotism evinces itself by sacrifices in the rich, by submission in the poor, by exertions in the able, strong in their energy, but quiet in their operation; it evinces itself by the sober satisfaction of each in cheerfully filling the station which is assigned him by Providence, instead of aspiring to that which is pointed out by ambition; by each man performing with conscientious strictness his own proper duty, instead of descanting with misleading plausibility, and unprofitable eloquence, on the duties of other men.

CHAPTER XXII.

On the graces of deportment.-The dispositions necessary for business.-Habits of

domestic life.

66

"THOSE," says Lord Bacon, who are accomplished in the forms of urbanity, are apt to please themselves in it so much, as seldom to aspire to higher virtue." Notwithstanding the general truth of the maxim, and the high authority by which it comes recommended, yet condescending and gracious manners should have their full share in finishing the royal character; but they should have only their due share. They should never be resorted to as a substitute for that worth, of which they are the best decoration. In all the graces of deportment, whatever appears outwardly engaging, should always proceed from something deeper than itself. The fair fabric, which is seen, must be supported by a solid foundation, which is out of sight; the loftiest pyramid must rise from the broadest base; the most beautiful flower from the most valuable root; sweetness of manners must be the effect of benevolence of heart; affability of speech should proceed from a well-regulated temper; a solicitude to oblige should spring from an inward sense of the duty owing to our fellow-creatures; the bounty of the hands must result from the feeling of the heart; the proprieties of conversation, from a sound internal principle; kindness, attention, and all the outward graces, should be the effect of habits and dispositions lying in the mind, and ready to show themselves in action, whenever the occasion presents itself.

Just views of herself, and of what she owes to the world, of that gentleness which Christianity inculcates, and that graciousness which her station enjoins, will, taking the usual advantages into the account, scarcely fail to produce in the royal pupil a deportment, at once dignified and engaging. The firmest substances alone are susceptible of the most exquisite polish, while the meanest materials will admit of being varnished. True fine breeding never betrays any tincture of that vanity, which is the effect of a mind struggling to conceal its faults; nor of that pride, which is not conscious of possessing any. This genuine politeness resulting from illustrious birth, inherent sense, and implanted virtue, will render

superfluous the documents of Chesterfield, and the instructions of Castiglione.

But the acquisition of engaging manners, and all the captivating graces of deportment, need less occupy the mind of the royal person, as she will acquire these attractions by a sort of instinct, almost without time or pains. They will naturally be copied from those illustrious examples of grace, ease, and condescending dignity, which fill, and which surround the throne. And she will have the less occasion for looking to remote or foreign examples, to learn the true arts of popularity, while the illustrious personage who wears the crown continues to exhibit not only a living pattern by what honest means the warm affections of a people are won, but by what rectitude, piety, and patriotism they may be preserved and increased, under every succession of trial, and every vicissitude of circumstance.

Among the habits which it is important for a prince to acquire, there is not one more essential than a love of business. Lord Bacon has, among his essays, an admirable chapter, both of counsel and caution, respecting despatch in affairs, which, as it is short and pointed, the royal pupil might commit to memory. He advises to measure despatch not by the time of sitting to business, but by the advancement of the business itself; and reprobates the affectation of those who, "to gain the reputation of men of despatch, are only anxious for the credit of having done a great deal in a little time; and who abbreviate, not by contracting, but by cutting off." On the other hand, procrastination wears out time, and accomplishes nothing. Indistinctness also in the framing of ideas, and confusion in the disorderly disposition of them, perplex business as much as irresolution impedes it. Julius Cæsar was a model in this respect; with all his turbulence of ambition, with all his eagerness of enterprise, with all his celerity of despatch, his judgment uniformly appears to have been cool and serene; and, even in the midst of the most complicated transactions, no perplexity is ever manifest in his conduct, no entanglement in his thoughts, no confusion in his expressions. Hence, we cannot but infer, that an unambiguous clearness in the planning of affairs, a lucid order in arranging, and a persevering, but not precipitate, despatch in conducting them, are the unequivocal marks of a superior mind.

Yet, though distribution, order, and arrangement are the soul of business, even these must not be too minute, "for he that does not divide," says the great authority above cited, "will never enter clearly into business; and he who divides too much, will not come out of it clearly."

A prince should come to the transaction of business, with a prepared, but not with a prejudiced mind; and the mind which is best furnished for the concern which it is about to investigate, while it will be least liable to be drawn aside by persuasion, will be most open to truth, and most disposed to yield to conviction, because it will have already weighed the arguments, and balanced the difficulties.

A great statesman of that nation to which we are rather apt to ascribe steadiness than rapidity, has bequeathed a valuable lesson to princes for the despatch of business. It is well known, that De Wit assigned it as the chief reason why he had himself been enabled to prosecute such a multiplicity of concerns so easily, was "by always doing one thing at a time."