ceived his education under the celebrated Buchannan, a man unquestionably admirably qualified to instruct a young prince in the maxims of government; yet it is notorious from history, that James made but a very indifferent sovereign,

Probably it would be found, on a strict investigation, that the virtues and vices of sovereigns depend far less than is generally imagined on that youthful discipline or tuition on which we usually bestow the name of education. As no art of the statuary can give to a block of stone the exquisite polish of Parian marble, so no instructions of the preceptor can impart humanity, clemency, generosity, or a love of virtue and justice to his pupil, when by nature those qualities are wanting in him. The utmost that perhaps can be done is to correct and

modify what is absolutely bad, and to cherish and foster whatever holds out any promise of good.

It is a remark that has been repeated by innumerable writers, that those princes have made the best sovereigns who have been educated in the school of adversity; and Queen Elizabeth of England, and Henry the Great of France, have frequently been cited as examples in favour of this opinion. But if we examine the reigns of those two great sovereigns a little narrowly, we shall probably find that it was not the discipline of adversity alone which made them so justly the delight of their people, and the admiration of posterity, but that both of them possessed qualities of mind, which, independent of any circumstances that befel them previous to their mounting their respective thrones, rendered them worthy of the splendid inheritance to

Did

which each of them ultimately through a series of difficulties succeeded. adversity really possess the admirable quality of rendering excellent sovereigns, those who have tasted of its bitter waters previous to their wearing a crown, Charles II. and James II. both endured as much adversity before the restoration, as either Elizabeth or Henry; but the reign of the former was a series of mistakes in government, and of encroachments on the rights of the people; and the latter was driven from the throne, and his posterity cut off from the succession, for manifest and repeated violations of the principles of the constitution.

Let it not be said then, that adversity is the best, the only school of princes. In the days of Elizabeth the constitution of England, and the coordinate powers of the three estates, were as yet but imperfectly under

stood. It was not until the revolution that the functions and prerogatives of each member of the state were so clearly defined, that the one was no longer allowed to trench on the privileges of the other, and the balance of each so nicely adjusted, that no one estate could, as formerly, destroy the equilibrium of the whole.

The certainty and clearness introduced into our government at the revolution, have rendered the personal character of the reigning monarch an object of much less importance than it was before that auspicious era. The splendour of the throne, for every purpose that a wise and beneficent sovereign can desire, remains undiminished, but its powers, in regard to those purposes to which an evil-disposed sovereign might be inclined to convert them, are checked by wholesome and salutary curbs. But still far distant

be the day when a prince shall be seated on the British throne, who can harbour a thought injurious to the interests of his subjects. In such an unhappy exigency, he must be partial indeed in his opinions of our public men, who could hope for a display of much virtue or disinterestedness among our statesmen at such a crisis of the constitution.

It must therefore follow, that though many restraints have undoubtedly been put on the exercise of the royal authority, and those restraints at various periods have been called into action, still it is of the utmost consequence that the throne should never be occupied except by one intimately acquainted with the principles of the constitution, and firmly resolved to make the constitution the rule of his government.

His present majesty, it is sufficiently