call for his kindness, not a signal for his exactions. Improvident rigour would wear out that affection, which justice would increase, and consideration confirm.

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Britons, in general, possess that obsequium erga reges, which Tacitus ascribes to the Swedes. While they passionately love liberty, they also patiently bear those reasonable burdens which are necessary in order to preserve it. But this character of our countrymen seems not to have been so well understood, at least not so fairly represented, by one of their own Sovereigns, as by a foreigner and an enemy. The unfortunate James calls them a fickle, giddy, and rebellious people.' If the charge were true, he and his family rather made, than found them such. Agricola had pronounced them to be a people, who cheerfully complied with the levies of men, and the imposition of taxes, and with all the duties enjoined by government, provided they met with just and lawful treatment from their governors.'-' Nor have the Romans,' continues he, any farther conquered them, than only to form them to obedience. They never will submit to be slaves.'* It is pleasant to behold the freest of nations, even now, acting up to the character given them by the first of historians, on such unquestionable authority as that of their illustrious invader, near two thousand years ago.'

On the Graces of Deportment, with direct reference to the Princess, Miss More observes, "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.

• Tacitus's Life of Agricola.

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."

The following instance of erroneous judgment, in the person of Christina, Queen of Sweden, with a parallel between that Princess and Alfred the Great, concludes the chapter set apart for that subject:

"We know not how better to illustrate the nature, and confirm the truth of these remarks, than by adducing, as an eminent instance of a contrary kind, the character of Queen Christina of Sweden, the memorable tale of her false judgment, and perverted ambition-Christina, a woman whose whole character was one mass of contradictions! same defect in judgment, which, after she had, with vast cost and care, collected some of the finest

That

pictures in Rome, led her to spoil their proportions, by clipping them with shears, till they fitted her apartment, appeared in all she did. It led her, while she thirsted for adulation, to renounce, abdicating her crown, the means of exacting it. It led her to read almost all books, without digesting any; to make them the theme of her discourse, but not the ground of her conduct. It led her, fond as she was of magnificence, to reduce herself to such a state of indigence, as robbed her of the power of enjoying it. And it was the same inconsistency, which made her court the applause of men eminent for their religious character, while she valued herself on being an avowed infidel.

"This royal wanderer roamed from country to country, and from court to court, for the poor purpose of entering the lists with wits, or of discussing knotty points with philosophers: proudly aiming to be the rival of Vossius, when her true merit would have consisted in being his protector. Absurdly renouncing the solid glory of governing well, for the sake of hunting after an empty phantom of liberty, which she never enjoyed, and vainly grasping at the shadow of fame, which she never attained.

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Nothing is right, which is not in its right place. Disorderly wit, even disorderly virtues, lose much of their natural value. There is an exquisite symmetry and proportion in the qualities of a wellordered mind. An ill-regulated desire of that knowledge, the best part of which she might have acquired with dignity, at her leisure hours; an unbounded vanity, eager to exhibit to foreign countries those attainments which ought to have been exercised in governing her own;-to be thought a philosopher by wits, and a wit by philosophers;-this was the preposterous ambition of a Queen born to rule a brave people, and naturally possessed of talents, which might have made that people happy. Thus it was, that the daughter of the great Gus

tavus, who might have adorned that throne for which he so bravely fought, for want of the discretion of a well-balanced mind, and the virtues of a well-disciplined heart, became the scorn of those, whose admiration she might have commanded. Her ungoverned tastes were, as is not unusual, connected with passions equally ungovernable; and there is too much ground for suspecting, that the mistress of Monaldeschi, ended with being his murderer. It is not surprising, that she who abdicated her throne, should abjure her religion. Having renounced every thing else which was worth preserving, she ended by renouncing the Protestant faith.

"It may not be without its uses to the Royal Pupil, to compare the conduct of Christina with that of Alfred, in those points in which they agreed, and those in which they exhibited so striking an opposition. To contrast the Swede, who, with the advantage-of a lettered education, descended from the throne, abandoned the noblest and wisest sphere of action in which the instructed mind could desire to employ its stores, and renounced the highest social duties which a human being can be called to perform; with Alfred, one of the few happy instances in which genius and virtue surmounted the disadvantages of an education so totally neglected, that at twelve years old he did not even know the letters of the alphabet. He did not abdicate his crown, in order to cultivate his own talents, or to gratify his fancy with the talents of others, but laboured right royally to assemble round the throne all the abilities of his country. Alfred had no sooner tasted the charms of learning, than his great genius unfolded itself. He was enchanted with the elegancies of literature to a degree which, at first, seemed likely to divert him from all other objects. But he soon reflected, that a Prince is not born for himself. When, therefore, he was actually called to the

religion; and it was desirable that he should, at the same time, possess such a title, on ground of consanguinity, as that the principle of hereditary monarchy might be as little departed from as the exigencies of the case would admit. For the securing of both these radical objects, what an adequate provision was made in the Princess Sophia, and her illustrious offspring! The connexion thus near, was made interesting by every circumstance which could engage the hearts of English Protestants. The Princess Sophia was the only remaining child of that only remaining daughter of James the First, who, being married to one of the most zealous Protestant Princes of the empire, became his partner in a series of personal and domestic distresses, in which his committing himself, in the cause of the Protestants of Bohemia, involved him and his family for near half a century. In her, all the rights of her mother, as well as of her father, were vested; and while by the electoral dignity (of which her father had been deprived) being restored to her husband, the Duke of Hanover, she seemed, in part, compensated for the afflictions of her earlier life, her personal character, in which distinguished wit and talents were united with wisdom and piety,* both these last, probably taught her in the school of adversity, procured for her the admiration of all who knew her, as well as the veneration of those whose religious sentiments were congenial with her

own.

"Such was the mother of George the First! She lived, enjoying her bright faculties to a very advanced age, to see a throne prepared for her son, far more glorious than that from which her father had been driven; or, what to her excellent mind

* See M. Chevreau's Character of the Princess Sophia, quoted by Addison, Freeholder, No. 30. See also two of her own letters to Bishop Burnet, in his Life, annexed to his Own Times: