66

most all our sovereigns of that age proficients in the ancient languages, and adepts in polemical divinity. Henry VIII. disputed, through the press, with Luther, in Latin. His son, Edward VI., had he lived, would probably have given proofs of still greater accomplishments in the same department of scholarship. One of his tutors was Sir John Cheke, of whom Milton speaks, in a well-known sonnet, as having taught Cambridge, and King Edward, Greek ;" and it is a curious illustration of the times, that this learned individual was soon after selected to fill the office of Secretary of State. Queen ELIZABETH, wę need hardly remark, is famous as a learned princess. She also, like her royal predecessor, King Alfred, completed an English translation of Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy-a work which, in addition to having been thus rendered into the vernacular tongue by two of the greatest of our monarchs, had the honour of receiving the same service from Chaucer, the father of our poetry * Elizabeth's successor, JAMES, had more learning than good sense, and was a pedant rather than a scholar; but, with less learning, he certainly would not have been a wiser king. He is the instance, however, that has perhaps contributed more than any other to confirm the common prejudice, that a taste for letters is, after all, no very desirable quality in the possessor of a throne. If it be meant that literary kings have generally been bad kings, the notion is certainly not borne out by the facts of history. It may be asserted with much greater truth that, in all of those who, notwithstanding their scholarship, have shewn themselves unworthy of their high station, that scholarship has yet been a

The original copy of Queen Elizabeth's translation of Boethius, partly in her majesty's hand-writing, and partly in that of her secretary, was discovered, about five years since, in the State Paper Office.

redeeming quality, both in itself, and in its effects. If, again, all that is meant be only that learning has some tendency to become pedantic on a throne, this may be admitted; for it is a natural consequence of the possession being so unusual: but even this result, where it has happened, has, in by far the majority of cases, formed but a very trifling drawback upon the good with which it was connected. James certainly has not gained much credit to his name by his authorship; though it deserves to be remarked, that it is posterity that has been least indulgent to his pretensions. In his own day his learning procured him great admiration, not only from the mere courtly flatterers of the time, but from many of its most distinguished scholars-for evidence of which, we need go no farther than to the dedication of their work addressed to him by the authors of our admirable translation of the Bible, and still commonly printed at its head. The character of the man, however, the species and quality of the learning which he had acquired, and above all the spirit of the age, had more share in making James the pedant that he was, than any disadvantage under which his station placed him.

Another name, which is sometimes quoted as that of a king to whom learning was a misfortune rather than a blessing, is that of the celebrated ALPHONSO X., king of Castile and Leon, commonly called the Wise. This prince, who lived in the thirteenth century, was certainly unlucky in his schemes of political ambition; and the vain attempt he made to obtain possession of the imperial crown involved him in a series of calamities, and eventually led to his dethronement. But it does not appear that his literary and scientific acquirements, so extraordinary for his age, had anything to do in occasioning the errors to which he owed his ruin, or that, with less learning,

he would have been either more prudent, or more fortunate. As it was, Alphonso, notwithstanding the troubles in which his reign was passed, conferred such services, both upon his own country and upon the world at large, as few royal names have to boast of. Spain owes to him, not only her earliest national history and translation of the scriptures, but the restoration of her principal university, the introduction of the vernacular tongue in public proceedings and documents, and the promulgation of an admirable code of laws; and science is indebted to this monarch for the celebrated astronomical tables known by his name, the earliest which were compiled subsequently to those given in the Almagest of Ptolemy, who flourished in the second century. According to some accounts, Alphonso spent the large sum of 400,000 crowns on the preparation of these tables, in which he was assisted by others of the most learned astronomers of the time. They went through several editions, even after the invention of printing, and continued, indeed, to be generally used by astronomers till the commencement of the sixteenth century.

CHAPTER II.

Peter the Great, (Czar of Russia.)

BUT the pursuit of knowledge is not necessarily con fined to the study of books; and, therefore, although we pass over many other names that might be here introduced, we must not omit that of a sovereign who distinguished himself by his ardour in this pursuit in a variety of ways, and was, in all respects, one of the most extraordinary men that ever lived, -the Czar PETER I. of Russia. Peter was born in 1672, and at ten years of age found himself in nominal possession of the throne; although, for some time, all the actual power of the state remained in the hands of his sister, the princess Sophia, who was about five years older than himself. But his boyhood was scarcely expired. when he gave proof of the energy of his character by ridding himself of this domination; and in 1689 the princess was already removed from the govern ment, and immured in a monastery. From this moment the young czar, now absolute in reality as well as in name, directed his whole efforts to the most extraordinary enterprize in which a sovereign ever engaged; being nothing less than to change entirely the most settled habits and prejudices of his subjects, and not so much to reform them, as to transform them, almost by main force, from barbarians into a civilized people. For the Russians at this time-not more than a century and a half ago—were, in truth, little better than a nation of savages. Nay, Peter himself was born and reared a savage; and to his last days the passions and propensities of his ori

ginal condition remained strong in his nature. It speaks the more for his wonderful genius that, throughout his whole history, he forces us to feel that we are reading the adventures of the chief of a barbarous country, struggling to civilize himself as well as his people. And undoubtedly we do not follow his progress with the less interest on that account. Nothing, in fact, in his proceedings or his character so much engages our curiosity, as to watch the astonishment with which his own ignorance was struck on the first view of those arts of civilized life which he was so anxious to introduce among his less ambitious, but hardly more ignorant, subjects. It is exactly the case of a strong-minded and enterprising leader of some tribe of wild Americans, or South Sea islanders, setting out to see with his own eyes the wonders of those distant lands of which his white visitors have told him, and, after all, viewing the scenes which civilization presents to him with an intoxication of surprise, which shews how imperfectly even his excited fancy had anticipated their actual nature. But, however he was at first struck with what he beheld, Peter did not continue long lost in mere amazement. The story which is told of the occasion which awakened him to the ambition of creating a Russian navy is very illustrative of his character. While looking about one day among some old stores and other neglected effects, he chanced to cast his eye upon the hulk of a small English sloop, with its sailing tackle, lying among the rest of the lumber, and fast going to decay. This vessel had been imported many years before by his father, Alexis Michelovitch, also a prince of distinguished talents, and who had nourished many schemes for the regeneration of his country; but it had long been forgotten by every body, as well as the object which it was designed to promote. No