In the mean time the young Prince Charles grew up to early manhood. Princes naturally begin the world at an earlier age than most men, and Charles may be said to have begun the world in 1734, when, as we have seen, at the age of fourteen, he took part in the siege of Gaeta as a general of artillery, and bore himself, according to overwhelming testimony, as became a soldier. Up to this time his education had been pursued with something like regularity; and if at all times he preferred rowing, riding, hunting, and shooting to graver and more secluded pleasures, he was not in this respect peculiar among young men, princes or otherwise. If, too, he never succeeded in overcoming the difficulties which the spelling of the English language presented, and if his handwriting always remained slovenly and illegible, it must be remembered that in that age spelling was not prized as a pre-eminent accomplishment by exalted persons, and that Charles Stuart could spell quite as well as Marlborough. He knew how to sign his name; and it may be remarked that though he has passed into the pages of history and the pages of romance as Charles Edward, he himself never signed his {202} name so, but always simply Charles. He was baptized Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir, and, like his ancestors before him, he chose his first name as his passport through the world. If he had marched to Finchley, if Culloden had gone otherwise than it did go, if any of the many things that might have happened in his favor had come to pass, he would have been Charles the Third of England.