The youth was, indeed, extremely indolent and stupid. At school he would have been simply called a dunce, for at eleven he could not read English with any fluency, and he could never have been induced to apply his mind to study except by violence. He never had the slightest notion of what Chatham, Burke, or Fox meant when they spoke of the Constitution. If Mr. Stone had not been in dread of invading the Bishop of Norwich's province, and if the bishop had not been a verbose and wearisome formalist, their united powers could not have shown this young man the unique and prodigious happiness of a constitutional king in governing through responsible ministers. His "governor" during the last few years of his minority was Lord Waldegrave, whose too brief memoirs confirm the excellent report which contemporaries give of his mind and character. Lord Waldegrave could make nothing of him. Speaking of the prince at nineteen, he says he was "uncommonly full of princely prejudices, contracted in the nursery and improved by the society of bedchamber women and pages of the back-stairs." He found the heavy youth an insufferable bore, and he was soon, as his relation, Horace Walpole, relates, "thoroughly fatigued with the insipidity of his pupil." The prince derived from his education only two ideas, one very good and the other very bad. The first was that he must be a Good Boy and not keep a mistress; the second was that he must be a king indeed. An indolent and ignorant monarch who will not govern by ministers must govern by favorites. He has no other alternative but abdication. A favorite was at hand in the person of a poor Scotch lord who had married one of the richest heiresses in Europe, the daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and her miserly husband. He had also, if we may believe Lord Waldegrave, "a good person, fine legs, and a theatrical air of the greatest importance." He was likewise fond of medals, engravings, and flowers; he pensioned Dr. Johnson and the dramatist Home; he really enjoyed some products of art, and was far from being either the execrable or the ridiculous personage which he was esteemed by men whom he kept from place. "Bute," said Prince Frederick, father of George III., "you would make an excellent embassador in a small, proud little court where there is nothing to do." He would have arranged the ceremonials, superintended the plays, been gracious to artists and musicians, smiled benignantly upon the court poet, bored the reigning prince, enchanted the reigning princess, amused her children, and ripened into a courtly and garrulous old Polonius, "full of wise saws and modern instances." Above all, he would have upheld the prerogative of the prince with stanch sincerity. _Sois roi!_