"To tell you the honest truth," Ernest, King of Hanover, said in 1845; "the impression on my mind has ever been that it was a very unfortunate circumstance for my father that he was kept as it were, aloof, not only from his brothers, but almost from all young men of his own age; and this I saw evident marks of almost daily."[96] Indeed, the unhappy relations of George III with his sons must in great part be attributed to the isolation of the King's early years: never having been permitted to indulge in the pleasures of youth, he could in later years make no allowance for such follies in others. It comes as a relief to find that George III when Prince of Wales did commit one stupid, boyish prank: when a tutor reproved him and told him he must stick closer to his work, he put pitch on the tutor's chair, thus making the pedagogue stick closer to his seat. [96] "Secluded from the world, attached from his infancy to one set of persons and one set of ideas, he can neither open his heart to new connexions, nor his mind to better information. A character of this sort is the soil fittest to produce that obstinate bigotry in politics and religion which begins with a meritorious sacrifice of the understanding, and finally conducts the monarch and the martyr to the block."--Junius, May 28, 1770. Some lads who, from one cause or another, see little society, derive knowledge of the world from books, but George was not one of these. He did not learn easily, and he had not been helped by an extensive or thorough education. His knowledge of Latin or Greek was negligible, and Huish's statement that at an early age the Prince "correctly understood the history of modern times and the just relations of England with the other states" makes too great a strain upon our credulity. It is true that in support of his view Huish prints a list of titles of plays that the Prince is said to have selected to show the condition of various states and persons; but though, as a matter of fact this has little to recommend it as an intellectual exercise, it is unlikely the youth performed even this task without assistance.[97] It may be conceded, however, that he read with more or less understanding the history of England, France and Germany; and that he could speak the language of these countries with fluency. He wrote English with little show of acquaintance with grammar and never could spell correctly, while his general knowledge was lamentably slight, and in spite of fulsome biographers, books never had any attraction for him. "He never delighted in study, nor ever passed much of his time in sedentary occupations, calculated to improve his mind, after his accession to the crown," Wraxall admits frankly. "A newspaper which he commonly took up after dinner, and over which, however interesting its contents might be, he usually fell asleep in less than half-an-hour, constituted the ordinary extent of his application."[98] He was in truth a dull lad, and