The Prince’s education was not merely imbued with ideas and maxims little likely to conduce towards a prosperous reign. It was intellectually narrow and mean. He grew up, for example, in utter ignorance of many of the great lights of English literature. In respect to all books, save one (that, happily, the greatest of all), he became one of those who, through life, draw from the small cisterns, instead of going to the deep wells. He seems to have been trained to think that the literary glories of his country began with the age of Queen ANNE. In after-years, GEORGE THE THIRD attained to some dim consciousness of his own narrowness of culture. The ply, however, had been too early taken to be got rid of. No training, probably, could have made him a scholar. But his powers of application under wise direction would have opened to him stores of knowledge, from which unwise influences shut him out for life. His faculty of perseverance in study, it must be remembered, was backed by thorough honesty of nature, and by an ability to withstand temptations. When he was entering his nineteenth year, a sub-preceptor, who had watched him sedulously, said of him: ‘He is a lad of good principle. He has no heroic strain, and no turn for extravagance. He loves peace, and, as yet, has shown very virtuous principles. He has the greatest temptation to gallant with ladies, who lay themselves out in the most shameless manner to draw him on, but to no purpose.’ Certainly this last characteristic was neither an inherited virtue nor an ancestral tradition. And it stands in curious contrast with the tendencies of all his brothers and of almost all his sons. From youth upwards the Prince read much, though he did not read wisely. No sooner was he King than he began to set about the collection of his noble Library. In the choice of a librarian he was not infelicitous, though the selection was in part dictated by a feeling of brotherly kindness. For he chose a very near relative—Mr. afterwards Sir Frederick Augusta BARNARD. Mr. BARNARD had many qualities which fitted him for his task. [Sidenote: FOUNDATION OF THE NEW ROYAL LIBRARY.] The foundation of the Library was laid by a very fortunate purchase on the Continent. Its increase was largely promoted by a political revolution which ensued shortly afterwards; and, in order to turn his large opportunities to most account, the King’s Librarian modestly sought and instantly obtained the best advice which that generation could afford him—the advice of Samuel JOHNSON.