The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-09 00:00:00

THE ROYAL VISIT TO CANADA

(From the Saturday Review.)

2 England could once boast of a Prince who was
3 the fi s' gentleman in Europe. At the present day
we may more legitimately congratulate ourselves
4 upon the fact that our future Sovereign is receiving
an education of almost unprecedented variety and
completeness. Not the least among Queen Vic-
t :ria's many titles to the respect and gratitude of
her subjects is the watchful sagacity with which
1 heir apparent is being prepared for the mo-
mentous responsibilities which are one day to de-
-3 volve upon him. The Piince of Wales has every
opportunity of becoming one of the best-informe'd
men of his day. He is seeing the cities and man-
ners of many men ; his name is enrolled among the
students of more than one great seat of learning ;
all that is fairest in art, and most curious in science
—the latest result of philosophy, the nicest acljust-
ment of mechanism— has been pressed into the ser-
vice of rousing. the inquisitiveness and enlarging
the understanding of the ltoval scholar. Nothing
has been spared which could tend to demonstrate
how serious and how interesting a matter hie is,
and how far too valuable it is to be wasted upon
unintelligent pleasures, or suffcrud '0 pass away in
the splendid frivolities that too often have made
up the sum of court existence.
It is but sinTle thatjusticoexeeti l udn t age
p
lotcesrian their
s,
syti some
on for the serious draz-bsaaewkss
youths
way ths soh
jou coldin enjoy
which social eminence entails. Montaigne
that he is lost in astonishment that monarchs
should be capable of sustaining their bui then of
dignity ; and the difficulty must be all the greater
from the fact that they are, from the necessity of
the case, deprived of almost all that moral discip-
line of struggle, hope, and disappointment, which
forms the most valuable portion of the training of
ordinary mortals. The great tasks of life are
ready done to their hand—its noblest prizes are
already within their grasp. There must be an
enervating consciousness of having nothing to work
or hope for, and little to fear. They start so near
the winning-post that the pleasurable and healthy
excitement of the race is entirely lost. Then, again,
habitual ceremony must dangerously enhance the
difficulty of social intercourse. A king may, no
doubt, have his occasions of familiarity, but they
must be the exception and not the rule, and the
constant bias of his mental habits must be in an.
opposite direction. It is not every monarch who
possesses sufficient versatility to pass, like Frederick
the Great, from the dull rigidities of court etiquette
to the philosophic enjoyment of pipes, beer, and con-
versation, There is a sort of isolation in greatness
which must make it almost impossible for a man to
know either himself or the world about him. It is
by the rude contact of actual experience that we get
to know life, and in this a prince is forbidden to
participate. The smiles of courtiers, the obsequious-
ness of attendants, one fine pageant succeeding to
another, the apparent profusion which reigns
around, and the entire absence of all the little wor-
ries of existence. must tend, one wonld imagine, to
produce a pleasing but dangerous illusion as to the
real state of things. The streams of truth reach a
royal ear in feeble volume and diluted quality ; ex-
istence is seen through a rose-coloured medium, and
the rude tones of suffering or discontent are apt to
lose half their sharpness as they pass within the
doors of a palace. It was not mere constitutional in-
difference that suffered Louis XVI. to amuse him-
self calmly with his hunt or his workshop, while
Paris was starving at his doors, and the storm-cloud
of revolution was ready to burst over his head.
When a great queen, we are told, once travelled
through her dominions, the solicitude of her Minis •

ter crictecl artificial villages kere and there expressly
for the occasion, to relieve the desolate monotony-
which would otherwise have been too painfully ap-
parent. The future King of England is allowed to
pass his youth in no such unreal and unhealthy at-
mosphere. He is thrown into positions where ho
must stand face to face with life ; and the intended
visit to Canada, announced in the Duke of New-
castle's despatch to the House of Assembly, can
scarcely fail to prove a valuable addition to the
stock of experience already acquired. It will call
his attention, more than any of the scenes of which
ho has as yet been a witness, to the study of his
fellow-men. It will force him to take notice of
national characteristics, and to trace the national
tastes and tendencies under varied circumstances of
climate, custom, and government. It will convince
him of the many nice shades of difference in opinion
and sentiment which separate each section of the
human community from all the rest, and of the ab-
solute necessity of making allowance for them if we
-would argue about mankind with correctness, or
calculate with precision the effect of any influences
that may be brought to bear upon it. Such dis-
tinctions are none the less real because they are
sometimes too subtle to be expressed in words, and
the inability to appreciate them has, been among
the most fatal stumbling-blocks at which Royalty
has so often tripped and fallen. To make exactly
the right allowance for them is one great secret of
Statecraft, and the Prince could nowhere learn the
lesson to greater advantage than among the too
curiously heterogeneous, and in some respects con-
trasted, communities of which the Canadian nation
consists. For those communities have, almost dur-
ing the Prince's own lifetime, passed through nearly
every variety of political vicissitude. There has
been the smouldering of discontent, the wild blaze
of rebellion, the reaction of patriotism, the steady
growth of affectionate loyalty. There has been
financial embarrassment, with its attendant train

of miseries ; there have been strong remedial me;
sures, the actual operation of which the Prince will
have the benefit of observing ; and there has been
commercial enterprise grandly conceived and vigo-
rously carried out, of which the great work whose
opening his visit will inaugurate is but a single
though perhaps a remarkableinstance. Everywhere
there has been change, effort, progress—evils met
by their proper cure, causes leading to an immedi-

ate result.
If Royalty is to go to school, where, better than in
such a country, could the lessons be learnt which
are most valuable to a Prince ? The retrospect is
one which every Englishman must regard with the
utmost satisfaction. Canada stands side by side with
the United States, a memorial of successful, as con-
trastedhow much maywith b
foolish
effectedsh legislation.by t
The one
liberal,ner and
reminds us
considerate measures of concession—the other, now
that every animosity has died away, remains a use-
ful warning to statesmen of the dangers of a violent
and obstinate policy. Nothing could look less pro-
mising than the Canadian provincesAu at the commence-
tgnw.ork t
hmaedn tb
began
ut
nh et
to
presentag agitate
er eaoi
theho those
motherpolitical
countrypas-
sions which had been •
dependencies. The fever
of the Reform movementur was felt in every portion
of the body politic; a stream of disaffected Irish was
constantly swelling the ranks of the malcontents;
and the agitation of religious partisans added fuel
to the fire. A serious derangement of commerce ag-
gravated the dangers of the crisis, and every symp-
tom of outbreak found plenty of sympathy across
the American frontier. Then came the actual colli-
sion of arms—demonstrations and counter-demon-
strations, the oath of devotion, the cap of liberty—
all the accustomed machinery of revolution with
which Europe was too familiar. The energy of a few
vigorous commanders struck down the growing re-
bellion with two or three decisive blows; and the sa-
gacious moderation of Parliament determined upon
measures underwhichCanada is fast rising into settled
prosperity, and has become honourably conspicuous
among our colonial possessions for a devoted loyalty
to
of his despatches,
the motheesrcaothe
uentrsy,
upon the mortifying In 1838 Lord Durham, in
one
eaawa
teil.aat itnwthhienhs trtehnegcesatn
atedirms
pi (winces offered to the energetic prosperity of tho
neighbouring States. There were, for example,
only fifteen miles of railway is the whole country;
and the other departments of commercial enterprise
were in a correspondingly inactive condition. The
supply of emigrants had, owing to the disturbed
state of the country, fallen to a mere fraction of its
usual amount. The animosities of race burnt high,
and national affairs were conducted with a scan-
dalous disregard of the public interest. Distress
and
society.
rw erep
differentre
iiv a
el
anden.
wt
iafllali
rk
wonder
ironi
ngedhveteerrry
will
as section
et itobhnee
He 'will see ho
the state of things to
aarwhich
kr
sure, will
e, Canadians will
offeredn
be able to invite the attention of their Rnoygal ,
to
at on.r. . n
nI
ht Its
emoNdvfoihnreag energy,e,
os which
wtrlicinaluilramptlecavpriehntrsfhyuel affectionate homage oefiv memoriesw
prosperity is fast obliterating
past ; and as he ree • f
wemaeret his view.
leoayarltoymminedvers
re-
spect, he will understand how great a dignity and
howcl serious a responsibility it is to be successor of
a Sovereign whose goodness
en-
deared her even to the distant
dependencies
her
Empire, and whose reign has been marked by so
large an increase of
patriotic sentiment and mate-
rial prosperity.

Lieut.-Gen. Sir J. H. Grant, K.C.8., left Cal-
cutta on the 26th February to take command of her Ma-
jesty's forces in China.-21rory and Nary Gazette.
COLLEGE OF PRECEPTORS.—At the meeting of
the council on Saturday the following gentlemen were
elected members of the college :—Rev. A. Creak, 11. A.,
Brighton; Rev. J. Sargent, Gildersome, near Leath, ; Mr.
W. Esam, Peckham Rye ; Mr. John Hart, Southar rpton;
Mr. J. J. Hart, Tunbridge Wells; Mr. J. lieltimanno
R
Kensington ; Mr. T. E. Heller, Cheltenham • Mr. E. T.
Manson, Heighington, Darlington; Mr. Joseph Ringland
Banbridge, Ireland ; Mr. John Wilding, Great Malvern;
also, Miss M. A. Carter, Nottingham. At the same meet-
ing the diploma of licentiate was confer upon Mr, .A.
,Federar, of Turton Hall, near Leeds.