KEW IN FAVOUR 37 



been built by the princes as part of their 

 apprenticeship to life. In the present Kew 

 Palace are preserved specimens of their early 

 writing, George's copy being Conscious Innocence, 

 while Frederick traces very creditably the senti- 

 ment, Aim at Improvement. 



It was not through parental indulgence if 

 these boys grew to despise such innocent 

 pursuits. Queen Charlotte taught them her- 

 self in their ABC stage : and when they 

 were given over to tutors, the order was that 

 they should be treated like ordinary scholars, 

 flogged if they deserved it, and so forth. The 

 rod seems not to have been spared on him who 

 was to become the Lord's anointed ; and his 

 education in the classics prospered better than 

 his father's. The notorious Dr. Dodd, who 

 came to be hanged for forgery, was at one 

 time proposed as the Prince of Wales's tutor. 

 He was brought up with his next brother 

 Frederick, who, till created Duke of York, 

 bore in boyhood the foreign title of Bishop of 

 Osnaburgh, and had been made a Knight of 

 the Bath in the nursery. The little Bishop did 

 not take kindly to books ; but in later life 

 George IV. could pose as a scholar before the 



