enly and illegible, it must
be remembered that in that age spelling was not prized as a pre-eminent
accomplishment by exalted persons, and that Charles Stuart could spell
quite as well as Marlborough. He knew how to sign his name; and it may
be remarked that though he has passed into the pages of history and the
pages of romance as Charles Edward, he himself never signed his {202}
name so, but always simply Charles. He was baptized Charles Edward
Louis Philip Casimir, and, like his ancestors before him, he chose his
first name as his passport through the world. If he had marched to
Finchley, if Culloden had gone otherwise than it did go, if any of the
many things that might have happened in his favor had come to pass, he
would have been Charles the Third of England.

His education was, from a religious point of view, curiously mixed. He
was intrusted to the especial care of Murray, Mrs. Hay's brother, and a
Protestant, much to the grief and anger of his mother. But he
professed the tenets of the Catholic Church, and satisfied Pope
Clement, in an interview when the young prince was only thirteen, that
his Catholic education was sound and complete. For the rest, he was a
graceful musician, spoke French, Spanish, and Italian as readily as
English, and was skilled in the use of arms. As far as the cultivation
of mind or body vent, he might fairly be considered to hold his own
with any of the preceding sovereigns and princes of the House of
Stuart. When in 1737 he set out on a kind of triumphal tour of the
great Italian towns, he was received everywhere with enthusiasm, and
everywhere made the most favorable impression. So successful was this
performance, so popular did the prince make himself, and so warmly was
he received, that the Hanoverian Government took upon itself to be
seriously offended, ordered the Venetian ambassador Businiello to leave
London, and conveyed to the Republic of Genoa its grave disapproval of
the Republic's conduct. The zealous energy of Mr. Fane, our envoy at
Florence, saved that duchy from a like rebuke. Mr. Fane insisted so
strongly that no kind of State reception was to be accorded to the
travelling prince that the Grand Duke gave way. Yet the Grand Duke's
curiosity to meet Charles Stuart was so great that he had prevailed
upon Fane to allow him to meet the stranger on the footing of a private
individual; but sudden death carried off the poor Grand Duke before the
interview could tak