Prince Leopold delivered another able and eloquent edu- cational address
on Tuesday, in distributing the prizes to the successful students of the Birkbeck Literary Insti- tution. On one rather common-place assumption in that address, which we take to be erroneous, we have made some comment elsewhere ; but the address as a whole was far from common-place, and in some of its points was original and acute. In congratulating the students on the popularity of the study of modern languages among them, he attacked the proverb which declares that men readily regard as grand that which is unknown to them. "Oftener, I think," said Prince Leopold, "we take it to be something unfriendly and distasteful to us, —something which, if we did know it, we should not like." That, at all events, is most true of Englishmen, and for Englishmen only it was said. Acute, too, was his encomium on the Institute for teaching Chess, and especially for directing " particular attention to the openings." "Now, is it not true," said Prince Leopold, "that in life, as in• chess, it is often the opening, and the opening only, which is under our own control ?
For the first few moves we are free wad we sometimes find that it will repay us to sacrifice a pawn or a piece, so as to give us at once a position which may secure us a decided advantage throughout the whole game." Prince Leopold might have instanced the late King of Belgium's refusal of the Crown of Greece at a time when the kingdom of Belgium was not yet created. That was a very happy instance of playing "the King's Gambit" in actual life.
