subject of them was first introduced to the particular notice of the people of England, by her unfortunate marriage with his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, now King George IV. A single year had not elapsed, after that event had taken place, ere commenced that unhappy breach between the Royal pair which laid the foundation of a very considerable portion of the curious and interesting, though, for the most part, truly afflicting, circumstances recorded in the ensuing pages.

Charges of the most serious and awful nature were subsequently alleged against her Royal Highness; charges which went, not only to affect her honour, but her life; and though these were more than once unequivocally disproved, a stain was attempted to be left upon her character, as a person of loose conversation, and unwarrantable levity of manners; and this stigma was marked and exaggerated by the whisperers and retailers of scandal in a thousand forms, and with the most malignant asperity. It never occurred to the enemies of the illustrious Princess, that her education and early habits were, in many points, essentially different from those of their own; nor that, what in this country would be deemed a mark of great levity, would pass unnoticed, or as the effects of good breeding, on the Continent. No allowances of this nature appeared to have been made for her Royal Highness by her accusers. It will, therefore, form an early portion of the following work, to inquire into the history and character of the Court in which her Royal Highness was educated; and of those associations which laid the foundation of her future character; and moulded and fashioned her, not only, as Mr. Canning aptly expressed it, to be the life, grace, and honour of every society she chose to ennoble by her presence, but also to become that open, unpretending, unsuspecting character she actually was, and which was long the main cause of many of her numerous calamities.

After having delineated the principal features of the Court of the late Duke of Brunswick, and the influence

which such an education and example were likely to have, in the formation of the young Princess's character, I shall proceed to notice some of the most remarkable, well authenticated anecdotes, of which her Royal Highness formed the subject, and which have a direct tendency to exhibit her real character in its true light.

The early pursuits and attachments of an amiable and virtuous female have in them always a considerable portion of interest; but it is seldom in the power of a third person to ascertain the exact truth of what is usually related concerning the transactions connected with those associations. I can honestly aver, however, that I have employed every means, and resorted to every possible source, to ascertain the truth of whatever is related in the ensuing Memoirs: more anxious to afford the reader valuable information than to acquire the reputation of a writer of romances, and the retailer of marvellous events, merely to gratify a vitiated taste and an inordinate curiosity. What is inserted in these Memoirs the reader, I believe, may rely upon as fact; and if he should not there find every extraordinary anecdote, or every minute story, related, which the dealers in scandal, or the admirers of the wonderful, have given birth to, and which the cupidity of certain lovers of these matters has sent forth into the world as undoubted events in the life of Queen Caroline, he may rest assured, that the cause is to be sought in the Author's determination to afford real information rather than fictitious wonders.

From the early history of the late Princess, I shall proceed to notice every event connected with her Royal Highness's alliance to this country; and shall then detail all those remarkable events which led to what has been emphatically called The Delicate Investigation, and produced that singular publication called "The Book," from which whatever is really worth noticing will be amply extracted and commented upon.

From that period to the time of her Royal Highness's departure from this country, sufficiently numerous were

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the events that took place to afford an interesting portion of the present volumes; and from thence, during her residence and travels abroad, the most ample materials are furnished to her biographer.

The return of her Majesty to England, and the legislative proceedings consequent thereupon, open a wide field for curious detail and investigation. The Bill of Degradation and Divorce, called "a Bill of Pains and Penalties," brought into the House of Peers, with its progress and result, afford topics of the highest interest to the empire.

When the determined enemies of the late Queen had completely failed in their object to degrade and dethrone her, and her innocence was again declared to the world by the failure of the obnoxious Bill of Pains and Penalties, a new system of persecution was resorted to; by the encouragement, if not even the actual employment, of a number of sordid and malignant public writers, to vilify, calumniate, and wound her Majesty's feelings and character, by every weapon which a corrupt and licentious press could wield; and the forging of every diabolical falsehood which the most depraved and fertile imagination could devise.

The details of this war of the press against Queen Caroline form a necessary though painful portion of this work; nor could the disgraceful measures pursued towards her, at the coronation of her Royal husband, but afford matter for much important observation.

Lastly comes the winding up of this deep and fearful tragedy-the triumph of malevolence-the completion of a system of persecution, as diabolical in its commencement as it was resolute in the pursuit of its object; and as fatal in its effects, if not as extensive in its immediate operations, as ever yet disgraced the annals of history :--The death of the Queen, who at length fell a sacrifice to the reiterated attacks of her foes, closed the already beclouded scene. The curtain dropped amidst the lamentations of every good man and woman in the country, whilst the

Queen's enemies stood aghast, at the suddenness of the event, and as if disappointed that their prey had escaped from their grasp, ere their malignity had been satiated by the new mortifications which they had, as they imagined, provided for her Majesty, in the circumstance of her husband's parade through his dominions, flattered and fawned upon as "the earthly Lord of the Ocean," as they foolishly called him, whilst his insulted wife was deserted by almost every branch of her husband's family, and by the whole of his gaudy court.

The saint-like death, and the circumstances of her funeral obsequies, furnish matter for much solemn detail; and naturally conclude the present volumes.

In the delineation and discussion of these several important subjects, others intimately connected therewith will naturally fall within the scope of our observation. It would not be possible, with any degree of consistency or propriety, to lay before the public the Life of the late Queen, without dwelling with considerable interest on that of her most excellent, and universally beloved, and lamented daughter, her late RoYAL HIGHNESS, CHARLOTTE, PRINCESS OF SAXE COBURG, a Princess, the period of whose short existence in this transitory state of being was early marked by anxieties of no ordinary character; whose enjoyments were greatly imbittered by the domestic distresses of her Royal Mother, from the society of whom she was, during a very great portion of her life, entirely excluded, by an authority which, at no period, she could, with propriety, control or disobey.

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Indeed, the afflictions of the Queen, and those of her child, were as mutual and as sympathetical as their affections were reciprocal: never parent loved a child with greater paternal affection, nor did ever child manifest, on all possible occasions, a more ardent and sincere filial regard for a parent: pity it was, that so much goodBess, and so much duty, should have been robbed of those sweets, and of those tender personal endearments, which are the fruits and rewards of virtues like these! But who can fathom the depths of Providence? Who can

discover the mysterious designs of Eternal Wisdom? Or will dare to contend with Him "who is perfect in knowledge?" Had the amiable but undaunted spirit of CHARLOTTE continued to animate her once beauteous form; had she lived to have witnessed the return of her self-expatriated Mother;-had she heard her earnest and repeated appeals to the justice of the laws-her claims, at least, to the common rights of Royal hospitality-Had she seen her driven, in a manner, for shelter to the dwelling of a plain city merchant, after having been denied a place of residence suited to her exalted station-Had she lived to have heard it a point to be mooted, not by lawyers only; but by others less accustomed to consider every topic as a question of legal argumentation, whether or not her affectionate Parent had acted with propriety in once more demanding to be treated as an innocent person till her guilt had been demonstrated-Had she heard the sentence of acquittal; yet lived to see the continuation of punishment-Had she, finally, been here, to have closed the eyes of her adored mother, at a time when she was deserted by every other relation-Had, I say, that intrepid and virtuous Princess been living to have heard and seen all this, it is impossible to conceive what might have been the consequence. That she would not have beheld and known these facts and circumstances with unconcern, or have remained a passive observer of so much degradation and insult, those who knew the nobility of her soul-the inflexibility of her love of justice-the warmth of her filial affection, will readily admit.

If, therefore, during the life-time of the late Queen, it was deemed of importance to publish biographical details of her history, how much more proper and expedient is it, now that she is no more, to lay before the world the narrative of her most eventful life! And, oh! what a scene of suffering-what a picture of oppression-is here exhibited. A princess, born of a race glorious in history, and renowned in the annals of Europe for deeds of arms, and the high spirit of its illustrious members, is raised to the highest station to which a British female can be