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new form. From the facts it records about the life of the Princess, in spite of her continual indiscretions, and feeling the gravest sorrow at the continual persecution she experienced at the hands of the despicable Prince Regent, "the First Gentleman in Europe," we cannot, like the writer herself, help compassionating the unfortunate Princess of Wales, whose Court it describes. Nor do we fail to reprobate his mother, "The Good Queen Charlotte," of whose extraordinarily harsh conduct towards her daughter-in-law and Princess Charlotte we get some very striking instances, entirely on a par with her harsh rule which caused all her sons to revolt and had unedifying results within her family circle itself, which we hope will never be fully chronicled. We are shown not only how the Princess of Wales, whose marriage was inauspicious, and from the start unhappy, was made use of as a tool, first by one political party and then by another, but also how very few politicians had her own cause at heart. In spite of the contemptuous phrases used about her in the Diary, we cannot help thinking that Lady Charlotte Campbell did enact the part of a friend—though a very critical one— towards her mistress at a perilous time.

The character given of the Princess Charlotte is that of a high-spirited girl trying to grope for the right way in the midst of horrible domestic factions, and when we read this, together with what is recorded in the reminiscences of her boy friend, Lord Albemarle, and in the Autobiography of Miss Knight, one of her Ladies-in-waiting, we begin to see how attractive she was and how the nation hoped for a good Queen in the ill-fated daughter of the selfish voluptuary the Prince Regent and his indiscreet consort; a girl who had courage enough to say of her parents, "My mother was wicked, but she would not have turned so wicked had not my father been much more wicked still."

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There have been several previous editions of this book, one of which was reviewed as if a new work by a contemporary, so little was it known, but this differs from them all. Besides the omission of the horrible italics and many of the unnecessary and disgusting original notes, which perhaps were inspired by Colburn or John Galt, and the unnecessary account of the "Public Characters and the " Regency and Reign of George IV.," we have made an important change in the text of the "Diary itself. The names left blank in the former editions (the more important were always but thinly veiled and often explained in an explanatory foot-note) have, where possible, been filled up (although placed in brackets that the modern addition may be easily noticed) from old annotated copies, and these names will be further filled up, if possible, in future editions. Now that so long a time has elapsed since the Diary was first given to the world this can do no harm, and we hope that the few biographical notes which are added will make the book more interesting to the modern reader of the history of the Regency.

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