England and France, makes it obvious that records written by such writers,
with all the happy abandon of a complete sympathy between scribe and
recipient, have a value which transcends any more laboured enumeration of
historical data. The worth of their correspondence lies in the fact that
it presents, artlessly and candidly, the outlook of a contemporary family,
of good position and more than average intelligence, upon events ordinary
and extraordinary, under four sovereigns. And while many books have been
edited describing the sayings and doings of Royal personages and political
leaders during that period, few have yet been published which present them
in the intimate guise in which they jostle each other throughout the
following pages, and fewer still which give any adequate picture of the
social life as lived during these years by the less notable bulk of the
community.

Yet more, the writers of these letters are no mere puppets of ancient
history, who move in a world unreal to us and shadowy. Their remarks to us
are instinct with the freshness--the actuality--of to-day. Whether as
happy, noisy schoolboys and girls, or as men and women of the fashionable
world bent on pursuit of pleasure or of learning, to us they are
emphatically alive. Almost we can hear and echo the laughter of that merry
home-circle; their jests are our own, differently phrased, their joys and
sorrows knit our hearts to them across the century. They lived at a date
so near our own that it has all the charm of similarity--with a
difference; and it is just this likeness and unlikeness which lend such
piquancy to their experiences.




CONTENTS