Lord Chesterfield allowed Caroline some degree of female knowledge. If by this he would infer that she had only a portion of the knowledge which was commonly possessed by the ladies her contemporaries, his lordship does her great injustice. Few women of her time were so well instructed; and she was not the less well-taught for being in a great degree self-taught. She may have been but superficially endowed in matters of theology and in ancient history; but, what compensated at least for the latter, she was well acquainted with what more immediately concerned her, the history of her own times. Lord Chesterfield further remarks, that Caroline would have been an agreeable woman in social life if she had not aimed at being a great one in public life. This would imply that she had doubly failed, where, in truth, she had doubly succeeded. She _was_ agreeable in the circle of social, and she not merely aimed at, but achieved, greatness in public life. She was as great a queen as queen could become in England under the circumstances in which she was placed. Without any constitutional right, she ruled the country with such wisdom that her right always seemed to rest on a constitutional basis. There was that in her, that, had her destiny taken her to Russia instead of England, she would have been as Catherine was in all but her uncleanness; not that, in purity of mind, she was very superior to Catherine the Unclean. The following paragraph in Lord Chesterfield’s character of Caroline is less to be contested than others in which the noble author has essayed to pourtray the Queen. ‘She professed wit, instead of concealing it; and valued herself on her skill in simulation and dissimulation, by which she made herself many enemies, and not one friend, even among the women the nearest to her person.’ It may very well be doubted, however, whether any sovereign ever had a ‘friend’ in the true acceptation of that term. It is much if they acquire an associate whose interest or inclination it is to be faithful; but such a person is not a friend. Lord Chesterfield seems to warm against her as he proceeds in his picture. ‘Cunning and perfidy,’ he says, ‘were the means she made use of in business, as all women do for want of a better.’ This blow is dealt at one poor woman merely for the purpose of smiting all. Caroline, no doubt, was full of art, and on the stage of public life was a mere, but most accomplished, actress. It must be remembered, too, that she was surrounded by cunning and perfidious people. Society was never so unprincipled as it was during her time; and yet, amid its unutterable corruption, _all_ women were not crafty and treacherous. There were some noble exceptions; but these did not lie much in the way of the deaf and dissolute earl’s acquaintance.