Excess of restraint marred the education of the two elder sons of Charlotte. Even when the Prince was considered of age, and was allowed his own establishment at Kew, the system of seclusion was still maintained. Such a system had its natural consequences. The Prince, ill at ease with his parents, sought sympathy elsewhere; and he was not yet out of his teens when Charlotte was horrified at hearing his name coupled with that of the most bewitching actress of the day. Had the father of Miss Darby, the maiden name of Mrs. Robinson, been a man of less philanthropic principles, his daughter, probably, would have been a more virtuous and a more happy woman. She was born at Bristol in 1758, and was looked upon as a little heiress, till her father lost the whole of a not inconsiderable fortune by speculating in an attempt to civilise the Esquimaux Indians! Miss Darby was, for some time, a pupil of Miss Hannah More; but was herself compelled to turn instructress as early as in her fourteenth year. She was, however, a precocious beauty; and the year previous she had received an offer of marriage, which she had declined. The young teacher worked hard and cheerfully, in order that she might be the better enabled to support her mother. The proceeds of this labour also enabled her to increase the number of her own accomplishments; among others, dancing. Her master was a Covent Garden ballet-master, who introduced her to Garrick, and Roscius brought her out on the stage, in the character of Cordelia with success. Before she had terminated her sixteenth year she married Mr. Robinson, an articled clerk in an attorney’s office, with a good fortune, upon which the youthful couple lived in splendour till it was gone, and the husband was arrested. His wife then spent fifteen months with him in prison, and then misery drove her again to Garrick, who gave her some instruction, rehearsed Romeo to her Juliet, and, bringing her out in the latter character, gave to the stage one of the handsomest and youngest and most captivating of actresses who had ever charmed the town. Her Juliet was admirable, but her Perdita, in the ‘Winter’s Tale,’ set the town mad. On the 3rd of December 1779 she played the character in presence of George III., Queen Charlotte, the Prince of Wales, and other members of the royal family, and a numerous audience. When she entered the green-room, dressed for the part, she looked so bewitching that Smith exclaimed, ‘By Jove! you will make a conquest of the Prince, for you look handsomer than ever.’ Smith’s prediction was true; and letters from the Prince, signed ‘Florizel,’ were delivered to Perdita by no less noble a go-between than the Earl of Essex.