A book of this kind scarcely needs a sponsor. Itcarries the impression of its authenticity on everypage. A few words, however, may be said about thecircumstances of its publication. In the expectationthat I should find in them materials for an interestingwork, the papers from which these volumeshave been compiled were given to me, some yearsago, by the family into whose hands they passed onMiss Knight’s death. On examining them, I foundthat they consisted of a considerable number ofjournal-books, the dates of which covered morethan half a century, and an unfinished autobiographicalmemoir, written principally on loose sheetsof paper. The latter had obviously been commencedat a very late period of life, and had been interruptedby death. The Journals, however, suppliedall that was needed to complete the Memoir to thevery end of the writer’s life. Indeed, the continuousMemoir had been written from the Diaries,ivwith only occasional additions supplied by the recollectionof the writer, and was, in many places,little more than a transcript of them.

As I had no doubt that the Autobiography hadbeen written with a view to publication, after, ifnot before, the author’s death, I felt that in givingit to the world I should only be carrying out theintentions which, had she lived, Miss Knight wouldherself have fulfilled. And, on consideration, Icould see nothing to be deprecated in the fulfilmentof those intentions. It is true that a very considerableportion of the manuscript related to theprivate concerns of the Royal Family of England.But, even if the publications of Madame D’Arblay,Lady Charlotte Campbell, Lord Malmesbury, theDuke of Buckingham, and others, had not renderedall scruples on this score almost an over-refinementof delicacy, it was to be considered that nearly halfa century had passed since the principal events recordedby Miss Knight had occurred, and thatreally those events, however private and domesticin their origin, had grown i

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