PREFACE. IN the literature of our country, however copious, the eye of the curious student may still detect important deficiencies. We possess, for example, many and excellent histories, embracing every period of our domestic annals ;-biographies, general and particular, which appear to have placed on record the name of every private individual justly entitled to such commemoration ;— and numerous and extensive collections of original letters, state papers and other historical and antiquarian documents ;—whilst our comparative penury is remarkable in royal lives, in court histories, and especially in that class which forms the glory of French literature,-memoir. To supply in some degree this want, as it affects the person and reign of one of the most illustrious of female and of European sovereigns, is the intention of the work now offered with much diffidence to the public. |