I have the honor to place in Your Majesty's hands another instalment of the Life of the Prince Consort-another, but still not, as I hoped it might have been, the last.
From the moment it became necessary to go into the history of Your Majesty's reign, in order to enable the world to form an estimate of what the Prince was in himself, and of what he did for England, the compass of my task ceased to be within my control. It could be regulated only by the importance of the events to be discussed, and by the amount of detailed explanation necessary to make them fully understood. I was in the position of one who, in climbing some great mountain, finds steep emerging upon steep before him, when he thinks he has neared, or even gained the summit. New incidents arose, unexpected fields of action disclosed themselves, which baffled my calculations, and compelled me to abandon my intention of concluding my work within the present volume.
I cannot regret this result, when I consider how much light the materials at my disposal have enabled me to throw, in the present volume, not merely upon the Prince's character, but also upon the history both of Your Majesty's reign and of Europe, during the years with which it deals. If the life