Endowed by nature with a good heart and some quickness of apprehension, this princess was as uneligible a personage as could possibly have been selected for so high a dignity as that of consort to the future king of Great Britain. Her education had been wretchedly neglected. She was vain, giddy, and imprudent; addicted to the society of persons infinitely beneath her rank, whom she treated with unbecoming familiarity; totally ignorant of the world and its usages, and withal something of a _bavarde_. She stood in awe of her father, who was an austere person, and, it is said, treated his children habitually with much severity. For her mother she had no respect, and did not scruple, when she could find an opportunity--which occurred but too often--to turn her into ridicule. Her conversation was that of a thorough gossip--her manners those of a flirt. She was disposed to be liberal, not from generosity, but from absolute carelessness--a fault which she extended to her person. Lord Malmesbury's first impressions of her are by far the most favourable; and yet it will be seen from these, that mediocrity was the utmost limit of her charms. "The Princess Caroline much embarrassed on my first being presented to her--pretty face--not expressive of softness--her figure not graceful--fine eyes--good hand--tolerable teeth, but going--fair hair and light eyebrows--good bust--short, with what the French call _des épaules impertinentes_." Her personal habits may be gathered from the following passages of the Diary:--
"Argument with the Princess about her toilette. She piques herself on dressing quick; I disapprove this. She maintains her point; I, however, desire Madame Busche to explain to her that the Prince is very delicate, and that he expects a long and very careful _toilette de properté_, of which she has no idea; on the contrary, she neglects it sadly, and is _offensive_ from this neglect. Madame Busche executes her commission well, and the Princess comes out the next day _well washed all over_."
"Princess Caroline had a tooth drawn--she sends it down to me by a page--nasty and indelicate."
"I had two conversations with the Princess Caroline; one on the toilette, on cleanliness, and on delicacy of speaking. On these points I endeavoured, as far as was possible for a _man_, to inculcate the necessity of great and nice attention to every part of dress, as well as to what was hid as to what was seen. (I knew she wore coarse petticoats, coarse shifts, and thread stockings, and these never well washed, or changed often enough.) I observed that a long toilette was necessary, and gave her no credit for boasting that hers was a _short_ one. What I could not say myself on this point, I got said through women; through Madame Busche, and afterwards through Mrs Harcourt. It is remarkable how amazingly on this point her education has been neglected, and how much her mother, though an Englishwoman, was inattentive to it."