Note 16 — Chapter VI · THE PRINCE.

In Lady Bloomfield’s Reminiscences, she records a conversation she had with the Prince shortly before his death. “He said his great object through life had been to learn as much as possible, not with a view of doing much himself,—as, he observed, any branch of study or art required a lifetime,—but simply for the sake of appreciating the works of others; for, he added, without any self-consciousness or vanity, ‘No one knows the difficulties of a thing till they have tried to do it themselves; and it was with this idea that I learnt oil-painting, water-color, etching, fresco-painting, chalks, and lithography, and in music I studied the organ, pianoforte, and violin, thorough-bass, and singing’” (vol. ii. p. 110).