By means of these royal blocks I was brought up to a sound historical sense based on religion and morality. At the age of seven I could and did boast that I knew the innermost souls of all the monarchs of England. I could say their dates by heart, often doing so during sermon time on Sundays, with a grace and ease that only lifelong acquaintance with royalty could have bred. I was even able to triumph through that tricky period between the death of EDWARD III. and the accession of ELIZABETH. I wonder if the late Lord ACTON was as learned at that age: I am sure he could not say his dates backwards. I could. It has always surprised those who have endeavoured to teach me history that my youthful brain should be so strongly grounded in the historical tradition of over half a century ago. Yet all the historians of modern England could not shake me in my faith. To me QUEEN VICTORIA was no "panting little German widow," as our latest searcher after truth has affirmed, but the august lady who listened entranced to the beautiful poems of Lord TENNYSON and invented electricity and the tricycle. In consequence I was considered a counter-revolutionary, if not bourgeois. My essays were deemed dangerously reactionary. At Oxford I once found my tutor burning one. This shows the value the authorities attach to my work. It is too dangerous to live; it is burnt. I venture to think, however, that my work, based as it is on the most respectable principles, will survive long after my tutors have subsided into a permanent state of death in life. Like SHAKSPEARE and the present Government I am for all time. It is easy to see how I came to acquire this stability of thought, owing as I do my early training to the kings and queens of England, who are nothing if not stable. They are my acknowledged guardians and to them I turn in all difficulties. Only a year ago they came to my aid in a most awkward predicament. It was my lot to fill up army forms; of what variety I cannot remember save that they were of a jaundicy colour and connected with the men's demobilisation. On these documents I was expected to enter, besides the usual details as to religion and connubial felicity, the character of each man in a single word. I at once marshalled my wooden royalties before me in chronological order and proceeded to deal with the squadron in rotation.