This, written four years ago, can be repeated to-day without a word of alteration for the benefit of the aforesaid gentle enemies. Certes, those who are sincerely loyal in their devotion to the King will not be found in the train of flatterers, snobs and time-servers who are, alas, the inevitable encumbrance attendant on Majesty. Those who would serve him truly are not made in the mould of the Court-parasite, which particular insect feeds on Royal favour while it can, and stings when it can feed no more. Any student of human nature knowing King Edward, and having taken pains to observe little personal traits of his disposition and character, cannot have failed to perceive how much that is to the superficial eye unsuspected lies behind the easy manner, the smiling _bonhomie_ and invariable courtesy of his outward bearing. As one of our leading journalists has aptly said of him,--“He has done a good many wise things, and no one can ever charge him with having said a foolish one. He is neither a bookworm nor a prig, and he possesses that _civilitas_ which the old Romans lauded so strongly as the soul of social amenity.” Apart from these qualities, we, his subjects, have good reason to believe that in the weighty duties of kingship, which his Mother fulfilled so steadfastly and unerringly, he will be like Shakespeare’s heroic Henry,-- “Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, You would say it hath been all-in-all his study; List his discourse of war, and you shall hear A fearful battle rendered you in music; Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, Familiar as his garter.”