It is by such paths that boys and maidens should be led to the right understanding of Tower history. Appeal to their imagination first; give them a typical day in the old life of the place, and so clothe the mere skeleton of dates and isolated facts. I often wonder what impression of the Tower a child brings away after a hurried Christmas holiday visit on a “free day” when the place is little more than a glorified show. To the child, the Jewel-room can only appeal as something very like the shop-window of a Bond Street jeweller, and much less easy, in the jostling crowd, to get a glimpse of. A benevolent warder will hurry the family party through the dungeons, and keep up a running commentary of dates and names of statesmen, traitors, and kings, covering vast spaces of English history in a single breath. The White Tower will, that night, re-appear in the child’s dreams as a branch of the Army and Navy Stores, where they have nicely polished armour on view; where there is a wonderful collection of swords and bayonets displayed on the walls in imitation of sunflowers; where policemen will allow you to move in one direction only, and forbid you to turn back to see anything you may have omitted or passed too hurriedly; where Queen Elizabeth appears to be preserved in a glass case and wears remarkably well; and where large whitewashed vaults, in which are kept cannons sent by the King, suggest the lower regions of South Kensington Museum and not the torture-chamber of Guy Fawkes. If that child in the air and sunshine of the following morning does not take a dislike to the Tower as a rather gloomy Madame Tassaud’s, and too festive a prison, it will be surprising indeed. The Tower buildings at the present day have been treated in a manner that destroys all illusion. It is the fault of economy and compromise. The attempt has been made to convert the old buildings into dwelling-places with modern comforts, and to accommodate there not only the families of the warders but also a military garrison. The warders live in the smaller towers, and these, though full of historic interest, are closed to the public. For the convenience of the garrison a paternal War Office has caused to be erected, on the ground where the old Coldharbour Tower stood, the most unsightly building it is possible to conceive within Tower walls. But the putting-up of such a monstrosity convinces one that the greatest want of the present age is imagination. The men who could plan, and then construct in brick and sandstone these “quarters,” must have been those who were hurried through the old fortress in their youth, and who, like the child we have mentioned, took a not unnatural dislike to His Majesty’s Tower. In no other way can the blunder be accounted for.