PRINCE AND HIS READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19720, 20 August 1927, Page 7 (Supplement)

PRINCE AND HIS READING.

The Prince of Wales probably read more as a boy than he has done since, writes Mr. Walter T. Roberts in T.P's. and Cassell's Weekly. He was given a simplified edition of Captain Cook's " Voyages of Discovery" by King Edward when he was seven years old, and this book absorbed him at once. His then tutor, in a monthly report, remarks: " The Prince is too engrossed with Cook," which led to his being deprived of " Voyages of Discovery" for a month, Macaulay's " Lays of Ancient Rome," made a strong appeal to the prince, especially the lay that tells the story of the Battle of Lake Rcgillus, The lay entitled , " The Spaniard"—finished by another writer—also strongly attracted him. But a selection of Longfellow's poems given him by the Duchess of Connaught decidedly did not. " How do you like the book of poems I gave you ?" the Prince's grand-aunt asked him a little later. " I don't like it at all," was the frank reply. " I think thov are dreadfully dull." The Prince began to read Kipling when he was twelve, and from that time Kipling had been his favorite author. Kipling is perhaps the only whom he has evfer quoted from memory.