That is an instance of the manner in which things were done when a Dictatorship prevailed in the country, and that was what the Dictator did.  Upon the whole, I do not think that, in general, out of common history books, you will ever get into the real history of this country, or anything particular which it would beseem you to know.  You may read very ingenious and very clever books by men whom it would be the height of insolence in me to do any other thing than express my respect for.  But their position is essentially sceptical.  Man is unhappily in that condition that he will make only a temporary explanation of anything, and you will not be able, if you are like the man, to understand how this island came to be what it is.  You will not find it recorded in books.  You will find recorded in books a jumble of tumults, disastrous ineptitudes, and all that kind of thing.  But to get what you want you will have to look into side sources, and inquire in all directions.

I remember getting Collins’ Peerage to read—­a very poor peerage as a work of genius, but an excellent book for diligence and fidelity—­I was writing on Oliver Cromwell at the time. (Applause.) I could get no biographical dictionary, and I thought the peerage book would help me, at least tell me whether people were old or young; and about all persons concerned in the actions about which I wrote.  I got a great deal of help out of poor Collins.  He was a diligent and dark London bookseller of about a hundred years ago, who compiled out of all kinds of treasury chests, archives, books that were authentic, and out of all kinds of things out of which he could get the information he wanted.  He was a very meritorious man.  I not only found the solution of anything I wanted there, but I began gradually to perceive this immense fact, which I really advise every one of you who read history to look out for and read for—­if he has not found it—­it was that the kings of England all the way from the Norman Conquest down to the times of Charles I. had appointed, so far as they knew, those who deserved to be appointed, peers.  They were all Royal men, with minds full of justice and valour and humanity, and all kinds of qualities that are good for men to have who ought to rule over others.  Then their genealogy was remarkable—­and there is a great deal more in genealogies than is generally believed at present.

I never heard tell of any clever man that came out of entirely stupid people.  If you look around the families of your acquaintance, you will see such cases in all directions.  I know that it has been the case in mine.  I can trace the father, and the son, and the grandson, and the family stamp is quite distinctly legible upon each of them, so that it goes for a great deal—­the hereditary principle in Government as in other things; and it must be recognised so soon as there is any fixity in things.

You will remark that if at any time the genealogy of a peerage fails—­if the man that actually holds the peerage is a fool in these earnest striking times, the man gets into mischief and gets into treason—­he gets himself extinguished altogether, in fact. (Laughter.)