human
How came you to be chosen to write the Life of the Prince Consort? is a question I have often been asked. It is a question which, in the early days, I often asked myself, for the selection came upon me as a great surprise. I did not know the Prince Consort, but I had heard much of him through my friend Mr (afterwards Sir Arthur) Helps, Clerk of Her Majesty's Council, and had been consulted by him in his preparation of the Collection of the Prince's Speeches and Addresses, and of the admirable monograph with which he introduced them, in the volume published by Murray in 1862. He must have laid more stress on my assistance than it merited. The Queen, to whom I was an entire stranger, presented me with an inscribed copy of the book dated 20th December 1862. It came with a letter from Lady Augusta Bruce (afterwards Stanley), one of the Queen's ladies, in which she says she had been commanded to forward it to me,