'We had read at school in our Reading Books, gorgeous bits from Macaulay's "History" -the Trial of the Seven Bishops and the Relief of Derry -and it was therefore natural that I should pounce with my penny at the sight of a copy of his essay on "Warren Hastings", which hit my eye on almost my first visit to the Row... I read it, I remember, on the Embankment -lying in the sun on my belly on the flat top of the ornamental arch, near Cleopatra's needle, up which a boy could climb... The series which included this edition of "Warren Hastings" gave an obvious first step along this road. It was one of Cassells National Library, a series of literary classics edited by Henry Morley, Professor of English Literature at London University, sold for 3d. paper and 6d. cloth. New or secondhand they opened an enticing field for adventurous exploration. So did a parallel series of shilling volumes the Universal Library issued by Routledge, batches of which used to be dumped upon the secondhand market and sold for 4d a copy.'