2 MAY 1952, Page 5

. I asked last week if anyone could satisfy my

lust for information about the Philo-Byzantine University. Someone very kindly has. I have indeed been told more than I think it wise to impart to readers of the Spectator. The institution in question is not merely the Philo-Byzantine, but the Imperial Philo-Byzantine, University, and it does not at all surprise me that Prince Flavius Eugene II, Chief of the Imperial and Royal House Lascaris Megas Commenus of Rome and Byzantium (who, if I am not mistaken, already carries the weight of the Academia-Europa-Americana-Asia on his royal shoulders), has accepted the Presidency of it. But its representative in this country is a gentleman bearing the not markedly Byzantine name of Roberts, who in one notice figures merely as Hon. K.C.G.V., but in another as D.Sc., Ph.D., K.C.G.V. His address is given as Wood Court, Cobham, Surrey; the telephone directory, more lavish in its information, makes its entry read Wood Court Hotel. Mr. Roberts—in this case D.Sc., N.D.- is (or was) also President of the Psychology Foundation of Great Britain, Established by The Authority of an Academic Charter, which confers (or conferred) "the dignity of Doctor of Psychology (D.Psy.)" for the modest fee of fifty guineas; pre- liminaries to this supreme attainment are an entrance course at six guineas and a graduate course (both by correspondence) at twelve. I have hedged a little on tenses, because a rumour reaches me that this eminently laudable institution has abandoned its psychological and financial operations, The Philo-Byzantine University, so far as I know, continues its beneficent career—whatever the nature of it may be.