Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/21

 and said, ‘Shall I have your life or will you have mine?’ The proprietor reassured them all by declaring that provision had been made for carrying on the Dictionary ‘in the event of my—may I say, lamented—demise’.

Mr. Smith was not sorry when the Dictionary ended, but the contributors felt as if the whole Round Table were dissolved. They were vexed, too, that no public honour was bestowed upon Smith by the government, and were much gratified subsequently when his picture was placed in the National Portrait Gallery. Both editors had been ‘considerate autocrats’: a testimonial from the contributors had been presented to Stephen in 1891; Lee received a presentation of silver in 1900. These mutual congratulations were justified. The verdict of a foreign scholar is that the Dictionary is ‘la meilleure, sans contredit, des Biographies nationales’. Neither Stephen nor Lee could keep the work to the intended scale, but it preserved nevertheless a certain harmony and consistency of character; it was not a fortuitous concourse of articles, but bore evidence of design throughout. It reflected the aims of the three men responsible for its making; Smith’s bold plan for a comprehensive national record, Stephen’s desire to summarize lucidly and concisely whatever of importance was already known, Lee’s zeal for adding to knowledge.

The sixty-third and last volume of the Dictionary appeared in October 1900; but Lee had several more labours to perform. As soon as the main work was published, what is known as the was taken in hand, and the last of the three volumes composing it was issued in October 1901. It contained the lives of some 200 persons whose names had been accidentally omitted from the original lists, and of a much larger number who had died while the Dictionary was coming out. The practice of the editors during those fifteen years had been to include lives of the latter class whenever their place in the alphabet permitted. Sometimes the printing of the volume in hand was suspended in order to insert the memoir of an eminent man suddenly deceased. For instance, Roundell Palmer, Earl of Selborne, died on 4 May 1895. A four-page article upon him by Mr. J. M. Rigg was included in volume xliii, which appeared at the end of June. But John Bright, who died in March 1889, and Gladstone, who died in May 1898, had to wait for the Supplement because the letter B had been concluded in 1886 and G in 1890. About eight hundred articles of this class were now added. In the list of authorities given at the end of them the words ‘personal knowledge’ and ‘private information’ frequently appear. Part of Lee’s skill as an editor lay in the judicious selection of writers who possessed this knowledge or could procure this information. His acquaintance not only with men of letters but with men of mark in all walks was unusually wide, and as editor he had acquired a reputation for trustworthiness and discretion which secured him access to private papers and confidences from public men. These qualifications stood him in good stead when he came to the most difficult part of his task.

It had been intended that the limit of the Dictionary should be the last day of the year 1900, but the death of Queen Victoria on 22 January 1901 furnished a better historical landmark. At the earnest request of Mr. Smith, Lee undertook to write the Queen’s life for the Supplement. Fate xxi