Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/304

 362 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9'" s. iv. Nov. 4, m in the land need not blush to appeal to the all-embracing wisdom or information" pos- sessed by the aggregated contributors to Notes and Queries. Nothing could be more grateful to me than to thank those who during my tenure of office have kept Notes and Queries at its present splendid height, and won for its editor in some outside circles a credit for erudition he is as far from claiming as from meriting —since, indeed, those are not wanting who hold that the editor is bound to possess the omniscience which his contributors supply. " You the editor of Notes and Queries I" spoken with flattering wonder, say those who marvel " how one small brain could carry all he" was supposed to know. I have, however, as I have previously said, no more right to express my gratitude than any other who benefits. Name and work speak aloud for themselves, and my only responsibility Ls that of the peacemaker who tries to prevent discussion passing the bounds of courtesy and employing terms that may rankle, or words that may gall—a task, on the whole, lighter than might be imagined. It seems but yesterday that I stepped into the shoes of my amiable and accom- plished friend and predecessor Turle, yet I now see that no long time needs elapse before I might be in the position of seeing myself the longest occupant of the editorial chair. During the years in which I have sat in this seat of honour, the two great national undertakings of the ' New English Dic- tionary ' and the ' Dictionary of National Biography,' now rapidly approaching com- pletion, have made their public appearance, together with that other and hardly less important work ' The Dialect Dictionary.' With these I am proud to find Notes and Queries closely connected. Association with them has added greatly to its claims to recognition. Under the influence of the studies thus prosecuted, knowledge of our illustrious dead is widely disseminated, and sound views on philology are beginning to spread beyond the narrow limits of pro- fessors and class - men. There still are philological free-lances who, refusing to join any regularly constituted force, fight for their own hand ; but their cause is hopeless and'their protests are vain. In the growth, expansion'and progress of these works what is of most interest and importance in Notes and Queries is found. The rest, so far as I am concerned, consists of records of pleasant and honouring intimacies formed and of others broken by the great and inevitable disrupter of all things. One more change, however, with which I have been associated is the third migration of Notes and Queries, in common with the Athenamm, in March, 1892, from its old premises in Took's Court, now occupied by- Government offices, to its present quarters, and the appearance of a series of views illustrating the old offices and other spots of antiquarian interest in the neighbourhood. See 8th S. i. 261 et seq. Contributors to the First Series are still in our midst. They may be more even than we are aware — for who shall say under what disguises some who now sign their names at first concealed them- selves ? Such must, however, be compara- tively few. Those who remain and those who are coming on are animated by the same spirit, preserve the same traditions, and hold aloft the same banner. Thoughts of battle are at present in men's minds, and the fact may justify an illustration not likely otherwise to be employed. The ranks of a corps are depleted and are filled again, yet the regiment is the same. Its men are still preux, its colours are unchanged, or when torn to shreds are renewed, the esprit de corps endures, and the very nicknames—heroic, comic, or affectionate—are preserved. Through the changes Mr. Francis so graphically de- picts, Notes and Queries remains Notes and Queries, rendei-s the same service, inspires the same devotion. I might almost address my associates and supporters as Henry V. addressed his scanty force at Agincourt:— We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. A band of brothers the writers in Notes and Queries have always constituted, and there is, I venture to think, no other periodical in the world in which exist such Ixmds of sympathy among its contributors and such cordial support of those in a position of " brief authority." JOSEPH KNIGHT.