Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/309

 9«h S. IV. Nov. 4, '99.] 367 NOTES AND QUERIES. national loss. " The millions sorrow as one, with a sorrow of which the depth is only equalled by its sincerity." On August 13th, 1864, Mr. Thorns thus records the death of his friend Charles Went- worth Dilke :— "In the death of Charles Wentworth Dilke ' N. & Q.' has sustained a great loss; for, among the many able writers who have from time to time contributed to its pages, no one has enriched them with so many valuable papers illustrative of Eng- lish History and Literature as he whose death it is now our painful duty to record. Mr. Dilke was one of the truest-hearted men, and kindest friends, it has ever been our good fortune to know. He died on Wednesday last, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. The distinguishing feature of his cha- racter was, his singular love of truth ; and his sense of its value and importance, even in the minutest points and questions of literary history. In all his writings the enforcement of this great principle, as the only foundation of literary honour and respect- ability, was his undeviating aim and object. VVhat the independence of English Literary Journalism owes to nis spirited exertions, clear judgment, and unflinching honesty of purpose, will, we trust, be told hereafter by an abler pen than that which now announces his deeply lamented death." On the 10th of July, 1875, Mr. Thorns re- views " The Papers of a Critic, selected from the Writings of the late Charles Wentworth Dilke, with a Biographical Sketch by his Grandson, Sir Charles W. Dilke, Bart, M.P.," 2 vols. (Murray). Mr. Thorns in his review states that there was no more successful clearer - up of vexed questions in social, political, or literary history than the late Mr. Dilke, "for the simplo reason that he brought to the work persistent industry, earnestness, and an honest spirit of truthfulness; and he delivered no judgment till he was thoroughly satisfied that it was correct on every point, and in no part assailable. But the readers and contributors of ' N. & Q.' do not require to be told of the rare qualities which distinguished Mr. Dilke as a critic. They will be glad to possess the papers which his grandson has collected, and which prove that he stood unrivalled as a great master of the art of criticism. They who had the honour of possessing his friendship nave a loving and undying memory of what Mr. Dilke was as a man. To those who were strangers to him we heartily recommend a perusal of the memoir, in which his grandson tells the story of a thoroughly honest man s honest and useful life." Mr. Thorns then gives in full a birthday letter from Mr. Dilke to his son, of which he says :— " The columns of ' N. & Q.' have contained many beautiful letters written by ineu who now, as the phrase is, 'belong to history'; but we question if there is one among them all which is so tender and wise." Mr. Dilke's contributions to Notes and Queries were very large, but as in its pages he had, as he said, "as many aliases as an Old Bailey prisoner " it is difficult to trace some of them. In ' Papers of a Critic' we are helped to a solution. He nearly always used the initials of the first three words of the heading of his contributions. Suppose, for instance, it was 'The Carylls of Ladyholt,' it would be signed T. C. O. Among the subjects treated upon were Pope. Junius. Wilkes, Burke, ' Hugh Speke ana the Forged Declara- tion of the Prince of Orange ' (a series of notes in which Mr. Dilke defended one of the leaders of Monmouth's rebellion against Macaulay), centenarianism, and various others. In the memoir which appears of Mr. Dilke in the ' Dictionary of National Biography' it is stated that " the best comments on his character and his literary work were those of his old friend Thorns in Notes and Queries"; and both having been intimately associated with the founding of Notes and Queries, I have felt what a pleasure it would be to its readers to have the portraits of the two friends placed side by side in this our Jubilee number, and I am certain that such would have been the desire of its founder. I much wished to have given a portrait of Mr. Dilke taken only four years before his death, but, unfortunately, I have to lament, like Mr. Thorns, the faded photographs of old friends. I will only add just this testimony from myself. No words can express the affection and regard that my father and all of us in our home in Wellington Street had for him. The number for the 28th of September, 1872, opens with 'A Parting Note' from Mr. Thorns :— " There is something very solemn in performing any action under the consciousness that it is for the last time. " Influenced by this feeling it had been my in- tention that this the last number of Notes and Queries edited by me should not have contained any intimation that the time had arrived, when I felt called upon to husband my strength and faculties for those official duties which form the proper business of my life. " But the fact having been widely announced, I owe it to myself, and to my sense of what is due to that large body of friends, known and unknown, by whom I have been for three-and-twenty years so ably and generously seconded, to tender them my public and grateful acknowledgments for their long- continued kindnesses. " ' With conscious pride I view the band Of faithful friends that round me stand; With pride exult that I alone Have joined these scattered gems in one ; Rejoiced to be the silken line On which these pearls united shine.' " This pride is surely a most justifiable one ; and he who could separate himself from the pleasant