Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/314

 372 NOTES AND QUERIES. p* b. iv. not. 4, m investigations. For the first twelve months after he had started Notes and Queries he used to insert, without the slightest doubt as to their accuracy, all the various cases of exceptional longevity which were sent to him. Mr. Dilke would good-naturedly quiz him on his fondness " for the big gooseberry style of communications," so that when Sir George C. Lewis sent to him a paper on 'Centenarians' (3nl S. i. 281) his mind was prepared to go into the question. Mr. Thorns was a great rambler among the London bookstalls, and in this " bookstalling " he and his friend Mr. Dilke were friendly rivals. Mr. Dilke on one occasion wrote to him, " Chancery Lane is my own manor, regularly haunted every Friday, and it is not to be endured that a mere poacher shall shake my own property in my own face." The letter is signed " Yours as you behave yourself." Mr. Thorns in his ' Gossip of an Old Book- worm,' which appeared in the Nineteenth Century in 1881, gives some interesting par- ticulars as to his search for pamphlets and books among the bookstalls, when he would often meet Lord Macaulay on the same errand. Mr. Thorns tells us that he had a love for books from his earliest years, the taste for them being encouraged by his father, who was a diligent reader of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Beviews, his library containing a complete set of each. Being very short- sighted, he was not able to join in sports like other boys. "There was only one branch of them in which I was an adept, and in these refined days I almost blush to refer to it. I was said to handle the gloves very nicely." The year 1872 was full of activity for Mr. Thorns. We find him busy investigating 'Another Historic Doubt'—the death-warrant of Charles I. The numbers for July contain his notes on the subject; these were after- wards reprinted, and rapidly passed through two editions. They were dedicated to one dear to him as a brother—" To the memory of that model of a Christian gentleman and accomplished scholar, my forty years' friend, John Bruce." Then came his farewell to ' Parting Note' a banquet was given in his honour. On the 1st of November such an assemblage as is rarely witnessed met at Willis's Rooms. The chairman was Earl Stanhope, Lord Lyttelton occupied the vice- chair, and the company included, among other equally well-known names, the Earl of Verulam, Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir Charles W. Dilke, Sir Edward Smirke, Prof. Owen, Mr. Joseph Durham, R. A., Mr. Shirley Brooks, and Mr. John Murray. A report of the proceedings is printed on the 9th of November. Earl Stanhope in the course of his speech said that " it was as Editor of Notes and Queries from its foundation that they were now met to do him [Mr. Thorns] honour. The distinguishing merit of that periodical was that it did not pursue its inquiries into any one branch of knowledge, but invited co-operation from labourers in different fields of knowledge in the elucidation of difficulties." Among other speakers were Mr. Benjamin Moran, United States Charge d'Affaires, who bore testimony to the appreciation in America of Mr. Thoms's labours ; Prof. Owen, who thanked Mr. Thorns in the name of men of science whose researches he has assisted in the pages of 'N. & Q.'; and Sir Frederick Pollock. Mr. Thorns in the course of his reply said that "during all the time he had conducted Notes and Queries he never had so difficult a query proposed as that which occurred to him to-night, 'What have I done to deserve this great honour ?'" Among the many friends who wrote to congratulate him upon the success of the evening there was no letter more valued than the one he received from his successor in ' N. k Q.' Dr. Doran wrote:— "Very sincerely do I congratulate you on the way in which you got through your trying position on Friday night. All around me felt for you while you were speaking, and admired how manfully your courage carried you over your emotion. A better speech could not have been made on such an occa- sion, and more hearty sympathy for the speaker could not have been shown, not merely bv the loud applause, but by the quiet friendly and affectionate comments and phrases interchanged among neigh- bour-guests while you were doing battle with your feelings, and yet preserving your self-possession and your characteristic humour. It was a night to be remembered." With this celebration Mr. Thoms's public life may be said to have closed. The next thir- teen years were passed for the most part quietly in the sanctuary of home, surrounded by those he loved, until the end came, in the old home endeared to him by so many memories. His life had been so long that few of his earlier friends had been spared to follow him to the cemetery at Brompton. My companion on that occasion was one of his oldest friends and contributors, Mr. Hyde Clarke, since passed to his rest. The Athenaeum of the 14th of last month announced the death of another of his old friends, Col. Francis Grant. Mr. Thoms's library of some fifteen thousand volumes, which included a large collection of works on Pope and Junius, was sold by Messrs. Sotheby in February, 1887.
 * N. & Q.', and only four weeks after his