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 CHAPTER III.

THE HISTORY OF ' NOTES AND QUERIES.' " few, we happy few, we band of brothers," were the words of greeting our beloved Editor, Joseph Knight, gave to his con- Jubilee of tributors on the 4th of November, 1899, being the Jubilee number of Notes and Queries. The following is the Historical Note which I wrote at his request, and which appeared on that date:—

This last year but one of the nineteenth century has been remarkable for the number of its centenary and jubilee celebrations.

On the 16th of January three hundred years had passed since the death, at his lodgings in King Street, Westminster, of Edmund Spenser. On the 5th of June the centenary of the Royal Institution was celebrated. On the 13th of the same month was the jubilee of the first municipal public free library in the United Kingdom, that in the Peel Park, Salford. The 28th of August was the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Goethe. Festivities commemorating the event were commenced on the 19th of August, and not concluded until the 6th of September, when the Goethe Platz was decorated and lighted in " hervorragender Weise"; but amid all the rejoicings it is beautiful to record that the graves of Goethe's parents in the old churchyard of St. Peter were not forgotten, lovely wreaths of flowers and laurels being placed upon them. Other events include the centenary of the Church Missionary Society, founded on the 14th of April, 1799 (to commemorate the event Mr. Eugene Stock, the editorial secretary, has written a full history of the Society, published in three volumes) ; the centenary of the Religious Tract Society, founded by the Rev. George Burder, of Coventry, on the 9th of May, 1799 (the Rev. Samuel G. Green, D.D., the secretary, has sketched 'The Story of the Religious Tract Society for One Hundred Years.' This contains a facsimile of Tract No. 6, 'The Repentance and Happy Death of the Celebrated Earl of Rochester.' It is curious to note that the name of the printer of this tract is Rousseau); and the jubilee of "that dream of Father Newman and Father Faber of bringing Rome to London," the founding of the London Oratory, this being opened in King William Street, Strand, on the 31st of May, 1849. Among anniversaries of inventions must be mentioned the diamond jubilee of photography, and the centenary of the yet more important discoveries by Volta as to the properties of electricity.