Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/353

 NOTES BY THE WAY.

��283

��The portraits in the number are excellent, and include Joseph Whitaker, his son Vernon, William Longman (1813-77), H. G. Bohn, Henry Sotheran, that sturdy veteran Mr. Edward Marston, and my father. There is a slight mistake in the article on ' The Abolition of the Taxes on Knowledge.' The advertisement duty was never sixpence. Mr. Gladstone would have reduced the tax from one and sixpence to sixpence, but my father's strong opposition to this was successful, and the tax was entirely abolished.

In 1868 Whitaker founded the most famous of his publications, ' Whitaker's Almanack,' which has made Whitaker a world-wide name. He lived to see all his projects fully successful, and as The Athenceum stated in its obituary notice, in addition to the spirit of enterprise he manifested in business affairs, he was in his own home a quiet, painstaking student, and was deservedly elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. His large library, exceeding 20,000 volumes, included a selection of antiquarian literature, and he possessed choice copies of a good many rare editions. He died on the 15th of May, 1895, at his house, White Lodge, Enfield, four months to the day after the death of his son Vernon ; and on the following Saturday, in accordance with his special wish, the funeral took place from the office of The Bookseller, his body being laid to rest in Norwood Cemetery. All who knew him cherish his memory, feeling that never was there a more true and faithful friend than Joseph Whitaker. Punch paid tribute to him on the 25th of May, 1895 :

Gone ! His praises to rehearse

Might engage a friendly verse.

Time, for whom he did so much,

Surely dealt with gentle touch

With this man of lucky star.

��1 Whitaker's Almanack.'

��Joseph

Whitaker's

death.

��Punch pays

tribute to

him.

��Millions now would feel the lack Of the wondrous Almanack.

��One might say of our lost brother, Death, ere thou hast slain another, Good and useful as was he, " Time shall throw his dart at thee."

��I am sure that all my readers will join with me in hearty congratulations to George Herbert Whitaker, the editor of The Bookseller, and to Cuthbert Wilfrid Whitaker, editor of the ' Al- manack,' on the anniversary of The Bookseller. Their next cele- bration will be the Jubilee, in ten years' time (1918), of the famous ' Almanack.'

�� �