Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/9

 PREFACE.

n November next Notes and Queries will have arrived at its sixtieth birthday, and although at present there seems no prospect, as some have wished, of a gathering of the clans, I am pleased that in some way its Diamond Jubilee will be commemorated by the publication of these.

Would that our late beloved Editor—but for whom these Notes would never have been put into book form—were with us to give his "band of brothers" his warm handshake, his genial, sympathetic smile, and the kind encouragement he was ever so ready to render to myself and to all!

When I told him that his kind words about these Notes had decided me to print them in a separate volume, and to ask him if he would accept the dedication, he expressed great pleasure ; and now they are dedicated to his honoured memory. In compiling the memoir of him I have been much indebted to his brother, Mr. John P. Knight, for reminiscences of his early life.

Joseph Woodfall Ebsworth, whose untiring work in collecting materials for the Ballad history of Great Britain was beyond all praise, devoted years of his life to the search for old Ballads,