Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/108

 the hands of a specified editor, whose colleagues sent to him orders for the illustrations. It was seldom that an artist declined a commission, but on one occasion William Small did. His drawing on wood was so beautiful that it always seemed a pity to cut it; he was among the very first illustrators of the day. The subject which Mr. Small could not undertake was the old ballad of 'The Queen's Maries.' Those who remember the poignant pathos of the poem will readily appreciate Mr. Small's feelings. Few can read it dry-eyed.

"No editor could go through such a routine as I have roughly sketched without being the better for it. He had the advantage of a varied experience, his judgment and taste were matured, and business-like aptitude and method grew if he lacked them at the start."

James Manson's genius for camaraderie won for him hosts of friends at La Belle Sauvage, and when, in 1900, his term of office ended, his colleagues presented him with an album of signatures to an affectionate address and a purse of two hundred pounds. He returned to the Yard for special work during the Great War, and died in February, 1921, a few weeks after his war task was completed.

Manson's successor, after an interval of a few months during which the department was carried on by Mr. John Hamer, was Mr. Arthur D. Innes, a one-time scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, who held the post until the death of Sir Wemyss Reid, in 1905, when he returned to the writing of history, in which he had already begun to specialize. He now has to his credit many scholarly works dealing with various periods and aspects of British History.

Under the long line of Chief Editors, from Teignmouth Shore to A. D. Innes, a number of notable personalities were associated with the staff. In the late 'seventies they included Sir Sidney Low and Mr. Lloyd Sanders, who was afterwards one of the editors of "Celebrities of the Century." Like Mr. Charles Whibley, who joined the staff a few years later, they quickly tired of office routine,