Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/119

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NOTES BY THE WAY.
49

his work was too much trouble for him; he regarded the paper with enthusiastic affection, and I am sure that he would have cordially approved the prediction of the critic in The Saturday Review that Notes and Queries is perhaps the only weekly newspaper that will be "consulted three hundred years hence." His kindly nature had endeared him to all, and great was the sorrow caused by his sudden loss. On the Sunday evening following his death the remains were removed to the Chapel of the Savoy, where they rested until the Tuesday, when, after a service by the Dean of WestminsterHis funeral from the Savoy., he was laid to rest with his father at Norwood, his friend Canon Prothero reading the last words at the grave. In the cloisters of Westminster Abbey a tablet has been placed to the memory of Mr. Turle's father, and by special permission his own name has been included. In Notes and Queries of November 28th, 1885, appears a review of 'Psalm and Hymn Tunes,' composed by James Turle, formerly organist and master of the choristers of Westminster AbbeyJames Turle's 'Psalm and Hymn Tunes.', collected and edited by his daughter S. A. Turle. Mr. Turle's compositions range over a long period —from 1824 to 1878. He was appointed organist to the Abbey in 1831, and so remained until September 26th, 1875. He still retained a titular connexion with the Abbey, and lived in his house in the Cloisters until his death on June 28th, 1882. Dean Farrar has well said of him: "He breathed through all his life the music of a sympathetic kindness and of an invincible modesty, the music which ever seemed to be slumbering on the instrument of his gentle life."

Joseph Knight becomes Editor.Mr. Joseph Knight, who succeeded Mr. Turle, has now been our Editor for nineteen years. Both contributors and readers will heartily congratulate him on this our Jubilee day, and all will join in the desire that he may be spared to celebrate many future birthdays of 'N. & Q.' The welcome words of greeting with which he opens this number will find ready response.

As we all too sadly know, Knight lived to celebrate only seven more birthdays of 'N. & Q.'

Death of Thoms.Saturday, the 15th of August, 1885, was a day of deep mourning for Notes and Queries. The kind-hearted, genial scholar, its founder and first editor, was dead. The obituary notice, written by Mr. Knight, which appeared the following week, renders full tribute to his sound learning, his genial fancy and humour, as well as to his social gifts, which caused him to be a favourite in all companies, while his good nature and tact saved him from being mixed up in archaeological feuds, and preserved to him throughout his life a record of intimacies and friendships unbroken by a single quarrel.

Obituary notices.Although the daily papers at the time, as well as The Athenæum, gave obituary notices, and the 'Dictionary of National Biography' contains particulars of his life written by Mr. E. Irving Carlyle (how proud Thoms would have been of the constant reference made to 'N. & Q.' in its pages!), some record may be made of him here.