JOSEPH KNIGHT.
or information possessed by the aggregated contributors to Notes and Queries.
"Nothing could be more grateful to me than to thank those who during my tenure of office have kept Notes and Queries at its present splendid height, and won for its editor in some outside circles a credit for erudition he is as far from claiming as from meriting—since, indeed, those are not wanting who hold that the editor is bound to possess the omniscience which his contributors supply. 'You the editor of Notes and Queries! ' spoken with flattering wonder, say those who marvel 'how one small brain could carry all he' was supposed to know. I have, however, as I have previously said, no more right to express my gratitude than any other who benefits. Name and work speak aloud for themselves, and my only responsibility is that of the peacemaker who tries to prevent discussion passing the bounds of courtesy and employing terms that may rankle, or words that may gall a task, on the whole, lighter than might be imagined.
"It seems but yesterday that I stepped into the shoes of my amiable and accomplished friend and predecessor Turle, yet I now see that no long time needs elapse before I might be in the position of seeing myself the longest occupant of the editorial chair. During the years in which I have sat in this seat of honour, the two great national undertakings of the 'New English Dictionary' and the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' now rapidly approaching completion, have made their public appearance, together with that other and hardly less important work 'The Dialect Dictionary.' With these I am proud to find Notes and Queries closely connected. Association with them has added greatly to its claims to recognition. Under the influence of the studies thus prosecuted, knowledge of our illustrious dead is widely disseminated, and sound views on philology are beginning to spread beyond the narrow limits of professors and class-men. There still are philological free-lances who, refusing to join any regularly constituted force, fight for their own hand; but their cause is hopeless and their protests are vain. In the growth, expansion, and progress of these works what is of most interest and importance in Notes and Queries is found. The rest, so far as I am concerned, consists of records of pleasant and honouring intimacies formed and of others broken by the great and inevitable disrupter of all things.
"One more change, however, with which I have been associated is the third migration of Notes and Queries, in common with the Athenæum, in March, 1892, from its old premises in Took's Court, now occupied by Government offices, to its present quarters, and the appearance of a series of views illustrating the old offices and other spots of antiquarian interest in the neighbourhood. See 8 S. i. 261 et seq.
