John Collins Francis

“ We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. A band of brothers the writers in Notes and Queries have always constituted, and there is, I venture to think, no other periodical in the world in which exist such bonds of sympathy among its contributors and such cordial support of those in a position of 'brief authority.'"
The affection with which he was regarded by its contributors was worldwide, and friends across the seas wrote to me not long before his death, wishing him to be invited to a banquet in 1909 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Notes and Queries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ His death reduces to two Holman Hunt and W. M. Rossetti—the list of the Pre-Raphaelite Brethren, one of the original members, and to a certain extent an historian, of which he was. A man of wide range of knowledge, he was, like all students and experts, ever ready in supplying to others the information with which his memory was charged, and was one of the most amiable as well as the most erudite of men. It is difficult to appraise the services he rendered to the most earnest and enlightened pursuit of modern art. Our personal loss cannot easily be estimated. ”

“ Thoughts of battle are at present in men's minds, and the fact may justify an illustration not likely otherwise to be employed. The ranks of a corps are depleted and are filled again, yet the regiment is the same. Its men are still preux, its colours are unchanged, or when torn to shreds are renewed, the esprit de corps endures, and the very nicknames—heroic, comic, or affectionate—are preserved. Through the changes Mr. Francis so graphically depicts, Notes and Queries remains Notes and Queries, renders the same service, inspires the same devotion. ”

“ Who wrote " Of making many books
There is no end " ? To us it looks
As though he grappled truth with hooks. The feeble flesh much study wearies.
None know it better than the men
Of quite encyclopaedic ken,
Whose hands have held the ready pen
Through fifty years of 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. ”

“ On the 21st of December, 1861, Notes and Queries appeared with its front page in mourning for the Prince Consort, and Mr. Thoms makes sympathetic reference to the great national loss. "The millions sorrow as one, with a sorrow of which the depth is only equalled by its sincerity." ”

“ Mr. James Douglas, who knew Knight intimately, thus describes him in M.A.P. on the 6th of July, 1907:—
James Douglas. "I have known many great men, but I have never known a man with a greater soul than his. He was one of those giants whose personality is more splendid than their work. The full fragrance of his character was felt only by those who heard him talk, who saw the large presence of the man, who felt the warm clasp of his generous hand, and who saw the rich humour of his jovial eye."
Ebsworth also wrote on the 5th of July:—
J. W.
Ebsworth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Short passages of signal beauty and Landor-like grace of utterance are numerous. A few must suffice:—
Just when the stars falter forth, one by one,
Like the first words of love from a maiden's lips. ”

“ All rivalries and jealousies are forgotten, the rulers of the whole world of civilization bring homage and tribute. No chronicle attests a state of affairs so solemn, so sorrowful. Our thoughts are wholly occupied with the illustrious dead. Yet even when so absorbed what temptation to swelling pride presents itself! What, beside Victoria, are Semiramis and Cleopatra? ”

“ The first thirty years of the acted drama carry us from 'Ferrex and Porrex; or, Gammer Gurton's Needle,' to Marlowe's 'Edward II.'; another 'generation' gives us the First Folio Shakspeare. As civilization proceeds alteration is less evident. None the less the last thirty years of the English stage have witnessed more than one change, amounting practically to a revolution. Public interest in things theatrical, at the outset slumbering and apparently extinct, has flowered out afresh. ”

“ The search after knowledge is as honourable as it is fascinating, and the most eminent in the land need not blush to appeal to the all-embracing wisdom or information possessed by the aggregated contributors to Notes and Queries. ”

“ In the notice of the play as performed at the Lyceum, which appeared in The Athenæum on the 9th of July, 1898, Knight accords to M. Rostand full praise for the high quality and conspicuous merit of the play, although its merits are not wholly or principally dramatic:—
"As literature its position is unassailable, and the beauty and flexibility of its versification are held to promise a new lease of life to a form of composition that is necessarily conventional, and in this country has been regarded as artificial. ”

“ I play about the honey collected by the learned bees, and sympathize with their wisdom and the consolation they got out of their learning." Mr. Bentley must have left a valuable collection of correspondence, for in his quiet retirement at Upton he held frequent communication with many of those best known in literature. On Wednesday, in the bright sunshine and with the singing of the birds, he was borne through his lovely garden to Upton churchyard, and there laid in a grave all beautiful with the roses he had loved so well. ”

“ Thoms, on the llth of October, 1879, in a pathetic appeal to photographers, asks them to make a small return for the service rendered to photography in its early days by Notes and Queries:—
"Among the collection of photographic portraits of old friends, literary and personal, which I possess, many are fast fading away several of friends now no longer living. Is it possible to revive them? Surely the Photographic Society ought to have among its men of science remedy for this great evil, or some simple mode of so printing photographs as to ensure their not fading." ”

“ Contributors to the First Series are still in our midst. They may be more even than we are aware for who shall say under what disguises some who now sign their names at first concealed themselves? Such must, however, be comparatively few. Those who remain and those who are coming on are animated by the same spirit, preserve the same traditions, and hold aloft the same banner. ”

“ Knight thus stated his views:—
"The only man who could accept the Laureateship is Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Morris's politics putting him out of the running. I cannot think the gentlemen who supply us with a constant stream of verse—epic, lyric, dramatic, what not—possessing every attraction and quality except the essential, could seriously challenge the verdict of the ages upon their presumption. ”

“ Thoms, who said of him that he was "one who had many friends, but never an enemy." The Athenæum, in its obituary notice of the same date, states of this "simple-minded worshipper of strict accuracy" that "no man was ever more fortunate in finding in his daily occupation the labour in which he delighted," and suggests that his large collection of cuttings, jottings, and notes illustrative of the biography of the "illustrious obscure" of our literature should be secured by the British Museum. ”

“ Chairman of first Readers' Dinner.Knight had always highly appreciated, as all engaged in literature must, the services rendered by the proof-reader, and on the 11th of April, 1891, he took the chair at the dinner held to celebrate the foundation of the first Readers' Pension. Since then he had watched with great interest the work of the Readers' Pensions Committee, of which Lord Glenesk was President until his lamented death on November 24th, 1908. Four pensions have been founded, at a cost of just over two thousand pounds, and placed in the charge of the Printers' Pension Corporation. ”

“ Our religion itself, while it informs him of all that is necessary to fit him for that world to which he hastens, yet leaves him purposely ignorant of its nature and of that of its inhabitants. Thus situated, who can marvel that man has peopled this unknown universe with his own ideal conceptions? ”

“ Thomas Attwood, the chairman in proposing the toast of the King, said that in his opinion "the illustrious individual who fills the throne of these realms is more entitled to this honour than any king since the days of Edward III. In the short period he has reigned he has given many indubitable proofs of his great kindness and sincere affection towards his people, and I am convinced that he will do everything in his power to restore the liberty and increase the happiness of his faithful subjects." ”

“ He had a great regard for my father, and once said to me, "We all love your father." It is a loss to literature that, with all his wide range of knowledge and pleasing style of writing, he should not have left a more permanent mark. ”

“ Poetry in these days is the blossom of most intelligent minds. Only when it becomes fruit is the world concerned with it. A single lyric in 'Atalanta' or 'Songs and Ballads' outweighs all the remaining verse issued in the United Kingdom. ”

“ Many suggestions have been made by contributors from time to time with a view to increasing the usefulness of Notes and Queries. Among these was one made by Mr. F. A. Carrington on the 15th of November, 1856, that " 'N. & Q.' would have great additional value if the contributors of Notes (Queries do not signify) would give their names." This elicited from "C." on the 6th of December a reply against the proposal :—
"Those who please may, and many do sign, and others who give no name are as well known as if they did; but as a general rule the absence of the name is, I am satisfied, best. ”

“ A great lover of books and an admirer of nature, he considered the best two possessions that a man could have were a library and a good old-fashioned garden full of roses, of which he was a careful cultivator, and of sweet-smelling flowers. ”

“ This was probably the last letter Dante Rossetti ever wrote. He died on Easter Sunday, the 9th of April, 1882. Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, in an affectionate appreciation which appeared in The Athenæum of the following Saturday, describes him as "one of the most rarely gifted men of our time," and says that "a life more devoted to literature and art than his it is impossible to imagine."
Mr. William Rossetti says that when Knight was preparing the life of his brother he "undertook to show him any letters in my possession. ”

“ Knight complains of the neglect of Drayton, who is "now only known to the student of early English literature, or the antiquary," but who "has done most after Shakespeare to secure to the Faeries an immortality of beauty." After making reference to "many beautiful allusions scattered through his works," Knight calls special attention to his poem entitled 'Nymphidia; or, The Court of the Fairy,' in which "a high degree of poetical merit is blended with a lively style and wit, and a playful turn of fancy almost Shakespearian." ”

“ 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. ”

“ To The Athenæum, in addition to criticisms of performances, Knight contributed reviews of books on the drama, and of others on subjects concerning which he had special knowledge. He occupied so prominent a position as a dramatic critic that his vast learning and his love for other studies are apt to be overlooked. ”

“ To enumerate all the chief contributors would be to give almost every known name in literature. Many, like Mr. Dilke, chose to remain anonymous, but among those whose names appear in the early numbers may be mentioned Mr. William Bernard MacCabe suggests General Indexes. William Bernard MacCabe, the author of the 'Catholic History of England,' and the first to suggest the publication at stated intervals of those General Indexes of which Lord Brougham said that "they double the value and utility of Notes and Queries" Names of contributors. ”

“ Not at all the sort of idea to germinate in the mind of active strenuous youth is that of a work of this class. It is necessarily the conception of the ripe scholar seeking further to gratify that thirst for knowledge which is the strength or the 'infirmity of noble minds.' How much effort of how many men has been necessary in order to bring Notes and Queries to its present standpoint of efficiency and to its position as the indispensable companion of every earnest literary writer Mr. ”

“ Fechter is referred to as "the most distinguished of his immediate predecessors in the role he now assumes. . . . Irving as Hamlet.Mr. Fechter rose slowly, through successive stages, looking carefully to his foothold. Mr. Irving has gone lightly and easily over the ground, and has reached the summit with but little exertion."
In the Introduction Knight states how he had watched for thirty years the average of a generation "the development of the stage in England. Thirty years constitute a long time as regards human observation and artistic progress. ”