John Alexander Herbert, Dictionary of National Biography… (1912 | noyear)
“ During his long career at the British Museum he was continually consulted by students of various nationalities; and it was always a delight to him to place his rich stores of knowledge at their disposal, without any care for his own claims to priority of publication. ”
John Alexander Herbert, Dictionary of National Biography… (1912 | noyear)
“ His attention was thus directed, by way of the Norse sagas, to the study of mediæval romantic literature in general, which became henceforth the engrossing interest of his life, and in which, through his wide reading, retentive memory, and sound critical instinct, he acquired exceptional proficiency. This bore fruit first in a comprehensive and admirable article on ‘Romance, Mediæval,’ which he wrote for Knight's ‘English Cyclopædia’ in 1873; and more fully afterwards in his monumental, though unfinished, ‘Catalogue of Romances in the British Museum,’ of which vol. ”
John Alexander Herbert, Dictionary of National Biography… (1912 | noyear)
“ Vol. ii. includes the ‘Beowulf’ epic, but deals mainly with collections of shorter tales: Icelandic sagas, Æsopic fables, miracles of the Virgin, etc. Vol. iii. is entirely occupied with the ‘exempla’ used by preachers and moralists, and so appeals mainly to the professed mediævalist. ”
