“ Dr. Garnett certainly gave the lie to Mark Pattison's dictum abut the reading librarian; he not only read but published much; and though, perhaps, only a few can judge of his work done within the walls of the Museum, where he edited the catalogue from 1881 to 1890, as a scholar and writer of almost encyclopædic knowledge of everything connected with pure literature few Englishmen who have led the vita umbratilis have come to be so widely known and honoured among the less studious public. Dr. Garnett did not amass knowledge for its own sake ”

“ It is to his honour that he could bring what is the highest in literature to the understanding of common people without in any way impairing the dignity of his subject. His death is a genuine loss to the cause which he served so diligently, while the epitaph written by a colleague in the Museum on Richard Garnett the elder—"Few men have left so fragrant a memory"—is equally applicable to the son. ”

“ The list of his published works is a long one, and includes works on or translations from Greek, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese literature; while in almost all branches of English literature he was an acknowledged authority. ”