PREFACE.
Once more it is my pleasant task to usher into the world with a few words of introduction the Index to a new Series of Notes and Queries. In a world of continuous struggle there is no room to pause and count losses; what has to be done is to gird up the loins for sustained efforts and redress the rallying ranks. Whatever saddle may be empty or whatever pennon may have disappeared, the cause remains victorious, and there is the same press of noble knights following the oriflamme of Notes and Queries.
We are all more or less by habit, almost by instinct, praisers of past times, and the heroes of our boyish days remain unequalled in stature as in valour. Still it may fairly be maintained that the Seventh Series of Notes and Queries is worthy in all respects to compare with any series that has gone before. In that great advance that has been made in philological studies by the substitution of authority for conjecture, NOTES AND QUERIES has had an important share, and its contributions to a knowledge of the history of language would alone secure it prominent recognition. By its agency knowledge is being formulated and arranged.
In such great and national undertakings as the 'Dictionary of National Biography' and the 'New English Dictionary' the influence of Notes and Queries is abundantly traceable, principally in the preparation of material, and, in a minor degree, in the supply of complementary information. The whole field of antiquity is reviewed, and history, genealogy, heraldry, and kindred subjects are still illumined from its pages. What the Editor feels with special pride is that the affection Notes and Queries has always inspired is still manifested. That revelation of the possibility of combined exertion which the first appearance brought with it that flash of recognition of a new source of power could only attend the initiatory stage. The latest worker in the fields of antiquarian lore acknowledges, however, his obligation as warmly as his predecessor, and the latest monuments of energy and erudition bear the willingly rendered tribute to which Notes and Queries is accustomed.
It is no part of the Editor's duty to appraise or to select, or even to thank. He is but the mouthpiece to the instrument, indispensable perhaps, but, by comparison, unimportant. Alone almost among periodicals it can claim that its correspondents constitute its complete raison d'etre, making and shaping it, supporting it, and profiting by it. My duty is discharged in the utterance of renewed congratulations to those who fail in no respect of zeal or ability, and render my task as agreeable as it is honouring.
Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.C., June 1, 1892.
