OUR HUNDREDTH NUMBER.
It is the privilege of age to be garrulous; and as we have this week reached our Hundredth Number—an age to which comparatively few Periodicals ever attain—we may be pardoned if, on thus completing our first Century of Inventions, we borrow a few words from the noble author of that well-known work, and beg you, Gentle Reader, "to cast your gracious eye over this summary collection and there to pick and choose:" and when you have done so, to admit that, thanks to the kind assistance of our friends and correspondents, we have not only (like Master Lupton) presented you with A Thousand Notable Things, but fulfilled the objects which we proposed in the publication of "NOTES AND QUERIES."
During the hundred weeks our paper has existed we have received from Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and France—from the United States—from India—from Australia—from the West Indies—from almost every one of our Colonies—letters expressive of the pleasure which the writers (many of them obviously scholars "ripe and good," though far removed from the busy world of letters), derive from the perusal of "Notes and Queries;" and it is surely a good work to put to students so situated,
"—— all the learning that our time
Can make them the receivers of."
And, on the other hand, our readers cannot but have noticed how many a pertinent Note, suggestive Query, and apt Reply have reached us from the same remote quarters.
Our columns have, however, not only thus administered to the intellectual enjoyment of our brethren abroad, but they have rendered good service to men of letters here at home: and We could set forth a goodly list of works of learning and research—from Mr. Cunningham's Handbook of London Past and Present, published when we had been but a few months in existence, down to Wyclyffe's Three Treatises on the Church, recently edited by the Rev. Dr. Todd—in which the utility of "NOTES AND QUERIES" is publicly recognised in terms which are highly gratifying to us.
We do not make these statements in any vainglorious spirit. We believe our success is due to the manner in which, thanks to the ready assistance of zealous and learned Friends and Correspondents, we have been enabled to supply a want which all literary men have felt more or less: and believing that the more we are known, and the wider our circulation, the greater will be our usefulness, and the better shall we be enabled to serve the cause we seek to promote. We feel we may fairly invite increased support for "NOTES AND QUERIES" on the grounds of what it has already accomplished.
And so, wishing ourselves many happy returns of this Centenary—and that you, Gentle Reader, may be spared to enjoy them, We bid you heartily Farewell!