1896.] on National Biography, 31 



Austria and Belgium each set on foot a register of national biography 

 under the auspices of state-aided literary academies. At length, a 

 new and very strenuous endeavour was made to supply the defect in 

 our own literature, made under the auspices of no state-aided literary 

 academies, but by the independent and enlightened exertion of one 

 great English publisher. In conclusion the lecturer said : " It does 

 not become me to say much of this last endeavour, with which I 

 am very closely identitied. The ' Dictionary of National Biography,' 

 which was begun some thirteen years ago under Mr. Leslie Stephen's 

 editorship, is now nearing completion under my awn. Even if the 

 * Dictionary of National Biography' does not practise at all points 

 those counsels of perfection which I have addressed to you to-night, 

 if it contains errors from which no work of such multiplicity was ever 

 free ; yet those who are acquainted with it will admit that it has 

 accomplished much, that the writers who have co-operated in its 

 production have vastly improved upon their predecessors, and finally 

 that it is none the less efficient, and none the less worthy of its 

 mighty theme, because, while it seeks to do the State some service, it 

 is the outcome of private enterprise, and the handiwork of private 

 citizens." 



