Excerpt
Notes and Queries" in Holland.
The following extremely interesting, and, we need scarcely add, to us most gratifying, communication reached us at too late a period last week to admit of our then laying it before our friends, readers, and contributors. They will one and all participate in our gratification at the proof which it affords, not merely of that success which they have all combined to secure, but of the good working, and consequent wide extension, of that great principle of literary brotherhood which it has been the great object of "Notes and Queries" to establish.
To the Editor of "Notes and Queries."
Mr. Editor,
We have the pleasure of sending you the prospectus of "De Navorscher," a new Dutch periodical, grounded upon the same principle as its valuable and valiant predecessor "Notes and Queries." The title, when translated into English, would be—"The Searcher; a medium of intellectual exchange and literary intercourse between all who know something, have to ask something, or can solve something." If it be glorious for you to have proposed a good example, we think it honourable for us to follow it.
Though we do not wish to be our own trumpets, we can say that never a Dutch newspaper was greeted, before its appearance, by such favourable prognostics. Your idea, Mr. Editor, was received with universal applause; and Mr. Frederik Muller, by whom "De Navorscher" will be published, is not only a celebrated bookseller, but also one of our most learned bookmen.
Ready to promote by every means in our power the friendly intercourse between your country and our fatherland, we desire of you to lay the following plan before the many readers of "Notes and Queries."
1. Every Query, which, promulgated by our English sister, would perhaps find a solution when meeting the eyes of Dutch readers, will be TRANSLATED for them by her foreign brother. We promise to send you a version of the eventual answers.
2. Of Queries, divulged in "De Navorscher," and likely to be answered if translated for the British readers of "Notes and Queries," a version will be presented by us to the sister-periodical.
3. The title of Books or Odd Volumes wanted to purchase, of which copies may exist in the Netherlands, will be duly inserted into "De Navorscher" when required. Mr. Frederik Muller will direct his letters, containing particulars and lowest price, to the persons anxious for information.
4. All communications for "De Navorscher" must be addressed to Mr. D. Nutt, Bookseller, No. 270. Strand; or, carriage free, to the "Directors of the same," care of Mr. Frederik Muller, "Heerengracht, near the Oude Spieglestraat, Amsterdam."
With a fervent wish that in such a manner, two neighbourly nations, connected by religion, commerce, and literary pursuits, may be more and more united by the mail-bearing sea which divides them, we have the honour to remain,
Mr. Editor,
Your respectful servants,
The Directors of "De Navorscher."
Amsterdam, the 16th of December, 1850.
When by the publication of "Notes and Queries" we laid down those telegraphic lines of literary communication which we hoped should one day find their way into every library and book-room in the United Kingdom, we little thought that, ere fifteen months had passed, we should be called upon, not to lay down a submarine telegraph, but to establish a supermarine communication with our brethren in the Low Countries....