It is pleasant to see so many of the correspondents of "N. & Q." joining in
the remonstrance against the anonymous system. Were one to set about
accumulating the reasons for the abandonment of pseudo-names and initials,
many of the valuable columns of this periodical might be easily filled;
such an essay it is not, however, my intention to inflict on its readers,
who by a little thought can easily do for themselves more than a large
effusion of ink on the part of any correspondent could effect. I shall
content myself with recounting the good which, in one instance, has
resulted from a knowledge of the real name and address of a contributor.
The REV. H. T. ELLACOMBE (one of the first to raise his voice against the
use of pseudo-names) having observed in "N. & Q." many communications
evincing no ordinary acquaintance with the national Records of Ireland, and
wishing to enter into direct communication with the writer (who merely
signed himself J. F. F.), put a Query in the "Notices to Correspondents,"
begging J. F. F. to communicate his real name and address. There in all
probability the matter would have ended, as J. F. F. did not happen to take
"N. & Q.," but that the writer of these lines chanced to be aware, that
under the above given initials lurked the name of the worthy, the
courteous, the erudite, and, yet more strange still, the _unpaid_ guardian
of the Irish Exchequer Records--James Frederick Ferguson,--a name which
many a student of Irish history will recognise with warm gratitude and
unfeigned respect. Now it had so happened that by a strange fortune MR.
ELLACOMBE was the repository of information as to the whereabouts of
certain of the ancient Records of Ireland (see MR. ELLACOMBE'S notice of
the matter, Vol. viii., p. 5.), abstracted at some former period from the
"legal custody" of some heedless keeper, and sold by a Jew to a German
gentleman, and the result of his communicating this knowledge to Mr.
Ferguson, has been the latter gentleman's "chivalrous" and successful
expedition for their recovery. The _English Quarterly Review_ (not
_Magazine_, as MR. ELLACOMBE inadvertently writes), in a forthcoming
article on the Records of Ireland, will, it is to be hoped, give the full
details of this exciting record hunt, and thus exemplify the _great
utility_, not to speak of the _manliness_, of real names and addresses,
_versus_ false names and equally Will-o'-the-Wisp initials.