acquired a main share in the _Athenaeum_, a journal 'but just born yet
nevertheless dying,' and quickly raised it into the high position of
critical authority which it maintained, not only throughout his own life,
but throughout his grandson's. So careful was Mr. Dilke to preserve its
reputation for impartial judgment, that during the sixteen years in which
he had virtually entire control of the paper, he withdrew altogether from
general society "in order to avoid making literary acquaintances which
might either prove annoying to him, or be supposed to compromise the
independence of his journal." [Footnote: From _Papers of a Critic_, a
selection of Mr. Dilke's essays, edited, with a memoir, by Sir Charles
Dilke, See _infra_, p. 184.]

After 1846 the editorship of the _Athenaeum_ was in other hands, but the
proprietor's vigilant interest in it never abated, and was transmitted to
his grandson, who continued to the end of his days not only to write for
it, but also to read the proofs every week, and repeatedly for brief
periods to act as editor.

When in 1846 Mr. Dilke curtailed his work on the _Athenaeum_, it was to
take up other duties. For three years he was manager of the recently
established _Daily News_, working in close fellowship with his friends
John Forster and Charles Dickens.

From the time when he gave up this task till his death in 1864 Mr. Dilke's
life had one all-engrossing preoccupation--the training of his grandson
Charles. But to the last, literary research employed him. In 1849 he
helped to establish _Notes and Queries_ 'to be a paper in which literary
men could answer each other's questions'; and his contributions to this
paper [Footnote: Its founder and first editor, Mr. W. J. Thorns
(afterwards Librarian of the House of Lords), had for three years been