WHAT IS AN INDEX? (continued 2)

The scissors-and-paste compilers are peculiarly liable to such errors as these, and Wilson Croker proved in the Quarterly Review that the Mémoires de Louis XVIII. (published in 1832) was a mendacious compilation from the Mémoires de Bachaumont by giving examples of the compiler’s blundering. One of these muddles is well worth quoting, and it occurs in the following passage: “Seven bishops—of Puy, Gallard de Terraube; of Langres, La Luzerne; of Rhodez, Seignelay-Colbert; of Gast, Le Tria; of Blois, Laussiere Themines; of Nancy, Fontanges; of Alais, Beausset; of Nevers, Seguiran.” Had the compiler taken the trouble to count his own list, he would have seen that he had given eight names instead of seven, and so have suspected that something was wrong; but he was not paid to think. The fact is that there is no such place as Gast, and was no such person as Le Tria. The Bishop of Rhodez was Seignelay-Colbert de Castle Hill, a descendant of the Scotch family of Cuthbert of Castle Hill, in Inverness-shire, and Bachaumont misled his successor by writing Gast Le Hill for Castle Hill. The introduction of a stop and a little misspelling originated the blunder as we now find it.

An author is sometimes turned into a place, as in the article on Stenography in Rees’s Cyclopædia. John Nicolai published a Treatise on the Signs of the Ancients at the beginning of the last century, and the writer of the article having seen it stated that a certain fact was to be found in Nicolai, jumped to the conclusion that it was the name of a place and wrote: “It was at Nicolai that this method of writing was first introduced to the Greeks by Xenophon himself.”

D’Israeli gives a few curious instances of supposed authors in his Curiosities of Literature—“A book was written in praise of Ciampini by Ferdinand Fabiani, who quoting a French narrative of travels in Italy, took for the name of the author the following words, found at the end of the title-page, Enrichi de deux Listes; that is, ‘Enriched with two Lists:’ on this he observes ‘that Mr. Enriched with two Lists has not failed to do that justice to Ciampini which he merited.’ The abridgers of Gesner’s Bibliotheca ascribe the romance of Amadis to one Acuerdo Olvido: Remembrance, Oblivion. Not knowing that these two words on the title-page of the French version of that book formed the translator’s Spanish motto. D’Aquin, the French King’s physician, in his memoir on the preparation of Bark, takes Mantissa, which is the title of the Appendix to the History of Plants by Johnstone, for the name of an author, and who he says is so extremely rare, that he only knows him by name.” To these may be added S. Viar, whose existence was supposed to be proved by an inscription until an antiquary showed that the complete reading of the mutilated stone was

præfectuS . VIARum.

Also the August Oriuna, supposed to be the wife of Carausius, of whom Dr. Stukeley wrote some theoretical memoirs. This blunder originated in the credulous Doctor’s misreading of the inscription on a battered coin of Carausius:—

ORIVNA AVG . for FORTVNA AVG.

The French often fall into this class of blunders from their constant practice of translating or explaining whatever it is supposed can be translated or explained, thus G. Brunet of Bordeaux, having occasion in his “La France Littéraire au XVe Siècle,” to mention “White Knights,” the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, translates it “Le Chevalier Blanc.”[34] When Dr. Buckland, the distinguished geologist, died, a certain French paper published a biography of him, in which it was explained that the deceased had been a very versatile writer, for besides his works on Geology, he had produced one, “Sur les ponts et chaussées.” This was a puzzle at first, but it was soon found that the Bridgewater Treatise was here alluded to. The French love of translation and explanation is amusingly illustrated in the Annuaire des Sociétés Savantes, par le Cte. Achmet d’Hericourt, 1863, where the author, in his notice of the Geological and Polytechnic Society of the West Riding of Yorkshire, says that as it is known that the English word Ride means a “voyage à cheval ou en voiture,” it might be thought that this was a “Société hippique,” but he obligingly adds that it is not so.

We have already seen in several cases how dangerous it is to jump to conclusions, but we have still to point out the particular danger of filling out contractions without sufficient knowledge. Pope, in a note on Measure for Measure, informs us that the story was taken from Giraldi Cinthio’s novel Dec. 8, Nov. 5, thus contracting the words Decade and Novel. Warburton, in his edition of Shakespeare, was misled by these contractions, and filled them out as December 8, and November 5. An error of the same kind is made by Dr. Allibone in his Dictionary of English Literature, under the heading of Isaac Disraeli. He notices new editions of that author’s works revised by the Right Hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of course Isaac’s son Benjamin (now Earl of Beaconsfield and Prime Minister); but unfortunately there were two Chancellors in 1858, and Allibone chooses the wrong one, printing as information to the reader that the reviser was Sir George Cornewall Lewis. But still worse was the following emendation of an ‘intelligent’ printer. A writer in one of the reviews sent his copy to press with the contraction “J. C. first invaded Britain,” and the compositor, who made it his business to fill up all such abbreviations, instead of Julius Cæsar, set up Jesus Christ.[35]

Next in importance to the selection of appropriate headings in an Index is the careful use of cross references. Great judgment is here required, as the consulters are naturally irritated by being referred backwards and forwards, particularly in a large Index. At the same time, if judiciously inserted, such references are a great help. When the entries are short and few, it is better to repeat them than to refer from one to the other. In the case of long entries cross references are very advantageous, and it is always well to refer to cognate headings.[36] This, however, must not be carried too far; for, as Mr. Poole says in an article on his own index,[37] “If every subject shall have cross references to its allies, the work will be mainly a book of cross references rather than an index of subjects.” He adds, “One correspondent gives fifty-eight cross references under Mental Philosophy, and fifty-eight more might be added just as appropriate.”

At all events let the cross references be real. In Eadie’s Dictionary of the Bible (1850), there is a reference “Dorcas see Tabitha,” but there is no entry under Tabitha at all.

No reference to the contents of a general heading which is without subdivision should be allowed.[38] There are too many of these vague cross references in the Penny Cyclopædia, where you are referred from the known to the unknown. If a general heading be divided into sections, and each of these be clearly defined, they should be cross referenced, but not otherwise. At present you may look for Pesth and be referred to Hungary, where probably there is much about Pesth, but you do not know where to look for it in the long article without clue. Sometimes cross references are mere expedients, particularly in the case of a cyclopædia published in volumes or numbers. Thus a writer agrees to contribute an article early in the alphabet, but is not ready in time for the publication of the part, so a cross reference is inserted which sends the reader to a synonym later on in the alphabet. In certain cases this has been done two or three times. In Cobbett’s Woodlands there is a good specimen of backwards and forwards cross referencing. The author writes: “Many years ago I wished to know whether I could raise birch trees from the seed.... I then looked into the great book of knowledge, the Encyclopædia Britannica; there I found in the general dictionary—

Birch Tree.—See Betula (Botany Index).

I hastened to Betula with great eagerness and there I found—

Betula.—See Birch Tree.

That was all, and this was pretty encouragement.”

Cross referencing has its curiosities as well as other branches of our subject. Perhaps the most odd collection of cross references are to be found in Hawkins’s Pleas of the Crown, of which it was said in the Monthly Magazine for June, 1801 (p. 419) “A plain unlettered man is led to suspect that the writer of the volume and the writer of the index are playing at cross purposes.” The following are some of the most amusing entries, but there are many more as good:

Assault, see Son. Cards, see Dice. Cattle, see Clergy. Chastity, see Homicide. Coin, see High Treason. Convicts, see Clergy. Death, see Appeal. Election, see Bribery.

Farthing, see Halfpenny. Fear, see Robbery. Footway, see Nuisance. Honour, see Constable. King, see Treason. London, see Outlawry. Shop, see Burglary. Sickness, see Bail.

The Index to Ford’s Handbook of Spain contains an amusing reference—

Wellington, see Duke.

But perhaps the strangest place to find a cross reference is on a tombstone. In Barnes churchyard the following inscription was put up to a once famous actor:—

Mr. J. Moody A native of the Parish of Saint Clement Danes and an old Member of Drury Lane Theatre. For his Memoirs see the European Magazine; for his professional abilities see Churchill’s Rosciad. Obiit Dec. 26 1812, Anno Ætatis 85.

II.

Intimately connected with compilation is arrangement, for however well the contents of a book may be analysed, the result will not form a good Index unless it is well arranged.

An Index should be one and indivisible, and not broken up into several alphabets, thus every work ought to have its complete Index whether it is one volume or many.[39] This important rule has frequently been neglected in English books, and is almost universally rejected in Foreign ones, to the great inconvenience of readers. An Index may be arranged either chronologically, alphabetically, or according to classes, but great confusion will be caused by uniting the three. The alphabetical arrangement is so simple, so convenient, and so easily understood by all, that it has naturally superseded the other forms, but some still cling to the rags of classification, in the belief that that is a more scientific arrangement. The evil of this is that the consulter is never sure whether the reference he requires may not be lurking in some place that he has missed, but in the case of a single alphabet an answer to the question “Does the Index contain what I require?” is obtained at once. Classification is the reverse of this, for, as Mr. Poole says in his observations on the proposal of one of his helpers to place Wealth, Finance, and Population under the head of Political Economy—“the fatal defect of every classified arrangement is that nobody understands it except the person who made it and he is often in doubt.” The general principle here enunciated will perhaps be better understood by reference to a few examples. Brayley’s Surrey, in five volumes, has a separate Index to each volume, and it is a pretty general experience that whatever is wanted is sure to be found in the last volume consulted. The new edition of Hutchins’s Dorset, 1874, has at the end eight separate Indexes, 1. Places; 2. Pedigrees; 3. Persons; 4. Arms; 5. Blazons; 6. Glossarial; 7. Domesday; 8. Inquisitions. How much thought is here required which would not be needed were all united into one alphabet. The general Index to the Reports of the British Association is a most inconvenient one to use, as it is split up into six alphabets; but the evil of these subdivisions is most marked in Indexes to the various volumes of the Athenæum, which are so subdivided that they are practically useless. Who would rack his brain to find under which of the many headings the subject he requires is likely to be hidden? These divided Indexes are the exception in English books, but abroad almost every Index is in two parts: 1. Persons; 2. Things. The Index to Arago’s complete works has the threefold division: 1. Auteurs; 2. Cosmique; 3. Matières. If this division be made, it ought surely to be carried out correctly, and yet in the Autoren Register to Carus’ and Engelmann’s Bibliography of Zoology may be found the following entries: Schreiben; Schriften; Zu Humboldts Cosmos; Zur Fauna.

The inconveniences of classification in an index are so palpable that it is needless to add more, but a list of titles of books that have given trouble to bibliographers, and at sundry times have been misarranged, will perhaps be amusing. Edgeworth’s Essay on Irish Bulls and a Treatise on the Great Seal have been placed under the heading of Zoology; Napier’s Bones under Anatomy; Swinburne’s Under the Microscope under Optical Instruments; a volume of Poems, entitled the Viol and Lute, under Musical Instruments; Ruskin’s Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds under Agriculture; McEwen on the Types under Printing; and most famous of all, Link, de Stellis Marinis, under Astronomy. Disraeli reports an amusing anecdote of “an honest friar who compiled a church history and placed in the class of ecclesiastical writers Guarini, the Italian poet; this arose from a most risible blunder: on the faith of the title of his celebrated amorous pastoral Il Pastor Fido, ‘The Faithful Shepherd,’ our good father imagined that the character of a curate, vicar, or bishop, was represented in this work.”

Such incongruities as these had a charm for the author of the Curiosities of Literature, and he therefore devotes a chapter to the “Titles of Books.” The foregoing are tempting subjects for the jumpers to conclusions, but some titles are impenetrable—what, for instance, can be made of Labia Dormientum? It turns out to be a Catalogue of rabbinical writers, and was so called in reference to a passage in Solomon’s Song, “Like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak” (vii. 19).

In order to help the makers of Indexes in judging of the relative extent of the various letters of the Alphabet certain calculations have been made,[40] but the statistics must vary greatly according to the character of the Index. Thus B is the largest in an Index of English names, but loses its preeminence in an Index of subjects, and S takes high rank in both classes.

Mr. Curtis advocates in his paper the arrangement under each initial letter according to the next following vowel, a plan often adopted in Locke’s and other Common Place Books, but which is highly inconvenient, especially when words without a second vowel as Ash and Epps are placed at the head of each letter, as Ash before Adam and Abel; and Epps before Ebenezer.

In arranging entries in alphabetical order it is necessary to sort them up to the most minute difference of spelling. In order to save themselves trouble some workers think they may leave off sorting at the third letter, and their idleness gives others much annoyance. I have often been troubled in this way when consulting the Index to a large map of England in which the names of places are not arranged further than the third letter.

The Alphabetical arrangement has its difficulties which must be overcome; for instance, it looks awkward when the plural comes before the singular, and the adjective before the substantive from which it is formed, as naval and navies before navy.

Another difficulty arises when names and words from a foreign language are introduced into an English Index. The only safe rule in these cases is to use the English alphabet.[41] One of the Rules of the American Library Association is, “The German ae, oe, ue are always to be written ä, ö, ü, and arranged as a, o, u”; by this Goethe would have to be written Göthe, which is now an unusual form, and I think it would be better to insist that where both forms are used, one or other should be chosen and all instances spelt alike. It is a very common practice to arrange ä, ö, ü, as if they were written ae, oe, ue, but this leads to the greatest confusion, and no notice should be taken of letters that are merely to be understood. Those who have stumbled over the arrangement that treats the vowel I and consonant J, and the vowel U and consonant V, as identical, will be glad to have a rule that keeps them distinct.

Although it has been previously said that words and names must be arranged in alphabet up to their last letters, it is necessary to bear in mind that each word is to stand by itself; for instance, first will come the various persons bearing the surname Grave, arranged according to the order of their Christian names,

Grave, George, Grave, John,

then the substantive and adjective grave, arranged according to the alphabet of the words that follow,

Grave at Kherson, Grave of Hope, Grave Thoughts,

and last,

Gravelot, Gravesend.[42]

We now come to the consideration of a matter of some perplexity. It is more of a difficulty for the Cataloguer than for the Indexer, still it is one with which the latter must grapple. There cannot be two opinions about the simple rule that a man should be set down under his surname, but our trouble commences when we ask the question—What is a surname? The answer to it must necessarily be complicated on account of the varieties of form which proper names take in different languages. The greatest difficulty arises from the prefixes, some of which can easily be dispensed with, while others are integral portions of the name.[43] If the prefix be a preposition, it must be rejected, and the name arranged in alphabet under the following letter; thus, D’, De, in French, Da in Italian,[44] Von in German, and Van in Dutch, are no real portion of foreign names, which can stand very well without them. If, however, the prefix be an article, such as the French La, it must be retained; for instance, the full name of the great astronomer La Place is De La Place, but it is under L that it could alone be placed with propriety. If no other reason could be given, a very sufficient one might be found in the fact that were not De and Von rejected, a large proportion of French and German names would appear respectively under those prefixes. Although this rule is generally accepted as the only true one, it is seldom carried out consistently; thus in the South Kensington Universal Catalogue of Books on Art, we find D’Ayzac under Ayzac, D’Azara under D, D’Azeglio under A, De La Blanchère under D, De La Borde under L, De La Fons under both D and L, with a cross reference from Fons. A logical difficulty arises when the preposition is joined to the article, as in Du and Des, and here, in order to retain the article, we are forced to retain the preposition as well. These rules only apply to Foreign names, and such English names as De Quincey, Delabeche, Van Mildert, must be arranged under D and V respectively, because the prefixes are here meaningless.

The rule for the arrangement of compound names differs accordingly as these names are either English or Foreign.[45] The frequent practice in England of using surnames as baptismal names gives the united names the appearance of compound names, which they really are not. The first name in a foreign compound is almost invariably the true name, and frequently the second name is that of the owner’s wife or mother. The French cannot understand our sur-christian-names, and with few exceptions treat them as true surnames. There is a most amusing blunder consequent on this misapprehension in the well-known Biographie Moderne, edited by the late Dr. Hoefer, and published by Firmin Didot. In this valuable Biographical Dictionary there is a long account of Brigham Young, extending over many columns, but, instead of appearing under Y, it has a place found for it in letter B, and the heading runs as follows: “Brigham le jeune ou Brigham Young”! Although such an instance as this could not well be paralleled in any English book of the same high character, we are not as a nation incapable of making blunders of a like kind. De Morgan remarks, in his Arithmetical Books, “I have had in one or two instances to throw away German Authors for a very obvious reason. The reader will not find the works of Anleitung or Grundriss or Rechenbuch in my list, which is more than can be said of every one that has preceded it.” Derselbe might have been added, as it sometimes has a very surname-like look. Blunders are of no particular nationality, and it is needful to use special vigilance in transferring proper names from the books of one language to those of another. The most trustful, however, would be on his guard when dealing with a writer who introduced the Duke of Newcastle to his readers as “Gul. de Cavendy dux de Xeucathle.”

Sometimes we have to deal with the latinised names of celebrated men, and it is a very frequent practice to turn these back into the vernacular, but it may be questioned whether it is right to do so. De Morgan writes, “I have not attempted to translate the names of those who wrote in Latin at a time when that language was the universal medium of communication.... It is well to know that Copernicus, Dasypodius, Xylander, Regiomontanus, and Clavius were Zepernik, Rauchfuss, Holtzmann, Müller and Schlüssel. But as the butcher’s bills of these eminent men are lost, and their writings only remain, it is best to designate them by the name which they bear on the latter rather than on the former.”

The question however has pertinently been asked, how are we to act if the butchers’ bills were by chance to be forthcoming and required registration in a Catalogue of Manuscripts. Probably in this case also it would be well to arrange the names under their best known forms. The Hungarians, and sometimes the Italians, place the surname before the Christian name, which is very confusing to those unacquainted with the practice. Sometimes the same difficulty occurs in English from the manner in which the names are printed; thus we learn from the Gentleman’s Magazine that

Owen Gallager Fleetwood Hesketh died in 1769.

The Index-maker indexed these as Gallager and Fleetwood! so that the death of Mr. Gallager may easily be found, but the date of Mr. Hesketh’s death cannot be found at all. The change of family name is a source of confusion to those unacquainted with the niceties of genealogy. Mr. Solly draws my attention to a case of this kind in which the Heskeths changed their name in 1806 to Bamford by Act of Parliament, and then subsequently obtained another Act to change it back to Hesketh. Now the name is Lloyd-Hesketh-Bamford-Hesketh, which is almost as complicated a series as Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer Lytton, Lord Lytton.[46] This leads us to the rule by which peers are to be arranged under their titles instead of their family names.[47] The most usual and certainly most natural practice is so to arrange them, but the British Museum rule is the reverse, and Mr. Cutter followed the Museum rule in his full rules, although he did not approve of it. In the short rules drawn up by Mr. Cutter and a Committee of the American Library Association[48] this is judiciously altered and some sound reasons are given for the later decision. The definition of a name as “that by which a person or thing is known” would naturally lead to the choice of Chesterfield as the name of the author of Chesterfield’s Letters, because Stanhope is the name by which he is not known. It is further added—

“In regard to one objection urged against entry under the title, that it brings together members of different families who at various times have had the same title, and that it separates members of the same family who have held different titles, the Committee cannot see what this has to do with the question. The works of the various Smiths are put side by side in the Catalogue, not because their authors belong to the same family, which may or may not be the case, but because their names are spelled alike and must be put together if they are ever to be found in a Catalogue which is arranged alphabetically. If the son of James Smith chooses to uniformly spell his name Smythe he will be put not with the ancestral Smiths, but among the Smy’s, because he will be looked for there; and if he is Duke of Abercorn he should be put under Abercorn for the same reason. A Catalogue is not a biographical dictionary or a genealogical table, and its efficiency is in danger of being lessened if its makers confound the two purposes.”[49]

In some instances, such as Horace Walpole, the name by which the great letter writer is always known, the rule must be broken, but double references should be adopted in all doubtful cases; thus Bulwer’s novels cannot be ignored, although their author’s name must be treated as Lytton. Apropos of the sound rule that all theories as to the separation of different members of the same family must be disregarded, we may mention the case of a great composer. It would be impossible to arrange the name of Meyerbeer under any other letter than M, although by doing so we place him under his Christian name, and separate him from his scientific brother Beer. There can hardly be a greater absurdity than to ferret out a man’s earliest name, and place him under that. In the British Museum Catalogue the works of Sir Francis Palgrave are entered under Cohen, a name which 999 persons out of every thousand never heard of in connexion with him.

Bishops, deans and others, holding official titles, must always be arranged under their family names. It has been objected that reasons which apply to peers apply also to them; but this is not really the case, for a bishop is frequently referred to by his surname during his lifetime, and always so after his death. He has but a life interest in the name of his see. To illustrate this I would mention two eminent contemporaries—John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury. We know the one as Duke of Marlborough and the other as Bishop Burnet, and we should naturally turn to M. and B. respectively for their names.

There are a few minor matters worthy of mention in this department of name headings. The initials which stand for Christian names often give much trouble, particularly among foreigners. Most Frenchmen consider themselves too important and well known to need the use of Christian names, and therefore M. usually stands for Monsieur; this cannot, however, be taken for granted without inquiry, for it sometimes means Michel or other Christian name commencing with M. I have noticed in a German periodical[50] some extreme cases of the careless use of initials; and the three following will afford good specimens of this: 1. H. D. Gerling; 2. H. W. Brandes; 3. D. W. Olbers. Here all three cases look alike, but in the first H. D. represent two titles—Herr Doctor; in the second H. W. represent two Christian names—Heinrich Wilhelm; and in the third, one title and one Christian name are intended—Dr. W. Olbers. To some these points will appear trivial, but they are not so to those who have undergone endless trouble in unravelling the enigmas. The indexer should insert the names of persons in all simplicity, and ruthlessly omit the Mr. so frequently used by his author.[51] It was the neglect of this rule which angered Dr. Johnson. Boswell records how, “happening to mention Mr. Flaxman, a dissenting minister, with some compliment to his exact memory in chronological matters, the Dr. replied, ‘Let me hear no more of him, Sir. That is the fellow who made the Index to my Ramblers, and set down the name of Milton thus: Milton, Mr. John.’”

It is amusing to find that in spite of this ebullition no means were taken to remedy the evil. Johnson died in 1784, and yet in the twelfth edition of the Rambler, dated 1791, which is now before me, I find the same dishonouring title still retained. Besides Mr. Milton, notices of Mr. Richard Baxter, Mr. Abraham Cowley, Mr. John Dryden, Mr. Alexander Pope, and Mr. Edmund Spenser will be found in the Index.

Oddities in names give trouble, and are frequently the cause of blunders; for instance, there are living at the same time grandfather, father and grandson, who all bear the same names. To distinguish himself, the grandson adds the word Tertius to his name, and his card is printed as John Smith Ter. Now ‘Ter’ is so unusual an affix that a hurried cataloguer or indexer might almost be excused for treating it as Mr. Smith’s surname.

The signatures of Peers and Bishops are a source of trouble to many, thus a certain eminent bookseller is said to have once received a letter signed ‘George Winton,’ proposing the publication of a life of Pitt, but, as he did not know the name, he paid no attention to the letter, and was much astonished when he afterwards learnt that his correspondent was no less a person than Pitt’s friend and former tutor, George Pretyman Tomline Bishop of Winchester. This is akin to the mistake of the Scotch doctor attending on the Princess Charlotte during her illness, who said that ‘ane Jean Saroom’ had been continually making inquiries, but not knowing the fellow he had taken no notice of him. Thus the Bishop of Salisbury was treated with contempt by one totally ignorant of his dignity. There is a reverse case of a catalogue made by a worthy bookseller of the name of William London, which was long supposed to be the work of Dr. William Juxon, the Bishop of London at the time of publication.

A very amusing blunder of this class is said to have occurred lately. A certain person received a document signed “Richmond & Gordon,” and being imperfectly acquainted with the refinements of the peerage, he directed his answer for the Duke to “Messrs. Richmond and Gordon.”

It has been suggested that all lists of errata in books should be indexed, and there is no doubt that the chief items in these lists should be referred to, as they are otherwise likely to be overlooked. It is worse than useless to refer to a mis-statement in the text without reference to the place where it is set right. This hint is the more important, in that these mistakes are frequently repeated without any notice being taken of the overlooked errata. The errata pointed out in Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici (1643) were not corrected in subsequent editions, and many other books have remained in similar case. The first book with a printed errata is the Venice Juvenal of 1478, previously the mistakes had been corrected by the pen. One of the longest lists of errata on record is in the edition of the works of Picus of Mirandula, printed by Knoblauch of Strasburg in 1507, which occupies fifteen folio pages. An English printer, however, has managed to distance the foreigner in the race of carelessness, for a little book of only 172 pages, entitled the “Anatomy of the Mass,” 1561, has also a list of errata of fifteen pages. Dr. Johnson, referring in his Life of Lord Lyttelton to his subject’s History of Henry II. (1773), speaks of the 19 pages of errata as something which “the world had hardly seen before.” Disraeli gives, in his Curiosities of Literature, some amusing instances of misreadings purposely inserted in the text, with the sole object of being corrected in the errata. Wherever the Inquisition had any power, particularly at Rome, the use of the word fatum or fata in any book was strictly prohibited. An author desirous of using the latter word, adroitly invented this scheme: he had printed in his book facta, and in the errata he put, for facta read fata. Scarron did the same thing on another occasion. He had composed some verses, at the head of which he placed this dedication: A Guillemette, chienne de ma Sœur; but, having a quarrel with his sister, he maliciously put in the errata, instead of Chienne de ma Sœur read ma chienne de Sœur.

III.

Some Indexers suppose that their work is complete when they have made their Index, but they need to prepare their copy for the press, and also to see that their instructions are carried out by the printer. Much of the value of an Index depends upon the mode in which it is printed, and every endeavour should be made to set it out with clearness. It was not the practice in old Indexes to bring the Indexed word to the front, but to leave it in its place in the sentence, so that the alphabetical order was not made perceptible to the eye. This is now changed, but the evil still exists in the newspaper lists of Births, Deaths and Marriages, more especially in those of the Times. When the penny papers were started they introduced the improvement of setting the name at the beginning of the entry as a heading. The Times took the hint from its less august contemporaries, but would not condescend to copy them completely, so that the extent of the change was the printing of the names in small capitals. It is to be hoped that at some future day this pride may be overcome and the public be allowed to enjoy the convenience of reading the name first. The inconvenience of the present system is greatest in the marriage advertisements, where the officiating clergy, about whom the reader cares nothing, take precedence, and crowd out of sight the hero and heroine. Punch had a good skit on this nuisance once, and said that when a poor man was thus hidden under a pile of parsons it became impossible to know what really had happened to him; whether he was in fact born, married, dead, or bankrupt!

Where the reduction of space is not an object, the titles of each article should be made to occupy a separate line, by which means the headings are brought more prominently before the eye. There are few points in which the printer is more likely to go wrong (if not watched) than in the use of marks of repetition, and many otherwise good Indexes are full of the most perplexing instances of their misapplication. The dash is a far better mark of repetition than mere indentation, but it must be kept for entries exactly similar.[52] The neglect of this rule leads to the perpetration of the greatest absurdities, thus the oft-quoted instance—

“Mill on Liberty —— on the Floss.”

is not an invention, but actually occurred in a catalogue. The following are good examples of what to avoid.

From the Index of the Companion to the Almanac (Lond. 1843)

New Albion —— Annuities —— Bread —— Brentford Bartholomew Massacre —— Lane Brimstone, duty on —— butterfly Cotton, Sir Willoughby ——, price of, Old Stratford Bridge —— Style —— Swinford

From the Index of Pepys’s Diary (various editions)

The opposite evil of repeating the heading, even when identical, is rarer, but almost as confusing.

It is so easy to confuse two men of the same name together that every help towards keeping them distinct which the printer can give should be adopted. We have already drawn attention to this point, but it is so important a matter that the reader will perhaps excuse the insertion here of two more anecdotes to close the subject with. An Englishman on a visit to the United States carried with him a letter of introduction to Dr. Channing, but through inadvertence he called upon the great man’s brother, who was a physician. The doctor soon found out that the visit was not intended for him, so he said to the Englishman: “You have made a mistake, it is the Dr. Channing who preaches that you want, I am the Dr. Channing who practises.”

Very sore feelings are apt to be engendered between men who are constantly being confused together, and in the following case one of the parties did not adopt the means best suited to heal differences, but laid himself open to a well-merited rebuke. Two men bearing the same names lived in the same country town. One was a clergyman of the Church of England, and the other was a Dissenting minister. On a certain occasion the clergyman received a letter intended for the minister, which he forwarded with a note to this effect—“Had you not taken a title (Rev.) to which you have no claim, this mistake would not have occurred.” Shortly afterwards a parcel containing some lithographed sermons intended for the clergyman were delivered by mistake to the minister, who sent them on with this note—“Had you not undertaken an office for which you appear to be unfitted, this mistake would not have occurred.”

In the previous pages a few of the chief difficulties of the Index-maker have been commented upon: stumbling-blocks with which he is too well acquainted, but which are very generally ignored by others. He must endeavour to attain perfection, but he will always have the unpleasant feeling that something may have been missed, and so strong was this feeling with a contributor to the Notes and Queries that he sent the following acrostic as a motto for an Index:—[53]

I I N never D did E ensure X exactness

The Index-maker of modern days must needs depend upon himself, for he has not the help that the young man mentioned by Giraldus had when he could discern the false passages in a book by the crowd of devils which they attracted. Such devils as these would be invaluable in a printing office!

If, however, the Indexer, in common with the Bibliographer, has his troubles, he has his reward, for we have already seen that the claims of a big book to notice have been grounded upon its possession of a good index, and De Morgan, when entering his own Elements of Arithmetic in the account of Arithmetical Books, writes:—“Books of Bibliography last longer than elementary works, so that I have a chance of standing in a list to be made two centuries hence, which the book itself would certainly not procure me.”

There is, therefore, hope for us that when our other works are forgotten, we may still live as the compilers of an index.

[Since the previous pages have been printed off, I have been told by Dr. Greenhill of Hastings that our late learned friend Thomas Watts of the British Museum spoke to him about the formation of an Index Society as early as the year 1842.

I am also able, through the kindness of Mr. Macray, to illustrate the printer’s blunder on page 53 from a work by one of the most careful and trustworthy of editors, viz., “Historie of ... Edward IV. 1471,” edited by John Bruce 1838 (Camden Society). At p. 7 we read: “Wherefore the Kynge may say as Julius Cæsar sayde, he that is nat agaynst me is with me.”]

The following rules have been drawn up by the Committee, in order to obtain uniformity in the compilation of their Indexes. They are not considered as final, and can be added to as occasion may require.

In some few points the respective rules for Cataloguing and for Indexing are identical, but in the majority of instances the rules made for the former will not apply to the latter.

Those who require rules for Cataloguing should obtain the British Museum Rules, Mr. Cutter’s full Rules, forming the second part of the Special Report on American Libraries, and the short Rules drawn up by a Committee of the American Library Association, and printed in the Library Journal.