the consideration of the various modes of indexing, it will perhaps be
well to offer some answer to the question--What can such a Society do?
We have seen how highly a good Index is appreciated by workers, but it
does not need much argument to prove how few such there are, and how
many more are wanted. It has been said that a big book is a great evil,
and so it is until it receives an Index, and then it becomes a great
good. Prof. De Morgan, who treated Bibliography in a more interesting
manner than many authors treat lighter subjects, says, when referring
to Samuel Jeake’s “Arithmetick surveighed and reviewed,” (1696) in his
_Arithmetical Books_--“Those who know the value of a large book with a
good index will pick this one up when they can.” Mr. Jeake published
his work in a folio volume, the size and weight of which made De
Morgan suggest the possibility that the author thought arithmetic was
a branch of controversial divinity. In spite of this he singles it out
for praise on account of the value of the information it contains and
the fullness of the references to this information. I think we see in
various directions evidence of an awakening of interest in Index work,
but this interest wants fostering, and if book-buyers will agree to
give the preference to well-indexed books, the publishers will soon be
eager to supply the want so generally recognized. We may then hope to
see the time when it will be as rare to find a book without an Index
as without a title-page. The Library Association of the United Kingdom
have set a good example by issuing the Report of the Conference of
Librarians, 1877, with an elaborate Index to its varied contents, which
has been much appreciated, and does great credit to Mr. Tedder who
compiled it.
To direct public attention to a neglected subject is one of the main
objects of the Index Society; but although Indexes to new books may
be demanded from publishers, it is hardly to be expected that these
merchants in literature will index books of the past. There are a large
number of standard works to which students must frequently refer, which
are a source of constant irritation from the difficulty of finding what
is required in their voluminous pages. The county and local histories,
in the possession of which England is so rich, rank high in the list
of these--a list which would also contain the Standard Historical
Collections, such as those of Rushworth, and Nalson, the Harleian
Miscellany, Somers’ Tracts, Ellis’s Original Letters, and many other
books that it is needless to enumerate here.[27] To this department the
Society will devote special attention. In all cases a book that may
be considered as _the_ authority upon a given subject will have the
preference, so that the Indexes may serve as complete guides to the
various topics. In many instances the works of standard authors will
be indexed as a whole, and in this way Indexes to particular books or
authors will often be Subject Indexes as well. With these and Subject
Indexes referring to Books and Papers in British and Foreign Journals
and Transactions, it is hoped that in a few years the Society will
have accumulated and published a series of books that will be of real
service to all classes of readers.
Much that would otherwise be neglected may be done by a public society,
but to attack with effect the mass of work waiting to be undertaken,
it is necessary that we should receive a hearty support. It is to the
interest of subscribers to make the objects of the Society widely
known, and otherwise to help it, because the more numerous the
subscribers the larger will be the return that each subscriber will
get for his subscription, and the larger the plot of the great field
that can be put under cultivation. It is expected that the work of the
Society will be largely extended when they acquire funds that will
enable them to open an office which shall contain a library of indexes,
and in which can be placed the General Reference Index.
I have heard two objections brought against the scheme of the Society:
1. That it is needless to urge the compilation of indexes, because
every worker worthy of the name makes his own. This, however, is just
the loss of power that the Society wish to prevent. Now the same work
is often done over and over again, and the MSS. are only saved from
the waste-paper basket by the merest chance, to be again lost among a
heap of other papers. There are, doubtless, many valuable indexes lying
hidden and unknown, and it will be our object to draw them if possible
to the light.
2. That the General Index is an impossibility, and that to attempt its
preparation is a waste of time. Those who hold this opinion have not
sufficient faith in the simplicity and usefulness of the alphabet.
Every one has notes and references of some kind, which are useless if
kept unarranged, but if sorted into alphabetical order become valuable.
The object of the General Index is just this, that anything, however
disconnected, can be placed there, and much that would otherwise
be lost will there find a resting place. Always growing and never
pretending to be complete, the Index will be useful to all, and its
consulters will be sure to find something worth their trouble if not
all they may require.
The objects of the Society are national in their importance, and as
such they have been acknowledged by one who has given one hundred
guineas to help in their attainment. With more such gifts how much
might be done by the Society.
Having dwelt in the previous pages upon some of the chief points in
the history of Indexing, we will now pass on to the consideration of
the practical part of the subject. The unwise seem to be of opinion
that any fool can index, but we have already seen that the wise think
differently. The remarks with which Dr. Johnson opens the preface to
his English Dictionary may well be applied to the Indexer: “It is the
fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life to be rather
driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good;
to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by
miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been
without applause, and diligence without reward. Among these unhappy
mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered,
not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature,
doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths
through which Learning and Genius press forward to conquest and glory,
without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their
progress. Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer
can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompence has
been yet granted to very few.” This dishonouring estimate has received
many rude shocks, and it should be our aim to crush it entirely out of
existence.
In order to give some appearance of system to what might otherwise
be considered as mere desultory remarks, I propose to arrange
the following notes under the three heads of I. Compilation; II.
Arrangement; III. Printing.
I.
In the Instructions for an Index to the Statute Law, by Sir Henry
Thring,[28] already referred to, we find the following clear
definitions which will serve to open this portion of our case:--
“The basis of an index to a book of the ordinary kind is a
series of titles or catchwords arranged in alphabetical order
and indicative of the main topics treated of in the book.”
“The object of an index is to indicate the place in a book or
collection of books in which particular information is to be
found. Such an index is perfect in proportion as it is concise
in expression, whilst exhaustive in its indication of every
important topic of the subject to which it is an index.”
The question naturally arises--how is the work to be set about? In
the Special Report on the Public Libraries of the United States of
America, Part I, 1876 (pp. 727-732), is an article on “Book Indexes” by
F. B. Perkins, which contains some rather elementary instruction as to
writing, cutting up, and pasting, but in these matters of detail the
best way of proceeding will always be the way that the indexer feels
that he can work best. Some choose to write their Index straight on in
the order of the book itself, on sheets of paper which are afterwards
cut up, sorted, and pasted; others prefer to use slips of paper and to
write one entry on each slip; a third class will make their entries
at once into an alphabetical book, or better still on loose sheets
of paper placed in a portfolio lettered in alphabetical order. By
this means the indexer sees his work grow under his hands. Whatever
system however is adopted, it is well to bear in mind that the indexer
should obtain some knowledge of the book he is about to Index before
he commences his work. The following remarks by Sir H. Thring may be
applied more generally than to the law--“A complete knowledge of the
whole _law_ is required before he begins to make the index, for until
he can look down on the entire field of law before him, he cannot
possibly judge of the proper arrangement of the headings, or of the
relative importance of the various provisions.”
During his work the Indexer must constantly ask himself what it is
for which the consulter is likely to seek. The author frequently uses
periphrases to escape from the repetition of the same fact in the same
form, but these periphrases will give little information when inserted
as headings in an Index, and it is in this point of selecting the
best catchword that the good Indexer will show his superiority over
the commonplace worker. There are a large number of Indexes in which
not only is the _best_ heading _not_ chosen but the very _worst is_.
Thus in the Indexes to the _Canadian Journal_, a high-class magazine,
we find such entries as the following, arranged under the word here
printed in italics:--
_A_ Monograph of the British Spongiadæ.
_On_ the Iodide of Barium.
_Sir_ Charles Barry, a Biography.
_The_ late Professor Boole.
_The_ Mohawk Language.
The same arrangement may be found in the Index to the Journal of the
Society of Telegraph Engineers, thus--
_A_ Strange Story.
_Professor_ Wheatstone, original proposals, &c.
The handsome edition of Jewel’s _Apology_ by Isaacson (1825) contains
an index which is worthy of special remark. It is divided into four
alphabets, referring respectively to 1. Life; 2. Apology; 3. Notes to
Life; 4. Notes to Apology; and this complicated machinery is attached
to a book of only 286 pages. I think I may say that there is hardly an
entry in the Index that would be of any use to the consulter, and to
show that this censure is not too sweeping, I will add a few specimens:
_Belief_ of a Resurrection.
_Caution_, Reformers proceeded with caution.
_If_ Protestants are Heretics let the Papists prove them so
from Scripture.
_In_ withdrawing themselves from the Church of Rome,
Protestants have not erred from Christ and his Apostles.
_King_ John.
_The_ Pope assumes Regal power and habit.
Ditto employs spies.
In the “General Index to the Spectators, Tatlers and Guardians,”
referred to on a previous page, such words as Difference, Digression,
Directions, Discourse, Dissertation and Instance, are specially noticed
as bad headings in the original Indexes, which have been changed in the
new one; and yet these are the very words that are chosen by rule for
headings in the British Museum Catalogue. Could any plan be adopted by
which the following books would more thoroughly be hidden out of sight
than by the present arrangement:
_Kind._ A Kind of a Dialogue in Hudibrasticks; designed for the
use of the Unthinking and Unlearned (1739).
_Kinds._ How to make several kinds of miniature pumps and a
fire engine; a book for boys (1860).
Some bibliographers always prefer substantives to adjectives as
headings, but the whole point of a sentence is often contained in a
substantival adjective. When adjective and substantive are joined to
represent one idea, as Alimentary Canal, English History, they should
be treated as compound nouns, and arranged under the letters _A_ and
_E_ respectively.[29] The most marked example of an opposite rule
that I have ever seen is to be found in the Index to Hare’s _Walks in
London_ (1878). Here all the Alleys, Bridges, Buildings, Churches,
Courts, Houses, Streets, etc., are arranged under those headings, and
not under the proper name of each. There may be a certain advantage
in some of these headings, but few would look for Lisson Grove under
Grove, and the climax of absurdity is reached when Chalk Farm is
placed under _Farm_. The adopted rule is not rigidly carried out, for
Grey Friars will be found under G, and Austin Friars under F. Another
peculiarity of this index is that a copy of it is added to each volume.
Books of facts are much easier indexed than books of opinion; but it
is most important that the contents of the latter should be properly
registered. Some indexers seem to be of opinion that proper names are
the most important items in an index, and while carefully including
all these, they omit facts and opinions of much greater importance.
As a rule it is objectionable when the consulter finds no additional
information in the book to what is already given in the index; for
instance, should the observation be made respecting a certain state of
mind that “the Duke of Wellington probably felt the same at the Battle
of Waterloo,” it will be well for the indexer to pass the remark by
unnoticed, as should he make the following entries, the consulter is
not likely to be in a very genial mood when he looks up the references:
Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington’s supposed feelings at the
battle of.
Wellington (Duke of), his supposed feelings at Waterloo.
The hackneyed quotation of
Best, Mr. Justice, his great mind,
cannot be omitted here, although I am unable to give any satisfactory
account of its origin. It forms an excellent example of the useless
references to which we have just referred, and contains as well a
ludicrous misapprehension of the passage indexed, which is said to
have been: “Mr. Justice Best said that he had a great mind to commit
the man for trial.” There can be no doubt that the entry, whether it
ever occurred in an Index or not, was intended as a personal fling
against Sir William Draper Best, puisne judge of the King’s Bench from
1819 to 1824, and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas from 1824 to
1829, in which latter year he resigned, and was created Lord Wynford.
The story was told to Mr. Solly by Sir W. Domville, in 1825, and with
reference to the index to one of Chitty’s Law Books. Another friend
tells me that he has a faint recollection that Chitty had a grudge
against Best, and took an opportunity of expending his bile in this
entry; but the late Dr. Doran insisted that the author of the joke was
Leigh Hunt, who first published it in the _Examiner_. In this unsettled
state we must leave the question, for it is not worth while to search
the files of a newspaper in order to find the truth of so insignificant
a matter.
The form in which the various entries in an index are to be drawn up
is worthy of much attention, and particular care should be taken to
expunge all redundant words. For instance, it will be better to write
Smith (John), his character; his execution.
than
Smith (John), character of; execution of.
or
Brown (Robert) saves money.
than
Brown (Robert), saving of money by.
Sometimes a characteristic adjective or adverb will help to give life
and interest to the Index.
The indexer must aim at conciseness, but he should always specify the
cause of reference, more especially in the case of proper names.[30]
Few things are more annoying than to find a block list of references
after a name, so that the consulter has to search through many pages
before he can find what he seeks.[31] Mr. Markland draws particular
attention to this point in a communication to the _Notes and Queries_
(2nd series, vol. vii. p. 469) on the subject of Indexes. He complains
bitterly of the Indexes to the collected edition of Walpole’s Letters
and to Scott’s Swift. In the latter book there are 638 references to
Harley, Earl of Oxford, without any indication of the reason why his
name is entered in the Index. This case also affords a good instance
of careless indexing in another particular, for these references are
separated under different headings, instead of being gathered under
one, as follows--
Harley (Robert) 227 references.
Oxford (Lord) 111 ”
Treasurer, Lord Oxford 300 ”
Mr. Markland takes the opportunity of pointing out that good specimens
of the right way to set out the references to an individual are to
be found in Nichols’s _Literary Anecdotes_; Hallam’s _Constitutional
History_; and Campbell’s _Lives of the Lord Chancellors_. Probably the
most colossal instance of the fault above alluded to is to be found in
Ayscough’s elaborate Index to the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, where all
the references under one surname are placed together without even the
distinction of the Christian name. Mr. Solly made a curious calculation
as to the time that would be employed in looking up these references.
For instance, under the name _Smith_, there are 2411 entries, all “en
masse,” and with no initial letters. If there were these divisions,
one would find “Zachary Smith” in a few minutes, but now one must
look to each reference to find what is wanted. With taking down the
volumes, and hunting through long lists of names, Mr. Solly found that
each reference cost him two minutes of time, a by no means extravagant
estimate; hence it would take the consulter eight days (working
steadily ten hours a day) to find out if there be any note about
Zachary Smith in the Magazine, a task so awful to think of that it may
be presumed that no one will ever attempt it.
In some books a man will merely be referred to as holding an acre of
land, or as having been seen by the author on a certain day. In these
instances a specific cause of reference can hardly be given, but the
difficulty may be got over by setting out the various entries in which
some fact or opinion is mentioned, and then gathering together the
remainder under the heading of _Alluded to_.
One would imagine that correctness of reference was the _sine qua
non_ of an index, and yet careless compilers, to save themselves
trouble, have sometimes neglected this great essential. Books have been
published with indexes that contained no reference at all, and until
late years glossaries have usually been compiled without references to
the places where the different words are used.
Mr. Peacock has drawn my attention to the reprint of Whitelock’s
_Memorials_, published by the University of Oxford in 1853. The
original edition is in one volume folio (1682, reprinted 1732), and
the new edition is in four volumes octavo, but, to save expense, the
_old_ index was printed to the _new_ book. The difficulty was in part
got over by giving the pages of the 1732 edition in the margin; but, as
may be imagined, it is a most troublesome business to find anything by
it. If the old index were a good one, there might be some excuse for
its retention; but it is thoroughly bad, and all the mere misprints are
retained in the new one. As a specimen of the extreme inaccuracy of the
compilation, it may be mentioned that under one heading of 34 entries
Mr. Peacock detected seven blunders, and, moreover, he does not think
that this is at all an unfavourable specimen. Although Mr. Peacock has
no statistics of the other entries, his experience leads him to believe
that if any heading were taken at random, about one in four of the
entries would be found to be misprinted.
An extreme case of misleading references is given in the Index of
Authors appended to the old Classified Catalogue of the Library of
Congress (Washington, 1840). The references here are not to pages
but to chapters, and as some of the chapters extend over one hundred
pages it may be guessed that a very tedious search has to be made; for
instance, to find the reference _Abdy_, it is necessary to look over as
many as seventy pages.
It has been said that a bad index is better than no index at all,
but this is open to question, as the incomplete index deceives the
consulter. We have fair warning of this incompleteness in _The Register
of Corpus Christi Guild, York_, published by the Surtees Society in
1872, where we read on p. 321--“This Index contains the names of all
persons mentioned in the Appendix and foot-notes, but a selection only
is given of those who were admitted into the Guild or enrolled in the
Obituary.” The plan here adopted is not to be commended, for it is
clear that so important a name-list as this is should be thoroughly
indexed. However learned and judicious an editor may be, we do not
choose to submit to his judgment in the offhand decision of what is,
and what is not--unimportant.
Many of the best indexes are indexes and something more; that is,
information is added which may not be in the book itself, such as
the date of birth and death of the persons mentioned, in order to
distinguish between those bearing the same proper names. Mr. Ralph
Thomas has added to his interesting notice of Quérard[32] (a pamphlet
of 48 pages), an Index of eight pages. This index contains several such
entries as the following:--
“Athenæum, The, no general index to, great literary want (and
the Athenæum reproached the Edinburgh Review for remissness in
not keeping up its indexes!).”
The Index of Authors appended to De Morgan’s Arithmetical Books, 1847,
includes a list of reported Authors of works on Arithmetic which are
not noticed in the book, but these of course have no mark of reference.
By this means the Index shows the deficiencies of the book as well as
its riches. It is needful, however, that the information added should
be correct. An important example of the effect of wrong indexing is
given in Merewether and Stephens’s “History of Boroughs and Municipal
Corporations.” The word “Incorporation” is introduced into the index of
the Patent Rolls without authority from the text, and long before there
were incorporations in this country. The first actual use of the term
is in the Charter of Incorporation of Hull (18. Henr. VI.), but upon
the error in this index many other blunders have been founded.
The Indexer needs knowledge so as to be able to correct his author when
necessary, for the most careful author will make slips occasionally,
and it is highly satisfactory when the Indexer can set him right. He
needs to be specially upon his guard in the case of misprints. Probably
the most fruitful source of blundering is the confusion of the letters
_u_ and _n_. These are identical in old MSS., and consequently the
copyist sometimes finds it difficult to decide which he shall use. In
Capgrave’s Chronicle of England is a reference to the “londe of Iude”
[Judæa], but this is mis-spelt _Inde_ in the edition published in the
Master of the Rolls’ series in 1858. Here we have a simple misprint
which can easily be set right, but the Indexer has enlarged it into a
wonderful blunder. Under the letter I is the following curious piece of
information:--
“India ... conquered by Judas Maccabeus and his brethren, 56.”!!
Many more instances of this confusion of the letters _u_ and _n_ might
be given here, but two will suffice. George Lo_n_don was a very eminent
horticulturist in his day, who, at the Revolution, was appointed
Superintendent of the Royal Gardens, but he can seldom get his name
properly spelt, because a later horticulturist has made the name
Lo_u_don more familiar. The reverse mistake was one made by the Duke
of Wellington. C. J. Loudon (whose handwriting was not very legible)
wrote to the Duke a request that he might see the Waterloo beeches at
Stratfieldsaye. The letter puzzled the Duke, who knew nothing of the
horticulturist, and read C. J. Lo_u_don as C. J. Lo_n_don and beeches
as breeches; so he wrote off to Bishop Blomfield that his Waterloo
breeches disappeared long ago.
The worst blunders are not made by the ignorant, but by those who
think themselves clever and jump to unwarranted conclusions; for
instance, the compiler of a history of Norwich attributed a work
on the Differential Calculus by a Fellow of St. John’s College,
Cambridge, to a medical practitioner of the town; but in order to make
the subject more appropriate, he inserted the information in the
following form--“to our respected fellow-townsman Mr. Arthur Brown we
are indebted for a valuable treatise on _different calculi_”! There
are few mistakes easier fallen into by Cataloguers and Indexers than
that of rolling two men into one, and few blunders are less easily
forgiven by the objects of the confusion; thus Bishop Jebb is said
to have been in dismay when he found himself identified in Watt’s
_Bibliotheca Britannica_ with his uncle the Unitarian writer. In
Dircks’s _Worcesteriana_ (1866) there is a curious muddle of this kind.
The first reprint of the Marquis of Worcester’s _Century of Inventions_
was issued by Thomas Payne, the highly respected bookseller of the Mews
Gate, in 1746, but Mr. Dircks positively asserts that the “notorious
Tom Paine” was the publisher of it, thus ignoring the different
spelling of the two names.
A curious instance of uniting two men into one will be found in the
_Athenæum_ for May 13, 1871, where we read that “William Haidinger
von Franz Ritter v. Hauer, the geologist and mineralogist, has died
recently.” What is here supposed to be one name is really the title of
a biography of Haidinger by von Hauer.