[1] See A.S. Cook, _Biblical Quotations in Old English Prose
Writers_, with an introduction on _Old English Biblical Versions_
(London, 1898-1903), vol. i. pp. xxvi. ff.; H. Sweet, _The Vespasian
Psalter_ in "Oldest English Texts" (E.E.T.S., No. 83, London, 1885);
F. Harsley, _Eadwine's Canterbury Psalter_ (E.E.T.S., No. 92, London,
1892); John Spelman, _Psalterium Davidis Latino-Saxonicum Vetus_
(London, 1640); Fr. Roeder, _Der altengl. Regius Psalter_ (Reg. II.
B. 5, Halle, 1904).
[2] Benjamin Thorpe, _Libri Psalmorum versio Antiqua Latina cum
paraphrasi Anglo-Saxonica_ (Oxford, 1835); cf. J.D. Bruce, _The
Anglo-Saxon Version of the Book of Psalms ... known as the Paris
Psalter_ (Baltimore, 1894).
[3] K.W. Bouterwek, _Die vier Evangelien in alt-nordh. Sprache_
(Guetersloh, 1857), _id. Screadunga_ (Elberfeld, 1858, prefaces to the
Gospels); J. Stevenson and E. Waring, _The Lindisfarne and Rushworth
Gospels_ (Surtees Soc., 1854-1865); W.W. Skeat, _The Holy Gospels in
Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian and Old Mercian Versions_ (Cambridge,
1871-1887).
[4] See Stevenson, Waring and Skeat, op. cit.
[5] W.W. Skeat, _The Holy Gospels in Anglo-Saxon, &c._ (Cambridge,
1871-1887); J.W. Bright, _The Gospel of Saint Luke in Anglo-Saxon_
(Oxford, 1893); for earlier editions see Cook, op. cit, p. lx.
[6] C.W.M. Grein, _AElfrik de vetero et novo Testamento, &c._--Bibl.
d. Angels. Prosa (Cassel and Goettingen, 1872), p. 6; E. Thwaites,
_Heptateuchus, Liber Job, et Evangelium Nicodemi; Anglo-Saxonice_
(Oxon., 1698).
[7] K.D. Buelbring, _The Earliest Complete English Prose Psalter_
(E.E.T.S., No. 97), part i. (London, 1891); cf. A.C. Paues, _A
Fourteenth-Century Engl. Bibl. Version_ (Upsala Diss.) (Cambridge,
1902), p. lvi.
[8] H.R. Bramley, _The Psalter and Certain Canticles... by Richard
Rolle of Hampole_ (Oxford, 1884); cf. H. Middendorff, _Studien uber
Richard Rolle van Hampole unter besonderer Beruecksichtigung seiner
Psalmen-Commentare_ (Magdeburg, 1888).
[9] A.C. Paues, _A Fourteenth-Century English Biblical Version_
(Cambridge, 1904), pp. xxiv. ff.
[10] See Paues, _op. cit._ p. 210.
[11] For a different view as to the authorship of the Wycliffite
versions, see F.A. Gasquet, _The Old English Bible and Other Essays_
(London, 1897), pp. 102 ff.
[12] Sir F. Madden and Rev. J. Forshall, _The Holy Bible... made from
the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and His Followers_ (4 vols.,
Oxford, 1850), pp. xix., xxiv.
[13] Cf. A.C. Paues, _The English Bible in the Fourteenth Century_.
[14] See Foxe, _Acts and Monuments_, iv. 135 ff. (ed. Townsend,
1846).
[15] Wilkin's _Concilia_, iii. 317.
[16] T.G. Law, _The New Testament in Scots_, being Purvey's Revision
of Wycliffe's version turned into Scots by Murdoch Nisbet, c. 1520
(Scot. T.S., Edinburgh, 1901-1905).
[17] B.F. Westcott, _History of the English Bible_ (3rd ed.), revised
by W. Aldis Wright (London, 1905), p. 25.
[18] _Pref. to Genesis_, p. 396 (Parker Soc.).
[19] Photo lithographed by Edw. Arber (London, 1871).
[20] Reprinted by G. Offor (London, 1836); reproduced in facsimile by
Francis Fry (Bristol, 1862).
[21] Reprinted with an introduction by J.T. Mombert (New York, 1884).
[22] Reproduced in facsimile by Francis Fry (1863).
[23] Cf. H. Bradshaw, _Bibliographer_ (1882-1881), i. 3 ff.
(reprinted 1886).
[24] See F. Jenkinson, _Early English Printed Books in the Univ.
Libr. Cambridge_, iii. (1730).
[25] See _Biographical Description of the Editions of the New
Testament, Tyndale's Version, in English_ (1878).
[26] _Epistle to the Reader_ in the New Testament of 1526, reprinted
by G. Offor; cf. _Parker Soc._ (1848), p. 390.
[27] Westcott, op. cit. p. 57 note.
[28] See Dr Ginsburg's information to Mr Tedder, _D.N.B._ xii. 365.
[29] Cf. H. Stevens, _Catalogue of the Caxton Exhibition_ (1877) p.
88.
[30] _Remains_, Parker Soc., pp. II f.
[31] Westcott, op. cit. p. 172 note.
[32] Cranmer's _Works_, letter 194 (Parker Soc.).
[33] See examples in Westcott, op. cit. pp. 208 f.
[34] Burnet's _Ref._, ed. Pococke, 1865.
[35] Westcott, op. cit. pp. 180 f.
[36] _Remains_ (Parker Soc.), p. 493; cf. J.A. Kingdon, _Incidents in
the Lives of Thomas Poyntz and Richard Grafton_ (1895).
[37] Cf. Burnet's _Ref._ i. 584.
[38] Printed in Bagster's _Hexapla_, 1841, reprinted separately in
1842.
[39] See "Address to the Reader." The division into verses of the New
Testament was first found in R. Stephanus' Greek-Latin New Testament
(4th ed., 1551), whereas these divisions already existed in the
Hebrew Old Testament.
[40] See T.H. Darlow and H.F. Moule, _Historical Catal. of the
Printed Editions of Holy Scripture in the Libr. of the Brit, and
Foreign Bible Soc._ (London, 1903).
[41] See J.G. Carleton, _The Part of Rheims in the Making of the
English Bible_ (Oxford, 1902).
[42] Barlow, _Sum and Substance of the Conference ..._ in Cardwell's
_History of Conferences_, pp. 187 f.
[43] Compiled chiefly from the list found in Cardwell's _Synodalia_
(ed. 1844), ii. 145-146, a reprint from Burnet's _Doc. Annals_, ii.
106 ff., "who himself took his list from a copy belonging originally
to Bishop Ravis." The list is correct for the year 1604; cf.
Westcott, op. cit. pp. 112 f.
[44] Quoted from G. Burnet's _Hist. of Reformation_, ii. p. 368
(1861).
[45] A reprint of this edition has been published by the Clarendon
Press (Oxford, 1833).
BIBLE CHRISTIANS, one of the denominations now merged in the United
Methodist Church (see UNITED METHODISTS), so called because its early
preachers appealed solely to the Bible in confirmation of their
doctrines. The denomination arose in the agricultural districts and
fishing villages of north Cornwall and Devon; a district only slightly
influenced by John Wesley and the original Methodist movement. The
founder was William O'Bryan (afterwards Bryant), a Methodist lay
preacher of Luxillian, Cornwall. Finding that the people had no
evangelical preaching he began an itinerary to supply the need. The
coastmen were expert smugglers and wreckers, the agriculturists were
ignorant and drunken, the parish clergy were slothful, in many cases
intemperate, and largely given to fox-hunting. Only in a parish or two
was there any approach to religious ministry. O'Bryan commenced his
labours in north Devon, and in 1815 a small society was formed at Lake
Farm, Shebbear. The movement had the seeds of great vitality in it. In
1819 the first conference was held at Launceston. There were present
besides O'Bryan one accepted minister--James Thorne--fourteen ministers
on trial and fifteen women preachers, a class that was always
conspicuous in the denomination. At that conference the work had spread
from Ring's Ash in Devon to Morrah, a lonely and desolate parish in west
Cornwall. In 1820-1821 Kent, Northumberland, the Scilly and Norman (i.e.
Channel) Islands appeared on the list of stations. Then came a serious
break. In 1829 there was a severance between the larger part of the new
body and O'Bryan, who had claimed to be perpetual president, and to have
all property vested in him personally. He tried to establish a separate
conference, but failed, and in 1836 there was a reunion. O'Bryan left
England for America, where he remained for the rest of his life, and his
contingent (numbering 565 members and 4 ministers) returned to the
original conference. The growth continued. In 1831 agents were sent to
Canada and Prince Edward's Island, in 1850 to South Australia, in 1855
to Victoria, in 1866 to Queensland, in 1877 to New Zealand and in 1885
to China, so that the original O'Bryan tradition of fervid evangelism
was amply maintained.
On O'Bryan's departure, James Thorne, the first fully recognized
minister, at whose father's farm the connexion started, became its
leader. Although reared as an ordinary farm lad, he proved to be a man
of singular devotion and spiritual genius. He laid the foundations
broadly in evangelism, finance, temperance and education, founding in
the latter connexion a middle-class school at Shebbear, at which
generations of ministers' sons and numerous students for the ministry
have been educated. James Thorne was five times president of the
conference and fifteen times secretary. He died in 1872. In this period
there was much persecution. Landowners refused sites, and in the Isle of
Wight the people worshipped for many months in a quarry. The preachers
were sometimes imprisoned and many times assaulted. The old Methodist
body even excommunicated persons for attending "Bryanite" meetings.
Partly co-operative with James Thorne and at his death independently,
the Church was favoured with the influence of Frederick William Bourne.
He was a minister for fifty-five years, and served the Bible Christians
as editor, missionary treasurer, book steward and three times president
of conference. With him will always be associated the name of Billy
Bray, an illiterate but inimitable Cornish evangelist, a memoir of whom,
written by Bourne, exerted a great influence in the religious life of
the denomination.
In doctrine the Bible Christians did not differ from the other
Methodists. In constitution they differed only slightly. There was an
annual conference with full legislative power, and ability to hold and
dispose of property, composed of an equal number of lay and
ministerial representatives meeting together. The local churches were
grouped into circuits governed representatively by a quarterly
meeting. The quarterly or circuit meetings were in turn organized into
twelve districts, eleven in England and one in China. In 1906 the
statistics showed 218 ministers, 32,549 members and 652 chapels, with
47,301 scholars in Sunday-schools. These figures include nearly 1400
full and probationary members in the China mission, the first-fruits
of two years' labour amongst the Miao tribe. In the various colonial
Methodist unions the Bible Christians have contributed a total of 159
ministers, 14,925 members and 660 chapels.
The community supported a regular ministry from the beginning. Its
members have been keen evangelists, trusting largely to "revivals" for
their success, staunch Radicals in politics and total abstainers to a
man. Both ministers and people entered with interest and sympathy into
the scheme for union between themselves, the Methodist New Connexion
and the United Methodist Free Church, which was successfully
accomplished in 1906. See METHODISM.
BIBLE SOCIETIES, associations for translating and circulating the Holy
Scriptures. This object has engaged the attention of the leaders of
Christendom from early times. In an extant letter, dated A.D. 331, the
emperor Constantine requested Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, to provide
him with fifty copies of the Old and New Testaments for use in the
principal churches in Constantinople. In 797 Charlemagne commissioned
Alcuin to prepare an emended text of the Vulgate; copies of this text
were multiplied, not always accurately, in the famous writing-schools at
Tours. The first book printed in Europe was the Latin Bible, and
Copinger estimates that 124 editions of the Vulgate had been issued by
the end of the 15th century. The Italian Bible was printed a dozen times
before A.D. 1500, and eighteen editions of the German Bible had already
been published before Luther's version appeared.
The Reformation quickened men's interest in the Scriptures to an
extraordinary degree, so that, notwithstanding the adverse attitude
adopted by the Roman Church at and after the council of Trent, the
translation and circulation of the Bible were taken in hand with fresh
zeal, and continued in more systematic fashion.
Thus, the Revised French Geneva Bible of 1588, which was issued in
folio, quarto and octavo, and became a standard text, bears the
following note on the verso of the title: _"Les frais de cet ouvrage,
imprime en trois diuerses formes en mesme temps, pour la commodite et
contentement de toutes sortes de personnes, ont este liberalemet
fournis par quelques gens de bien, qui n'ont cherche gagner pour leur
particulier, mais seulement de servir a Dieu et a son Eglise."_ The
Corporation for the Promoting and Propagating of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ in New England (founded in 1649) bore the expense of printing
both the New Testament and the Bible as a whole (Cambridge, Mass.,
1663--the earliest Bible printed in America), which John Eliot, one of
the Pilgrim Fathers, translated into "the language of the
Massachusetts Indians," whom he evangelized. In Arnauld's _Defence_
(1669) of the famous Port Royal version of the New Testament in French
(issued, 1667), he states that it had been printed in many forms and
sizes, including very cheap editions for the poor, and goes on to
describe how its circulation was promoted by _"les sacrifices que
s'imposaient les pieux solitaires pour faire participer les plus
indigents au bienfait de leur entreprise. Des que leur traduction fut
prete, ils envoyerent de Paris un grand nombre de colporteurs charges
de la vendre au prix de revient et meme, dans certaines circonstances,
a des prix reduits; et ils couvrirent la depense par des dons
volontaires"_ (E. Petavel, _La Bible en France_, p. 152).
To meet the cost of publishing the Finn Bible in 1685, the editor, J.
Gezelius, bishop of Abo, obtained an order from the Swedish government
for the appropriation of certain corn-tithes, still known as _Bibel
Tryck-Tunnan_. When the Finnish Bible Society began to publish
editions of the Scriptures, the tsar Alexander I. contributed 5000
roubles from his privy purse, and ordered that these corn-tithes
should again be appropriated to this purpose for five years from 1812.
In 1701 at Frankfort-On-Main there appeared a quarto edition of the
Ethiopic Psalter, whose editor, H. Ludolf, writes in his preface:
_"Quamobrem nullum gratius officium Christianae huic nationi a me
praestari posse putavi, quam si Psalterium Aethiopicum, quod apud
illos non aliter quam in membrana manuscriptum habetur, et caro satis
venditur, typis mandari, ejusque plurima exemplaria nomine Societatis
Indicae in Habessinia gratis distribui curarem."_
In 1719 appeared the first of numerous editions of the French New
Testament, connected with the name of the Abbe de Barneville, a priest
of the Oratory at Paris. Impressed by the popular ignorance of the
Scriptures, he himself translated, or caused others to translate, the
New Testament into French from the Vulgate, and formed an association
to distribute copies systematically at low prices. The prefaces to his
various editions contain details as to the methods of this
association, and repeatedly insist on the importance of reading the
Scriptures. (On this _Societe biblique catholique francaise_ see O.
Douen, _Histoire de la societe biblique protestante de Paris_, Paris,
1868, pp. 46-51.)
Christian missionaries to non-Christian lands have naturally been among
the most skilful translators and the most assiduous distributors of the
Bible. The earliest complete Arabic Bible was produced at Rome in 1671,
by the _Congregatio de Propaganda Fide_. Protestant missionary societies
have engaged energetically in the task not only of translating, but of
printing, publishing and distributing the Scriptures. Thus the Society
for Promoting Christian Knowledge (founded 1698), besides its other
activities, has done much to cheapen and multiply copies of the
Scriptures, not only in English and Welsh, but in many foreign
languages. Early in the 18th century it printed editions in Arabic, and
promoted the first versions of the Bible in Tamil and Telugu, made by
the Danish Lutheran missionaries whom it then supported in south India.
The earliest New Testament (1767) and Old Testament (1783-1801) in
Gaelic were published by the Society in Scotland for Propagating
Christian Knowledge (founded 1709). The S.P.C.K. now publishes versions
of the Scriptures (either complete, or in part) in 38 different
languages (without reckoning versions of the Prayer Book in 45 other
languages); and during 1905-1906 the S.P.C.K. issued in England 116,126
Bibles and 17,783 New Testaments.
The earliest noteworthy organization, formed for the specific purpose of
circulating the Scriptures, was the Canstein Bible Institute
(_Bibelanstalt_), founded in 1710 at Halle in Saxony, by Karl
Hildebrand, baron von Canstein (1667-1719), who was associated with P.J.
Spener and other leaders of Pietism in Germany. He invented a method of
printing, perhaps somewhat akin to stereotyping--though the details are
not clearly known,--whereby the Institute could produce Bibles and
Testaments in Luther's version at a very low cost, and sell them, in
small size, at prices equivalent to 10d. and 3d. per copy, respectively.
In 1722 editions of the Scriptures were also issued in Bohemian and
Polish. At von Canstein's death he left the Institute to the care of his
friend August Hermann Francke, founder in 1698 of the famous
_Waisenhaus_ (orphanage) at Halle. The Canstein Institute has issued
some 6,000,000 copies of the Scriptures.
In England various Christian organizations, which arose out of the
Evangelical movement in the 18th century, took part in the work. Among
such may be mentioned the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
among the Poor (1750); and the Society for the Support and Encouragement
of Sunday Schools (1785). An institution was founded in 1780 under the
name of the Bible Society, but as its sphere was restricted to soldiers
and seamen the title was afterwards changed to the Naval and Military
Bible Society. The first ship among whose crew it distributed the
Scriptures was the "Royal George," which had 400 of this society's
Bibles on board when it foundered at Spithead on the 29th of August
1782. The French Bible Society, instituted in 1792, came to an end in
1803, owing to the Revolution.
_The British and Foreign Bible Society._--In 1804 was founded in London
the British and Foreign Bible Society, the most important association of
its kind. It originated in a proposal made to the committee of the
Religious Tract Society, by the Rev. Thomas Charles of Bala, who found
that his evangelistic and philanthropic labours in Wales were sorely
hindered by the dearth of Welsh Bibles. His colleagues in the Religious
Tract Society united with other earnest evangelical leaders to establish
a new society, which should have for its sole object "to encourage a
wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment." This
simplicity of aim is combined with a catholicity of constitution which
admits the co-operation of all persons interested in the society's
object. The committee of management consists of thirty-six laymen, six
of them being foreigners resident in or near London, while of the
remaining thirty, half are members of the Church of England, and half
are members of other Christian denominations.
Supported by representative Christian leaders, such as Granville Sharp,
Zachary Macaulay, William Wilberforce, Charles Grant and Henry Thornton,
with Lord Teignmouth, ex-governor-general of India, as its first
president, and Dr Porteus, bishop of London, as its friendly counsellor,
the new society made rapid progress. It spread throughout Great Britain,
mainly by means of auxiliaries, i.e. local societies, affiliated but
self-controlled, with subsidiary branches and associations (these last
being often managed by women). Up to 1816-1817 the parent society had
received from its auxiliaries altogether L420,000. This system continues
to flourish. In 1905-1906 the society had about 5800 auxiliaries,
branches and associations in England and Wales, and more than 2000
auxiliaries abroad, mainly in the British Colonies, many of which
undertake vigorous local work, besides remitting contributions to
London.
The society's advance was chequered by several controversies. (a) Its
fundamental law to circulate the Bible alone, without note or comment,
was vehemently attacked by Bishop Marsh and other divines of the
Church of England, who insisted that the Prayer Book ought to
accompany the Bible. (b) Another more serious controversy related to
the circulation--chiefly through affiliated societies on the
continent--of Bibles containing the Deutero-canonical books of the Old
Testament. In 1826 the society finally resolved that its fundamental
law be fully and distinctly recognized as excluding the circulation
"of those Books, or parts of Books, which are usually termed
Apocryphal." This step, however, failed to satisfy most of the
society's supporters in Scotland, who proceeded to form themselves
into independent organizations, grouped for the most part round
centres at Edinburgh and Glasgow. These were finally amalgamated in
1861 into the National Bible Society of Scotland. (c) A third dispute
turned upon the admissibility of non-Trinitarians to the privilege of
co-operation. The refusal of the society to alter its constitution so
as formally to exclude such persons led to the formation (1831) of the
Trinitarian Bible Society, which is still in existence. (d) A fourth
controversy arose out of the restrictive renderings of the term
"baptize" and its cognate terms, adopted by William Carey and his
colleagues in their famous "Serampore Versions," towards publishing
which the society had contributed up to 1830 nearly L30,000. Protests
from other Indian missionaries led the society to determine that it
could circulate only such versions as gave neutral renderings for the
terms in question. As a sequel, the Bible Translation Society was
founded in 1839 to issue versions embodying distinctively Baptist
renderings.
By one of its original laws the British and Foreign Bible Society
could circulate no copies of the Scriptures in English other than King
James's Version of 1611. In 1901 this law was widened to include the
Revised English Version of 1881-1885.
From its foundation the society has successfully laboured to promote
new and improved versions of the Scriptures. In 1804 the Bible, or
some part of it, had been printed in about fifty-five different
tongues. By the year 1906 versions, more or less complete, had been
published in more than 530 distinct languages and dialects, and in 400
of these the work of translation, printing or distribution had been
promoted by the society. Translations or revisions in scores of
languages are still being carried on by companies of scholars and
representative missionaries in different parts of the world, organized
under the society's auspices and largely at its expense. New versions
are made, wherever practicable, from the original Hebrew or Greek
text, and the results thus obtained have a high philological value and
interest. The society's interdenominational character has commonly
secured--what could hardly otherwise have been attained--the
acceptance of the same version by missions of different churches
working side by side. The society supplies the Scriptures to missions
of every Reformed Communion on such terms that, as a rule, the books
distributed by the missions involve no charge on their funds. Except
under special circumstances, the society does not encourage wholesale
free distribution, but provides cheap editions at prices which the
poorest can pay. On the whole it receives from sales about 40% of what
it expends in preparing, printing and circulating the books.
During the year 1905-1906 the society's circulation reached the
unprecedented total of 5,977,453 copies, including 968,683 Bibles and
1,326,475 Testaments. Of the whole 1,921,000 volumes were issued from
the Bible House, London, and 1,331,000 were in English or Welsh,
circulating chiefly in England and the British colonies. The other
main fields of distribution were as follows:--France, 203,000 copies;
Central Europe, 679,000; Italy, 117,000; Spain and Portugal, 120,000;
the Russian empire, 595,000; India, Burma and Ceylon, 768,000; Japan,
286,000; and China, 1,075,000 (most of these last being separate
gospels).
The society spends L10,000 a year in grants to religious and
philanthropic agencies at home. Outside the United Kingdom it has its
own agencies or secretaries in twenty-seven of the chief cities of the
world, and maintains depots in 200 other centres. It employs 930
Christian colporteurs abroad, who sold in 1905-1906 over 2,250,000
volumes. It supports 670 native Christian Bible-women in the East, in
connexion with forty different missionary organizations. The centenary
festival in 1904 was celebrated with enthusiasm by the Reformed
Churches and their foreign missions throughout the world. Messages of
congratulation came from the rulers of every Protestant nation in
Christendom, and a centenary thanksgiving fund of 250,000 guineas was
raised for extending the society's work. During the year 1905-1906 the
society expended L238,632, while its income was L231,964 (of which
L98,204 represented receipts from sales). Up to the 31st of March 1906
the society had expended altogether L14,686,072, and had issued
198,515,199 copies of the Scriptures--of which more than 78,000,000
were in English.
_In Scotland_ the Edinburgh Bible Society (1809), the Glasgow Bible
Society (1812), and other Scottish auxiliaries, many of which had
dissociated themselves from the British and Foreign Bible Society after
1826, were finally incorporated (1861) with the National Bible Society
of Scotland, which has carried on vigorous work all over the world,
especially in China. During 1905, with an income of L27,108, it issued
1,590,881 copies, 907,000 of which were circulated in China. Its total
issues from 1861 to 1906 were 26,106,265 volumes.
_In Ireland_ the Hibernian Bible Society (originally known as the Dublin
Bible Society) was founded in 1806, and with it were federated kindred
Irish associations formed at Cork, Belfast, Derry, &c. The Hibernian
Bible Society, whose centenary was celebrated in 1906, had then issued a
total of 5,713,837 copies. It sends an annual subsidy to aid the foreign
work of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
_Other European Societies._--The impulse which founded the British and
Foreign Bible Society in 1804 soon spread over Europe, and,
notwithstanding the turmoils of the Napoleonic wars, kindred
organizations on similar lines quickly sprang up, promoted and
subsidized by the British and Foreign Bible Society. Many of these
secured royal and aristocratic patronage and encouragement--the tsar of
Russia, the kings of Prussia, Bavaria, Sweden, Denmark and Wuerttemberg
all lending their influence to the enterprise.
Within fourteen years the following Bible societies were in active
operation: the Basel Bible Society (founded at Nuremberg, 1804), the
Prussian Bible Society (founded as the Berlin Bible Society, 1805), the
Revel Bible Society (1807), the Swedish Evangelical Society (1808), the
Dorpat Bible Society (1811), the Riga Bible Society (1812), the Finnish
Bible Society (1812), the Hungarian Bible Institution (Pressburg, 1812),
the Wuerttemberg Bible Society (Stuttgart, 1812), the Swedish Bible
Society (1814), the Danish Bible Society (1814), the Saxon Bible Society
(Dresden, 1814), the Thuringian Bible Society (Erfurt, 1814), the Berg
Bible Society (Eberfeld, 1814), the Hanover Bible Society (1814), the
Hamburg-Altona Bible Society (1814), the Luebeck Bible Society (1814),
the Netherlands Bible Society (Amsterdam, 1814). These were increased in
1815 by the Brunswick, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein, Strassburg and
Eichsfeld (Saxony) Bible Societies, and the Icelandic Bible Society. In
1816-1817 came the Norwegian Bible Society, the Polish Bible Society and
ten minor German Bible Societies. Twelve cantonal societies had also
been formed in Switzerland.
Up to 1816-1817 these societies had printed altogether 436,000 copies of
the Scriptures, and had received from the British and Foreign Bible
Society gifts amounting to over L62,000. The decision of the British and
Foreign Bible Society in 1826 with regard to circulating the Apocrypha
(see above) modified its relations with the most influential of these
continental societies. Some of them were ultimately dissolved or
suppressed through political or ecclesiastical opposition, the Roman
Church proving especially hostile. But many of them still flourish, and
are actively engaged in their original task.
The circulation of the Scriptures by German Bible Societies during
1905 was estimated as follows:--The Prussian Bible Society (Berlin),
182,000 copies; the Wuerttemberg Bible Institute (Stuttgart), 247,000;
the Berg Bible Society (Eberfeld), 142,000; the Saxon Bible Society
(Dresden), 44,000; the Central Bible Association (Nuremberg), 14,000;
the Canstein Bible Institute (Halle), the Schleswig-Holstein Bible
Society, the Hamburg-Altona Bible Society and others, together 56,000.
During 1905, nine cantonal Bible societies in Switzerland circulated
altogether 71,000 copies; the Netherlands Bible Society reported a
circulation of 54,544 volumes, 48,137 of which were in Dutch; the
Danish Bible Society circulated 45,289 copies; the Norwegian Bible
Society circulated 67,058 copies; and in Sweden the Evangelical
National Society distributed about 110,000 copies.
In Italy, by a departure from the traditional policy of the Roman
Church, the newly formed "Pious Society of St Jerome for the
Dissemination of the Holy Gospels" issued in 1901 from the Vatican
press a new Italian version of the Four Gospels and _Acts_. By the end
of 1905 the society announced that over 400,000 copies of this volume
had been sold at 2d. a copy.
In France, the _Societe biblique protestante de Paris_, founded in
1818, with generous aid from the British and Foreign Bible Society,
had a somewhat restricted basis and scope. In 1833 the _Societe
biblique francaise et etrangere_ was formed on wider lines; after its
dissolution in 1863, many of its supporters joined the _Societe
biblique de France_, which dates from 1864, and represents chiefly
members of the _Eglise libre_, and kindred French Evangelicals. During
1905 its issues were 34,475 copies, while the _Societe biblique
protestante de Paris_ issued 8061 copies.
Of these non-British societies the most noteworthy was established in
Russia. In December 1812, while "the last shattered remnants of
Napoleon's Grand Army struggled across the ice of the Niemen," the
tsar Alexander I. sanctioned plans for a Bible society, which was
promptly inaugurated at St Petersburg under the presidency of Prince
Galitzin. Through the personal favour of the tsar, it made rapid and
remarkable progress. Nobles and ministers of state, with the chief
ecclesiastics not only of the Russian Church but of the Roman, the
Uniat, the Armenian, the Greek, the Georgian and the Lutheran
Churches, found themselves constrained to serve on its committees. By
the close of 1823 the Russian Bible Society had formed 289
auxiliaries, extending eastwards to Yakutsk and Okhotsk; and had
received altogether L145,640. In 1824, however, Prince Galitzin ceased
to be procurator of the Holy Synod, and Seraphim, metropolitan of St
Petersburg, became president of the Russian Bible Society. And in
1826, soon after his accession, the tsar Nicholas I. issued a _ukase_
suspending the society's operations--after it had printed the
Scriptures in thirty different languages, seventeen of which were new
tongues, and had circulated 600,000 volumes from the Caucasus to
Kamchatka. In 1828 Nicholas I. sanctioned the establishment of a
Protestant Bible Society, which still exists, to supply the Scriptures
only to Protestant subjects of the tsar (cf. Th. Schiemann,
_Geschichte Russlands unter Nikolaus I._ vol. i. chap. ix.). In 1839
St Petersburg became the headquarters of an agency of the British and
Foreign Bible Society, which enjoys special facilities in Russia, and
now annually circulates about 600,000 copies of the Scriptures, in
fifty different languages, within the Russian empire.
_In America_ the earliest Bible society was founded at Philadelphia in
1808. Six more societies--including those of New York and of
Massachusetts--were formed during 1809, and other societies, auxiliaries
and associations quickly followed. In 1816 a convention of delegates
representing 31 of these institutions met at New York and established
the American Bible Society, with Elias Boudinot as president. All
kindred organizations in the states gradually became amalgamated with
this national body, and the federation was completed in 1839 by the
adhesion of the Philadelphia Society (which now changed its name to the
Pennsylvania Bible Society). Not a few noteworthy versions of the Bible,
such as those in Arabic, 15 dialects of Chinese, Armenian, and Zulu, and
many American Indian, Philippine, and African languages have appeared
under the auspices of the American Bible Society. Turkish, classical
Chinese, and Korean versions have been made by the American and British
societies jointly. The society's foreign agencies extend to China,
Japan, Korea, the Turkish empire, Bulgaria, Egypt, Micronesia, Siam,
Mexico, Central America, the South American republics, Cuba and the
Philippines. In the year ending March 31st 1909 the income of the
Society was $502,345, and it issued 2,153,028 copies of the Scriptures,
nearly half of which went to readers outside the United States. The
total distribution effected by the American Bible Society and its
federated societies had in 1909 exceeded 84,000,000 volumes, in over a
hundred different languages.
AUTHORITIES.--Besides the published reports of the societies in
question, the following works may be mentioned: J. Owen, _History of
the First Ten Years of the British and Foreign Bible Society_ (London,
1816-1820); G. Browne, _History of the Bible Society_ (London, 1859);
Bertram, _Geschichte der Cansteinschen Bibelanstalt_ (Halle, 1863); E.
Petavel, _La Bible en France_ (Paris, 1864); O. Douen, _Histoire de la
societe biblique protestante de Paris_ (Paris, 1868); G. Borrow, _The
Bible in Spain_ (London, 1849); W. Canton, _The History of the British
and Foreign Bible Society_ (London, 1904 foll.); J. Ballinger, _The
Bible in Wales_ (London, 1906); T.H. Darlow and H.F. Moule,
_Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture_
(London, vol. i. 1903, vol. ii. 1908). (T. H. D.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOLOGY. The word [Greek: bibliographia] was used in
post-classical Greek for the writing of books, and as late as 1761, in
Fenning's _English Dictionary_, a bibliographer is defined as "one who
writes or copies books." The transition from the meaning "a writing _of_
books" to that of "a writing _about_ books," was accomplished in France
in the 18th century--witness the publication in 1763 of the
_Bibliographie instructive_ of de Bure. In England the new meaning seems
to have been popularized by the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin early in the
19th century, while Southey preferred the rival form _bibliology_, which
is now hardly used. Present custom inclines to restrict the province of
bibliography to printed books as opposed to manuscripts, and on the
other hand recognizes as coming within its scope almost everything in
which a book-loving antiquary can be interested, including the history
of printing (see TYPOGRAPHY), book-binding (q.v.), book-illustration
(see ILLUSTRATION) and book-collecting (q.v.). The present article is
only concerned with bibliography as the art of the examination,
collation and description of books, their enumeration and arrangement in
lists for purposes of information, and further with the literature of
this subject, i.e. with the bibliography of bibliography.
_Examination and Collation._--Books are submitted to examination in
order to discover their origin, or to test statements concerning it
which there is reason to doubt, or to ascertain if they are perfect, and
if perfect whether they are in their original condition or have been
"made up" from other copies. The discovery of where, when and by whom a
book, or fragment of a book, was printed, is the most difficult of these
tasks, though as regards books printed in the 15th century it has been
much facilitated by the numerous facsimiles enumerated under INCUNABULA
(q.v.). In the article BOOK (q.v.) a sketch is given of the chief
external characteristics of books in each century since the invention of
printing. Familiarity with books of different ages and countries soon
creates a series of general ideas as to the dates and places with which
any combination of these characteristics may be connected, and an
experienced bibliographer, more especially if he knows something of the
history of paper, will quickly narrow down the field of inquiry
sufficiently to make special search possible.
As regards the correction of mis-statements in early books as to their
place and origin, glaring piracies such as the Lyonnese counterfeits of
the octavo editions of the classics printed by Aldus at Venice, and the
numerous unauthorized editions of works by Luther, professing to be
printed at Wittenberg, have long ago been exposed. A different variety
of the same kind of puzzle arises from the existence of numerous
original editions with fictitious imprints. As early as 1499 a Brescia
printer, in order to evade the privilege granted to Aldus, gave to an
edition of Politian the spurious imprint "Florentiae," and in the 16th
century many controversial books printed in England purported to have
been issued in German towns, or with pleasant humour, "at Rome before
the castle of S. Angel at the sign of S. Peter." Only a knowledge of the
general characteristics which a book printed at such a place and such a
time should possess will secure avoidance of these traps, but when
suspicion has been aroused the whole story will often be found in such
books as Weller's _Die maskirte Literatur der aelteren und neueren
Sprachen_ (1856-1867), and _Die falschen und fingirten Druckoerte_
(1864), Brunet's _Imprimeurs imaginaires et libraires supposes_ (1866),
de Brouillant's _La Liberte de la Presse en France; Histoire de Pierre
du Marteau, imprimeur a Cologne, &c._ (1888); in the various
bibliographies of Erotica and in Brunet's _Manuel de l'Amateur_ and
other handbooks for the use of collectors. A special case of this
problem of piracies and spurious imprints is that of the modern
photographic or type-facsimile forgery of small books possessing a high
commercial value, such as the early editions of the letter of Columbus
announcing his discovery of the New World. Bad forgeries of this kind
can be detected by the tendency of all photographic processes of
reproduction to thicken letters and exaggerate every kind of defect, but
the best of these imitations when printed on old paper require a
specific knowledge of the originals and often cause great trouble. The
type-facsimile forgeries are mostly of short pieces by Tennyson, George
Eliot and A.C. Swinburne, printed (or supposed to have been printed--for
it is doubtful if some of these "forgeries" ever had any originals) for
circulation among friends. These trifles should never be purchased
without a written guarantee.
When the edition to which a book belongs is known, further examination
is needed to ascertain if it is perfect and in its original state. Where
no standard collation is available, this can only be ascertained by a
detailed examination of the quires or gatherings of which it is made up
(see below). In the earliest books these are often very irregular. A
large book was usually printed simultaneously in four or six sections on
as many different presses, and the several compositors, if unable to end
their sections at the end of a complete quire, would insert a single
leaf to give more space, or sometimes leave a blank page, or half page,
for lack of matter, occasionally adding the note _"Hic nullus est
defectus."_ A careful examination of the text, a task from which
bibliographers often shrink, and a comparison with other editions, are
the only remedies in these cases.
If a copy contains the right number of leaves, the further question
arises as to whether any of these have been supplied from other copies,
or are in facsimile. Few collectors even now are educated enough to
prefer copies in the condition in which the ravages of time have left
them to those which have been "completed" by dealers; hence many old
books have been "made up" with leaves from other copies, or not
infrequently from other editions. These meddlings often defy detection,
but proof of them may be found in differences in the height and colour
of the paper, in the two corresponding leaves at either end of a folio
quire both possessing a watermark, or in their wiremarks not
corresponding, or (in very early books) by the ornamentation added by
hand being in a different style.
When it has been ascertained that a copy contains the right number of
leaves and that all these leaves are original, the last point to be
settled is as to whether it differs in any respect from the standard
collation. Owing to the extreme slowness of the presswork for the first
two centuries after the invention of printing, there were more
opportunities for making small corrections while an old book was passing
through the press than there are in the case of modern ones, and on the
other hand the balls used for inking the type sometimes caught up words
or individual letters and these were replaced by the compositors as best
they could. The small variations in the text noticed in different copies
of the First Folio edition of Shakespeare, and again of Milton's
_Paradise Lost_, are probably to be explained by a mixture of these two
causes. Where a serious error was discovered after a sheet had been
printed off, the leaf on which it occurred was sometimes cut out and a
new leaf (called a "cancel") printed to replace it and pasted on to the
rest of the sheet. Variations between different copies of the first
edition of Herrick's _Hesperides_ which have puzzled all his editors are
due to the presence of several of such cancels. Lastly, a printer when
he had printed part of a book might wish to increase the size of the
edition, and the leaves already printed off would have to be reprinted,
thus causing a combination of identical and different leaves in
different copies. The famous 42-line Bible of c. 1455, variously
attributed to Gutenberg and to Fust and Schoeffer, and the _Valerius
Maximus_ printed by Schoeffer in 1471, are instances of editions being
thus enlarged while passing through the press. As each book was set up
simultaneously on several different presses, the reprinted leaves occur
at the beginning of each of the sections.
It should be mentioned that there are books of which it is difficult to
find two copies in exact agreement. Either to quicken presswork or to
comply with trade-regulations made in the interest of compositors, in
some books of which large numbers were required, e.g. the _Paraphrases
of Erasmus_, the _First Prayer-book of Edward VI._, and the "Songs and
Sonnets" known as _Tottell's Miscellany_, each forme was set up two or
more different times. The formes were then used at haphazard for
printing, and both at this stage and when the printed sheets came to be
stitched almost any number of different combinations might be made. The
books named were all printed in the middle of the 16th century, but
probably later instances could be produced.
_Description._--The ideal towards which all bibliographical work should
be directed is the provision in an accessible form of a standard
description of a perfect copy of every book of literary, historical or
typographical interest as it first issued from the press, and of all the
variant issues and editions of it. When such standard descriptions shall
have been made, adequately checked and printed, it will be possible to
describe every individual copy by a simple reference to them, with a
statement of its differences, if any, and an insistence on the points
bearing on the special object with which it is being re-described. Only
in a few cases has any approach been made to a collection of such
standard descriptions. One instance which may be cited is that of the
entries of the 15th century books in the _Repertorium Bibliographicum_
of Ludwig Hain (1826-1838), which the addition of an asterisk marks as
having been examined by Hain himself in the copies in the Royal library
at Munich. The high standard of accuracy of these asterisked entries
(save for the omission to note blank leaves at the beginning or end) has
been so well established, and the _Repertorium_ is so widely known, that
in many catalogues of incunabula the short title of the book together
with the number of Hain's entry has been usefully substituted for a long
description. Books printed at Oxford up to 1640 can be equally well
described by their short titles and a reference to Mr Falconer Madan's
_Early Oxford Press_ published in 1895. At present the number of works
which can thus be taken as a standard is only small, owing partly to the
greater and more accurate detail now demanded, partly to the absence of
any system of co-operation among libraries, each of which is only
willing to pay for catalogues relating exclusively to its own
collections. It may be hoped that through the foundation of
bibliographical institutes more work of this kind may be done.
A standard description of any book must, as a rule, consist of the
following sections, though in the case of works which have no
typographical interest, some of the details may be advantageously
omitted:--(a) A literal transcript of the title-page, also of the
colophon, if any, and of any headings or other portions of the book
serving to distinguish it from other issues; (b) Statements as to the
size or form of the book, the gatherings or quires of which it is made
up, with the total number of leaves, the measurement of an uncut copy or
of the type-page, a note of the types in which different parts of the
book are printed, and a reference to any trustworthy information already
in print; (c) A statement of the literary contents of the book and of
the points at which they respectively begin; (d) A note giving any
additional information which may be needed.
(a) In transcribing the title-page and other parts of the book it is
desirable not to omit intermediate words; if an omission is made it
should be indicated by three dots placed close together. The end of a
line should be indicated by an upright stroke.[1] It is a considerable
gain to indicate to the eye in what types the words transcribed are
printed, i.e. whether in roman, gothic letter, or italic, and in each
case whether in majuscules or minuscules ("upper or lower case"). To
do this, however, adds greatly not only to the cost of printing, but
also to the liability of error. If roman minuscules are used
throughout, or roman for the text and italic for the imprint of
colophon, the method of transliteration which the printer himself
would have used should be adopted. Many of the best modern catalogues
and bibliographies are disfigured by the occurrence in them of such
forms as "qvinqve," "qveen," "Evrope," due to an unintelligent
transliteration of the forms QVINQVE, QVEEN, EVROPE, as they occur on
title-pages at a date when "V" was the majuscule form of both "v" and
"u." If it is desired to retain the V forms the words should be
printed in majuscules. If minuscules are used, the words should be
transliterated as quinque, queen, Europe, according to the practice of
the old printers themselves.
A troublesome question often arises as to what notice should be taken
in reproducing the misprints which frequently occur in the original
titles. Bibliographers who have satisfied themselves (and their
readers) of their own accuracy may reproduce them in silence, though
it will need constant watchfulness to prevent the printer from
"setting them right." Transcribers of only average accuracy will
consult their happiness by indicating the misprint in some way, and
the frequent use of (_sic_), more especially when printed in italics,
or of the German (!), being ugly, probably the simplest plan is to add
a note at the end stating that the misprints in question occur in the
original.
(b) The "size" of a book is a technical expression for the relation of
the individual leaves to the sheet of paper of which they form a part.
A book in-folio means one in which the paper has been folded once, so
that each sheet has made two leaves. In a book in-quarto, each sheet
has been folded twice so as to make four leaves. In an octavo another
fold has produced eight leaves, and so on for books in 16mo, 32mo and
64mo. For books in twelves, twenty-fours, &c., the paper has at some
stage to be folded in three instead of in two, and there will be some
difference in form according to the way in which this is done. The
size of a book printed on handmade paper "is very simply recognized by
holding up a page to the light. Certain white lines, called
wire-lines, will be noticed, occurring as a rule about an inch apart,
and running at right angles to the fine lines. These wire-lines are
perpendicular in a folio, octavo, 32mo, and horizontal in a quarto and
16mo. In a 12mo, as the name implies, the sheet is folded in twelve;
and in the earlier part at least of the 16th century this was done in
such a way that the wire-lines are perpendicular, the height of the
sheet forming two pages, as is the case in an octavo, while the width
is divided into six instead of into four as in an octavo. The later
habit has been to fold the sheet differently, the height of the sheet
forming the width of four pages, and the width of the sheet the height
of three pages, consequently the wire-lines are horizontal" (E.G.
Duff, _Early Printed Books_, pp. 206-207).
The recognition of what is meant by the size of a book has been
obscured by the erroneous idea that the quires or gatherings of which
books are made up necessarily consist of single sheets.[2] If this
were so all folios would be in gatherings of two leaves each; all
quartos in gatherings of four leaves; all octavos in gatherings of
eights. In the case of books printed on handmade paper, this is
generally true of octavos, but to reduce the amount of sewing the
earliest folios were usually arranged in tens, i.e. in gatherings of
five sheets or ten leaves, while in Shakespeare's time English folios
were mostly in sixes. In the same way quartos are often found made up
in eights, and on the other hand the use of a half-sheet produces a
gathering of only two leaves.
When a manuscript or early printed book was being prepared for
binding, it was usual for the order in which the quires or gatherings
were to be arranged to be indicated by signing them with the letters
of the alphabet in their order, the alphabet generally used being the
Latin, in which I stands for both I and J; V for both U and V, and
there is no W. If more than twenty-three letters were needed the
contractions for _et, con, rum_ and (less often) that for _us_, were
used as additional signs, and for large books minuscules were used as
well as majuscules, and the letters were doubled. In 1472 printed
signatures came into use. If the quires or gatherings in the book to
be described are signed in print, the signatures used should be quoted
without brackets. If they are not signed, the order of the gatherings
should be noted by the letters of the alphabet in square brackets. In
each case the number of leaves in each gathering should be shown by
index-figures. Thus, six gatherings of eight leaves followed by one of
four should be represented by the symbols A-F^8 G^4. The "make-up" of
an old book in original binding is usually sufficiently shown by the
strings in the middle of each quire. In books which have been rebound
help may sometimes be obtained from the fact that between (roughly)
1750 and 1850, a period during which there was much rebinding of early
books, the gatherings before being put into their new quires were
mostly separately pressed, with the result that the outer pages of
each gathering are much smoother than the rest. But the only safe
guide to the make-up of an old book without printed signatures is a
collation by means of the watermarks, i.e. the devices with which the
papermaker as a rule marked each sheet (see PAPER). In a folio book
one of every pair of leaves should have a watermark in the middle of
the paper. In a quarto some pairs of leaves will have no watermark; in
others it will be found divided by the fold of the paper. As the great
majority of books without printed signatures are in folio or quarto,
the sequence of watermarked and un-watermarked leaves, if carefully
worked out, will mostly reveal the "make-up" of the successive
gatherings.
After the size and sequence of the gatherings has been stated, the
total number of leaves should be noted, with a mention of any
numeration of them given in the book. Any discrepancy between the
total of the leaves assigned to the successive gatherings and the
total as separately counted of course points to an error, and the
reckonings must be repeated till they tally. Errors in the printed
enumeration of the leaves of old books are common, and it is seldom
necessary to point them out in detail. When reference has to be made
to a particular page of an old book, the printed signatures offer the
readiest means, an index number placed below the letter indicating the
number of the leaf in the gathering and the addition of "recto" or
"verso" marking the upper or under page of the leaf. Thus "X4 recto"
(some bibliographers prefer the rather clumsier form "X 4 recto")
stands for the first page of the fourth leaf of the gathering signed
X. Where there are no printed signatures the leaf-number may be given,
the letters "a" and "b" above the numeral taking the place of "recto"
and "verso" (leaf 99^a). Where some leaves of a book are numbered and
others not, if the reference is to the printed numeration this should
be stated. Printed leaf numeration is found as early as 1470, and
became common about ten years later. Printed pagination did not become
common till nearly the middle of the 16th century.
The foregoing details are all directed to showing which leaves of a
book would be printed by the same pull of the press, how it was made
up for binding, and how imperfections in any copy may be detected.
They give little or no indication of the dimensions of the book. In
the case of modern editions this may be done by adding one of the
trade epithets, pott, foolscap, crown, &c., to the name of the size,
which when thus qualified denotes paper of a particular measurement
(see PAPER). As, however, these measurements are not easily
remembered, it is better to give the actual measurements in inches or
millimetres of a page of an uncut copy. In old books uncut copies are
not easily found, and it is useful instead of this to give the
measurement in millimetres of the printed portion of the page
(technically called the "type-page"), although this is subject to a
variation of about 3% in different copies, according to the degree to
which they were damped for printing. To this is added a statement of
the number of lines in the page measured. The character of the type
(roman, gothic or italic) is next mentioned, and in the case of
15th-century books, its number in the sequence of founts used by the
printer (see INCUNABULA). Finally a reference to any authoritative
description already printed completes this portion of the entry. Thus
the description of the collation of the first-dated book printed at
Augsburg, the _Meditationes_ of S. Bonaventura, printed by Guenther
Zainer in 1468, should read: Folio (a^10, b-d^8, e-g^10, h^8) 72
leaves. Type-page ([3]) 202 x 120 mm.; 35 lines. Type 1 (gothic
letter). Hain 3557.
(c) While many books, and this is especially true of early ones,
contain little or nothing beyond the bare text of a well-known work,
others are well provided, not only with commentaries which are almost
sure to be mentioned on the title-page, or in the colophon (which the
editor himself often wrote), but also with dedicatory letters,
prefaces, complimentary verses, indexes and other accessories, the
presence of which it is desirable to indicate. In these cases it is
often convenient to show the entire contents of the book in the order
in which they occur, noting the leaves or pages on which each begins.
Thus in the first edition (1590) of the first three books of Spenser's
_Faerie Queene_, the literary contents, their order, and the space
they occupy can be concisely noted by taking the successive gatherings
according to their signatures and showing what comes on each page.
Thus: A1, recto, title; verso, dedication, "To the Most Mightie and
Magnificent Empresse Elizabeth"; A2-Oo8, text of books i.-iii.; Pp1,
letter dated the 23rd of January 1589 [1590] to Sir Walter Raleigh
expounding the intention of the work; Pp3 verso, commendatory verses
signed W. R[aleigh], Hobynoll (Gabriel Harvey), R.S., H.B., W.L. and
Ignoto; Pp5-8, complimentary sonnets severally inscribed to Sir C.
Hatton, the earls of Essex, Oxford, Northumberland and Ormond, Lord
Ch. Howard, Lord Grey of Wilton and Sir W. Raleigh, and to Lady Carew
and to the Ladies in the Court; and "Faults escaped in the print";
Qq(1-4), fifteen other sonnets.
Some bibliographers prefer to reverse the order of notation, (title,
A1, recto; dedication, A1, verso, &c.), and no principle is sacrificed
in doing so, though the order suggested usually works out the more
neatly.
_Enumeration and Arrangement._--In the 18th and early 19th centuries
there was a tendency, especially among French writers, to exaggerate the
scope of bibliography, on the ground that it was the duty of the
bibliographer to appraise the value of all the books he recorded, and to
indicate the exact place which each work should occupy in a logical
classification of all literature based on a previous classification of
all knowledge. Bibliographers are now more modest. They recognize that
the classification of human knowledge is a question for philosophers and
men of science, that the knowledge of chemistry and of its history
needed to make a good bibliography of chemistry is altogether extrinsic
to bibliography itself; that all, in fact, to which bibliography can
pretend is to suggest certain general principles of arrangement and to
point out to some extent how they may be applied. The principles are
neither numerous nor recondite. To illustrate the history of printing,
books may be arranged according to the places and printing-houses where
they were produced. For the glorification of a province or county, they
are sometimes grouped under the places where their authors were born or
resided. For special purposes, they may be arranged according to the
language or dialect in which they are written. But, speaking generally,
the choice for a basis of arrangement rests between the alphabetical
order of authors and titles, a chronological order according to date of
publication, a "logical" or alphabetical order according to subjects,
and some combination of these methods. In exercising the choice the
essential requisite is a really clear idea of the use to which the
bibliography, when made, is to be put. If its chief object be to give
detailed information about individual books, a strictly alphabetical
arrangement "by authors and titles" (i.e. by the names of authors in
their alphabetical order, and the titles of their books in alphabetical
sequence under the names) will be the most useful, because it enables
the student to obtain the information he seeks with the greatest ease.
But while such an alphabetical arrangement offers the speediest access
to individual entries, it has no other merit, unless the main object of
the bibliography be to show what each author has written. If it is
desired to illustrate the history and development of a subject, or the
literary biography of an author, the books should be entered
chronologically. If direction in reading is to be given, this can best
be offered by a subject-index, in which the subjects are arranged
alphabetically for speedy reference, and the books chronologically under
the subject, so that the newest are always at the end. Lastly if the
object is to show how far the whole field has been covered and what gaps
remain to be filled, a class catalogue arranged according to what are
considered the logical subdivisions of the subject has its advantages.
It is important, however, to remember that, if the bulk of the
bibliography is very large, a principle of arrangement which would be
clear and useful on a small scale may be lost in the quantity of pages
over which it extends. An arrangement which cannot be quickly grasped,
whatever satisfaction it may give its author, is useless to readers, the
measure of its inutility being the worn condition of the alphabetical
index to which those who cannot carry a complicated "logical"
arrangement in their heads are obliged to turn, in the first instance,
to find what they want. It should be obvious that any system which
necessitates a preliminary reference to a key or index rests under grave
suspicion, and needs some clear counterbalancing gain to justify the
loss of time which it entails. The main classification should always be
that which will be most immediately useful to readers of the books. To
throw light on the history of a subject and to indicate how far the
field is covered are honourable objects for compilers, but should mostly
be held subordinate to practical use. It is noteworthy also that they
may often be better forwarded by means of an index or table than by the
main arrangement. The history of Hain's _Repertorium Bibliographicum_,
which enumerates in an alphabetical arrangement of authors and titles
some 16,000 books printed in the 15th century, is a good example of
this. For sixty-five years it was of the utmost use for its accurate
descriptions of individual books, but threw practically no light on the
history of printing. In 1891 Dr Konrad Burger published an appendix to
it containing an Index of Printers, since greatly enlarged in his index
to Dr Copinger's _Supplement to Hain_ (1902). The form of the index
enables each printer's work to be seen at a glance, and the impetus
given to the study of the history of printing was very great. But if the
book had originally been arranged under Printers instead of Authors, it
would have been far more difficult to use; its literary value would have
been halved, and the record of the output of each press, now instantly
visible, would have been obscured by the fuller entries causing it to
extend over many pages.
_The Bibliography of Bibliography._--The zeal of students of early
printing has provided the material for an almost exhaustive list (see
INCUNABULA) of the books printed in the 15th century still extant. Of
those printed in the years 1501-1536 there is a tentative enumeration in
the continuation of Panzer's _Annales Typographici_ (1803), and
materials are gradually being collected for improving and extending
this. But the projects once formed for a universal bibliography have
dwindled in proportion as the output of the press has increased, and the
nearest approaches to such a work are the printed catalogue of the
library of the British Museum, and that of the Bibliotheque Nationale at
Paris, now in progress. Of books of great rarity unrepresented in these
catalogues a fairly sufficient record exists in Brunet's _Manuel du
libraire_, the bibliographical collections of Mr W.C. Hazlitt, the
_Bibliographer's Manual_ by Lowndes, and the other bibliographical works
enumerated in the article on book-collecting (q.v.). When a universal
bibliography was recognized as an impossibility, patriotism suggested
the compilation of national bibliographies, and the _Bibliotheca
Britannica_ of Robert Watt (Edinburgh, 1824) remains an extraordinary
example of what the zeal of a single man could accomplish in this
direction. Querard's _La France litteraire_ (Paris, 1827-1839), while it
gives fuller titles, is much less comprehensive, embracing mainly books
of the 18th and early 19th centuries, and only such of these as appeared
to the compiler to be written by "savants, historiens, et gens de
lettres." In the works of Heinsius (_Allgemeines Buecherlexikon,
1700-1815_, Leipzig, 1812-1817), and Kayser (_Buecherlexikon, 1750_, &c.,
Leipzig, 1834, &c.) Germany possesses a fine record of her output of
books during the last two centuries, and since the organization of the
book-trade, contemporary lists of books, with _resumes_ and indexes
issued at intervals, exist for most European countries. For the period
before these became of importance in England much bibliographical
material has been collected in the Catalogues of English Books printed
up to the end of the year 1640, issued by the British Museum in 1884, by
the John Rylands library, Manchester, in 1895, and by the University
library, Cambridge, in 1900-1906. A similar record of the rich English
collections in the Bodleian library, Oxford, remains a great
_desideratum_. While these substitutes for a universal author catalogue
have gradually been provided, similar contributions to a universal
subject catalogue have been made in the form of innumerable special
bibliographies compiled by students or bookmen interested in special
subjects or departments of literature. The most important of these are
enumerated in the bibliographical notes appended to articles in this
Encyclopaedia, but many attempts have been made to compile separate
catalogues of them.
The most recent of these bibliographies of bibliographies naturally
take over all that is of any value in their predecessors, and it may
suffice therefore to make special mention of the
following:--_Bibliotheca bibliographica. Kritisches Verzeichniss der
das Gesammtgebiet der Bibliographie betreffenden Litteratur des In-
und Auslandes, in systematisches Ordnung bearbeitet von Dr Julius
Petzholdt. Mit alphabetischen Namen und Sachregister_ (Leipzig, 1866),
8vo, pp. xii. 940; _Manuel de bibliographie generale_, par Henri Stein
(Paris, 1898), 8vo, pp. xx. 896; _Manuel de bibliographie historique_,
par Ch. V. Langlois (Paris, 1901), 12mo, pp. xi. 623; _A Register of
National Bibliography. With a selection of the chief bibliographical
works and articles printed in other Countries_, by W.P. Courtney
(London, 1905), 8vo, pp. viii. 631.
It should also be noted that the _List of Books of Reference in the
Reading-Room of the British Museum_, first published in 1889, and the
_Subject-index of the Modern Works added to the Library of the British
Museum in the years 1881-1900_, edited by G.K. Fortescue (supplements
published every five years), include entries of a vast number of
bibliographical works, and that an eclectic list, with a valuable
introduction, will be found in Professor Ferguson's _Some Aspects of
Bibliography_ (Edinburgh, 1900). (A. W. Po.)