Before proceeding to answer the question that forms the title of this pamphlet, it will be necessary to say somewhat on the history of the word Index. It is now used very generally in English to express a table of references arranged in alphabetical order and placed either at the end or sometimes at the beginning of a book, but this is really one only of its many meanings, and moreover not the earliest one. An index is an indicator or pointer out of the position of required information, such as the finger-post on a high road, or the index finger of the human hand. In this general sense the word is used by Drayton:—

Such is still its meaning, and it is in this sense that the Index Society would wish their title to be understood.

There is a group of words, viz. Index, Table, Register, Calendar, Summary, and Syllabus, all of which were once generally used with much the same signification; but as soon as Index had been recognized as a thoroughly English word, it beat its companions in the race, although it had a long struggle with the word Table.

The need of some general indication of the contents of books was early felt, and Seneca, in sending certain volumes to his friend Lucilius, accompanied them with notes of particular passages, so that he, “who only aimed at the useful might be spared the trouble of examining them entire.” Thus it is that many of our old MSS. contain these helpful tables of contents, which are usually headed by the Latin words Tabula, Calendarium, etc. In Dan Michel’s Ayenbite of Inwyt (1340) there is a very full Table with the heading—“Thise byeth the capiteles of the boc volȝinde.”

With the invention of printing many time-saving expedients were introduced, and one of these apparently was the alphabetical or arranged index.

In tracing the history of the use of the word Index two distinct questions have to be considered—(1) the original use of the Latin word by the Romans; and (2) the introduction of the word into the modern languages and its naturalization in English. With regard to the first question, we find that according to classical usage Index denoted a discoverer, discloser or informer; a catalogue or list (Seneca refers to an Index of Philosophers); an inscription; the title of a book; and the fore or index-finger, in reference to which Cicero makes a mild joke. Writing to Atticus he says that Pollex told him that he would be back by the 13th of August, and he came to Lanuvium on the 12th, thus he is rightly called Pollex and not Index, because the thumb comes before the forefinger. Cicero also uses the word to express the table of contents to a book, for he asks Atticus to send him two library clerks to repair his books, and they are to bring with them some parchment to make indexes on. Had he only used the word Index we might have been in doubt as to what he really meant, but fortunately he added “which you Greeks call a Syllabus,” and the meaning thus becomes clear.[2]

As to the second question, we may infer, from the use of Index in the nominative instead of the accusative case, that the word came into English through literature and not through speech. The Italian word is Indice, which comes directly from the Latin accusative, and it is perhaps this form (though it may be the French word Indice) that Ben Jonson uses when he writes “too much talking is ever the indice of a fool.”[3]

The most celebrated of Indexes, the Index librorum prohibitorum and Index Expurgatorius of the Roman Catholic Church, are not indexes in the modern acceptation of the term, but partake more of the character of what we should now call Registers. Erasmus gives alphabetical indexes to many of his books, but arrangement in alphabetical order was by no means considered indispensable in an Index; thus in a curious and learned work published at Amsterdam, in 1692, we find an “Index Generalissimus” (Table of Contents); an “Index Generalis” (Synopsis of Subjects or Heads of Chapters) at the beginning of the volume, and an “Index Alphabeticus” at the end.

It is with the general meaning of a table of contents or preface that Shakespeare uses the word Index, thus Nestor says—

Buckingham threatens—

and Iago refers to “an index and obscure prologue to the history of lust and foul thoughts.”—Othello, ii. 1.

All these passages seem clearly to illustrate the old meaning of the word, but in the following places something more appears to be meant. Queen Margaret alludes to “the flattering index of a direful pageant” (Rich. III. iv. 4), probably with some reference to a special setting out of the contents, like the posters for the newspapers of to-day, which usually promise far more than the papers themselves fulfil. The Queen in Hamlet (iii. 4) cries out—

Meaning to say—if this prologue or setting forth of what is to follow is so fierce, what will the accusation itself be?

Although we find from these quotations that the word ‘index’ was commonly used, it was not generally introduced into books as a thorough English word until a much later period; for instance, North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives, the book so diligently used by Shakespeare in the production of his Roman Histories, contains an alphabetical index at the end, but it is called a Table. On the title-page of Baret’s Alvearie (1573) mention is made of “two Tables in the ende of this booke,” but the Tables themselves, which were compiled by Abraham Fleming,[5] being lists of the Latin and French words, are headed “Index.” Between these two tables, in the edition of 1580, is “an Abecedarie, Index or Table” of Proverbs. The word Index is not included in the body of the Dictionary, where, however, “Table” and “Regester” are inserted. Table is defined as “a booke or regester for memorie of things,” and “Regester” as “a reckeninge booke wherein thinges dayly done be written.” By this it is clear that Baret did not consider Index to be an English word.[6] At the end of Johnson’s edition of Gerarde’s Herbal (1636) is an “Index latinus” followed by a “Table of English names,” although a few years previously Minsheu had given Index a sort of half-hearted welcome into his Dictionary. Under that word in the Guide into Tongues (1617) is the entry “vide Table in Booke, in litera T.,” where we read “a Table in a booke or Index.” Even when acknowledged as an English word, it was frequently applied to a more severe list than the analytical table; for instance, Dugdale’s Warwickshire contains an “Index of Towns and Places” and a “Table of Men’s Names and Matters of most note”; and Scobell’s Acts and Ordinances of Parliament, 1640-1656 (publ. 1658) has “An Alphabetical Table of the most material contents of the whole book,” preceded by “An Index of the general titles comprized in the ensuing Table.” There are a few exceptions to the rule here set forth; for instance, Pliny’s Naturall Historie of the World, translated by Philemon Holland (1601), has at the beginning—“The Inventorie or Index containing the contents of 37 bookes,” and at the end “An Index pointing to the principal matters.” In Speed’s History of Great Britaine (1611) there is an “Index or Alphabetical Table containing the principal matters in this history.”

About the latter half of the seventeenth century the race for supremacy between Index and Table was well-nigh closed in favour of the former, but the word Table was occasionally used up to a much later period. A very late instance occurs in the Monthly Review commenced in 1749. At the beginning of each volume is an alphabetical index of books reviewed called a Table, and at the end is an Index of the remarkable passages in the articles which is styled Index. By the present English usage, according to which the word table is reserved for the summary of the contents as they occur in the book, and the word index for the arranged analysis of the contents, we obtain an advantage not enjoyed in other languages, for the French Table is used for both kinds, as is Indice in Italian and Spanish.

The French word indice has a different meaning from the Italian indice, and in fact is not the same word. According to Littré it is derived from the Latin indicium. The word index in French is pretty well confined to tables of Latin and Greek, as it once was in English, although it is used by Bossuet in a more general sense. In German Index is occasionally used, but the regular word is Register.

In concluding this philological inquiry it will only be necessary to repeat the remark with which we commenced, that although the word index is used to express a particular kind of arranged list, it has also the wider meaning of a general indicator. Thus the words Inventory, Register, Calendar, Catalogue, Summary, and Syllabus will all find their respective places under the general heading of Index work.[7]

As books increased, the need of indexes could not fail to be very generally felt; but authors, while praising them, often thought it necessary to warn their readers against the dangers of mere “index learning.” Thus John Glanville writes in his Vanity of Dogmatizing:—“Methinks ’tis a pitiful piece of knowledge that can be learnt from an index, and a poor ambition to be rich in the inventory of another’s treasure.” Dr. Watts alludes to those whose “learning reaches no farther than the tables of contents,” but he also says, “If a book has no index or good table of contents, ’tis very useful to make one as you are reading it.”

Fuller very wisely argues that the diligent man should not be deprived of a tool because the idler may misuse it. He says, “An Index is a necessary implement and no impediment of a book except in the same sense wherein the carriages [i.e. things carried] of an army are termed impedimenta. Without this a large author is but a labyrinth without a clue to direct the reader therein. I confess there is a lazy kind of learning which is only indical, when scholars (like adders, which only bite the horse’s heels) nibble but at the tables, which are calces librorum, neglecting the body of the book. But though the idle deserve no crutches (let not a staff be used by them but on them), pity it is the weary should be denied the benefit thereof, and industrious scholars prohibited the accommodation of an index, most used by those who most pretend to contemn it.” I have heard the same objection urged to-day, but surely it is a mere delusion. There are many easier means by which the sciolist may obtain a smattering of knowledge without consulting an Index. No useful information can thus be gained unless the books to which the Index refers are searched, and he who honestly searches ceases to be a smatterer.

Fuller was a true Index-connoisseur, and in his “Pisgah-sight of Palestine” (1650) he gives necessary directions for the use of the Index, where he says, “An Index is the bag and baggage of a book, of more use then honour; even such who seemingly slight it, secretly using it, if not for need, for speed of what they desire to finde.” Whatever Fuller touched he made sparkle, and no one but he could have written such lively sentences as the following on a subject usually thought to be so dry:—“And thus by God’s assistance we have finished our table. Miraculous almost was the execution done by David on the Amalekites who saved neither man nor woman alive to bring tidings to Gath. I cannot promise such exactness in our Index, that no name hath escaped our enquiry: some few, perchance, hardly slipping by, may tell tales against us. This I profess, I have not, in the language of some modern quartermasters, wilfully burnt any towns, and purposely omitted them; and hope that such as have escaped our discovering, will upon examination appear either not generally agreed on, by authors, for proper names, or else by proportion falling without the bounds of Palestine. Soli Deo gloria.” Of the same mind with Fuller that the Index is a most important part of a work was the Italian physician mentioned by Mdlle. de Scudery, who dedicated each book of his Commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates to one of his friends, and the Index to another. Those who hold the contrary opinion are either jealous that others will obtain their knowledge too easily, or they do not relish the trouble of preparing an Index. The publisher of Howell’s “Discourse concerning the Precedency of Kings” (1664) was one of the latter class, although he puts forward a more plausible reason for his neglect in this letter from “The Bookseller to the Reader.” “The reason why there is no Table or Index added hereunto is, that every page in this work is so full of signal remarks that were they couch’d in an Index it wold make a volume as big as the book, and so make the Postern Gate to bear no proportion to the Building. S. Speed.”

Each generation must do its own work, and although benefit is gained from all that has gone before, it often forgets the obligation it is under to preceding ages. An Index therefore is a standing warning against forgetfulness, and accurate reference to forgotten work is almost equal to a new discovery. The value of indexes was recognized in the earliest times, and many old books have full and admirably-constructed indexes; for instance, Juan de Pineda’s “Monarchia Ecclesiastica o historia Universal del Mundo,” (Salamanca, 1588,) has a very curious and valuable table which forms the fifth volume of the whole set; and the three folio volumes of Indexes in one alphabet to the Annales Ecclesiastici of Baronius form a noble work.

Indexes need not necessarily be dry, and in some cases they form the most interesting portion of a book. The Index to Prynne’s Histrio-mastix (1633), unlike the text, is very readable, and from it may be obtained a sufficient idea of the author’s argument. Prynne deserves especial mention here, as he may be considered as a martyr to his conscientiousness in producing this useful key to the contents of his ponderous volume. No one could read through the book, with its notes overflowing into the margin, so the licenser got confused and passed it in despair. Carlyle refers to the Histrio-mastix as “a book still extant but never more to be read by mortal.” The vituperation however was easily understood when boiled down in an alphabetical form, and Attorney-General Noy found that the author himself had forged the weapons that the prosecutor could use in the attack. This is proved by a passage in Noy’s speech at Prynne’s trial, where he points out that the accused “says Christ was a Puritan in his Index.”[8] It has been observed that the author scarcely ventures on the most trivial opinion without calling to his aid “squadrons of authorities” from the writers of all nations, and in a book which contains this passage—“the profession of a Play-poet or the composing of comedies, tragedies or such like Playes for publike players or play-houses is altogether infamous and unlawfull,” he is more ready to mention the Greek and Latin dramatists than those of our own country. A few of the entries in the Index are worth particular notice. In this one the indexer does not commit himself, but he infers much—“Æschylus one of the first inventors of tragedies. His strange and sudden death.” Here are some heavy charges against theatres—

The index is full of the judgments which are supposed to follow the acting of plays, of which the following are specimens:—

The author appears to have been very conversant with the doings of the unseen worlds, for he writes—

In the following entry the word and probably seemed most natural to Prynne:—

But it was the strong terms in which women actors are denounced, and such entries as the following, that gave the greatest offence to the Court:[9]—

The Indexer has a considerable power in his hand if he chooses to use it, for he can state in a few words what the author may have hidden in verbiage, and he can so arrange his materials as to force the reader to draw an inference. Macaulay knew how an author’s own words might be turned against himself, and therefore he wrote to his publishers, “Let no d—— Tory make the Index to my History.” In the Index to the eighth volume of the Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and the Arts, 1820, is the following entry:—

Mr. Watts was displeased at the use of the uncomplimentary adjective and complained to the Editor. In the Notices to Correspondents at the beginning of the tenth volume we read:—“The Editor begs to apologize to Mr. Watts for the term ‘illiberal’ used in the index of vol. 8 of this Journal. It escaped his observation till Mr. Watts pointed it out.” Mr. Hill Burton, in his Book Hunter, very justly observes of a controversialist that after almost exhausting his weapons of attack in the preface, and in the body of the book, “if he be very skilful he may let fly a few Parthian arrows from the Index.” The witty Dr. William King, Judge of the Irish Court of Admiralty, was one of the first to see how formidable a weapon of attack the Index might be made, and Disraeli calls him the inventor of satirical and humorous indexes. His earliest essay in this field was the index added to the second edition of that clever but shallow work written by the Christ Church wits in the name of the Hon. Charles Boyle—“Dr. Bentley’s Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of Æsop examin’d,” 1698. The first entry is

then comes “his modesty and decency in contradicting great men,” followed by the names of Plato, Selden, Grotius, Erasmus, Scaliger, and ending with everybody. The last entry is—“his profound skill in criticism; from beginning to end.” After the publication of this book there was silence for a time which caused some to suppose that Bentley was beaten, but at last appeared the ‘immortal’ Dissertation, as Porson calls it, which not only defeated his enemies, but positively annihilated them. In the same year that King assisted Boyle he turned his attention to a less formidable antagonist than the great Bentley. His Journey to London, 1698, is a very ingenious parody of Dr. Martin Lister’s Journey to Paris, and the pages of the original being referred to, it forms an Index to that book. Sir Hans Sloane was another of Dr. King’s butts, and the Transactioneer (1700) and Useful Transactions in Philosophy (1708-9) were very galling to the distinguished naturalist, and annoyed the Royal Society, whose Philosophical Transactions were unmercifully laughed at. To both these tracts were prefixed satirical contents, and what made them the more annoying was that the author’s own words were very ingeniously used and turned against him. King writes, “The bulls and blunders which Sloane and his friends so naturally pour forth cannot be misrepresented, so careful I am in producing them.” Such an effective mode of annoyance, when once discovered, was not likely to be overlooked, and we find it used soon afterwards with a political object. William Bromley, a Tory Member of Parliament and high churchman, had made the grand tour in early life, and published “Remarks made in his Travels in 1693.” In 1705 he was a candidate for the Speakership, and his opponents took the opportunity of reprinting his Travels with a satirical Index as an electioneering squib. This Index is very amusing, and in some instances the text bears it out, but in others there is a malicious perversion. The following are a selection from the entries:—

In the Bodleian copy of this book there is a MS. note by Dr. Rawlinson to the effect that this index was drawn up by Robert Harley Earl of Oxford, but this was probably only a party rumour. Dr. Parr possessed Bromley’s own copy of the reprint with a MS. note—“This edition of these travels is a specimen of the good nature and good manners of the Whigs, and I have reason to believe of one of the Ministry very conversant in this sort of calumny.... This printing my book was a very malicious proceeding; my words and meaning being very plainly perverted in several places.... But the performances of others ... may be in like manner exposed as appears by the like tables published for the travels of Bishop Burnet and Mr. Addison.” Bromley was elected Speaker in 1710.

That the love for a humorous index has not quite died out is proved by the admirable one which Mr. Lowell has added to his Biglow Papers. Where all is good it is not easy to select, and I feel forced to make a long extract:—

The occupation of the indexer has been allowed to fall into disrepute during the present century, and some have supposed that any ignorant hack can produce this indispensable portion of a book. Such was not always the case, for most old books of any mark have indexes of a high character, which clearly show that both author and publisher took a proper pride in this part of their work. This spirit found whimsical expression in the speech of a once celebrated Spaniard quoted by the great bibliographer Antonio—that the index of a book should be made by the author, even if the book itself were written by some one else.[11] An ideal indexer needs many high qualifications; but, unlike the poet, he is not born but made. He must be a good analyser and know how to reduce the author’s many words into a terse form. He must also be continually thinking of the wants of the consulter of his index, so as to place his references under the heading that the reader is most likely to seek. If he does his work well he will have many appreciative readers; for, as Henry Rogers has observed, “no writer is so much read as the maker of a good index—or so much cited.” Dr. Allibone prints in his valuable Dictionary of Authors (vol. i. p. 85), an extract from a number of the Monthly Review, which is well worthy of quotation here:—“The compilation of an index is one of those useful labours for which the public, commonly better pleased with entertainment than with real service, are rarely so forward to express their gratitude as we think they ought to be. It has been considered as a task fit only for the plodding and the dull: but with more truth it may be said that this is the judgment of the idle and the shallow. The value of anything, it has been observed, is best known by the want of it. Agreeably to this idea, we, who have often experienced great inconveniences from the want of indices, entertain the highest sense of their worth and importance. We know that in the construction of a good index, there is far more scope for the exercise of judgment and abilities, than is commonly supposed. We feel the merits of the compiler of such an index, and we are ever ready to testify our thankfulness for his exertions.”

The eminent bibliographer William Oldys expressed a very similar sentiment in words which have been printed by Mr. Thoms in Notes and Queries (2nd series, vol. xi. p. 309): “The labour and patience, the judgment and the penetration which are required to make a good index, is only known to those who have gone through this most painful, but least praised part of a publication. But as laborious as it is, I think it indispensably necessary to manifest the treasures of any multifarious collection, facilitate the knowledge to those who seek it and invite them to make application thereof.”

We can point to a goodly roll of eminent men who have not feared this labour and who have not been ashamed to appear before the world as indexers. In the first rank we must place the younger Scaliger, who devoted ten months to the compilation of an elaborate index to Gruter’s magnificent Thesaurus Inscriptionum. Bibliographers have been unanimous in praise of the energy exhibited by the great critic in undertaking so vast a labour. Antonio describes the index as an herculean work, and Le Clerc observes that if we think it surprising that so great a man should undertake so laborious a task, we must remember that such indexes can only be made by a very able man. Nicolas Antonio, the compiler of one of the fullest and most accurate bibliographies ever planned, whose name has already been mentioned in these pages, was a connoisseur in indexes and wrote a short essay on the makers of them. His Bibliotheca Hispana is not known so well as it deserves to be on account of the little general interest that is taken in Spanish literature, but having some years ago used it almost daily, I can speak of it with gratitude as one of the most trustworthy of works. The system upon which the authors’ names are arranged is one that at first sight might seem to give cause for ridicule; for they appear in an alphabet of Christian names, but when we consider that the Spaniards and Portuguese stand alone among European nations in respect to the importance they pay to the Christian name, and remember further that authors and others are often alluded to by their Christian names alone, we shall see a valid reason for the plan. Another point that should not be forgotten is the number of Spanish authors who have belonged to religious orders, and are never known by their surnames. This arrangement, however, necessitates a full index of surnames, and Antonio has given one which was highly praised by both Baillet and Bayle, two men who were well able to form an opinion.

When Baillet, the learned author of the Jugemens des Savans, was appointed by M. de Lamoignon, keeper of the exquisite library collected by that nobleman, he set to work to compile an index of the contents of all the books contained in it, and this he is said to have completed in August, 1682. After this date, however, the Index continued to grow, and it extended to thirty-two folio volumes, all written by Baillet’s own hand. It is clear from this that that eminent bibliographer lived two hundred years before his time. How highly would his labours be appreciated now were he Director of the Index Society.

The great Bayle, as might be expected from his omnivorous literary appetite, held the vocation of the Index-maker in high esteem. He quotes with approval Antonio’s remark respecting the author of a book being the proper person to index it, but he adds with justice that it is not every author who is capable of making an index, a doctrine also preached by Le Clerc. Bayle adds, “Authors refer to others the pains of making alphabetical Indexes; and it must be owned, that those gentlemen who are not patient of labour, and whose talent consists only in the fire and vivacity of imagination, had much better let others make the Index to their works.” To show the need of judgment in this department of literary labour, Bayle refers to the drawer-up of the Index to Dalechamp’s Athenæus, “who says that Euripides lost in one day his wife, two sons, and a daughter, and refers us to page 60, where nothing like this is found; but we find in page 61 that Euripides, going to Icaria, wrote an epigram on a disaster that happened at a peasant’s house, where a woman, with her two sons and a daughter, died by eating of mushrooms.” In order to guard against such blunders, Bayle proposed that certain directions should be drawn up for the guidance of the compilers of indexes, which have justly been called the soul of books.[12]

If we examine the indexes to old books, we shall certainly find ample reason for the belief that in former centuries authors more frequently had a hand in the production of the indexes to their books than they have in the present day. Leigh Hunt, in a pleasant paper written for the Indicator, says: “Index making has been held to be the driest as well as lowest species of writing. We shall not dispute the humbleness of it; but since we have had to make an index ourselves we have discovered that the task need not be so very dry. Calling to mind indexes in general, we found them presenting us a variety of pleasant memories and contrasts.” He then praises the Indexes to the Tatler and Spectator, and adds: “Our index seemed the poorest and most second-hand thing in the world after theirs: but let any one read theirs and then call an index a dry thing if he can. As there ‘is a soul of goodness in things evil,’ so there is a soul of humour in things dry, and in things dry by profession.” He then quotes from Cotton’s Montaigne and Sandys’s Ovid. From the latter he gives the following specimens:

The index to Cotton’s translation of Montaigne’s Essays (which was added to the book after Cotton’s death) is full of quaint entries; for instance, these four will give some idea of the others:

Swift prefixed an amusing analytical Table to his ‘Tale of a Tub,’ and the first edition of Shenstone’s burlesque poem, the Schoolmistress, contains a ludicrous index or table of contents, which the poet added “purely to show fools that I am in jest.” In subsequent editions this table was suppressed, but Disraeli reprinted it in his Curiosities of Literature. It is too long to quote entire here, and a specimen will be sufficient to show its scope:

This ‘ludicrous index’ very probably gave Southey a hint which he worked out in the headings for chapters to his Doctor.

This seems to be the proper place to mention the practice that arose in the last century of drawing up indexes of sentiments and opinions as opposed to facts. Such indexes required a special skill in the indexer, who was usually the original author. There is a curious poetical index to the Iliad in Pope’s Homer, referring to all the places in which similes are used. Dr. Johnson was very anxious that Richardson should produce such an index to his novels. In the Correspondence of Samuel Richardson (vol. v. p. 282), is a letter from the lexicographer to the novelist to the following effect: “I wish you would add an index rerum, that when the reader recollects any incident, he may easily find it, which at present he cannot do, unless he knows in which volume it is told; for Clarissa is not a performance to be read with eagerness, and laid aside for ever; but will be occasionally consulted by the busy, the aged and the studious; and therefore I beg that this edition, by which I suppose posterity is to abide, may want nothing that can facilitate its use.” At the end of each volume of “Clarissa” Richardson added a sort of table of all the passages best worth remembering, and as he was the judge, it naturally extended to a considerable length. In September, 1753, Johnson again wrote to Richardson, suggesting the propriety of making an index to his three works, but he added: “While I am writing an objection arises; such an index to the three would look like the preclusion of a fourth, to which I will never contribute; for if I cannot benefit mankind I hope never to injure them.” Richardson took the hint of his distinguished friend, and in 1755 appeared a volume of 410 pages, entitled “A Collection of the moral and instructive Sentiments, Maxims, Cautions and Reflexions contained in the Histories of Pamela, Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison, digested under proper heads.” The production of this book was a labour of love to its author, who, moreover, was skilled in the mechanical work of indexing, and in the early part of his career had filled up his leisure hours by compiling indexes for the booksellers and writing prefaces and dedications.

The high praise given by Leigh Hunt to Steele’s indexes has already been noted, and a casual reference to the index of the Tatler will show the justice of the remark: “As grapes ready to burst with wine issue out of the most stony places, like jolly fellows bringing burgundy out of a cellar, so an Index like the Tatler’s often gives us a taste of the quintessence of his humour.” The very title gives good promise of what is to follow: “A faithful Index of the dull as well as the ingenious passages in the Tatler.” Here are a few entries chosen at random:

In 1757 “A General Index to the Spectators, Tatlers and Guardians” was published, and in 1760 the same work was reissued with a new title-page. Certain blots in the original indexes were here corrected, and the following explanation made in the preface: “Notwithstanding the learning and care of the compilers of the first Indexes to these volumes, some slight inaccuracies have passed, and where observed they are altered. Few readers who desire to know Mr. Bickerstaff’s opinion of the Comedy called the Country Wife, or the character of Mrs. Bickerstaff as an actress, would consult the Index under the word Acts.”

Michael Maittaire, the bibliographer, prided himself on his talent for index-making, which he exhibited in his editions of the classics, and in his ‘Annales Typographici.’ William Bowyer, the learned printer, made the excellent Index to William Clarke’s “Connexion of the Roman, Saxon and English Coins” (1767), which greatly pleased the author, who wrote to Bowyer, “Of all your talents you are a most amazing man at Indexes. What a flag, too, do you hang out at the stern! You must certainly persuade people that the book overflows with matter, which (to speak the truth) is but thinly spread. But I know all this is fair in trade, and you have a right to expect that the publick should purchase freely when you reduce the whole book into an epitome for their benefit; I shall read the Index with pleasure.”[13] Bowyer’s biographer, John Nichols, to whom we owe the Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, and the Illustrations of Literary History, two books treasured by all lovers of bibliography, was an Indexer of merit, and his son and grandson followed in his footsteps. The memory of Dr. Maty has often been blessed by consulters of the Philosophical Transactions, who find great help in his copious Index to the first seventy volumes of that work.

Samuel Ayscough was another industrious index-maker who deserves especial mention. He compiled indexes for the Monthly Review, the British Critic, and the Gentleman’s Magazine. His Index to Shakespeare (1790) was a work of great labour and high utility, followed, in 1804, by Francis Twiss’s Verbal Index, and quite superseded by Mrs. Cowden Clarke’s complete Concordance (1844). It is under the heading of Ayscough, in his Dictionary of Authors, that Allibone has gathered together an interesting collection of quotations on the subject of indexes.

The industrious E. H. Barker took the greatest pleasure in making the Index to his edition of Stephens’s Thesaurus (which was so mauled in the ‘Quarterly’ by Bishop Blomfield), and when a friend condoled with him on the bore of making the index, which had occupied three years in the composing and printing, Mr. Barker observed that they were the happiest years of his life, for he had thus read again and again the Thesaurus, which he should not otherwise have done.

The name of the great historian Macaulay will appropriately close this list of eminent indexers. At the age of fifteen he wrote a letter to Hannah More, which ends with these words: “To add to the list, my dear madam, you will soon see a work of mine in print. Do not be frightened; it is only the Index to the thirteenth volume of the Christian Observer, which I have had the honour of composing. Index-making, though the lowest, is not the most useless round in the ladder of literature; and I pride myself upon being able to say that there are many readers of the Christian Observer who could do without Walter Scott’s works, but not without those of, my dear madam, your affectionate friend, Thomas B. Macaulay.” Macaulay in after-life used a contemptuous expression when he was describing the appearance of the lowest grade in the literary profession. My friend Mr. Campkin, a veteran Indexer, quotes this description in the preface to one of his valuable Indexes—that to the twenty-five volumes of the Sussex Archæological Collections—“The compilation of Indexes will always, and naturally so, be regarded as a humble art: ‘index-makers in ragged coats of frieze’ are classed by Lord Macaulay as the very lowest of the frequenters of the coffee-houses of the Dryden and Swift era. Yet ‘’tis my vocation, Hal,’ and into very pleasant companionship it has sometimes brought me, and if in this probably the last of my twenty-five years’ labours in this direction, I have succeeded in furnishing a fairly practicable key to a valuable set of volumes, my frieze coat, how tattered soever signifieth not, will continue to hang upon my shoulders not uncomfortably.” Mr. Campkin is quite right as to the estimation in which the indexer is held, but I think he should not allow that such estimation is natural. The art that requires thought and some power of analysis should in justice be rated higher than this, and if the Index-makers did such good work as we frequently find in the books of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the discredit of the ragged coats would rightly belong to their employers and not to themselves. Macaulay probably had Swift’s Account of the Condition of Edmund Curll in his mind when he alluded to the low estate of the Index-maker. In this satire there are certain “Instructions to a Porter how to find Mr. Curll’s authors,” few of whom are in sufficiently easy circumstances to allow of the renting a garret each for himself—“At the laundress’s at the Hole in the Wall in Cursitor’s Alley up three pair of stairs, the author of my Church history—you may also speak to the gentleman who lies by him in the flock bed, my index-maker.”

No account of the history of indexing would be complete without special and honourable mention of two literary men who have persistently pointed out on all occasions the urgent need of Indexes. One of these is an Englishman and the other an American. Mr. Thoms, as editor of the “Notes and Queries,” must constantly have felt the want of these helps to research, and he seldom allowed a volume of his journal to pass without inserting something regarding them. He did more however, for he issued a General Index to each series as it was completed. Dr. Allibone, throughout his Dictionary of English and American Authors, has lost no opportunity of saying something to the purpose on his favourite subject. As already remarked, he printed at the beginning of the first volume of his great work a most interesting series of quotations relating to Indexes and on the very last page of his third and last volume he returned to the subject in bidding farewell to his readers.

Mr. Markland is the authority for the declaration by the Roxburghe Club that “the omission of an Index when essential should be an indictable offence.”[14] Carlyle denounces the putters forth of indexless books; and Baynes, the author of the Archæological Epistle to Dean Milles (which is usually attributed to Mason), concocted a terrible curse against such evil-doers. The reporter was the learned Francis Douce, who said to Mr. Thoms, “Sir, my friend John Baynes used to say that the man who published a book without an index ought to be damned ten miles beyond Hell, where the Devil could not get for stinging nettles.”[15]

Lord Campbell proposed that any author who published a book without an Index should be deprived of the benefits of the Copyright Act, and the Hon. Horace Binney, LL.D., a distinguished American lawyer, held the same views, and would have condemned the culprit to the same punishment. Those, however, who hold the justest theories sometimes fail in practice; thus Lord Campbell had to acknowledge that he had himself sinned before the year 1857; and the deficiencies of the forty Indexes to Allibone’s Dictionary are pointed out in a paper read before the Conference of Librarians in October, 1877.[16] These are the words written by Lord Campbell in the preface to the first volume of his Lives of the Chief Justices (1857)—“I have only further to express my satisfaction in thinking that a heavy weight is now to be removed from my conscience. So essential did I consider an Index to be to every book, that I proposed to bring a Bill into Parliament to deprive an author who publishes a book without an Index of the privilege of copyright; and moreover to subject him for his offence to a pecuniary penalty. Yet from difficulties started by my printers, my own books have hitherto been without an Index. But I am happy to announce that a learned friend at the bar, on whose accuracy I can place entire reliance, has kindly prepared a copious Index which will be appended to this work, and another for the new stereotyped edition of the Lives of the Chancellors.”

In tracing the history of Index-making we have seen that the value of a full Index was early realized; but when authors ceased to make their own indexes, neglect was the consequence, and during the early part of the present century this period of neglect was probably the most complete. Towards the formation of general Indexes little had been done until late years, although we have seen that Baillet set himself to such work. Of special Indexes we should naturally expect that one to the Bible would be the first attempted, and such was the case. The first Concordance was compiled by Hugo de St. Caro, in 1247, and five hundred monks are said to have been employed upon it. The first English concordance to any part of the Scriptures was of the New Testament, and printed by Thomas Gybson in 1536. That to the entire Bible was made by John Marbeck, and published at London by Grafton in 1550.[17] Previously to the publication of this valuable work Marbeck was shut up in the Marshalsea, but when Henry VIII. pardoned him he told the Bishops that Marbeck had employed his time much better than they had theirs. Nearly two centuries later Alexander Cruden published his great work, which still continues to be the standard Concordance.

In 1545 an alphabetical Collection of the most elegant words and phrases used by Boccaccio was compiled by Francis Alunno, and published in Le Ricchezze della Lingua volgare. Verbal Indexes to the ancient classics afterwards became common, and in 1662 the celebrated Gradus ad Parnassum first appeared under the title of “Epithetorum et Synonymorum Thesaurus” (Paris). It is attributed to Chatillon, and was reprinted by Paul Aler, a German Jesuit, as the Gradus.[18]

The lawyers can claim the honour of being the first class to realize the absolute need of Indexes, and the Digests produced by them are admirable works, but the greatest lawyers still point out how much there is to be done. Sir Henry Thring has drawn up some masterly instructions for an Index to the Statute Law, which is to be considered as a step towards a code. These instructions conclude with the following weighty words—“Let no man imagine that the construction of an index to the Statute Law is a mere piece of mechanical drudgery, unworthy of the energy and ability of an accomplished lawyer. Next to codification the most difficult task that can be accomplished is to prepare a detailed plan for a code, as distinct from the easy task of devising a theoretical system of codification. Now the preparation of an index, such as has been suggested in the above instructions, is the preparation of a detailed plan for a code. Each effective title is, in effect, a plan for the codification of the legal subject matter grouped under that title, and the whole index, if completed, would be a summary of a code arranged in alphabetical order.”[19]

That this question of digesting the law is to be considered as one that should interest all classes of Englishmen, and not the lawyer only, may be seen from an article in the Nineteenth Century (September, 1877), on the “Improvement of the Law by private enterprise,” by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, who has done so much towards a complete digest of the law. He writes: “I have long believed that the law might by proper means be relieved of this extreme obscurity and intricacy, and might be displayed in its true light as a subject of study of the deepest possible interest, not only to every one who takes an interest in politics or ethics, or in the application of logic and metaphysics to those subjects. In short, I think that nothing but the rearrangement and condensation of the vast masses of matter contained in our law libraries is required, in order to add to human knowledge what would be practically a new department of the highest and most permanent interest. Law holds in suspension both the logic and the ethics, which are, in fact, recognized by men of business and men of the world as the standards by which the practice of common life ought to be regulated, and by which men ought to form their opinions in all their most important temporal affairs. It would be a far greater service to mankind than many people would suppose to have these standards clearly defined and brought within the reach of every one who cared to study them.” The following remarks will apply with equal force to a more general and universal index than that of the law: “The preparation of a digest either of the whole or of any branch of the law is work of a very peculiar kind. It is one of the very few literary undertakings in which a number of persons can really and effectively work together. Any given subject may, it is true, be dealt with in a variety of different ways; but when the general scheme, according to which it is to be treated, has been determined on, when the skeleton of the book has been drawn out, plenty of persons might be found to do the work of filling up the details, though that work is very far from being easy or a matter of routine.”

The value of analytical or index work is set in a very strong light by an observation of Sir James Stephen, respecting the early digesters of the law. The origin of English law is to be found in the Year Books and other series of old Reports, which, from the language used in them, and the black-letter printing, with its contractions, etc., are practically inaccessible. Coke and others who reduced these books into form are, in consequence, treated as ultimate authorities, although the almost worshipped Coke is said by Sir James to be “one of the most confused, pedantic and inaccurate of men.”

Parliament has long recognized the fact that the preparation of indexes to their journals is a department of work upon which large sums of money may be advantageously spent. In 1778 a total of £12,900 was voted for Indexes to the Journals of the House of Commons. The items were as follows: To Mr. Edward Moore, £6400 as a final compensation for thirteen years’ labour; Rev. Mr. Forster, £3000 for nine years’ labour; Rev. Dr. Roger Flaxman, £3000 for nine years’ labour; and £500 to Mr. Cunningham.

But one of the grandest and most useful applications of index-making is to be found in the series of Calendars of State Papers, issued under the sanction of the Master of the Rolls, which have made available to all a mass of historical material previously hardly appreciated by the few.

Scientific men have found by bitter experience that, unless they have the assistance of indexes, they must spend years in studying the bibliography of their subject, if they would avoid doing again what has already been done. It has so long been the popular belief that the work of indexing may properly be deputed to the harmless drudge, whose industry is his chief merit, that it is no ordinary gratification to be able to point to the great physiologist Haller as one who, knowing that genius must have its toils, and finding that no such works had been produced, stepped aside from his grander labours to compile bibliographies of the science his talents adorned. In the words of Johnson, index-making has been supposed to be “a task that requires neither the light of learning nor the activity of genius, but may be successfully performed without any higher quality than that of bearing burthens with dull patience, and beating the track of the alphabet with sluggish resolution.”[20] That Albert von Haller did not hold this disgraceful doctrine his Bibliotheca Botanica (1771), his Bibliotheca Anatomica (1774-77), his Bibliotheca Chirurgica (1774-75) and his Bibliotheca Medicinæ practicæ (1776-78) amply prove.

We find in these bibliographies a large proportion of University Theses and Inaugural Dissertations, a form of publication which was in considerable favour before the more general issue of journals and transactions of Societies. When these latter became numerous, the need of some key to their hidden contents was greatly felt, and a large unoccupied field for indexing was here discovered. In 1800 Reuss commenced at Göttingen the publication of his Repertorium Commentationum a Societatibus Literariis editarum, which was continued for twenty years, and completed in sixteen quarto volumes. The contents are arranged and classified according to the chief divisions of knowledge. The well-known publisher Engelmann, of Leipzig, is deserving of the greatest credit for his extensive series of special Bibliographies. That of Zoology, by Dr. Carus (1861), is one of the most important of these publications, and to a great extent superseded the Bibliographia Zoologiæ of Agassiz, which was published by the Ray Society (1848-54). These works helped to make apparent to all the want which they did not completely supply. In 1857 the Royal Society undertook the preparation of a Catalogue of Scientific Papers in British and Foreign Journals and Transactions, from the commencement of the present century. This was a vast work, and necessarily occupied a considerable time in preparation. When it was thought advisable to commence printing, the limit of date for the papers was fixed at 1863. In 1867 the first volume was published, and each succeeding year a double-columned quarto volume, of about 1000 pages, appeared until 1872, when the Alphabet of Authors was completed in the sixth volume. A supplement for the years 1864-73 is in course of publication. The value of the Catalogue is gratefully acknowledged on all hands, and it has now become so indispensable that every consulter must marvel how scientific men managed to get on without it. Medical men, however, complain that medical and surgical papers have been passed over, and Dr. J. S. Billings, Librarian of the U.S. National Medical Library, is attempting to do for these departments what has already been done for general science. In 1876 was printed a Specimen Fasciculus of a Catalogue of the National Medical Library under the direction of the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army at Washington, and in the May number (1878) of the Library Journal is an article by Dr. Billings on the National Catalogue of Medical Literature to contain references to papers in all the Medical Journals. It is estimated that the Subject Catalogue would occupy about seven volumes of one thousand pages each, and the Authors’ Catalogue about three volumes extra. The question of printing this great work is now before Congress, and Dr. Billings puts the following query to be answered by Librarians and others: “What is the value of such an index to the people of the United States as compared with an expedition to the North Pole, five miles of subsidized railway, one company of cavalry, or a small post office building?”

There cannot be two opinions as to the importance of such a publication, not only to the United States but to the world. At present the Indexes to the Catalogues of the Libraries of the College of Surgeons and the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society serve the purpose of a special bibliography of medical literature, but they only refer to books and not to the contents of those books.

Every year new societies and new journals are started in various parts of the world, so that it becomes daily more difficult for workers to keep themselves au courant with the work of others. To obviate this difficulty the Zoologists started in 1864 an annual Record of their science, and the Geologists followed suit in 1874. The Chemists, in 1871, adopted the still more useful plan of a monthly résumé of chemical papers, and with each number of the Journal of the Chemical Society is published a series of abstracts of papers in foreign journals. The year’s numbers, completed with a full index, form an annual Record. Several foreign journals are also published with the main object of giving abstracts of books and papers published on their respective subjects, such for instance as the various German “Centralblatt.” A monthly part of the Polybiblon: Revue Bibliographique Universelle, is specially devoted to summaries of the contents of various French and Foreign periodicals. In America the contents of current periodicals are recorded in “The Library Table” and in “The American Bookseller.” A classified Index of the Proceedings of the Learned Societies and the contents of the principal magazines and reviews is announced as a feature of the newly-started English Journal—“The Book-Analyst and Library Guide.” On all sides there is evidence of the rapid growth of a taste for bibliographical research. Scientific journals and transactions now contain papers full of bibliographical details, which a few years ago would not have been considered suitable for publication in immediate proximity to original scientific papers; and this is not to be wondered at, for the many questions of priority that constantly arise can only be settled by the correct statement of the date of publication. The British Association publish reports on the history of science, which are made up of accurate lists of books and papers. The Philosophical Magazine[21] contains an account of early Books on Logarithms, by Mr. J. W. L. Glaisher, F.R.S.; the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society[22] has a Chronology of Star Catalogues, by Mr. E. B. Knobel; the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy,[23] a list of writings relating to the method of least squares, with historical and critical notes by Mansfield Merriman; and the Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, “Outlines of a Bibliography of the History of Chemistry,”[24] and Index to the Literature of Manganese, 1596-1874,[25] both by H. Carrington Bolton, Ph.D.

Prof. J. Plateau, the distinguished physicist, is publishing by sections, a “Bibliographie Analytique des principaux phénomènes subjectifs de la Vision,” in the Memoirs of the Brussels Academy. Mr. Edward S. Holden, of the Washington Naval Observatory, has prepared a valuable “Index Catalogue of Books and Memoirs relating to Nebulæ and Clusters,” which was published in 1871 by the Smithsonian Institution, to whom we owe so much good work in this direction; and in 1878 the same gentleman’s “Index Catalogue of Books and Memoirs on the Transits of Mercury” was issued as No. 1 of the “Bibliographical Contributions (Library of Harvard University),” edited by Justin Winsor. Monographs are now seldom published without some index of the bibliography of the subject. Dr. Copland was one of the first to make the notice of the literature of all topics treated a special feature in his Dictionary of Practical Medicine. Many scientific books on special subjects are in fact indexes; thus Morris’s Catalogue of British Fossils (2nd ed. 1854); Bigsby’s Thesaurus Siluricus (1868); and the same veteran geologist’s Thesaurus Devonico-Carboniferus (1878), are tables of fossils with references to places where descriptions will be found. This is the index work which is acknowledged on all hands to be of the greatest value in the saving of the student’s time.

In passing from the consideration of Indexes of science to those of general literature, the place of honour must be given to Mr. Poole’s Index of Periodical Literature. The author gave an interesting account of the origin of his work at the Conference of Librarians held in London (October, 1877). When Librarian at Yale College, Mr. Poole made a list of the articles in the journals in the Library for his own private use. The assistance he was thus able to give to readers was highly appreciated, and he was asked to allow the list to be printed for the benefit of others. This first edition appeared in 1848, and a greatly enlarged edition followed in 1853. The second edition is out of print, and a new one is in preparation, under the superintendence of the compiler, but with the co-operation of librarians both in America and Great Britain. Mr. Poole said that he had not seen a copy of his first edition for twenty years until he saw it on the shelves of the Reading Room of the British Museum. The nearest approach to a general Index in existence is the useful Catalogue of Subjects which forms the third and fourth volumes of Watt’s Bibliotheca Britannica. The Index attached to Darling’s Cyclopædia has several useful features, but the work was never finished. One of the completest Catalogues ever published is that of the Library of the London Institution. It is classified and has an Index of Authors. It was not usual to attach an Index of Subjects to a Catalogue of Authors until late years, and that to the Athenæum Library (1852) is an early specimen. The New York State Library Catalogue, 1856, has an Index, as have those of the Medical and Chirurgical Library (1860) and the London Library (1865 and 1875). That appended to the Catalogue of the Manchester Free Library (1864) is more a short list of titles than an Index. In any notice of this kind the valuable Indexes to the various collections of MSS. in the British Museum must not be omitted, nor Mr. Sampson Low’s Index to the British Catalogue of Books (1858), which was compiled by Dr. Crestadoro, Librarian of the Manchester Free Library. Indexes to series of Journals have naturally been frequent, but it was a novelty when the Parker Society published a general Index to their separate publications—a work of the greatest utility which the Camden Society propose to emulate.

That the interest felt in Index work is pretty generally spread abroad, may be guessed by a paragraph that went the round of the papers a few months ago, to the effect that an Index or ‘Repertorium’ of the contents of all the German military magazines and periodicals, which have been published during the last sixteen years, has been lately printed at Berlin, which it is supposed will be of great value to every student of military art, and even to the more general reader.

The various matters treated of in the previous pages, go to prove the existence of a revived interest in the value of Indexes, and seem naturally to lead up to a notice of the formation of the Index Society. The founders lay no claim to originality of conception; but they think that the widespread feeling of the need of some such organization, which has been frequently expressed, will insure the success of the Society.

In 1854 an announcement was made in the “Notes and Queries”[26] of the projected formation of a “Society for the Formation of a General Literary Index.” In the second series (vol. i. p. 486), the late Mr. Thomas Jones, who signed himself Bibliothecar. Chetham., commenced a series of articles, which he continued for several years, as a contribution to this General Index; but nothing more was heard of the Society. Inquiries were made in various numbers of the Notes and Queries respecting its formation, but no response was made. In 1870 a contributor to the same periodical, signing himself A. H., proposed the formation of a staff of Index compilers. In 1874 Prof. Stanley Jevons published his Principles of Science. In the chapter on Classification, he enlarges on the value of Indexes, and adds: “The time will perhaps come when our views upon this subject will be extended, and either Government or some public society will undertake the systematic cataloguing and indexing of masses of historical and scientific information, which are now almost closed against inquiry” (1st ed. vol. ii. p. 405; 2nd. ed. p. 718).

In the following year Mr. Edward Solly and the writer of these pages, without having seen this passage, consulted as to the possibility of starting an Index Society, but postponed the actual carrying out of their scheme for a time. In July, 1875, Mr. J. Ashton Cross argued in a pamphlet, that a Universal Index might be formed by co-operation through a clearing-house, and would pay if published in separate parts. In September, 1877, some letters were printed in the Pall Mall Gazette by one who signed himself ‘A Lover of Indexes,’ in which the foundation of an Index Society was strongly urged. In October, 1877, Mr. Cross read a paper before the Conference of Librarians, which was a revival of the scheme previously suggested. All these movements in different quarters proved that the train was widely spread, and only needed the lighting spark to make itself apparent; or, to use another metaphor, the volunteers were ready for their work, and only waited for the bugle call, and this was given in the Athenæum for October 13, 1877, in a report of the Conference of Librarians written by Mr. Robert Harrison. There we read: “Could not a permanent Index Society be founded with the support of voluntary contributions of money as well as of subject matter? In this way a regular staff could be set to work, under competent direction, and could be kept steadily at work until its performances became so generally known and so useful as to enable it to stand alone and be self-supporting. Many readers would readily jot down the name of any new subject they meet with in the book before them, and the page on which it occurs, and forward their notes to be sorted and arranged by any Society that would undertake the work.”

The following number of the Athenæum contained letters in approval of the suggestion from Mr. G. Laurence Gomme and from Professor Justin Winsor, of Harvard, who wrote: “We have been in America striving for years to get some organized body to undertake this very work.” In the number for October 27, it was announced that steps were being taken for the formation of the Society, and the editor complained that he had been overwhelmed with letters on the subject for which he could not find space.

In closing this general notice of Index work, and before passing on to 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.