maker stands in common estima- was working with one of those intion, his function gives room for dexes which are distributed into the exercise of high intellectual groups, he vehemently turned up aculties. Constitution, Judge, Jurisdiction, and various other great dictionarywords, without success. In his desperation he tried if any collateral heads would lead him to his point-as Woolsack, Equity, Great Seal, and the like but all was fruitless. เ The number is larger than is generally supposed of the authors who have constructed their own indexes, because they feared to intrust the task to some mere me chanic, ignorant of the tenor and spirit of the work. The first index to the Edinburgh Review' is reputed to be the work of a very eminent man indeed. A subsequent one was executed by Ralph Rylance, who came from London to Edinburgh for the purpose, and turned out to be a genial scholar and a sort of wit. He was audacious enough to let fly a shaft at Scott, then at the climax of his glory,— "The corpse of many a hero slain His portrait is in Kay's Collection, and we believe he is the only person who has reached the celebrity of portraiture on the sole literary claim of having made an index. The indexer must thoroughly understand the matter he is working on. His special faculty for his task must be that of hitting on the name under which the majority of the persons who may consult the book will look for what they want in it. No rule will achieve this quality-it is the creature of sagacity and common sense. We remember an instance where a mechanical person had been set to compile an index with very specific and minute instructions, containing, among others, a set of rules by which he was to judge, in certain instances, whether he would index under the Subject or the Predicate. It happened that an investigator, in haste, as investigators are sometimes apt to be, desired to see what was said in that book about the Lord Chancellor's powers. He turned to C, and looked for "Chancellor," but there was nothing to guide him there. L, having charge of Lord, was equally silent. In the supposition that he As there seemed to be thus a defect in the index, the compiler was asked under what word he had dealt with the Lord Chancellor. He triumphantly pointed to the article The The Lord Chancellor;" and, in Irish phrase, no one could say black was white of his eye. Most people know the story of a judge's "great mind to commit a witness for prevarication," being indexed under his name with the quality "great mind" attached to it. Index-makers are indeed a valuable class of men, for whose eminent services to the world of letters that world has not been sufficiently grateful. The most ambitious efforts in this style of work are, however, not always the most successful; and if the workman set out on any very complete philosophical system, he will be pretty sure to make a failure. After the use of such sagacity as he may possess for anticipating the wants of the public by selecting the heads under which they are most likely to search for what they want, the next best thing he can do is to indulge in repetition-to be profuse in cross references, and to give the same thing under as many different names as he can afford to give them within his limited space. Let him not insist upon being entirely logical, but keep rather in view that human beings are illogical, perverse, and especially liable to follow some blind and utterly indefensible and barbarous routine of thought, set by some irrational precedent. Unless in the names of persons or places, where he is not so apt to go wrong though he may here too, by the assumption of too accurate a spell ing the one head on which his Among pedantries introduced own logic may demand that he lately into index-making is the should register the matter in hand breaking-up of a general index acwill probably be just the last under cording to logical division. There is which it will be searched for by an index of persons and an index the ordinary reader. He will take of places, with or without some furEsthetics, perhaps, leaving the poor ther divisions. The simple-minded wondering readers in search of man who thinks only of one genewhat they want under Taste,' or ral master-key, looks into the wrong "Beauty," or "Genius," or "Fine division, and turns away unsatisArts;" he selects that nice scien- fied. There is a whole volume of tific term Ethics, which the reader index to Sismondi's History of never dreams of while he is potter- France, but it is devoted, with one ing away in search of "Morality," or two unexplainable exceptions, to "Virtue," "Vice," Goodness," the names of persons; and if you "Badness," "Honesty," "Probity," look for Navarre and Agincourt and suchlike. there, you will not find them. Hence the indexes which ramify from the root of the matter are thoroughly inefficient for the proper purposes of the index rapid consultation and invade a totally different factor, if we may call it so the analysis, or table of contents. Between this practice and the adherence to the pedantries of the profession, English law-books are very torturing to those who are not aware of the secret intricacies of their ramifications. If a merchant, for instance, wants to know the legal position of a "book debt," he will look in vain for satisfaction under that name, if he indeed find a law-book which on its title-page admits to have anything to do with commerce. But if he take up Buller's Nisi Prius,' and follow the heading "Assumpsit" through a few of its ramifications, he may probably succeed in finding what he is in search of. Nothing can be more systematic and complete than the great old index to the riches of the Corpus Juris,' but it sends one on a complex circuitous route through a notation by the initial words of the paragraph. The facility can thus only be used by one who has acquired the practice and has kept his hand in; so that, to discover any special passage in the Pandects, or the Code, or the Novellæ, is nearly as difficult as to decipher from Bradshaw the time of arrival and departure at a station in one of the branches of the Great Western. To turn to the other class of indexes-those which lead us not to matters of fact, but to the thoughts and sentences of the great authors - in these the classics only are complete. There are few educated men who do not know, and have not derived use from, those magnificent indexes to the Delphine classics, which literally contain every substantive and adjective. Homer, Pindar, Horace, and Cicero are dignified by separate lexicons or concordances, among which Damm's Homeric Lexicon has made a reputation in that sort of work. In our own language one great name has been so dignified that of Shakespeare, to whom two rival concordances are dedicated. For the rest of our literature, it is somewhat barren of indexing. There is an index to Scott's Poetry, on account of the number of biographical and historical notices in it. Το Chaucer and some others there are glossary indexes. If, however, one wants to recall a passage in the prologue to the Satires,' in the Essay on Man,' or anywhere in Dryden, it is not easy to find a clue to it. Perhaps some will say, So much the better; let people fall to the book, and find what they want by honest reading; it will do them good. And we go so far with this view that one should never use a quotation unless he is familiar with it in its own garden, and the neces scene within which a reflective person may form an estimate of the human mind in its greatness and in its littleness. How vast is the ingenuity, the capacity for systematising the actual accumulation of facts sity of referring to an index predi- phy and learning to be dealt with cates some deficiency in such fami- in any other but a casual handling liarity. In the days when no pam- on the present occasion. It is a phlet or parliamentary speech was complete without a passage from the classics, there was some excuse for perpetually pottering in the Delphine indexes. But it is to be hoped that we have now reached that simplicity and good taste which in the memory, which have all will tolerate no quotation except for its exceeding aptness, and that can only be felt by one entirely familiar with all its surroundings in its native place. Hence there is a set of books that ought to be positively drummed out of literature. These are they which profess to supply quotations ready selected and ranged in alphabetical order. Our reason for condemning these is already express ed. We would not, however, desire to extend it to some old books known as anthologies, wherein are collected passages from various quarters, ranged generally in alphabetical order, according to the matter to which they refer. In these one is often introduced to a gem found among the rubbish of some voluminously inaccessible author. The earliest of these which we happen to be acquainted with, called Margarita Poetica,' professes to be compiled by Albertus de Eyb, Doctor of Laws, and is published in the year 1503. The copy presently on the table is in a richly-stamped binding, where the Gothic forms still predominate. It professes to be the property of the monastery of Augustins at Herbepolis or Wurtzburg. It is one of the books in which the capitals were filled in by the old way of illumination, and the monks seem to have gone the length of drawing the outline for an illuminated letter A, but no further-perhaps they had other things to think of. Another of these collections, exceedingly rich and curious, published in a lumbering folio in 1607, is called the 'Polyanthea Nova.' Passing from mere simple indexes to dictionaries, we enter a field too wide and rich in all sorts of philoso poured their riches in here; and yet how much preposterous nonsense has been brought into it by etymological vagaries! Some of the wildest flights of the human imagination have been taken in etymology. It has a fascination for intellects of a rambling order, like gambling or other wicked practices, and leads them into thorough intellectual dissipation. Some languages are far more apt to excite it than others. The German is etymological through and through, but with a compact commonplace sort of adjustment which has little relish for the wilder set of devotees. The Celtic is usually the resort of those of them who have not access to the Oriental treasures. They can do almost anything they please with it. Colonel Vallancy resolved to be at the bottom of the words used by the Carthaginian in search of his daughter, in Terence's play. To most people it seemed something of the same kind as the chorus put by Captain Marryat in the mouth of a large Chinese army, who, retreating before a few hundreds of Tartars, sing a song of triumph as they hasten away "Souchong, polly hong, tee tum, tilly lilly, tee tum tee! But Colonel Vallancy made out the expressions to be pure Irish too pure, in fact; for his countrymen reminded him that the kind of Irish he made out of the old Carthaginian's words was not a hundred years old. Topographical antiquaries bent on giving etymologies are sure to find that the Celtic can accommodate them. The Scotch parish minister almost invariably finds refuge for the name of his parish in that primitive and patriarchal language. We remember one curious excep- with each other than a boot-jack has with a boat-hook. The former term applied to the doings of dragoons, the latter to the sweeping character of the method of prosecution, which took in all like a drag-net. Although, then, etymologists have dreamed dreams, and those who have attempted to put the world under the despotism of a universal language of their own self-willed construction— a favourite passion at one timehave utterly failed, yet inch by inch the linguistic philosophers are gaining sure positions, and closing round us with menacing results. From the labours of the later investigators, especially those untiring obstinate Germans, it seems to be coming to this, that all the world shall be subject to what they term philosophical grammar. All of us, "from Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand," whatever be the external form of our speech, are compelled to arrange it according to certain subtle laws, which, though invisible, are not the less absolute. Yet with a perfect adherence to truth and accuracy, few departments of nature are capable of giving forth more striking phenomena than etymology. No less marvellous than the results, too, is generally the genius that discovers them. It is impossible to describe its nature, impossible also to create it by teaching where it does not exist. It is But that is not all. We seem an instinct in some minds, like the free to differ from each other in the special capacities of the pointer. form of our speech, though it all Words the most unlike are brought comes under the same law as to its from distant regions and united to- essence; and differed we have from gether in family unity, while those time immemorial- since the buildwhich seem almost identical are for ing of the Tower of Babel, at all ever disconnected. Queen Chris events-making such a variety in the tina of Sweden happily character- groups of languages, as every one is ised the acme of etymological ac- more or less aware of. But here complishment when she said of too we are not following our own Ménage that he knew not only where free-will, but acting blindly under the winds came from, but where the law of some despotic rule. they went to. To take very common Our language undergoes a change examples, among the least doubtful to suit it to its shifting surroundthings in all knowledge is that the ings, but we have no more to do two words so unlike each other, with that change than the tree worm and verse, come from the same has with its own growing. We Latin root, verto. Stranger comes "steam " up the Rhine, we "coal " from extraunus: we can see this our vessels, we "telegraph "9 to our pretty well if we go the length of friends, we "turn off" and "put on " the French half-way house étranger. the gas, - and so on. Our grandOn the other hand, while Louis fathers had not these terms because XIV. was persecuting the Huguenots they had no use for them, and they of France with the dragonet, Charles have come to us because we have II.'s ministers were persecuting the use for them. But who gave us Covenanters with the drag-net. The them? We can point to the men two words had no more in common who, step by step, have invented the improvements which made oc- suming a less lofty strain, Monsieur casion for the words, but the Jourdan exulted in that specialty words themselves grew up under of it that he talked prose-always some occult law without any one had and always would; but then being their author. Neither by Monsieur Jourdan was a goose, and individual effort, nor by a vote of this boast is only given as an inthe most powerful collective body, stance of his egregious folly. can we adjust our language to our will. The nearest thing to successful dictation in the tenor of language is when an Act of Parliament creates functions, and provides that the person who is to perform them shall be called "the Master of the Rigmarole," or suchlike. One comfort in viewing the affair is, that we are all in the same position, high or low. The greatest genius in the world cannot make a new word or a new grammatical term. The world, gathering up new words under the absolute law which directs it, may perhaps find a new It appears, then, that we follow a word in his writings; but so it may blind destiny, and have no more in the kennel and with far greater choice in our way of working out a probability. Neology, or the use language than bees have in the con- of new words, is a literary crime. struction of their cells, or spiders in The man of genius, if he would be the weaving of their webs. The listened to and have influence, utmost achievement which intellect must work with the old. They have can perform upon the manufacture been constructed and brought into is the classifying and arranging it use in the humblest strata of society long after it is complete, as Lin--they have served the basest and næus adjusted the proper places most sordid objects before they are respectively of daisies, turnips, and fit for his use as expressive words, beetroot in his system. It is rather the significance of which is felt at a gloomy look-out this, that our once. The highest genius thus, in tongues are tied to some absolute fact, only plays on words, and is law-as absolute as those which rule bound to play on them according the material world; and so are our to certain laws of arrangement. If thoughts too, for that matter; for he endeavour either to make new the initial step which led to the words or construct methods of arexposition of the whole framework rangement not in conformity with of the laws of universal grammar established law, he destroys the was the necessity we are all under conditions on which alone he can of framing propositions with their obtain a hearing. If one watches subjects, predicates, and copulas, and the infancy and progress of a new of thinking categorically, though word until it acquires a sure and it is sometimes cast up against one permanent social position by being by way of reproach that he fails to incorporated into the language, he do so. But this is hardly more will generally find that its origin is an affair of constructing language of the very humblest. Of authors than a father giving names to his and polite speakers none but a few children; and notwithstanding the very rash people have ventured to powerful sanction for the protection acknowledge it. It has been long of the artificially constructed name in obscurity, and in that condition in both cases, the more powerful has got somehow familiar to the hidden law which rules language ear, and is at last supposed to be is apt to break in like the sea something of very ancient descent, through a dyke, and substitute a come of an ancestry buried in the familiar abbreviation or a nick- mists of antiquity. If some cistinguished author read by half the world, should make use of it before it is thus ripened, a mark is set upon it at once the mark of ne name. There are some who exult in this slavery, thinking it a beautiful example of the order of nature. As |