p.

LET NO BOOK LACK AN ALPHABETICAL INDEX.

"Scaliger devoted ten months to compiling an Index to GRUTER's Inscriptiones
Antiquæ ; BAILLET not only eulogized the Index to ANTONIO's Bibliotheca, but made
an Index of 35 volumes to the books of M. DE LAMOIGNON's Library ; LE CLERC
considered Index making a vocation too high for every writer ; MATTAIRE made
Indexes, and lauds the art in a Latin thesis.

"An Index is a necessary implement and no impediment of a book except in the
same sense wherein the Carriages of an Army are term Impediments. Without this,
a large Author is but a labyrinth, without a clue to firect the Reader therein." – Ful-
ler's Worthies.

"If a book has no Index or good Table of Contents, 'tis very useful to make one
as you are reading it" – Dr. Watts.

True but an author has no right to make me suffer for his negligence or in-
dolence.

"I wish you would add an Index rerum, that when the reader recollects any in-
cident, he may easily find it, which at present he cannot do, unless he knows in which
volume it is told" – Dr. Johnson to Richardson.

And Richardson was sensible enough to profit by the advice.

"Books born mostly of Chaos – which want all things, even an index – are a
painful object.... He write big books wanting in almost every quality,
and does not give even an Index to them." – Carlyle's Frederick the Great. vol. I.

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 inconveuiences from the
want of indexes, 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 judgement and abilities than is commonly supposed. We feel the merit of the
compiler of such an Index, and we are even ready to testify our thankfulness for his
exertions." – London Monthly Review.

"Those authors, whose subjects require them to be voluminous will do well, if
they would be remembered as long as possible, not to omit a duty which authors, in
general, but especially modern authors are too apt to neglect –– that of appending to
their works a good index. For their deplorable deficiencies in this respect, Professor
DE MORGAN, speaking of historians, assigns the curious reason, 'that they think to
oblige their readers to go through them from beginning to end, by making this the
only way of coming at the contents of their volumes. They are much mistaken, and
they might learn from their own mode of dealing with the writing of others how
their own will be used in turn.' We think that the unwise indolence of authors has
probably had much more to with the matter than the reason thus humourously as-
signed; but the fact which he proceeds to mention is incontestably true. 'No writer
(of this class) is so much read as the one who makes a good index or so much cited.'"
– Henry Rogers: The Vanity and Glory of Literature.

Let Lord Campbell's proposition be adopted: "So essential," remarks his Lord-
ship, "did I consider an index to be to every book that I proposed to bring a Bill
into Parliament to deprive an authro [or publisher, we add,] who publishes a book
without an Index of the privilege of copyright; and, moreover, to subject him, for
his offence, to a pecuniary penalty." Preface to Vol. III of Chief Justices.

S.A.A

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