Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/333

 Record of Bibliography and Library Literature. 321 from them. But on the one hand it is certainly to be regretted that his method of saying that he has done all he means to do, should cause the impression to go forth that he has done all that is wanted; and in the second place, while, as we have said, he gives his subscribers reasonably good value for their money, it appears to us to be in a different class of commodities from that which most of them understood that they were to be paid in. This index-volume is really hardly an index at all. It is a record, and from its own standpoint one of the very greatest value. But its publication leaves the previous four volumes almost as clueless a labyrinth as before. Suppose, by good fortune we pick up a ballad beginning Rowe well Codes marynours. It is probably without date or name of printer, and we want to find out if the Stationers' Register will give us any help towards dating it. This so-called index-volume gives no help whatever. We are still left to turn over page after page of the records for any year which seems to us likely until our eye catches it on p. 360 of vol. i., and we find that it was entered to Alexander Lacy in 1567-68. According to Mr. Arber's plan, if we turn to the index-volume and look under 1568 Lacey, we ought to find the numbers I., 360. By an oversight, which we do not think is typical, this reference in the present instance is omitted, but even were it duly given it is evident that it would be of no good whatever to the student of literature, since it presupposes the very information of which he is in search. Mr. Arber's index- volume is thus in the first place incomplete, since it stops at 1603 and has large gaps for the twenty years preceding that date, as is explained in the second of our quotations ; and in the second place it is not really an index at all, but leaves the four great volumes, to which it was hoped it would provide a key, absolutely chaotic for all literary purposes. We set this forth quite plainly, because great as the task is, if it be recognised that it is still to do, there is some chance that help may be forthcoming, and we gather from another passage in Prof. Arber's preface that he has accom- plished the greater part, if not the whole, of the actual work of indexing, though he has unhappily found himself unable to arrange and print his slips. When we shift our point of view from that of the student of literature to that of the historian of the book trade, we have no longer to sigh over imperfections, but are rather filled with wonder at the greatness of the task which Prof. Arber has accomplished. After 1603, while the history of literature retains its interest, that of the book trade certainly dwindles, and under each year up to that date we have set forth in admirable order a complete list of all the London printers with their addresses, and sub- ject to the specified exceptions, under the name of each printer a list of all the books known to be extant printed by him during that year, with references to the entries in the register. This would have been a great task if it had been merely compiled from the previous four volumes of transcripts, but in place of this the entries have been made in almost every case from the books themselves. It is thus incomparably the fullest catalogue which has yet been printed of Elizabethan literature, and is of the very utmost interest. Where the books are no longer extant, Prof. Arber has contented himself for the most part with mere references to the pages of his Transcript on which their entry has been registered. On the other hand, his list contains many books of which the register has no record. It is thus, substantially, an independent compilation, of immense value for certain purposes, especially to the future historian of the English book trade, and is really an addition, made at the cost of great labour, to the original scheme. We cannot but regret that in order to make room for this addition the real index has been laid on one side, but our regret does not blind us to the interest of the substituted matter, or to the laborious work by which it has been compiled.