and Queries volumes and pages

Notes.

MECHANICAL ARRANGEMENTS OF BOOKS.

All persons who, whatever might be their motive, have followed any subject of literary research, must be aware of the extent to which their labours are facilitated or retarded by the mechanical arrangements of books, such as the goodness of paper, the legibility of type, the size of volumes, the presence or absence of table of contents, indexes, and other means of reference. It is in the possession of these conveniences that the capabilities of typography, and its superiority over manuscript, mainly consist. I propose now to set down a few remarks on this subject, in the hope that any means, however trifling they may seem, by which literary knowledge is rendered more commodious and accessible, will not be deemed unworthy of attention by your readers.

With regard to the form of printed letters, it is difficult to conceive any improvement in modern typography, as practised in Italy, France, and England. This is equally true of Roman and Greek characters. The Greek types introduced by Porson leave nothing to be desired. The Germans still to a great extent retain the old black-letter type for native works, which was universal over all the north of Europe in the early period of printing, and is not a national type, as some persons seem to imagine. These letters being imitated from the manuscript characters of the fifteenth century, are essentially more indistinct than the Roman type, and have for that reason been disused by the rest of Europe, Holland and Denmark not excepted. In England this antiquated mode of printing was long retained for law-books, and, till a comparatively recent date, for the statutes. The Anglo-Saxon letters are in like manner nothing but a barbarous imitation of old manuscript characters, and have no real connexion with the Anglo-Saxon language. Their use ought to be wholly abandoned (with the exception of those which are wanting in modern English). Roman numerals, likewise, as being less clear and concise than Arabic numerals, especially for large numbers, ought to be discarded, except in cases where it is convenient to distinguish the volume from the page, and the book from the chapter. English lawyers, indeed, who in general have only occasion to cite the volume and page, invariably make their quotations with Arabic figures, by prefixing the number of the volume, and subjoining the number of the page. Thus, if it were wished to refer to the 100th page of the second volume of Barnewall and Alderson's Reports, they would write 2 B. & C. 100. Roman numerals are still retained for the sections of the statutes.

Akin to the retention of antiquated forms of letters is the retention of antiquated orthography. Editors of works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries sometimes retain the spelling of the period, of which Evelyn's Diary is an example; but this practise is unpleasant to the modern reader, and sometimes, particularly in proper names, perplexes and misleads him. The modern editions of the classical writers of that period, such as Shakspeare, Bacon, Milton, Clarendon, &c., are very properly reduced to the modern standard of orthography, as is done by Italian editors with the works of Dante, Boccaccio, &c. The attempt to introduce the native orthography of foreign proper names naturalised in English, is likewise unsuccessful, and merely offends the eye of the reader, without giving any real information. Mr. Lane and other Orientalists will never succeed in banishing such forms as vizier, caliph, cadi, &c., nor will even Mr. Grote's authority alter the spelling of the well-known Greek names. Names of ancient persons and places which are enshrined in the verses of Milton and other great poets, cannot be altered.

The old unmeaning practice of printing every noun substantive with a capital letter (still retained in German) has been abandoned by every English printer, except the printer of parliamentary papers for the House of Lords. Proper names used to be printed in italics; and generally, the use of italics was much greater than at present. In modern reprints, these ancient flowers of typography ought to be removed. The convenient edition of Hobbes' Works, for which we are indebted to Sir W. Molesworth, would be more agreeable to read if the italics were less abundant.

The use of the folio and quarto size is now generally restricted to such books as could scarcely be printed in octavo, as dictionaries and similar books of reference. The parliamentary blue book, which long resisted the progress of octave civilization, is now beginning to shrink into a more manageable size. With regard to separate volumes, the most convenient practice is to consider them as a mere printer's division, which may vary in different editions; and to number them consecutively, without reference to their contents. The Germans have a very inconvenient practice of dividing a volume into parts, each of which is a volume in the ordinary meaning of the word; so that a work consisting of nine volumes, for example, may be divided into four volumes, one of which consists of three parts, and the other three of two parts each. The result is, that every reference must specify both the volume and the part: thus, Band II. Abtheilung III. S. 108. Frequently, too, this mode of numbering misleads the bookbinder, who (unless properly cautioned) numbers the volumes in the ordinary manner.

Volumes, as I have remarked, are merely a printer's division. Every literary composition ought, however, to have an organic division of its own. The early Greeks seem indeed to have composed both their poems and prose works as one continuous discourse. The rhapsodies of Homer and the muses of Herodotus were subsequent divisions introduced by editors and grammarians. But literary experience pointed out the commodiousness of such breaks in a long work; and the books of the Æneid and of the History of Livy were the divisions of the authors themselves. Since the invention of printing, the books of the prose works of the classical writers have been subdivided into chapters; while for the books of poems, as well as for the dramas, the verses have been numbered. The books of the Old and New Testament have likewise been portioned into chapters, and into a late typographical division of verses.

In making a division of his work, an author ought to number its parts consecutively, without reference to volumes. The novels of Walter Scott are divided into chapters, the numbering of which is dependent on the volume; so that it is impossible to quote them without referring to the edition, or to find a reference to them in any other edition than that cited. For the same reason, an author ought not to quote his own book in the text by a reference to volumes.

The division most convenient for purposes of reference is that which renders a quotation simple to note, and easy to verify. Divisions which run through an entire work (such as the chapters of Gibbon's History) are easy to quote, and the quotation can be easily verified when the chapter is not long. The numbering of paragraphs in one series through an entire work, as in the French codes, in Cobbett's writings, and in the state papers of the Indian government, is the simplest and most effectual division for purposes of reference. The Digest can now be referred to by book, title, and paragraph; nevertheless the Germans (who, notwithstanding their vast experience in the work of quoting, seem to have a predilection for cumbrous and antiquated methods) still adhere to the old circuitous mode of quotation, against which Gibbon long ago raised his voice (Decl. and Fall, c. 44. n. 1.).

Some works have been divided by their authors into chapters, but the chapters have been left unnumbered. Niebuhr's Roman History is in this