unfitting. Yet the other object, "the promotion of bibliographical research," has received so little, that it may not unfairly be considered a matter of some reproach to us. It seems at least time that an effort should be made to accomplish some good and definite work in this direction. It has seemed to the present writers that a not unsuitable subject and occasion present themselves in a scheme which in itself is desirable, and which in the mode of its accomplishment may afford a tangible evidence of the sympathy existing between the two Societies represented here this evening-the Index Society and the Library Association. As to the manner of carrying out the proposal, however, we will say something further on. First, as to the proposal itself.

A good deal more has been done even in England for bibliography and bibliology than might be supposed by those who have not studied the subject carefully. But it has been done sporadically and unsystematically; and we have no great work like Petzholdt's "Bibliotheca Bibliographica," collecting together the whole literature of the subject and presenting it at one view. The lists given in such books as Power's "Handybook about Books" are very meagre and unsatisfactory; and even Sabin's "Bibliography of Bibliography," despite its arrogant and pretentious tone, is very inadequate, as must appear from the mere numbers of the titles it contains, only 997 in all, including 628 English titles. And many even of these are in no proper sense of the word either bibliographies or bibliologies. A most glaring defect in these books, moreover, is the absence of an index of subjects. And again none of them attempts to deal with anything but substantive works, or to embrace the fugitive bibliographies scattered through bibliographical and other periodicals, or appended to many important

treatises.

Nor must it be said that we are proposing to do over again what is already done and so well done in Petzholdt. Indeed there are many librarians to whom the consultation of a bibliographical work in German is at least a matter of irksomeness, if not of difficulty. It may even be that there are some librarians here and there who have never consulted Petzholdt at all. Moreover, Petzholdt's book is not as complete for English bibliography as it might be made, while very much has been done here and in America during the fourteen years which have passed since the publication of his book.

After the subject of this paper was announced we learned from Mr. Garnett that something of the work proposed to be done by our Subject-Index had been already undertaken by the British Museum. As is well known, the chief substantive bibliographies in the possession of the Museum have been for some time collected in special presses in the Reading Room. It will be news, however, to most here present that a separate hand-list of these books has been prepared under the direction of Mr. Porter, to whose kindness we are indebted for an inspection of the proof sheets which are now being printed. To these will be added an Index of Subjects. But the

books included in this list will only be those for which room can be found in the Reading Room, and it will not include references to those scattered bibliographies of which we have spoken. Without having paid special attention to the subject, it is difficult to realise how much bibliological and bibliographical material exists in a scattered form. Everyone knows Mr. Olphar Hamst's interesting "Handbook of Fictitious Names," but how many are there who remember the useful bibliographies which that zealous bibliographer has published elsewhere. His "Bibliographical List of Lord Brougham's Publications" is appended to the collected edition of Brougham's writings, and has been privately reprinted. But his no less interesting "List of the Works of and upon Sir William Blackstone" lurks, by many unsuspected, in two volumes of Notes and Queries (4 S. i. and ii. 1868). Again, we know that our friend Mr. Cutter devotes special attention to diabolical literature: we have all heard, probably, of the "Bibliotheca Diabolica," published at New York in 1874; but how many of us could recall at the moment that there are some contributions to the bibliography of this subject in Notes and Queries (3 S. iv. 246, 328, 478). These are but one or two instances out of hundreds.

To give some idea of the relation the proposed Index would bear to existing sources of similar information, as well as to the forthcoming Museum Hand-List, let us take a single subject, that of Angling, which has long had special attention paid to its bibliography. In the proof sheets shown to us by Mr. Porter there are two titles on the bibliography of angling, one of which is indeed perhaps the best that of D. Mulder Bosgoed, published at Haarlem in 1874. Sabin gives three titles of books on the subject; Petzholdt has also three; amongst our own materials are at least ten titles, including the latest contribution to the subject, an essay by Mr. Charles Estcourt in a volume published at Manchester this year under the title of "Anglers' Evenings," to which he has appended "A Supplementary List of Works relating to Angling or Fish published up to September, 1879." And these slips do not include, of course, the new edition of Westwood now in active preparation, and which will, we suppose, supersede the others. But though the practical value of these earlier books is thus being constantly lessened as they are supplanted by later ones, there will always remain the interest attaching to them as indicating the progress of the bibliography of the special subject. Thus Pritzel's Thesaurus will always be of interest and importance, for although it will in one sense be superseded in another it will be supplemented by Mr. Daydon Jackson's laborious and valuable "Guide to the Literature of Botany," now printing for the Index Society, which will include 11,000 works, 5,000 of which are not to be found in Pritzel.

The work we propose, therefore, can hardly be said in any way to clash with that which is being done by the British Museum. What is it, then, precisely, that we propose to do, and what is the scope of the proposed undertaking? First, what is meant by our distinction between bibliography and bibliology?

The term bibliography, we think, is more properly applied to the study of the external forms of books; the term bibliology rather to their essence or intellectual content. Thus, for instance, a list of books printed on vellum, or a list of incunabula, belongs especially to bibliography, while such a book as Mohl's great work on the "Geschichte und Literatur der Staatswissenschaften" (3 vols., Erlangen, 1855-58), which takes account of the substance of books rather than their form, belongs to bibliology. These are types: there are many degrees between them. Many treatises belong to both classes; and to entitle a treatise to belong to bibliology at all, it must take account of books and editions of books as individualities, or it ceases to belong to bibliology proper, and passes into the sphere of literary history or criticism. As to the meaning of the word " special," there can hardly be any difference of opinion. We propose to include in the Index all substantive bibliographies and bibliologies as a matter of course. We propose to add references to all similar lists contributed to such journals as the Serapeum, Petzholdt's Anzeiger, Techener's Bulletin, Notes and Queries, Trübner's Record, the Bookseller, the Harvard Library Bulletin, etc., etc. We propose to add, again, those appended to books, such as the list of the writings of Cobbett in Smith's Life of Cobbett, or the list of works by John Evelyn in the recent edition of "Evelyn's Diary." Again, we should propose to add catalogues of special collections, as, e.g., Sir Richard Colt Hoare's catalogue of the Stourhead Library, or Mr. Frost's catalogue of the Ronalds Library, which is more than a catalogue of a special collection. So, too, whenever possible, it might be well to furnish in a foot-note to the particular subject the names of special collectors, so as to concentrate the information on this subject contained in Notes and Queries and in our own Transactions, as well as elsewhere. It may be more doubtful whether we should include sale catalogues. As a rule we should lean to their exclusion. They are written from a distinct, and that not a scientific standpoint; and, moreover, as the number of genuine bibliographies and bibliologies increases day by day, the books occurring in sale catalogues will by-and-by be covered by lists prepared in a purely literary and bibliographical interest. For the present we must make certain exceptions, e.g., in the case of the Stainforth catalogue of the works of British poetesses, etc. One important question that has been discussed between us is, whether the proposed Index should be confined to English bibliography, or whether it should include foreign bibliography as well. The English portion of the work could be made complete, or all but complete, with a moderate expenditure of labour and printing. If foreign books are included, we must select, in order to bring the work within the limits of feasibility. It may be that it will be better to make the English part of the work as exhaustive as it can be made, and, with regard to the foreign portion, to include as a rule only those bibliographies and bibliologies which are of special value for the particular subject. At the same time it is

obvious that the usefulness of the Index will be much increased by including all the really first-rate foreign bibliographies. As to the mode of arrangement, we think it should be by an alphabet of subjects, with possibly a tabular conspectus prefixed, so as to collect the more detailed titles and subjects under more general heads. Under each subject the order should perhaps be chronological, so as to show the progress of the bibliography and bibliology of that particular subject, and also to indicate at a glance the latest and presumably the fullest work on the subject. The best book might, moreover, be easily indicated by being printed in a bolder type. A question which we should like to have opinions upon is, whether it would be more convenient to include science and technical matters in the same index with general literature, or to separate them. An independent suggestion was made by Mr. Bailey at Edinburgh for a scientific index, and it may be that it would not only be easier to carry out such a proposal, if dealt with separately, but that it would be more convenient in practice to have this separation. In that case, perhaps Mr. Bailey might consent to edit such an index as a companion to the one now proposed. His index would be even more minute than ours, for he proposes to index even brief lists of books mentioned at the end of the important articles in the Encyclopædias. Since writing thus with regard to Mr. Bailey's proposal, that gentleman has written a letter in which he says: "I think that for science it would be almost useless to collect only the special bibliologies published in a separate form, as by far the most important lists of books are those generally printed after a special monograph in some of the Scientific Transactions. These generally treat only of one particular subject -say the anatomy of one animal--and this seems to me the most useful part of the index I have started upon, viz., that instead of directing a student to look where he will probably have some difficulty in picking out the books dealing with just the branch he is working at, you send him off at once to a list that contains only books on the subject of his search."

To come now to the mode in which we suggest that the proposed Index should be published, so as to secure the expense of its production and to enlist the sympathies and assistance of those whom it is most important to interest. We propose that the Index should be a joint publication of the two bodies, the Index Society and the Library Association. As each Society now numbers nearly 300 members, that should enable us easily to dispose of a first edition of 750 copies, after allowing for a certain sale to persons and libraries not in union with ourselves. Though that is a matter of detail for the Councils of the two Societies, it must be assumed that the Index will be issued to members of the Index Society as one of the year's publications. That can hardly be so with our own association, and in that case we must put a charge upon the publication, which need not, however, be very high. Why should not the suggested Index be one of a series of publications by the Association, either on its own account or with other Societies? When we have finished our

Cataloguing rules they might be issued with examples as a separate publication. Some time ago we had some conversation together on the subject of a complete bibliography of Shakespeare, and Mr. Furnivall, who was also spoken to on the subject, expressed his readiness to ask the New Shakspere Society to assist the undertaking by purchasing copies for their members and in other ways. These are but illustrations of what might be done by co-operation. Nor can it be said that these things are beyond the scope of our Association. To begin with, there is the express statement of the original founders and members of the Library Association in their Constitution. Moreover, every good librarian must also be a bibliographer, and must feel interested in any really valuable bibliographical proposal. At all events, we hope to receive from the members of the Library Association, and of the Index Society, not only their approval of this scheme of a joint publication, but also assistance in the construction of this Index. In the matter of substantive bibliographies, we can depend pretty well upon ourselves and such. assistance as we can secure personally, and so too with regard to foreign bibliographies. But to get notes of the fugitive bibliographies will be much more difficult, and in this we hope to gain assistance by means of the reading of this paper which we might not otherwise have had. The same is the case, again, to some extent with local publications, such as the bibliographies contained in the Proceedings of such Societies as the Manchester Literary Club. There may be many such lists of which we know nothing, and we shall be glad to hear of them; and we feel that we are justified in asking such assistance by the consciousness that this work when done will at the same time advance the cause of bibliographical research and conduce to the fame of the Library Association.

DISCUSSION. Mr. H. R. TEDDER would have preferred to see a new edition of Petzholdt, completed and brought down to date, but would gladly welcome the proposed Index if it were made thoroughly comprehensive. He objected to the drawing of new and refined distinctions between "bibliology " and " bibliography"; in English dictionaries, moreover, the former word had an additional meaning assigned to it-that of "biblical literature." Mr. Tedder called attention to the similar alphabetical index of bibliology by Gabriel Peignot: "Répertoire Bibliographique Universel, contenant la notice raisonnée des bibliographies spéciales publiées jusqu'à ce jour, et d'un grand nombre d'autres ouvrages de bibliographie relatifs à l'histoire littéraire et à toutes les parties de la Bibliologie." Paris, 1812. 8vo. Ten years before this Peignot had published his "Dictionnaire raisonné de la Bibliologie." Paris, 1802. 3 vols., 8vo.-The CHAIRMAN did not think that all lists contained in books on special subjects should be included, for at that rate every animal and every disease would have its special bibliography.-Mr. NICHOLSON did not see why literary subjects should receive more notice than was given to scientific subjects.Mr. FROST thought that such a subject as electricity, the science of the future, should certainly be included.-Mr. H. B. WHEATLEY