There is more to be said with respect to the names of Roman authors. Mr. Cutter's rule is:—
"18. Put names of Latin authors under that part of the name chosen in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, unless there is some good reason for not doing so."
This rule is very good as far as it goes, but a general rule may be laid down which will save the cataloguer from the need of consulting Smith, except in very difficult cases. Most Latin authors have three names—the prenomen, which answers to our Christian name; the nomen, or family name; and the agnomen. In the case of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Quintus is the prenomen, Horatius the nomen by which the author is and ought to be known, and Flaccus is the agnomen. But in the case of Cicero we have incorrectly taken to call him by his agnomen, although our ancestors correctly called him by his nomen, Tully. The same thing may be said of Cæsar, whose family name was Julius. But we must be content to follow custom in these cases. Besides the agnomen some men had a cognomen, or strictly personal name, and some had two prenomens; so that it is not safe to take the middle of three names as the nomen for certain. In some cases the prenomens of authors have been lost, and others have come down to us without agnomens.
Having dealt with the chief difficulties connected with the arrangement of the name of an author when there is no doubt about who the author is, we must now pass on to those cases where there is some difficulty in deciding as to the authorship of a book. Many titles are purposely misleading. Thus a letter addressed to some celebrated person is made to appear as if it were written by that person.
A well-known county history in six volumes, quarto, is constantly quoted as the work of one who never wrote it, on account of the misleading character of the title-page. This book is entitled, "Collections for the History of Hampshire. By D. Y. With Original Domesday of the County, and an Accurate English Translation.... By Richard Warner...." The second volume contains the Domesday, and this alone is edited by Warner. In his Literary Recollections (1830), the Rev. R. Warner remarks on this. He writes: "A circumstance somewhat singular arose out of the publication of Hampshire, extracted from Domesday Book, as the volume formed the foundation of one of the most barefaced piracies ever committed on the literary property of an unfortunate author" (vol. ii., p. 267).
Mr. Cutter's remark, already referred to, that he who is the cause of a book's existence should be treated as the author, is a perfectly just one. Thus we are in the habit of using the word "editor" rather loosely. According to the work done by the so-called editor, we shall arrange the book under his name or not. If a man takes a book which already exists and edits it with notes, he establishes no right to have its title placed under his name. For instance, if the original book has an author, it goes under his name; or if it is anonymous, it is treated by the rule that governs anonymous books. To adopt any other system would be to distribute various editions of the same book under different headings. On the other hand, if a man collects together various pieces, and forms an entirely new and substantive work, he should be treated as the author, because without his initiative the book would have no existence. Hakluyt's Principal Navigations of the English Navigators, Purchas's Pilgrimes and Pilgrimages, and Pinkerton's Collection of Voyages and Travels, are special cases about which no one would doubt; but the cataloguer will come upon cases where he may have some difficulty in deciding.
Mr. Cutter enters very fully into the points relating to corporate authors, some of which are of considerable difficulty. First among corporate authors are societies and institutions who publish proceedings; but these will be treated in the sixth chapter, under the heading of Transactions. There are, however, many other publications of corporate bodies which do not come under this heading, such as Acts, Laws, Resolutions, Reports, etc. It is scarcely worth while to discuss this point very fully here, as this class of book is only to be found in the largest libraries, where the rules are settled. Moreover, they will sometimes require to be treated differently, according to the class of library in which they are included.
According to the rules of the Cambridge University Library, they are arranged under the general (or superior) heading of Official Publications.
Academical dissertations frequently offer considerable difficulties to the cataloguer, and as the recognized authorities are not so clear in their rules upon this subject as they might be, I venture here to introduce the substance of a paper which my brother, the late Mr. B. R. Wheatley, read before the Library Association in 1881:—