The index to Ford's Handbook of Spain contains an amusing reference:
"Wellington, see Duke."
Besides these four divisions of the chief faults in indexing, there are many other pitfalls gaping wide to receive the careless indexer.
Names are a great difficulty, but it is not necessary to refer to these more generally here, as they are fully dealt with in the rules (see Chapter VI.)
It is not often that an English indexer has to index a French book, but should he do so he would often need to be careful. The Frenchman does not care to leave that which he does not understand unexplained. The translation of Love's Last Shift as La Dernière Chemise de l'Amour, attributed by Horace Walpole to the Dowager Duchess of Bolton in George I.'s reign, is probably an invention, but some translations quite as amusing are genuine. G. Brunet of Bordeaux, having occasion in his La France Littéraire au XV^e siècle to mention "White Knights," at one time the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, translates it into Le Chevalier Blanc. When Dr. Buckland, the geologist, died, a certain French paper published a biography of him in which it was explained that the deceased had been a very versatile writer, for besides his work on geology he had produced one Sur les Ponts et Chaussées. This was a puzzling statement, but it turned out to be a translation of Bridgewater Treatises, in which series his Geology and Mineralogy was published in 1837.
Sometimes contractions give trouble to the indexer, and he must be careful not to fill them out unless he is sure of what they mean. Many blunders have been made in this way. In the Historie of Edward IV. (1471), edited by that careful and trustworthy antiquary John Bruce for the Camden Society in 1838, there is the following remarkable statement: "Wherefore the Kynge may say, as Julius Cæsar sayde, he that is not agaynst me is with me."
This chapter might be made a very long one by instancing a series of badly indexed books, but this would be a tedious recital devoid of any utility, for the blunders and carelessness of the bad indexer are singularly alike in their futility. It is nevertheless worth while to mention the index to Peter Cunningham's complete edition of Walpole's Letters, because that work deserves a good index. We may hope that when Mrs. Toynbee publishes her new and complete edition of the Letters, she will add a really satisfactory index. The present index is very bad and most irritating to the person who uses it. Examples of most of the careless and foolish blunders in indexing are to be found here; for instance, there are long lists of references without indication of the reason for any of them. The same person is entered in two places if he is spoken of under slightly different names. The same nobleman is referred to as Lord —— and as the Earl of ——, while sometimes a heading devoted to Lord —— contains references to two distinct men. Van Eyck has one reference under Van and another under Eyck. Mrs. Godfrey is entered under both Godfrey and La Godfrey. Many other absurdities are to be found in the index, but the extract of one heading will be sufficient to show how ill the arrangement is:
"Gower, edition of,
—— Baptist Leveson,
—— Countess of,
—— Dowager Lady,
—— Duke of,
—— Earl of,
—— John, Earl,
—— Lady,
—— Lady Elizabeth,
—— Lady Mary Leveson,
—— Lord,
—— Richard Leveson."
There is no authority at all for a Duke of Gower, and if we look up the reference (iv. 39) we find that it refers to "the late Lord G——," possibly the Earl Gower.