M II ID (1497: 1500-3)• Sometimes the early printer used odd chronograms or titles in which a date is ex pressed by the numeral value of the letters contained in or marked in it; in some cases repeating in this a date already given on the titlepage. For instance, We spIrltaLI IMItatIone Christi saCra et VtlLes pIIs In LVCeM Data a R. P. Antonio Van den Stock Societatis Jesu, Rurxmundx, Apud Gasparem du Pres> book with two chron ograms on 1658 in the title, hut a superfluity in the centre, and containing in the text over 1,500 on the same date. Two modern vol umes of chronograms are Hilson's (1882 and 1885).
The date is often determined approxi mately by the water-marks on the paper; but this is one of the most persistently forged of all things and demands the greatest knowl edge and judgment.
Place of Publication.—This is not always instantly apparent even when printed, as the various local forms and their varied Latiniza tions or the use of obsolete terms often make a bewildering complexity for a single place; or a punning or pseudo-classical translation may be used, not a true ancient form; or the same Latin or Greek form may mean one of two or three places; or it may be used expressly to throw the inquirer off the track. The latter is of course undiscoverable except by outside evi dence, which however in forthcoming in a sur prising number of cases. The motive may be anything from sincere religious or patriotic zeal to the most bestial criminality; most °shady° modern literature has either no assigned place of publication or a false one, and some are °published° an immense distance from where they are printed — a common enough thing in legitimate publication in modern times, though practically unknown in early ones, printer and publisher being the same. Hundreds of Euro pean books are nominally published at Pekin, or Tokio, or Calcutta; the unsavory products of Parisian presses are usually fathered on some Dutch or Belgian city; and Sir Richard Burton's unexpurgated 'Arabian Nights) was accredited to Benares, India.
The following list of un-English forms of the chief centres of past publication will be use ful (for a full one, see
were printed at first exactly like manuscripts, without numbering the pages. Soon the unhandiness of this method, and the difficulty of making references, forced a numbering of the leaves; which was shortly succeeded by numbering the pages, and in some cases — of very large, closely printed books — by numbering the columns, which is occasionally done for like reasons in modern times. Books of more than one volume are usually paged separately, but in many large sets the paging is carried consecutively from beginning to end, especially where it is likely to be issued in more than one edition and divided into differing num bers of volumes; since in that case one index will answer for all, instead of having to be made over for each. In the old folios and quar
tos, letters were often inserted on the margin, to break the page or column into separate por tions without interfering with the continuity of the text; these marginal references from the first editions of classics are often left in the modern editions, forming a convenient method of reference from one to the other. Essentially the same method is followed in some modern books, but usually by numbers instead of letters, dividing off the text into tens and fives of lines, for convenient citation and reference; in some editions of the Bible the chapters and conven tional verses are marked off in the same way, to keep the original paragraphing and continu ous narrative and yet be easy of comparison with the common Bibles.
Prefaces, Dedications, An intro duction is properly a part of the body of the text, outlining its theme and the main divisions of the argument or narrative, or setting forth the general conditions from which the special theme is isolated and enlarged for study; the preface (for which among certain ultra-Teu tonists the disagreeable affectation °foreword,* German V orwort, is substituted) is properly the author's introduction of himself or his work to the reader, explaining his general purpose, the need or place of his book, personal thanks, or comments, etc., and all such matter as needs to be stated yet is not pertinent to the exact subject. In old times it was like the prologue or epilogue to a play, a method of ingratiating one's self with the reader, bespeaking his indul gence or removing any unfavorable impressions with which he might begin the book; and was addressed to the "courteous reader° or the °gentle reader° (which properly meant an as sumed feminine reader), etc. The dedication, in times when there was no general book-market and an author must depend on the patronage• of some person of rank (that is, down to the 18th century, and well into that), was an integral and indispensable part of the book: it meant that the author asked the patron to give him money and place in return for being celebrated, just as the old chiefs did their bards. He must have his Maecenas; without him he would starve, with him he could disregard the masses. Sometimes, with men of hard, bold natures and a keen scent for the worst side of human life, like Martial or Aretino, they used disguised (very little disguised) threats and virtual black mail as a supplement to appeal, and fawned and snarled alternately. In those times it was often nauseous with fulsome laudation; it is now of the simplest form, a mere survival used to ex press the author's liking or gratitude for some one, or acknowledgment of inspiration or en couragement, or in humorous books often a joke like the text.