arto pages, to which no reference, even,
is made under the title Rembrandt.

There was nothing to be done, if I wanted to know where that which I
specially cared for was to be found in my Rees's Cyclopaedia, but to look
over every page of its forty-one quarto volumes and make out a brief list
of matters of interest which I could not find by their titles, and this I
did, at no small expense of time and trouble.

Nothing, therefore, could be more pleasing to me than to see the
attention which has been given of late years to the great work of
indexing. It is a quarter of a century since Mr. Poole published his
"Index to Periodical Literature," which it is much to be hoped is soon to
appear in a new edition, grown as it must be to formidable dimensions by
the additions of so long a period. The "British and Foreign Medical
Review," edited by the late Sir John Forties, contributed to by Huxley,
Carpenter, Laycock, and others of the most distinguished scientific men
of Great Britain, has an index to its twenty-four volumes, and by its aid
I find this valuable series as manageable as a lexicon. The last edition
of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" had a complete index in a separate
volume, and the publishers of Appletons' "American Cyclopaedia" have
recently issued an index to their useful work, which must greatly add to
its value. I have already referred to the index to the "North American
Review," which to an American, and especially to a New Englander, is the
most interesting and most valuable addition of its kind to our literary
apparatus since the publication of Mr. Allibone's "Dictionary of
Authors." I might almost dare to parody Mr. Webster's words in speaking
of Hamilton, to describe what Mr. Gushing did for the solemn rows of back
volumes of our honored old Review which had been long fossilizing on our
shelves: "He touched the dead corpse of the 'North American,' and it
sprang to its feet." A library of the best thought of the best American
scholars during the greater portion of the century was brought to light
by the work of the indexmaker as truly as were the Assyrian tablets by
the labors of Layard.

A great portion of the best writing and reading literary, scientific,
professional, miscellaneous--comes to us now, at stated intervals, in
paper covers. The writer appears, as it were, in his shirt-sleeves. As
soon as he has delivered his message the book-binder puts a coat on his
back, and he joins the forlorn brotherh