8 NOTES AND QUERIES. 
VALUE OF A REPOSITORY FOR “ NOTES.” — 
NEW EDITION OF HERBERT'S “ AMES.” 
[The suggestions in the following Paper are so 
extremely valuable, that we are not only pleased 
to give it insertion, but hope that our readers 
will take advantage of our columns to carry out 
Dr. Maitland’s recommendations. ] 
Sir, — My attention has been particularly 
engaged by one suggestion in your Prospectus, 
because it seems to hold out a hope that your 
intended work will furnish what has long been 
a desideratum in literature. We really do 
want something that may form a “supple- 
ment to works already in existence—a trea- 
sury for enriching future editions of them ;” 
while it may also receive (as I have no doubt 
you meant to include,) such contributions of | 
moderate extent, as may tend to render fuller 
and more correct some works which have 
little or no chance of future editions. In this 
way you may be of great use in every depart~ 
ment of literature ; and especially in works of | 
reference. With them, indeed, correctness is 
everything; perfect accuracy is not to be 
attained, and the nearest possible approxima- 
tion to it can be made only by many little 
careful steps, backwards as well as forwards. 
By works of reference, however, I do not 
mean Dictionaries, though I would include 
them, as a class of works for which I have a 
singular respect, and to which my remark 
particularly applies. ‘There are many other 
books, and some which very properly aspire 
to the title of History, which are, in fact and 
practically, books of reference, and of little 
value if they have not the completeness and 
accuracy which should characterise that class 
of works. Now it frequently happens to 
people whose reading is at all discursive, that 
they incidentally fall upon small matters of 
correction or criticism, which are of little 
value to themselves, but would be very useful | 
to those who are otherwise engaged, if they | 
knew of their existence. 
I might perhaps illustrate this matter by | 
referring to various works; but it happens to 
be more in my way to mention Herbert’s edi- 
tion of Ames’s Typographical Antiquities. 
It may be hoped that, some day or other, the 
valuable matter of which it consists will be 
reduced to a better form and method; for it 
seems hardly too much to say, that he appears 
to have adopted the very worst that could 
[No. }. 
have been selected. I need not tell you that 
Ihave no idea of undertaking such a thing, 
and I really have no suspicion (I wish I had) 
that anybody else is thinking of doing it: — 
or, in other words, I am not attempting to 
make use of your columns by insinuating a 
preparatory puff for a work in progress, or 
even in contemplation. I only mention the 
book as one of a class which may be essen- 
tially benefited by your offering a receptacle 
for illustrations, additions, and corrections, 
such as individually, or in small collections, 
are of little or no value, and are frequently 
almost in the very opposite condition to those 
things which are of no value to any body but 
the owner. For instance, when I was in the 
habit of seeing many of the books noted by 
Herbert, and had his volumes lying beside 
me, I made hundreds, perhaps thousands, of 
petty corrections, and many from books which 
he had not had an opportunity of seeing, and of 
which he could only reprint incorrect descrip- 
tions. All of these, though trifling in them- 
selves, are things which should be noticed in 
ease of a reprint; but how much time and 
trouble would it cost an editor to find and 
collate the necessary books? That, to be 
sure, is his business; but the question for the 
public is, Would it be done at all? and could 
it in such cases be done so well in any other 
way, as by appointing some place of rendez- 
vous for the casual and incidental materials 
for improvement which may fall in the way 
of readers pursuing different lines of inquiry, 
and rewarded, as men in pursuit of truth 
always are, whatever may be their success as | 
to their immediate object, by finding more 
than they are looking for—things, too, which 
when they get into their right places, show 
that they were worth finding —and, perhaps, 
unknown to those more conversant with the 
subject to which they belong, just because | 
they were in the out-of-the-way place where | 
they were found by somebody who was look- 
ing for something else. S. R. Marrianp. 
A FLEMISH ACCOUNT. 
T.B.M. will be obliged by references to 
any early instances of the use of the ex- 
pression “a Flemish account,” and of any 
explanation as to its origin and primary sig- 
nification. 
