THE BRITISH MUSEUM LIBRARY AND NAUTICAL DICTIONARIES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR, I have, unfortunately, only now noticed the reference made in your review of Admiral Smyth's Sailors' Word-Book (Spectator, December 28, 1867) to the lack of interest in the curious subject of nautical language observable even in this library, where Captain John Smith's Seaman's Grammar, Sir Henry Manwar- ing's Seaman's Dictionary, and Roding's Allgemeines Wiirterbuch der Marine are sought in vain, and the names of Lescallier, Twent, Willaumez, Stratico, Lantsheer, Neumann, Boteler, and Blanckley are " either feebly represented or entirely wanting."
I cannot quite say that " not a word of this is true," for I can find no trace in our catalogues of the names of Twent, Lantsheer, and Neumann in connection with nautical matters. But neither have I found any trace of their existence in the usual bibliographi- cal authorities; so that I venture to assume some error of ortho-
graphy. Be this as it may, this library possesses the following books and editions :—
Captain John Smith—Seaman's Grammar ; London, 1653, 4to. Sea- man's Grammar and Dictionary; London, 1691, 4to. Another edition ; London, 1692, 4to.
Sir H. Manwaring — Seaman's Dictionary ; London, 1644, 4to. Another edition ; London, 1670, 4to.
J. H. Boding—Allgenecines 1Varterbuch der Marine, 4 vols., Hamburg. Baron D. Loseallier—Vocabulaire des Termes de Marine Anglois et Francois; Paris, 1798, 4to. Another edition ; Paris, 1798, 4to.
Willaumez—Dictionnaire de la Marine; Paris, 1831, 8vo.
S. Stratico—Vocabolario di Marina ; Milan, 1818-14, 4to. Bildio- grafia di Marina nelle Yank Lingue dell' Europa; Milan, 1823, 4to. N. Boteler—Six Dialogues about Sea Services ; London, 1685, 8vo.
T. It. Blanekley-21. Naval Expositor ; London, 1750, 4te.
If these latter writers are really " feebly represented," i.e., if other writings by them exist which are not contained in the above list, let me request your reviewer to inscribe them in the register of " Libri Desiderati " in the reading-room, and thereby ensure
their being looked for.— I am, Sir, &c., AN ASSISTANT.
[With regard, first of all, to the names of which our correspon- dent can find no trace either in the catalogues of the British Museum or in the "usual bibliographical authorities," we should have imagined that QuCtrard's work, La France Littiraire, must certainly be known to any " assistant " in any library. In that work we find (vol ix., p. 587), Twent (A. C.), Dictionnaire de Marine,ou Collection de Mots et Termes Techniques Hollandais,traduits en Francais et en Anglais, it l' Usage des Marina et Employe's, Amster- dam, 1813. Neumann (sic) is frequently alluded to by M. Jal in his Glossaire Nautique. He sometimes, it is true, spells the name " Neuman," but his book is not to be found in the British Museum under either name, and we should, therefore, have been liable to the same evasive answer, whichever spelling we had adopted. He published a marine dictionary of the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and German languages, with an English-French and French-Eng- lish index, the second edition of which appeared in London in 1800. The same remark applies to the orthography of Lantsheer (sic), whose work is alluded to by MM. Gocvic and Jansen, in their Dictionnaire Francais-Hollandais de Marine. His name is in another work spelt Lantsheer, but we find no notice of him in any catalogue of the British Museum. The work to which we wished to refer is entitled, Dictionnaire des Tennes de Marine Francais, recueillis et &adults, partie en Termes Techniques Hollandais, et partie en Anglais, Amsterdam, 1811. The works of these authors are, there- fore, as we said, entirely wanting in the Library of the British Museum, and as an instance of 'feeble representation,' it will be suffi- cient to observe that M. Lescallier, besides the book referred to by our correspondent and one other contained in the British Museum Cata- logue, is credited by what we should certainly call the " usual biblio- graphical authorities," viz., Querard and the Catalogue Glneral des Livres composant les Bibliotheques du De'partement de la Marine et des Colonies, with the authorship of a great number of works, among others, Bases de l' Administration Maritime ; Voyage en Angleterre, en I:lassie, et en Suede; Notice des Ouvrages de Marine et autres presente's a i'Institut. After a renewed search we are unable to find any of these. With regard now to the books in question, by Captain John Smith and Sir Henry Manwaring, we are glad to find that they are in the British Museum. They are not, however, entered in the New General Catalogue, in which we had every reason to expect to find them, as it contains a number of works by Captain Smith, but in the old and, as we believed, obsolete Catalogue, to supplant which the present Catalogue was commenced, nearly a quarter of a century ago. It certainly seems high time that such books as we have alluded to should find their way into the new Catalogue. .Every one regrets the time necessarily spent in consulting the voluminous catalogues of public libraries, but the extra waste of time is enormous when works have to be searched for in three such indices. Under the name Roeding (J. H.), in the new Catalogue, our renewed search has only shown us a work entitled Die Leidens-Gachichte fem. In the old catalogue we can only find the name " Roeding," with different ini- tials, and not the writer of the Marine Dictionary.* The names re- ferred to in our review of Admiral Smyth's books only include a few of the authors on naval subjects, who are, we repeat, feebly repre- sented in the British Museum Library, a fact which auy one can confirm for himself by comparing the Catalogue of the Museum with the Catalogue of the Bibliotheques du DePartement de la Marine et des Colonies, already cited, with Stratico's Bibliografia di Marina nelle Varie Lingue dell' Europa, and other works. These • We have since ascertained that this book is in the British Museum, but it is incorrectly entered in the old Catalogue. The fact that It has remained so for twenty year confirms our assertion that the subject Ins not attracted enthusiastic attention. remarks will, we hope, at the srune time be taken as a proof that our review of the work in question was not written without sufficient reference and conscientious industry. We must add that we did insert the titles of two of the books mentioned in the register of "Libri Desiderati." Upon referring to that volume some days after, we found no intimation that the works entered (Captain Smith's Grammar and Sir H. Mauwaring's Dictionary) were already in the Library. On the receipt of our correspondent's letter, we again went to consult the register, but were told it was iu the hands of one of the librarians, and we have no doubt that some such intimation will be attached to the entry.—ED. Spectator.]
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