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To our fur

A comparison, in respect of creative literary power, is sometimes drawn-very much to our disadvantage between the English-speaking people of to-day and the medieval Florentines, the Greeks, or the Elizabethans. ther disparagement, it is hinted that strict candor would compel the average modern to admit a distaste for the form in which the masterwork of literature has chiefly sought expression -a lurking sympathy with Professor Huxley's contempt for "sensual caterwauling."

In our defence, we may urge that inferiority in one direction often implies superiority in another; and that, within our own province, neither the Florentines, the Greeks, nor the Elizabethans, could have coped with us. At no former time have conditions been so favorable to literary ventures calling especially for ripe scholarship, unclouded critical vision, and a wide division of scholarly labor; and when these qualities are combined in a modern work, we justly expect it to be of the first rank.

* DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY. Edited by Leslie Stephen. In about 50 vols. Vols. I.-XXI., Abb-Glo. New York: Macmillan & Co.

It would be difficult to name a venture more strictly within the scope of the period, or more thoroughly illustrative of its literary bent, than theDictionary of National Biography," edited by Leslie Stephen, the first twenty-one volumes of which are before us. This great work will comprise fifty volumes when completed, and we are promised the remainder at the astonishingly rapid rate, quality considered, of one every three months.

The main essentials of a good biographical dictionary are easily stated. First, as to compactness, a work necessarily so large should not ask an inch more of the purchaser's shelfroom, or a shilling more of his money, than is strictly needed for the fulfillment of its purpose. In his selection of names, in so far as we can judge, the editor has been sufficiently chary, though no name, within proposed limits, likely to interest any considerable section of the public, seems to have been omitted. As implied in the title, the sketches have been confined to men born or acclimatized in Great Britain and Ireland; and it will possibly be urged on this side the Atlantic that Americans should have been included. The Dictionary, however, is National in scope, and it is hardly our province to prescribe to publishers the range of their ventures,- as to quality of work we may presume to judge. It is questionable, moreover, whether so enormous an addition to a work unavoidably large would be, on the whole, a gain. For one would scarcely care to risk insolvency, even to secure an all-comprehensive biographical dictionary. In respect of names selected, there seems to be no reasonable ground of complaint.

As to proportion of treatment, certain faults, doubtless inevitable at the outset, that mar the first volume, disappear in the succeeding ones. To keep each "life" strictly within bounds implies self-denial on the part of contributors, and tact on the part of the editor; and that these qualities have been exerted by Mr. Stephen and his co-laborers is attested by the remarkable evenness and proportion-considering the number of hands employed-of their work as a whole.

In regard to manner of treatment, there is more to be said. One does not go to a biographical dictionary for dissertation, history, or the personal views or literary graces of the

contributors. Facts are what we require,authentic facts illustrative of the characters under review. To what extent criticism is admissible has been questioned. We may say that, in general, one does not go to a biographical dictionary for criticism-certainly not in the case of the greatest names. In any event, the judgments offered should be thoroughly well founded. To admit mere matter of opinion is to endanger the permanent value of a work that should be first and always a medium of information.

In the opening volume, some of the articles are too long, and contain matter which it is unfair to ask purchasers of a work of this nature to pay for. For instance, were all the "lives on the scale of Canon Stephens's disquisition (that is the word for it) on Saint Anselm, the proposed fifty volumes must certainly mean a hundred and fifty. Early defects, as already stated, disappear as the work progresses; and one cannot but wonder at the tact shown by Mr. Stephen and his aids in keeping in hand such a host of contributors, and we may note here that these contributors collectively represent English scholarship at its best. Many of the articles in the later volumes are models of their class. Amid so much excellence, it is, perhaps, unfair to specify; but we may say that in the papers contributed by Joseph Knight, Cosmo Monkhouse, and by the editor himself, the most hypercritical reader will scarcely suggest any improvements. Mr. Stephen's "Byron," for example, is precisely what it should be, presenting the maximum of fact with the minimum of criticism, and judi ciously avoiding the usual " Byronic" debates -wherein, to quote Sancho Panza, "there is a great deal to be said on both sides." Mr. Monkhouse's treatment of the painters is also admirable. His paper on Constable is specially good, giving in a few words the best characterization of that painter and his art that we remember to have seen.

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A biographical dictionary is perhaps chiefly useful for the information it gives of the lesser notabilities people whose records would, without it, be difficult of access; and a rare collection of such worthies has Mr. Stephen brought to light. To have been a preacher, a poet, a statesman, a hangman, a murderer, a pickpocket, of any sort of distinction, entitles one to a niche in his pantheon. The ways in which the bubble reputation" may be won are encouragingly numerous. That the name of John Astley, painter, is inscribed on the roll of fame

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is due to a financial crisis which compelled him "to patch the back of his waistcoat with a canvas of his own painting representing a magnificent waterfall"—a sorry fate for a projected masterpiece. One would not care a button for John Ash, lexicographer, were he not the author of the most stupendous blunder on record. Johnson, in defining curmudgeon," derived it from cœur méchant "on the authority of an unknown correspondent ❞— whereupon the ingenious Ash gave it as from "cœur, unknown, and méchant, correspondent." Surrounded by a respectable concourse of poets and theologians, is Mrs. Elizabeth Brownrigg, whose humor it was to tie up her apprentice, Mary Clifford, "to a hook fixed in one of the beams in the kitchen," and to flog her until the victim's death put an end to the pleasantry. It is gratifying to learn that Mrs. Brownrigg's "emotional insanity did not deprive her of her reward. Abiezer Coppe was the most radical of non-conformists. Such was his contempt for the gauds and vestments of ritualism that he was in the habit of preaching stark naked,—until the minions of an established church locked him up. Mr. Coppe's doctrine was as impressive as his practice. "It's meat and drink to an angel," he held, "to swear a full-mouthed oath." George Barington's versatility was such that he might well be called the Admirable Barrington. He was successful at once as a poet and as a pickpocket. No volume of familiar quotations would be complete without his couplet,

"True patriots we, for be it understood,

We left our country for our country's good." On the day that Barrington was transported, his relative, Dr. Shute Barrington, was advanced to the bishopric of Durham-a fact. which gave rise to the epigram,—

"Two namesakes of late, in a different way,
With spirit and zeal did bestir 'em ;
The one was transported to Botany Bay,
The other translated to Durham."

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A concrete example is often the best definition. Were one asked, for instance, to define humorist in the old sense-it would be well to refer the questioner to the account of Thomas Day, author of Day, author of "Sanford and Merton," a humorist of the first water. The story of his matrimonial ventures is very amusing. His first proposal was made, in verse, to a Shaftesbury lady, whom he invited to dwell "unnoticed" with him in some sequestered grove." The offer was declined-in prose. Day then determined to secure a wife upon philosophical principles. With a view of procuring raw