_Chambers's Encyclopaedia: A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for
the People; on the Basis of the Latest Edition of the German
Conversations-Lexicon_. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co. Vols. I. and
II.
An Encyclopaedia is both a luxury and a necessity. Few readers now
collect a library, however scant, without including one of some sort.
Many of them, even in the absence of all other books, of themselves
constitute a complete library. The Britannica, Edinburgh, Metropolitana,
English, Penny, London, Oxford, and that of Kees, are most elaborate
works, extending respectively to about a score of heavy volumes,
averaging eight or nine hundred pages each. Such publications must
necessarily be expensive. They are, moreover, to be regarded rather as a
collection of exhaustive treatises,--great prominence being given to
the physical and mathematical sciences, and to general history. For
instance, in the Britannica, the publication of the eighth edition
of which is just completed, the length of some of the articles is as
follows: Astronomy, 155 quarto pages; Chemistry, 88; Electricity, 104;
Hydrodynamics, 119; Optics, 176; Mammalia, 120; Ichthyology, 151;
Entomology, 265; Britain, 300; England, 136; France, 284. Each one of
these papers is equal to a large octavo volume; some of them would
occupy several volumes; and the entire work, containing a collection of
such articles, can be regarded in no other light than as an attempted
exhibition of the sum of human knowledge, commending itself, of course,
to professional and highly educated minds, but far transcending, in
extent and costliness, the requirements and the means of the great class
of general readers. For the wants of this latter class a different sort
of work is desirable, which shall be cheaper in price, less exhaustive
in its method, and more diversified in its range. In these particulars
the Germans seem to have hit upon the happy medium in their famous
"Conversations-Lexicon," which has passed through a great many editions,
and been translated into the principal languages of Europe. This is
taken as the type, and in some respects as the basis, of the present
publication,--there being engrafted upon it new contributions from
leading authors of this and other countries, together with such
extensive improvements, revisals, rewritings, additions, and
modifications throughout, as to constitute a substantially new work,
exhibiting in combination the results of the best labors of the German,
English, and American mind. In the departments of statistics, geography,
history, and science, the articles are all within readable limits,
accurate, and up to the times; while in the biographical and literary
articles there is a freshness and originality of criticism, and a
vivacity of style, seldom met with in this class of publications.
The peculiar merit of this Encyclopaedia is its convenient adaptedness
to popular use. The subjects treated of are broken up and distributed
alphabetically under their proper heads, so as to facilitate reference.
We are thus furnished with a dictionary of facts and events, where we
may readily find whatever properly appertains to any particular point,
without being compelled to explore an entire treatise. This, by the
way, makes it a sort of hand-book even for those who possess the more
voluminous works. As a necessary result of such a method of treatment,
it will be found, upon an actual count and comparison, to contain more
separate titles than any other Encyclopaedia ever published. Although
the articles are generally brief, it must not be supposed that they are
meagre, for they will be found to present a clear and comprehensive view
of the existing information upon the particular topic, with a mastery
which arises only from familiarity. Montesquieu said that Tacitus
abridged all because he knew all; and no reader can peruse a number of
this Encyclopaedia without being convinced that the success in preparing
the perspicuous abridgments it contains is due to thorough knowledge.
Its excellence is not confined, however, to the letter-press; for we are
furnished with a series of colored maps, embodying the results of
the most recent explorations, and also with a profusion of admirable
woodcuts, illustrating the subject wherever pictorial exposition may aid
the verbal. It will be recollected that no other Encyclopaedia published
in this country has the advantage of illustrations.
The character of Messrs. William and Robert Chambers of itself gives
ample assurance that the work is prepared and executed in a superior
manner; but when we superadd to this the fact that they have spared no
labor or expense, but have devoted to it all the resources of their
experience, enterprise, and skill, in order to make the work, in all its
departments, their crowning contribution to the cause of knowledge, we
are the more ready to believe that it actually is all that it claims to
be. The American edition by J.B. Lippincott & Co., of Philadelphia,
is published in numbers simultaneously with the Edinburgh and London
edition, and in an unexceptionable style of typography. Its low price
brings it within the reach of almost every reader. Indeed, when we
consider the size of the volumes, the number of illustrations and maps,
the mechanical execution, and the compensation to the writers, we are
at a loss to conceive how it can be profitably furnished at so cheap a
rate.
_The Recreations of a Country Parson_. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo.
The essays of which this volume is made up were originally contributed
to "Fraser's Magazine." The "Recreations" they record are therefore
those of an English, and not an American "Parson"; but there is nothing
in them which a parson of any church or denomination would feel inclined
to repudiate, on the score either of their fineness of mental perception
or healthiness of moral sense. The author tells us, that, in writing
these essays, he has not been rapt away into heroic times and distant
scenes, but has written of daily work and worry amid daily work and
worry: and herein lies the charm of his discourses. He has one of those
sensible, elastic, cheerful natures whose ideal qualities are not
perverted by fretfulness and discontent. That most wicked of Byronisms,
which consists in depreciating the duties of common life in order to
exalt the claims of a kind of spiritualized sensuality and poetic
self-importance, he instinctively avoids. The thirteen shrewd,
suggestive, and practical essays which compose the present volume are
transcripts of his own experience and meditations, and teem with facts
and observations such as might be expected from the clear insight of a
man who has mingled with his fellow-men, and who is curiously critical
of the non-romantic phenomena of their daily life. The essays on the Art
of Putting Things, on Petty Malignity and Petty Trickery, on Tidiness,
on Nervous Fears, on Hurry and Leisure, on Work and Play, on Dulness,
and on Growing Old, are full of fresh and delicate perceptions of the
ordinary facts of human experience. His best and brightest remarks
surprise us with the unexpectedness of homely common sense, as flashed
on a world of organized illusions. The entire absence of rhetoric in the
author's mode of "putting things" adds to its effectiveness. He attempts
to reveal the common,--one of the rarest of revelations; and shows what
heroic qualities are needed to overcome the superficial circumstances
of our life, and transmute them into occasions for that humble, obscure
heroism which God alone apprehends and rewards. The freedom of the
writer from all the stereotyped phraseology of sanctity in doing this
work, and his innocent sympathy with everything cheerful, pleasurable,
and lovable in Nature and human nature, only add to the power of his
teachings. These "Recreations" of the "Parson" will, to the generality
of readers, produce more beneficent results than could have been
produced, had he given us his most carefully prepared sermons,--for they
connect religion with life. Nobody can read the volume without feeling
the moral and religious purpose which underlies its graceful and genial
exhibition of human character and manners. The common objection to
clergymen is, that they are ignorant of the world. No sagacious reader
of the present book can doubt that this parson, at least, is an
exception to the general rule; for he palpably knows more of the world
than most men who have made it a special study.