Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1863-05-20

} Draper and others /; chemistry, to Frank
/ IT. Storer. of Boston, and Professor E. L.
Youmans; natural history, to DR.. Knee
land botany, to the Rev. John L. Rus
sell. of the Boston Society of Natural
History; magnetism and electricity, to
Professor Joseph Henry, of the Smithso-
nian Institution: astronomy aud mathe'
mates, to President Hill, of Harvard :
paleontology, to Professor Hall, OF Alba.
na; music, to w. II. Fry; navigation and
gunnery, to Commodore c. II. Davis =
lighthouses, etc, to Major General Frank
lin; Military science, to Charles Marx,
{ Ph. D., OF London; and philology, to
I Professor W. D. Whitney, Of Yale, DR..
Charles Kraitsar, and Professor J w.
Gibbs. With few unimportant excep-
/ tons, these articles are written in pleas
/ ant and popular style, and several that
we could name afford, under the most
unpromising titles, page or two of real
enticins reading. They deal but little in
! technsc.i expressions, and the writers
| seem IL nave remembered that cyclopm.
| dias N made, not so much sor scholars
and the Inen of many books, who are
supposed 10 be already familiar with the
subjects upon which they consult it, as
for the general public" who must be
thoroughly ignorant of everything. The
cyclopedia should, therefore, teach them
enough for all the ordinary purposes OF
life, and indicate the sources of further
information to those who desire TO master
any subject more perfectly. The present
work, SO far as we can Judge from fre-
quent use, ful6ls this requirement, and
does even more, for it contains many pro
found and scholarly papers better worth
q careful study than. any separate treats
es on the same topics which we have ever
encountered.
In book which has employed nearly
five hundred pens, great inequality Of
style is naturally expected; but as gen.
eral thing, a high degree Of literary ex-
oellence has been reached. The editors
have wisely studied coneiseness, and es-
chewed fine writing" as they would the
plague. The result Is that their sixteen
octave volumes probably contain nearly
twice as much information as the twenty
two ponderous quartos of the ''Encyclo-
p@dia Britannica," and this. too, without
being dry. Some of the best and most
readable articles in the work, bristling
with facts" like literary Gradgrinds, con-
tain hardly a superfuous word. In the
principal Biographies, such as those Of
Dante, by Professor Lowell; Washington,
Webster, and Hallam, by Mr.. Everett -
Shakespeare, by Richard Grant White =
Jonathan Edwards, by Mr.. Bancroft De
mosthenes, by President FELTON, Beetho-
ven and Mozart, by A. W. ThayeF; Bon
apart and Voltaire, by Parke Goodwin
John C. Calhoun, by Richard Hildreth
Mr. and Mrs. Browning, by George S.Hil-
lard Luther, by DR.. Schaff; and Kant,
by Professor Henry B. Smith, greater lat
itude has, of course been allowed, and
several articles we have named are remar-.
kable for spirited characterization and
sound critical estimates.
We have already, we believe, sufficient
ly indicated our opinion that the New
American Cyclopedia" is not mere COM
pilation from pre- existing authorities,
but. to all intents and purposes, an orig
inal work borrowing its plan, indeed,
from foreign originals, and collecting a
great part of its materials from various
published sources, but enriched to such
an extent by fresh contributions from
American writers, and so carefully cor
rected by its editors and their assistants,
that it must rank as production Of pure
" American scholarship. Every page has
been expressly for it; not a paragraph has
been copied from other books of reference,
md innumerable errors handed down ]
rom Cyclop@dia to Cyclopedia for gener-} Z
ltions past, have at last discarded. 1t 4
cannot but be a source of intense gratifi- .
cation to us that the first Cyclopedia ever
produced in America for the old "Eney
.lopedia Americana" of DR.. Lieber was
merely a translation from the German,
With some additions) should have fallen
nto the hands of gentlemen who have
made it no whit inferior to the best ever
written in Europe.