Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

The two criticisms we have made touch, one of them the plan of the work,
and the other its manner. We have one more to make, which, perhaps,
should properly have come under the former of these two heads;--it
is that Mr. Allibone allows a disproportionate space to the smaller
celebrities of the day in comparison with those of the past. In such
an undertaking, the amount of interest which the general public may be
supposed to take in comparatively local notabilities should, it seems to
us, be measured on a scale whose degrees are generations.

Mr. Allibone's good-nature has misled him in some cases to the allowance
of manifest disproportions. Twice as much room, for instance, is allowed
to Mr. Dallas as to Emerson. Mr. Dallas has been Vice-President of the
United States; Emerson is one of the few masters of the English tongue,
and both by teaching and practical example has done more to make the
life of the scholar beautiful, and the career of the man of letters a
reproof to all low aims and an inspiration to all high ones, than any
other man in America.

What we have said has been predicated upon the general impression left
on our minds after dipping into the book here and there almost at
random. But on opening it again, we find so much that is interesting,
even in those articles which are most expansive and gossiping, that we
are almost inclined to draw our pen through what we have written in the
way of objection, and merely express our gratitude to Mr. Allibone for
what he has done. We have been led to speak of what we consider the
defects, or rather the redundancies, of the "Dictionary," because we
believe, that, if less bulky, it would be more certain of the
wide distribution it so highly deserves. It is a shrewd saying of
Vauvenargues, that it is "_un grand signe de mediocrite de louer
toujours moderement_," and we have no desire to expose the "Atlantic" to
a charge so fatal by showing ourselves cold to the uncommon merits of
Mr. Allibone's achievement. The book is rather entitled to be called an
Encyclopaedia than a Dictionary. As the work of a single man, it is one
of the wonders of literary industry. The amount of labor implied in it
is enormous, and its general accuracy, considering the immense number
and variety of particulars, remarkable. A kindly and impartial spirit
makes itself felt everywhere,--by no means an easy or inconsiderable
merit. We have already had occasion several times to test its practical
value by use, and can recommend it from actual experiment. Every man
who ever owned an English book, or ever means to own one, will find
something here to his purpose.

That a volume so comprehensive in its scope and so multitudinous in its
details should be wholly without errors and omissions is impossible; and
we trust that any of our readers who detect such will discharge a part
of the obligation they are under to Mr. Allibone by communicating them
to him for the benefit of a second edition.

1. _Truebner's Bibliographical Guide to American Literature._ London:
TRUEBNER & CO. 1859. pp. cxlix., 554. 8vo.

2. _Index to the Catalogue of a Portion of the Public Library of the
City of Boston._ 1858. pp. 204.

Next to knowledge itself, perhaps the best thing is to know where to
find it. To make an index that shall combine completeness, succinctness,
and clearness,--how much intelligence this demands is proved by the
number of failures. Mr. Truebner's volume contains, 1st, some valuable
bibliographical prolegomena by the editor himself; 2d, an historical
sketch of American literature, which is not very well done by Mr. Moran,
and would have been admirably done by Mr. Duyckinck; 3d, a full and very
interesting account of American libraries by Mr. Edwards; and 4th, a
classed list of books written and published in the United States during
the last forty years, arranged in thirty-one appropriate departments,
with a supplementary thirty-second of _Addenda_. In some instances,--as
in giving tables of the proceedings of learned societies,--the period
embraced is nearly a century. A general alphabetical index completes
the volume. The several heads are, Bibliography, Collections, Theology,
Jurisprudence, Medicine and Surgery, Natural History (in five
subdivisions), Chemistry and Pharmacy, Natural Philosophy, Mathematics
and Astronomy, Philosophy, Education (in three subdivisions), Modern
Languages, Philology, American Antiquities, Indians and Languages,
History (in three subdivisions), Geography, Useful Arts, Military
Science, Naval Science, Rural and Domestic Economy, Politics, Commerce,
Belles Lettres, Fine Arts, Music, Freemasonry, Mormonism, Spiritualism,
Guide Books, Maps and Atlases, Periodicals. This list is enough to show
the great value of the "Guide" to students and collectors. The volume
will serve to give both Americans and Europeans a juster notion of the
range and tendency, as well as amount, of literary activity in the
United States. As the work of a cultivated and intelligent foreigner, it
has all the more claim to our acknowledgment, and also to our indulgence
where we discover omissions or inaccuracies.

The second volume whose title stands at the head of our article would
demand no special notice from us, were it not for the admirable manner
in which it is executed and the judgment evinced in the selection of the
books which it catalogues. The Boston Library may well be congratulated
on having at its head a gentleman so experienced and competent as
Professor Jewett. He has hitherto distinguished himself in a department
of literature in which little notoriety is to be won, his labors
in which, however, are appreciated by the few whose quiet suffrage
outvalues the noisy applause of the moment. His little work on the
"Construction of Library Catalogues" is a truly valuable contribution to
letters, rendering, as it does, the work of classification more easy,
and increasing the chances of our getting good general directories to
the books already in our libraries, without which the number of volumes
we gather is only an increase of incumbrance. It is a great detriment to
sound and exhaustive scholarship, that the books for students to read
should be left to chance; and we owe a great deal more than we are apt
to acknowledge to men who, like Mr. Jewett, enable us to find out the
books that will really help us. Dr. Johnson, to be sure, commends the
habit of "browsing" in libraries; and this will do very well for those
whose memory clinches, like the tentacula of zooephytes, around every
particle of nourishment that comes within its reach. But the habit tends
rather to make ready talkers than thorough scholars; and he who is left
to his chances in a collection of books grasps like a child in the
"grab-bag" at a fair, and gets, in nine cases out of ten, precisely what
he does not want.

We think that a great mistake is made in the multiplying of libraries
in the same neighborhood, unless for some specialty, such as Natural
History or the like. It is sad to think of the money thus wasted in
duplicates and triplicates. Rivalry in such cases is detrimental rather
than advantageous to the interests of scholarship. Instead of one good
library, we get three poor ones; and so, instead of twenty men of real
learning, we are vexed with a score of sciolists, who are so through
no fault of their own. We hope that the movement now on foot, to give
something like adequacy to the University Library at Cambridge, will
receive the aid it deserves, not only from graduates of the College, but
from all persons interested in the literary advancement of the country.
So there be one really good library in the United States, it matters
little where it is, for students will find it,--and they should at least
be spared the necessity of going abroad in order to master any branch of
learning.

A great library is of incalculable benefit to any community. It saves
infinite waste of time to the thinker by enabling him to know what has
already been thought. It is of greater advantage (and that advantage is
of a higher kind) than any seminary of learning, for it supplies the
climate and atmosphere, without which good seed is sown in vain. It is
not merely that books are the "precious life-blood of master-spirits,"
and to be prized for what they contain, but they are still more useful
for what they prevent. The more a man knows, the less will he be apt to
think he knows, the less rash will he be in conclusion, and the less
hasty in utterance. It is of great consequence to the minds of most
men how they _begin_ to think, and many an intellect has been lamed
irretrievably for steady and lofty flight by toppling out into the
helpless void of opinion with wings yet callow. The gross and carnal
hallucinations of what is called "Spiritualism"--the weakest-kneed of
all whimsies that have come upon the parish from the days of the augurs
down to our own--would be disenchanted at once in a neighborhood
familiar with Del Rio, Wierus, Bodin, Scot, Glanvil, Webster, Casaubon,
and the Mathers. Good books are the enemies of delusion, the most
effectual extinguishers of self-conceit. Impersonal, dispassionate,
self-possessed, they reason without temper, and remain forever of the
same mind without obstinacy. The man who has the freedom of a great
library lengthens his own life without the weariness of living; he may
include all past generations in his experience without risk of senility;
not yet fifty, he may have made himself the contemporary of "the
world's gray fathers"; and with no advantages of birth or person, he may
have been admitted to the selectest society of all times and lands.

We live in the hope of seeing, if not a great library somewhere on this
continent, at least the foundations of such a one, laid broad enough and
deep enough to change hope into a not too remote certainty. Hitherto
America has erected but one statue in commemoration of a scholar, and we
cannot help wishing that the money that has been wasted in setting up
in effigy one or two departed celebrities we could mention had been
appropriated to a means of culture which, perhaps more than any other,
would be likely to give us men worthy of bronze or marble, but above the
necessity of them for memory.

* * * * *

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.

The Poetical Works of William Motherwell; with a Memoir of his Life.
Fourth Edition, greatly Enlarged. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 32mo. pp.
308. 75 cts.

The Avenger, a Narrative; and other Papers. By Thomas De Quincey.
Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 327. 75 cts.

Life of William Pitt. By Lord Macaulay. Preceded by the Life of the Earl
of Chatham. New York. Delisser & Proctor. 32mo. pp. 227. 50 cts.

Shakspeare's Legal Acquirements Considered. By John Lord Campbell,
LL.D., F.R.S.E. In a Letter to J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A. New York.
D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 146. 75 cts.

The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage. By Rev. J.H. Ingraham, Author
of "The Prince of the House of David." New York. Pudney & Russell. 12mo.
pp. 600. $1.25.

The Life of North American Insects. By B. Jaeger, Assisted by H.E.
Preston, M.D. With Numerous Illustrations from Specimens in the Cabinet
of the Author. New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 319. $1.25.

Life of Frederick the Great. By Macaulay. New York. Delisser & Proctor.
32mo. pp. 277. 50 cts.

Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic. By Sir William Hamilton, Bart. Edited
by the Rev. Henry Longueville Mansel, B.D., Oxford, and John Veitch,
M.A., Edinburgh. 2 vols. Vol. I. Metaphysics. Boston. Gould & Lincoln.
8vo. pp. 718. $3.00.

India and the Indian Mutiny. Comprising the Complete History of
Hindostan, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day; with Full
Particulars of the Recent Mutiny in India. By Henry Frederick Malcolm.
Illustrated with Numerous Engravings. Philadelphia. J.W. Bradley. 12mo.
pp. 426. $1.25.

Frank Elliott; or, Walks in the Desert. By James Challen. Philadelphia.
J. Challen & Son. 12mo. pp. 349. $1.00.

Border War. A Tale of Disunion. By J.B. Jones, Author of "Wild Western
Scenes." New York. Rudd & Carleton. 12mo. pp. 502. $1.25.

Mothers and Infants, Nurses and Nursing. A Translation from the French
of a Treatise on Nursing, Weaning, and the General Treatment of Young
Children. By Dr. A.L. Donne. Boston. Phillips, Sampson, & Co. 12mo. pp.
303. $1.00.

Poems and Ballads of Goethe. Translated by W. Edmonstoune Aytoun,
D.C.L., and Theodore Martin. New York. Delisser & Proctor. 12mo. pp.
240. 75 cts.

On the Probable Fall of the Value of Gold; the Commercial and Social
Consequences which may Ensue, and the Measures which it Invites. By
Michel Chevalier. Translated from the French, with a Preface by Richard
Cobden, Esq. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 217. $1.25.

A Treatise on Theism and on the Modern Skeptical Theories. By Francis
Wheaton. Philadelphia. J.B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 395. $1.25.

The Precious Stones of the Heavenly Foundation; with Illustrations
Selected in Prose and Verse. By Augusta Browne Garrett. New York.
Sheldon & Co. 12mo. pp. 328. $1.00.

The Convalescent. By N. Parker Willis. New York. Charles Scribner. 12mo.
pp. 456. $1.25.

Plan of the Creation; or, Other Worlds, and who Inhabit them. By Rev.
C.L. Hequembourg. Boston. Phillips, Sampson, & Co. 12mo. pp. 391. $1.25.

Five Essays. By John Kearsley Mitchell, M.D. Edited by S. Weir Mitchell,
M.D. Philadelphia. J.B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 371. $1.25.

Hope Marshall; or, Government and its Offices. By William N.O. Lasselle.
Washington. H. Lasselle. 12mo. pp. 326. $1.00.

Sermons Preached and Revised by the Rev. C.H. Spurgeon. Fifth Series.
New York. Sheldon & Co. 12mo. pp. 454. $1.00.

Hours with my Pupils; or, Educational Addresses, etc. The Young Lady's
Guide and Parents' and Teachers' Assistant. By Mrs. Lincoln Phelps. New
York. C. Scribner. 12mo. $1.25.

"Love me Little, Love me Long." By Charles Reade. New York. Harper &
Brothers. 12mo. pp. 435. 75 cts.

The Christian Law of Amusement. By James Leonard Corning, Pastor of the
Westminster Presbyterian Church. Buffalo, N.Y. Phinney & Co. 16mo. pp.
162. 50 cts.

Scenes and Adventures in the Army; or, Romance of Military Life. By P.
St. G. Cooke, Colonel Second Dragoons, U.S.A. Philadelphia. Lindsay &
Blakiston. 12mo. pp. 432. $1.00.

Infant Salvation In its Relation to Infant Depravity, Infant
Regeneration, and Infant Baptism. By J.H. Bomberger. Philadelphia.
Lindsay & Blakiston. 16mo. pp. 192. 50 cts.

Popular Geology. A Series of Lectures read before the Philosophical
Institution of Edinburgh; with Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's
Portfolio. By Hugh Miller. With an Introductory _Resume_, of the
Progress of Geological Science within the last Two Years, by Mrs.
Miller. Boston. Gould & Lincoln. 12mo. pp. 423. $1.25.

Poems of Owen Meredith. The Wanderer and Clytemnestra. Boston. Ticknor &
Fields. 32mo. pp. 514. 75 cts.

Memoir of Theophilus Parsons, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial
Court of Massachusetts; with Notices of Some of his Contemporaries. By
his Son, Theophilus Parsons. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. 476.
$1.50.

The Life of James Watt; with Selections from his Correspondence. By
James Patrick Muirhead, M.A. Illustrated with Wood-Cuts. New York. D.
Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 424. $1.25.

The Spy. A Tale of the Neutral Ground. By J. Fenimore Cooper.
Illustrated from Drawings by F.O.C. Barley. New York. W.A. Townsend &
Co. crown 8vo. pp. 463. $1.50.

Internal Relations of the Cities, Towns, Villages, Counties, and States
of the Union; or, the Municipalist. A highly Useful Book for Voters,
Tax-Payers, Statesmen, Politicians, and Families. Second Edition. New
York. Ross & Tousey, etc., and Wm. Radde. 12mo. pp. 302. $1.00.

Farm Drainage. The Principles, Processes, and Effects of Draining Land,
etc., etc. Including Tables of Rain-Fall, etc., and more than One
Hundred Illustrations. By Henry F. French. New York. A.O. Moore & Co.
12mo. pp. 381. $1.00.

The Jealous Husband. A Story of the Heart. By Annette Marie Maillard.
Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 375. $1.25.

A Practical Treatise on the Hive and Honey-Bee. By L.L. Langstroth. With
an Introduction by Rev. Robert Baird, D.D. Third Edition. Revised, with
Illustrations. New York. A.O. Moore & Co. 12mo. pp. 405. $1.25.

From Wall Street to Cashmere. A Journal of Five Years in Asia, Africa,
and Europe; comprising Visits, during 1851-2-3-4-5-6, to the Danemona
Iron-Mines, etc., etc. By John B. Ireland. With nearly One Hundred
Illustrations from Sketches made on the Spot, by the Author. New York.
S.A. Rollo. 8vo. pp. 526. $3.50.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19