CURRENT LITERATURE.
The fourth volume of the new issue of Chambers's Encyclopceclia carries the reader from " Dionysius " to " Friction," and indicates even more completely than the three volumes which have preceded it, to how very great an extent this edition is an original work. Let any one compare, by way of test, the old with the new articles on the "History of England," " English Literature," "Education," and " Europe,' and he will see the advance made in the amount of information supplied by the writers of these articles, and perhaps also in the amount of information demanded in works of reference by readers of ordinary intelligence in the present day. There was next to no history of England before, and the account of " English Literature " was altogether inadequate. The geology of Europe now receives the attention it deserves, and its historical geography is treated of for the first time. The difference between the original paper on "Electric Light" and that which takes its place here, marks in a striking manner the progress that has been made by those sciences which are bound up—if one may say so—with the material well-being of the public. The biographies which are included in this volume are very numerous, and are written in almost all varieties of style. It would be invidious to select any for euloginm, except Mrs. Fawcett's short life of her late lamented husband, which naturally stands on a different footing from any of the others. It is admirably done ; in other words, it is not over- done. How true it is of Mr. Fawcett that " his most memorable characteristics were his chivalrous nature and his power of entering into pain and loss, as well as into pleasures which he could never share right" ! Owing to the number of subjects which have naturally come up for treatment in it, this volume forms more agreeable all-round reading than any of its predecessors. It is now unnecessary to say that it is edited with scrupolous care.
Previous page
