ces of the
book. It is vivacious in style, having none of the tedium belonging to
most works of this description. There is very much concerning ancient
religion, and concerning the classification of languages, as well
as respecting the peculiarities of each, that has never before been
presented in a popular form. We have rarely, indeed, seen so much that
was valuable, and so well digested, compressed within such limited
bounds.

_The New American Cyclopaedia_; a Popular Dictionary of General
Knowledge. Edited by GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA. 16 vols. royal
8vo. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

The sixteenth and concluding volume of the "New American Cyclopaedia"
brings Messrs. Ripley and Dana to the end of one of the most laborious
and important literary works ever undertaken in this country; and
the voice of the public, we are sure, will be all but unanimous in
congratulating them upon the generally satisfactory manner in which they
have performed their task. The cost of the work, according to a New-York
journal, has been over four hundred thousand dollars. Six years have
been spent in its execution, and nearly five hundred writers have been
employed to contribute to it. Naturally, the articles are of very
unequal merit; but it is fair to remark that a high standard of
scholarship and literary polish has evidently been aimed at, from the
first volume to the last, and there is scarcely any point upon which the
"New American Cyclopaedia" may not safely challenge comparison with any
work of similar pretensions in the English language.

Practically, none of the cyclopaedia previously accessible in our
language has now much value. Such works as "Rees's," the "Edinburgh,"
the "London," and the "Penny" Cyclopaedias, the "Encyclopaedia
Metropolitana," and the excellent, though rather brief, "Encyclopedia
Americana" of Dr. Francis Lieber, the only one, except the "New
American," ever written in this country, however good in their day, have
long been entirely out of date. The "English Cyclopaedia" of Charles
Knight, and the eighth edition of the famous "Encyclopaedia Britannica,"
were completed while the work of Messrs. Ripley and Dana was yet in
progress; but they are so different from the latter in their scope and
execution, and so much more costly, that they can hardly be said
to rival it. The first-named is a revised issue of the old "Penny
Cyclopaedia" of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,
and retains