ndering auditors."
Now if Mr. Allibone knew nothing about Hortop, he should have said
nothing. If the edition of 1591 was inaccessible to him, he could have
found out what kind of a story-teller our ancient mariner was in the
third volume of Hakluyt. We resent this slur upon Job the more because
he happens to be a favorite of ours, and saw no more wonders than
travellers of that day had the happy gift of seeing. We remember he got
sight of a very fine merman in the neighborhood of the Bermudas; but
then stout Sir John Hawkins was as lucky.

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