Droekhaus' Konversations - Lexikon. Nene revidierte Jubil5ume- Ausgabe. Vierter Band. Cespedes-Deutscher Theater.
(J. A. ktrockhaus in Leipzig, Berlin, und Wien. 10 marks, half- bound.)—In cyclopredias, as in other things, one man's meat is another man's poison. If a printed list of purchasers shows that a book of reference is in the hands of many of the nobility, we English willingly drop questions of room, cost, and modernity of contents. On the other hand, the German does not ask what com- pany his dictionary keeps provided it is well down to date, accurate, and suited in size and arrangement to the needs of daily reference. The Broekhaus is kept by supplements and new editions at the high-water mark of the knowledge of the day, its seventeen large octavo volumes each costing 10s. half-bound. The paper " Deutsche Armee" is a model of exhaustive descriptive and numerical statement. A glance at "Deutsche Kunst" might have saved the Kaiser from his much criticised eulogies on the new sculpture at the expense of such grand monuments as old Schliiter's Berlin statue of the Great Kurftirst. In the "Denmark" holes might be picked. Moliere's rival, Holberg, is not given his due, and the activities of the political party known as the "peasants' friends "in the "sixties" and "seventies" are forgotten. Under "Ceylon" we see the figures of the tea exports of the island. Every English name of im portance will be found in the biographies, which are objective and generally impartial. High praise is due to the endless maps and plans. There are two diagrammatic charts of the distribution
of the German Army, and of the French, Russian, and Austrian frontier watch-dogs, — the whole exhibited in minute pictorial detail. The general illustrations are plentiful and instructive. There are some chromographs of the artistic species of which Nuremberg and Saxony have monopolised the production. A. picture of the laboratory of the University of Leipsic helps us to understand why Germany takes the lead in applied chemical science.
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