Cassell's Concise Cyclopcedia. Edited by William Heaton. (Cassell and Co.)—A
cyclopsedia in a single volume of not unmanage- able size is manifestly a most useful thing, if it makes a reasonable approximation to completeness. Such an approximation this book does make, if we regard it from the point of view not of the student, but of the general reader. Of course, there are questions which it does not answer. One, for instance, was pat to the present writer, about which he vainly sought for information,—" What was the value of a joachim ?" About the kindred words daric, philippus, Zonis, it is equally silent. But then the limit of even 1,340 pages is narrow, compared with the extent of human knowledge. As far as we have been able to test it, the information seems accurate. In the article " Cicero," we miss the proper classification of the writings. The De Oratore is not a philosophical treatise, bat is the most important of the rhetorical class, a class which is only incidentally mentioned. Under the word " Church," we see a serious misstatement of the revenues of the Church of England. They are "variously estimated at from £8,000,000 to £10,000,000 annually." If we were to halve these amounts, we should still, probably, be above the mark.
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