"American Men of Letters :" Noah Webster. By Horace E.
Scudder. (Sampson Low and Co.)—This is a volume of a series which is under the editorship of Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, and which promises well. Webster certainly achieved a remarkable success. His dictionary, essentially American as it was in conception and execu- tion, has taken a place as an English authority. Whether it will hold this place in the future may, indeed, be doubted. There are enterprises in the dictionary way now in hand which may possibly supersede it. Still, the fact of its at least temporary success, a pro- vincial work by a provincial author, remains to the perpetual honour of the man. A very determined, hard-headed, and yet enthusiastic person he was, and his life is well told, not without a touch of quiet humour, in this book. Webster's activity was not confined to the dictionary. A spelling-book which he brought out in early life was, in fact, his chief subsistence during the years while he was labouring at his great work. He was a pioneer of spelling reform, and did something in that way, though he cannot be said to have had the courage of his opinions. He had a great share in passing the Copyright Act which still regulates authors' rights in the United States. It is but a shabby affair, giving them less than is conceded in any other civilised conntry,—twenty-eight years only ; but till Webster exerted himself, copyright did not exist. He was interested also in political matters, showing a strong, sensible, mode- rate judgment in respect of them. The advocates of Civil-Service reform in the States may look back to him as a pioneer. He opposed the " spoils system," when Jefferson inaugurated it. Another work in which he anticipated a later generation was his revision of the translation of the Scriptures. His biographer—who, by the way, is Singularly free from the biographical vice of indiscriminate praise— confesses that he had neither taste nor scholarship sufficient for the work. On the whole, though Webster cannot be placed even in the -second rank of the "Men of Letters" that belong to the English- -speaking nations, he was a notable person, who did good work, and plenty of it, in the eighty-four years of a very fall and busy life.
Previous page
