Dictionary of American Biography, including Men of the Time. By
Francis S. Drake. (Boston, U.S.: Osgood. London: Triibner.)—The volume is on the gigantic scale which seems appropriate to all things American. It is an octavo of the largest size, containing more than a thousand closely printed pages. An English reader in looking at it feels something of the surprise which is said to have overpowered the mind of Martin Chuzzle wit, when that hero was on his American travels, at the number of persons whom he heard described as "one of the most remarkable men in the country, Sir ! " Here are a number of most remarkable men ; we may hazard eight thousand as a probable guess at their number. The Old World has been occupied for a good many centuries in producing the quantity, but America, with its giant power of fertility, brings them forth in a few genera- tions. The invincible ignorance of the European has prevented us, alas ! from hearing the names of most of these worthies ; doubt- less they are better known by the public for whom the volume is primarily intended. To speak seriously, we have no wish to show any kind of disrespect for Mr. Drake's labours. He is quite right, we do not doubt, in including names to many of which a merely local interest attaches. We should add that the plan of the work includes the bio- graphies of living persons, and also that it takes in persons not Americana who have been connected with the affairs of the United States. So we have accounts of Lord Lyons, Lord Ashburton, Sir Charles Lyell ; and among literary characters, Mrs. Trollope and Anthony Trollope, &c. ; Charles Dickens is, strangely enough, omitted. The articles seem to be well written, and when they touch on inter- national matters, to be fair.
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