showing ourselves cold to the uncommon merits of
Mr. Allibone's achievement. The book is rather entitled to be called an
Encyclopaedia than a Dictionary. As the work of a single man, it is one
of the wonders of literary industry. The amount of labor implied in it
is enormous, and its general accuracy, considering the immense number
and variety of particulars, remarkable. A kindly and impartial spirit
makes itself felt everywhere,--by no means an easy or inconsiderable
merit. We have already had occasion several times to test its practical
value by use, and can recommend it from actual experiment. Every man
who ever owned an English book, or ever means to own one, will find
something here to his purpose.

That a volume so comprehensive in its scope and so multitudinous in its
details should be wholly without errors and omissions is impossible; and
we trust that any of our readers who detect such will discharge a part
of the obligation they are under to Mr. Allibone by communicating them
to him for the benefit of a second edition.

1. _Truebner's Bibliographical Guide to American Literature._ London:
TRUEBNER & CO. 1859. pp. cxlix., 554. 8vo.

2. _Index to the Catalogue of a Portion of the Public Library of the
City of Boston._ 1858. pp. 204.

Next to knowledge itself, perhaps the best thing is to know where to
find it. To make an index that shall combine completeness, succinctness,
and clearness,--how much intelligence this demands is proved by the
number of failures. Mr. Truebner's volume contains, 1st, some valuable
bibliographical prolegomena by the editor himself; 2d, an historical
sketch of American literature, which is not very well done by Mr. Moran,
and would have been admirably done by Mr. Duyckinck; 3d, a full and very
interesting account of American libraries by Mr. Edwards; and 4th, a
classed list of books written and published in the United States during
the last forty years, arranged in thirty-one appropriate departments,
with a supplementary thirty-second of _Addenda_. In some instances,--as
in giving tables of the proceedings of learned societies,--the period
embraced is nearly a century. A general alphabetical index completes
the volume. The several heads are, Bibliography, Collections, Theology,
Jurisprudence, Medicine and Surgery, Natural History (in five
subdivisions), Chemistry and Pharmacy, Natural Philosophy, Mathematics
and Astronomy, Philosophy, Education (in three subdivisions), Modern
La