of analysis, of reasoning, of generalization, are always adequately
exhibited by a corresponding mastery of expression. The study of such a
volume as the present is itself an education in statement and logic; and
that it will be studied by thousands, in the colleges and out of the
colleges of the country, we cannot but hope.


_Allibone's Dictionary of Authors._ Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson,
1858. Vol. I. pp. 1005.

Leigh Hunt, in one of his Essays, speaks of the wishful thrill with
which, in looking over an index, he wondered if ever his name would
appear under the letter H in the reversed order (Hunt, Leigh) peculiar
to that useful and too much neglected field of literary achievement. In
Mr. Allibone's Dictionary he would see his wish more than satisfied; for
if he turn up "Hunt, Leigh," he will find a reference to "Hunt, James
Henry Leigh," and under that head a list of his works, more complete,
perhaps, than he himself could easily have drawn up.

In glancing along the leaves of a collection like this, one's heart is
touched with something of the same vague pathos that dims the eye in a
graveyard. What a necrology of notability! How many a controversialist
who made a great stir in his day, how many a once rising genius, how
many a withering satirist, lies here shrunk all away to the tombstone
immortality of a name and date! Think of the aspirations, the dreams,
the hopes, the toil, the confidence (of himself and wife) in an
impartial and generous posterity;--and then read "Smith J.(ohn?)
1713-1784(?). The Vision of Immortality, an Epic Poem in Twelve Books,
1740, 4to. _See Lowndes._" The time of his own death less certain than
that of his poem, which we may fix pretty safely in 1740,--and the only