the safety of the ship to isolate the binnacle as completely as possible.

BINNEY, AMOS, a patron of art and natural science, and a successful cultivator of the latter, born in Boston, Mass., Oct. 18, 1803, died in Rome, Feb. 18, 1847. He graduated at Brown university in 1821, and took the degree of M. D. in 1826. His health forbade the practise of his profession, and he engaged in mercantile pursuits with much success. In the midst of business, however, he never abandoned his early love for natural science, and to it he devoted all his leisure moments. Mineralogy and conchology more especially engaged his attention, though he explored in a general way the whole field of geology and zoology. He was one of the founders and most efficient members of the Boston society of natural history, and its president, 1843-47. He accumulated the best private collection of works on natural history then in the country, which he opened freely to all naturalists; and indeed a resort to his library at one period was absolutely essential to the proper investigation of any important subject in zoology. He was elected a member of all the scientific societies in the country, and was active in the formation and promotion of the American association of geologists and naturalists. The 1st volume of its transactions was published at his instance, and mostly at his own expense, and was extensively and gratuitously distributed by him. He was the president elect of that body at his death. When a member of the state legislature he used his influence to sustain the geological survey of the state, and succeeded in having attached to it a commission for the zoological and botanical survey also, which resulted in the important volumes of Harris on insects injurious to vegetation, Emerson on forest trees, Storer on fishes, Gould on invertebrata, &c. He was a zealous patron of art as well as of science, and for the encouragement of American artists, had commissioned 8 or 10 of the principal painters and sculptors to execute works for him on subjects chiefly American, to be chosen by themselves, and without limit as to price. Several of these, as the Noche Triste, by Rothermel, "Storming of a Mexican Teocalli," by Leutze; "I Think," by Terry; "Catharine Parr," by Huntington, were completed. Having accumulated what he regarded as a competency to pursue his favorite subjects, it was his intention to devote the remainder of his life to the patronage of science and art. Being in impaired health, he proceeded to Europe for the purpose of invigoration, increasing his acquaintance, and acquiring other facilities for the furtherance of his objects. He died, however, at Rome, at the age of 44. His monument, by Crawford, is one of the principal objects of interest at Mount Auburn. He wrote many valuable papers on natural history, which appeared in the proceedings and the journal of the Boston society of natural history. But the subject which he selected for his special investi

gation was the terrestrial mollusks of the United States, and their shells. He devoted many years to this subject, and beside his own extensive personal observations he interested others all over the union, and fitted out several expeditions to Florida, Texas, and other unexplored regions, to collect materials. He employed the best artists to delineate and engrave figures, intending to publish a work that should be unsurpassed artistically, and make it a gratuitous contribution to science. Just on the eve of publication he died, leaving directions, however, that it should be completed, and gratuitously distributed to scientific bodies and men of science interested in the subject. This was done by his friend Dr. Augustus A. Gould, of Boston. The work consists of 2 octavo volumes of text and a third of plates, and for fidelity and beauty will vie with any work of the kind that has been published in any country.

BINNEY, HORACE, a distinguished lawyer of Philadelphia, was born about 1780, and through a long and active life has identified himself with the best interests of that city. He was for many years director in the first bank of the United States, and acted as trustee in the arduous duty of winding up the affairs of that institution. He took no prominent part in national politics until the election of General Jackson; but he then came forward in opposition to that administration, and was elected to congress. In that body he immediately obtained a commanding position. Since his retirement from political life his most celebrated effort was the defending of the city of Philadelphia in the Supreme Court against the suit brought by the heirs of Stephen Girard. He stands at the head of his profession in Philadelphia.

BINOMIAL, the sum or difference of 2 quantities algebraically written, as ax+6, or mn—qs. The binomial theorem of Newton is a formula by which we can instantaneously write down any power or root of a binomial without the labor of actual multiplication or extraction.

BINONDO, a native town near Manila, on the right bank of the Pasig; or, rather, it is now a suburb of the walled European city, having been annexed to it by a magnificent stone bridge, 411 feet in length. The bridge of Binondo is regarded as the most remarkable structure ever erected by Europeans in the Indian archipelago.

BINTULU, the name of a river and territory in the sultanate of Brunai, in Borneo. Mouth of the river, lat. 3° 13' 30" N., long. 113° 3′ 15′′ E. It is one of the 21 large streams whose mouths can be observed in running down the N. W. coast of Borneo, from Cape Sampanmanjio to Cape Datu, but of which the course of not one is yet laid down in any published map. Since the establishment of Rajah Brooke on this coast, in Sarawak, Bintulu, along with several others of these Bornean N. W. water-courses, has been partially explored. Coal, of the same quality as obtained in Labuan, and in Banjarmassin, has been seen cropping out in many

places near the banks of the river. Iron and antimony ore have been found in many parts, and supposed to be fully as abundant as in Sarawak. The present exports are native camphor, beeswax, wood-oil, damar, agila, and goliga, or the bezoar stones, taken from the stomachs of monkeys, which products are brought to points on the river banks by the wild Dayaks of the interior, and exchanged with Malay traders for cloths and ornaments. No Europeans have yet attempted to develop the mining resources of the country. The Bintulu territory has no determinable area, being simply that portion of country immediately bordering on the river. The bar of the river has not more than 12 feet on it at high water, but, for vessels of this draught, it is navigable about 45 miles. The territory is thinly peopled by a few Dyak tribes.

BIOBIO, or BIOBBIO, the largest river in Chili, which divides Chili proper from the territory of the Araucanian Indians. It springs in the Andes from the volcano Tucapel, and flows into the Pacific. The Laxa runs into it on the right, the Vergara on the left. It is not navigable for any distance on account of its many reefs, rapids, snags, and other dangers. Its total course is about 200 miles.

BIOERNSTAEHL, JAKOB JONAS, a Swedish traveller, born at Rotarbo, in the former province of Sodermannland, in 1731, died at Salonica in 1779. He was a graduate of Upsal, and a tutor in the family of a Swedish nobleman, with whose children he made the tour of Europe. Having studied the oriental languages at Paris, and published a work on the Hebrew decalogue, illustrated according to the Arabic dialect, he was made professor at the university of Lund, and sent by Gustavus III. on a scientific journey to the East, in the course of which he died of the plague at Salonica. An account of his travels appeared at Stockholm, in 1778, in 3 volumes, containing, among other things, anecdotes_relating to Voltaire, whom he had visited at Fernay.

BIOGRAPHY (Gr. Bios, life, and ypapw, to describe), an account of the life and character of an individual. It differs from history, properly so called, in considering public and national events, if at all, only in their relations to a single personage. It assumes various forms, being sometimes most interested in the circumstances and external career, the curriculum vitæ, of its subject; sometimes regarding chiefly intellectual and moral qualities and development; sometimes being hardly more than a catalogue of a man's positions and changes of position; and sometimes, like the autobiography of Goethe, fit to be entitled truth and poetry; sometimes being formally narrative throughout, but often presenting the hero also by his letters and notes of his conversation. A biography may be a panegyric or a diatribe, or the life of a man may be used as only a frame on which to attach moral reflections. Its true aim, however, is to reveal the personal significance of

those men who have played a distinguished part in the world, either by action or by thought. History has reference to the development of principles, biography to that of character. To observe the growth of a nation, or of any institution from the idea on which it was grounded, through its vicissitudes and conflicts, is the part of history. To trace a human life, to remark the manifold efforts, defeats, triumphs, perplexities, attainments, sorrows, and joys which fill the space between the cradle and the grave, is the province of biography. In history, Scipio at the head of the Roman legions subdued Africa, and Agesilaus struggled against the misfortunes of his country; in biography, the former is seen not only gaining victories, but also gathering cockle-shells on the shore, and the latter not only fighting after defeat, but also riding on a hobby-horse anong his children. Plutarch says it does not follow because an action is great, that it therefore manifests the greatness and virtue of him who did it; but on the contrary, sometimes a word or a casual jest betrays a man more to our knowledge of him than a battle fought wherein 10,000 men were slain, or sacking of cities, or a course of victories. Xenophon remarks that the sayings of great men in their familiar discourses, and amid their wine, have somewhat in them which is worthy to be transmitted to posterity. As a branch of literature, biography seems to be nearly coeval with history itself. Some of the narratives of the Old Testament, those of Ruth and Joseph for instance, are biographies. The Odyssey of Homer is a biography of Ulysses, as the Iliad is a history of the Trojan war. Biographies were infrequent under the Greek and Roman civilization, when the individual was absorbed in the state. When Cincinnatus or Coriolanus is mentioned, we recall rather an act than a person. The elder Cato wrote a history of the Roman republic, in which there was not found a single proper name. He said simply: "The consul proposed such a law, the general gained such a battle." The chief of the ancient biographies are the lives of the Cæsars, by Suetonius; of the philosophers, by Diogenes Laertius; of the sophists and also of Apollonius of Tyana, by Philostratus; of the philosophers and sophists, by Eunapius; of great commanders, by Cornelius Nepos; of those illustrious for their learning, by Hesychius of Miletus; of Alexander the Great, by Quintus Curtius; of the emperors and illustrious Romans, by Aurelius Victor, also attributed to Pliny the Younger; and, above all others, the parallel lives of the greatest Greeks and Romans by Plutarch, and the life of Agricola by Tacitus. The Cyropædia of Xenophon is rather a political romance than a biography of Cyrus the Great, and the memoirs of Socrates by the same author were designed only as a defence of Socrates by presenting some of his teachings. Philosophers and military statesmen fill the list of the subjects of ancient biography, and their lives, with rarely an exception, do not exceed the ordinary length

of a review article at the present time.-The middle ages seldom made warriors or statesmen the subjects of biography, but were rich in biographical accounts of saints and religious heroes. Martyrologies bearing the name of acta sanctorum, acta martyrum, and passiones martyrum, became common, each church and monastery preserving an account of its own martyrs, all of which were subsequently gathered into vast collections. Dionysius of Alexandria wrote a history of the martyrs in that city; Cyprian, in his letters, gave an affecting account of the martyrs and confessors in the neighborhood of Carthage; Eusebius wrote a book on the martyrs of Palestine; Simeon Metaphrastes wrote lives of the saints, 122 of which yet remain; Prudentius wrote on the crowns and passions of martyrs; John Moschus wrote lives of the monks to the time of Heraclius, and several works of Gregory of Tours are biographies of men distinguished in the church. The earliest collections of these martyrologies were circulated under the names of Jerome and Bede. In the 13th century, a collection was made by Jacob à Voragine, and in the 14th, by Peter à Natalibus; but the most complete and elaborate works on this subject bear date since the revival of letters. All other lives of the saints have been thrown into the shade by the colossal undertaking of the learned Jesuits of Antwerp, under Dr. Bolland, assisted by the combined industry of the order, and by communications from all parts of Europe. The work was begun in 1643, embraces acta sanctorum, quotquot toto orbe coluntur, and extends to 57 volumes, but is not yet completed. Individual religious orders, in recording the lives of their own saints, have rivalled the erudition and industry of the Bollandists. Thus Mabillon is the biographer of the Benedictine order, Henriquez of the Cistercians, Monstier of the Franciscans, Siccum of the Dominicans, Van der Sterre of the Premonstranensians, and Alegre of the Carmelites, whose work is entitled Paradisus Carmeletici Decoris. Other biographical works on this subject are the lives of the saints by Baillet, Alban Butler, and Ulich, lives of the fathers of the desert by Arnaud d'Andilly, the Anglia Sacra of Wharton, John Fox's "Book of Martyrs," and the Flos Sanctorum, historia general de la vida y hechos de Jesu Christo y de todos los Santos de que reza la iglesia Catolica, by Villegas, published at Toledo, in 1591.-Since the revival of letters there have been few eminent persons whose biography has not been written, and hardly an eminent author who has not written biographies. An immense mass of literature, valuable sometimes chiefly for the materials furnished, at others more for the art and quality of the writer, is embraced under the French titles Vies, Notices, Biographies, Memoires, Eloges, the German Leben, Lebenbeschreibungen, Nekrologe, Ehrensäulen, and the English "Lives," "Memoirs," "Biographies," "Biographical Notices," and "Biographical Dictionaries." Among the chief writers of individual in distinction from collective biographies are

Fléchier, Fontenelle, Marzeaux, L. Racine, Burigny, De Sade, Voltaire, Boissy d'Anglas, Villemain; Jerusalem, Schröckh, Nicolai, Herder, Sturtz, Hirzel, Klein, Garve, Meissner, Niemeyer, Heeren, Dippold, Luden, Varnhagen von Ense, Tiedge, Barthold, Pertz, Perthes; Warburton, Middleton, Boswell, Murphy, Robertson, Monk, Roscoe, Th. Moore, Sir Walter Scott, Southey, Lockhart, Talfourd, Carlyle, Lewes; Marshall, Sparks, Irving, Tuckerman, and many others. Of special value and interest are Fléchier's life of Theodosius the Great; Fontenelle's lives of the Academicians; Burigny's lives of Grotius, Erasmus, Bossuet, and Duperron; the life of Petrarch by De Sade, a descendant of his Laura; the life of his father, the tragic poet, by L. Racine; of Descartes, by Baillet; of Voltaire, by Condorcet; of Fénélon and Bossuet, by Bausset; of La Fontaine and Madame de Sévigné, by Walckenaer; of Molière and Corneille, by Taschereau; of Kleist, Möser, Engel, and Teller, by Nicolai; of Ruhnken, by Wittenbach, and of Wittenbach, by Mahne; of Heyne, by Heeren; of the preacher Reinhard, by Poelitz; of Charlotte Dorothea, duchess of Courland, by Tiedge; of Seydlitz, Winterfeldt, Schwerin, Keith, Bulow, and Sophie Charlotte, queen of Prussia, by Varnhagen von Ense; of Cicero, by Middleton; the remarkable life of Dr. Johnson, by Boswell, written with the minuteness and fidelity of a medieval chronicler, and rendering the subject of it better known to posterity than any other man in history; the life of Lorenzo de' Medici and of Leo X., by Roscoe; of Nelson and Wesley, by Southey; of Schiller, by Carlyle; the excellent biography of Franklin, by Sparks; of Christopher Columbus, by Washington Irving; and of Washington, by Marshall, Sparks, and Irving.-Biographies embrace often both the life and times of the subject, linking personal with political, ecclesiastical, or literary history. Such a method is necessary in the lives of kings, and, to a large extent, of statesmen. Other examples of such attempts are Jortin's life of Erasmus, Godwin's life of Chaucer, McCrie's life of Knox, and Villemain's work, entitled "Lascaris, or the Greeks of the 15th Century." Voltaire's history of the ages of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. contains biographical notices not only of the courtiers and politicians of those periods, but also of the writers, painters, musicians, and sculptors. Biography enters largely into the fuller histories of philosophy and literature. Thus in Hegel's history of philosophy, his own system furnishes the framework into which he sets in order all the philosophical thinkers of the world, and Villemain's history of the mediæval and later literature, is at the same time a biography and characterization of writers.-Perhaps the most interesting of modern biographies are the lives of literary men, presenting as they do the strongest peculiarities, highest qualities, and greatest sensitiveness of character. Admirable specimens of this kind are the lives of Sheridan and Byron by Moore, of Sir Walter Scott by

Lockhart, of Charles Lamb by Talfourd, of Sir James Mackintosh by his son, and of Francis Horner by his brother. The memoirs of Sydney Smith by his daughter are entertaining, and the genius and sufferings of Charlotte Bronte and her sisters make their story, as related by Mrs. Gaskell, of terrible interest. The life of Dr. Channing by his nephew, Wm. H. Channing, and of Margaret Fuller, by R. W. Emerson, W. H. Channing, and J. F. Clarke, are valuable contributions to American biography.-Collective biographies embrace the lives of the eminent persons of a particular period, as the present time, the middle ages, or antiquity, or of a particular country; or of a particular department, as the sciences, the arts, religion, politics, war, literature. France has produced the largest number of these works, especially during and subsequent to the era of the revolution. History, surcharged with facts, is obliged to sum them up, as it were, in a table of contents, and one way of doing this is to represent ideas and events under the formulas of the names of men. In a disorganized age cyclopædic systems were needed as a sort of artifice to bring into juxtaposition the elements of history which could not be compounded in any other way. Among these collections are the lives of famous men by Petrarch, Boissard, Perrault, and D'Auvigny; of the popes from Peter to Nicholas I., by Anastasius, surnamed the "Librarian," who lived in the 9th century, whose work was revised and brought down by Platina to 1471, and by Passevinius to 1566; Bower's history of the popes, 1748-'54; Walch's compendious history of the popes from the foundation of the see of Rome to the time of the author, Leipsic, 1760; Ranke's history of the popes in the 16th and 17th centuries; a general history of ecclesiastical and sacred authors, by Cellier, in 25 volumes, and by Ellies du Pin, in 61 volumes; of "Protestant France," published by Haag; of the fathers of the church, preachers, and heretics, by Pinchinat and Pluquet; of the old French mineralogists, by Gobet; of great captains, by Brantôme and Chasteauneuf; of celebrated sailors, by Richer; of celebrated children, by Baillet and Fréville; of illustrious royal favorites, by Dupuy; of celebrated women, by Boccaccio, Rivisius, Lemoyne, Mlle. De Kéralio, and Madame Fortunée Briquet; of female philosophers, by Ménage; of women of gallantry, by Brantôme; parallel lives of some illustrious women, by Holberg; the women of the French revolution, by Michelet; of celebrated female sovereigns, and of the beauties of the court of Charles II., by Mrs. Jameson; of the queens of England and Scotland, by Miss Strickland; the female biographical dictionary, by Mrs. Sarah J. Hale; lives of the philosophers, by the venerable doctor Walter Burley, by Fénélon, Savérien, and Maigeon; of Greek poets, by Lefèvre; of Greek and Latin poets, by Voss, Fabricius, and Lanteires; the dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, by William Smith; the lives of useful men, by the society Monthyon; of the VOL. III.-18

Provençal poets, by Jehan de Nostre Dame; of the troubadours, by Fauchet, La Curne de Sainte Palaye, and Millot; of romancers and dramatic authors, by Parfait, De la Vallière, and Laborde; of musicians, by Laborde, Choron, Fayolle, Gerber, and Moore; of artists, by Fontenay and Füessli; of painters, by Vasari, Bellori, Orlandi, Pilkington, Houbraken, Felibien, Deschamps, De Piles, D'Argenville, La Ferté, Quillet, Zea Bermudez, Palomino, and Velasco; of eminent British painters, sculptors, and architects, by Allan Cunningham; of American painters, of the sculptor Greenough, and numerous biographical essays, by Henry T. Tuckerman; of engravers, by Gori, Basan, and Walpole; of architects, by Milizzia, Pingoron, and D'Argenville; the dictionary of painters, engravers, sculptors, and architects, by Spooner; of men illustrious in the republic of letters, by Niceron, in 42 volumes, Paris, 1729-245; of French poets, by Goujet, Sautreau de Marsi, Auguis, and Crapelet; of "learned Germany," by Meusel, continued by Ersch and Lindner, in 23 volumes, Lemgo, 1796-1834; a lexicon of German authors who died between 1750 and 1800, by Meusel, in 15 volumes, Leipsic, 1802-'16; lives of German poetesses, by Voss; of German female writers, by Schindel; of distinguished Germans, by Voigt, Weimar, 1824; lives of the remarkable men of the last 3 centuries, in 8 volumes, printed at Halle, 1802-'9; the German temple of honor, by Hennings, in 9 volumes, Gotha, 1809-27; the theatre of men illustrious for learning, by Paul Freher, Nuremberg, 1688; the history of the world in biographies, by Böttiger, Berlin, begun in 1839; Schlichtegroll's obituary of the Germans, Weimar, 1803-'22, in 20 volumes, subsequently continued to the present time; the dictionary of mathematicians, astronomers, natural philosophers, chemists, mineralogists, and geologists of all peoples and times, designed to serve as a history of the exact sciences, by Poggendorff, Leipsic, 1858, of which only the first volume has yet appeared; of Hebrew and Arabic authors, by Rossi; of the Turkish poets, by Hassan Tcheleby; of Mexican biography, by Eguia; of Brazilian biography, by Pareira da Sylva; of the Scalds, or ancient poets of Scandinavia, by Graberg de Hemso; of the writers of the Baltic provinces, Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia, by Recke and Napiersky; of "illustrious Europe,' by Du Radier; the Biografisk lexicon öfcer namakunnige Svenskamän, Upsal, 1835; Erslew's Almindelight forfatterlexicon for Danmark, Copenhagen, 1845-'48; of illustrious Italians, by Tipaldo, Venice, 1843-45, also by Mazzuchelli and Fabroni; of celebrated Spaniards, by Antonio, De Castro, Ximenes, and Quintana; of the distinguished Portuguese, by Machado; and Dutch and Belgians, by Foppens, Pacquo, and Burmann; the library of American biography, conducted by Jared Sparks; the medical biography by 60 physicians, Paris, 1820; dictionary of writers on medicine, by

Callisen, in 32 volumes, Copenhagen, 1829-'44; Dion's biographies of physicians; Thacher's American medical biography; lives of learned men, by Melchior Adam, 1705; lives and characters of the English dramatic poets, by Gerard Langbaine, London, 1698; Biographia Dramatica, by D. E. Baker, 1764; Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis, by John Leland; De Academiis et illustribus Angliæ Scriptoribus, by John Pits; De Scriptori bus Hibernia, by Sir James Ware; Ward's lives of the professors of Gresham college; Wood's Athena Oxonienses, or account of the writers educated at Oxford; the worthies of England, by Thomas Fuller; Walton's lives of Donne, Herbert, and Hooker; the lives of the English poets, by Dr. Johnson; of the statesmen, men of letters and science of the reign of George III., by Lord Brougham; Lord Campbell's lives of the chief justices of England; the Biographia Britannica, London, 1747-'66 (2d enlarged edition, carried only to the 5th volume, 1778-'93); a biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, by Robert Chambers, in 4 volumes, increased to 5 volumes in the last edition, 1856; Gilfillan's Scottish martyrs, heroes, and bards; Sprague's annals of the American pulpit; Wordsworth's ecclesiastical biography; Lodge's portraits of illustrious personages of Great Britain; and memoirs of eminent persons of the Georgian era. The restoration in France was the signal for an avalanche of collective biographies, most of which were written with vigor and rancor, for political or personal ends. The first of these was entitled a biographical dictionary of the weathercocks, the author of which is still unknown, which was quickly followed by lives of the ministers, deputies, peers, generals, prefects, commissaries of police, clergy, academicians, journalists, and men of letters. The most caustic and impertinent of these was the Biographie des dames de la cour et du Faubourg Saint Germain. Recently, under the name of galleries, there have been various collections of the biographies of statesmen, women, literary men, and artists, furnished with engravings, portraits, and fac-similes; an example of this is Lester's gallery of illustrious Americans. The earliest dictionary of American biography was that of Belknap, in 2 volumes, 1794-'98. Eliot's New England biographical dictionary followed in 1809, and the latest and fullest work, devoted only to American biography, is that of Allen, the last edition of which appeared in 1857. The first example of a dictionary of universal biography, designed to embrace all men eminent in whatever department, time, or place, was that of Konrad Gesner, which was published in Zurich in 1545, and has been followed by the similar German works of S. Baur, Grohmann, Fuhrmann, Hirsching, Leidenfrost, and by that of Jöcher, continued by Adelung and others, in 11 volumes. The best German universal biographies are contained in their cyclopædias, as that of Ersch and Gruber, and the Conversations-lexicon of Brockhaus. The first French

universal biographical dictionary was that of Boissinière, the 8th edition of which appeared in 1645. It was followed by the famous dictionary of Moreri, in 1673, at first in 1 volume, but successively enlarged by Jean le Clerc, Du Pin, Drouet, and Goujet, till at its 19th and last edition in 1759, it extended to 10 folio volumes; by the critical dictionary of Bayle, which appeared in 1697, had 6 editions in folio, and a revised edition by Beuchot, in 16 volumes, in 1820; by the dictionary of Chaufepié, in 1750, designed as a supplement to that of Bayle; by that of Marchand, in 1758, and that of Ladvocat, of which there have been numerous editions and imitations; by that of the abbé Barrel, in 1758, in 6 volumes; that of Chaudon, which, being continued by Delandine, reached at its 9th edition, 1810-'12, to 20 volumes; that of the abbé Feller, who called himself an anti-Chaudonist, and whose work has had several editions. The most voluminous of universal biographies, and one of the most important publications of the present century, is the Biographie universelle, by the brothers Michaud. It was begun in 1811, and had extended to 52 volumes, when it was concluded in 1828. Three additional volumes were then devoted to a mythological dictionary, prepared by Parisot. A supplement was added to it, 1834'40, which made the whole work extend to 85 volumes. A new edition was undertaken in 1854, which is still in process. The most of the learned and literary men in France, from the beginning of the century, have contributed to the Biographie universelle. Among them are Chateaubriand, De Sacy, Auger, Benjamin Constant, Walckenaer, Beuchot, Sismondi, Malte-Brun, Guizot, Villemain, Cousin, De Barante, and Biot. The articles are written with vigor, sometimes with passion, and though there are considerable diversities of philosophical and political opinion in the different contributions, the general character of the work is highly conservative. Barbier, the learned author of the Dictionnaire des Anonymes, published in 1820 a critical examination of historical dictionaries, which is a useful accompaniment to the Biographie universelle. The Biografia universale antica e moderna, published at Venice, is an Italian version of the dictionary of Michaud, with valuable additions concerning the celebrated men of Italy. After the fall of the empire, political discussions were carried on throngh the medium of biographical dictionaries. Thus the royalist party published the Biographie des vivantes, in 5 volumes, 1816'19, which was answered by the liberal party from Belgium by the Galerie historique des contemporains, in 8 volumes, and at Paris by the Biographie des contemporains, in 20 volumes, in preparing which Jay, Jouy, Arnault, and Norvins took part. The latest of the French universal biographies is the Nouvelle biographie générale, by Hoefer (published by Didot frères), not yet completed, and which is distinguished both for learning and impartiality. The English