LIBRARY OF ENTERTAINING KNOWLEDGE.
The Fourth Part of this well-arranged publication, is "The Pursuit of Knowledge under difficulties illustrated by Anecdotes." The matter is judiciously divided into chapters, as "Strength of the Passion for Knowledge—Humble Station no Obstacle—Obscure Origin—Artists rising from the lower to the higher classes—Late Learners—Early Age of Great Men—Self-educated Men—Literary Pursuits of Soldiers—Merchants, Booksellers, and Printers." All these heads are illustrated by anecdotes—some of them well known, others drawn from uncommon sources—and all replete with useful information, and furnishing an exhaustless store of entertainment. Such a volume is, indeed, a book for the people, and will do more towards the spread of knowledge, and the excitement of those engaged in its pursuit, than scores of fine-spun theories cramped up with technicalities. For young people we consider this book a real treasure; since the examples selected are not those of men who became intoxicated with their success, or gave up useful occupation for mere elegant literature or experimental knowledge; but the instances are chiefly of such as have turned their genius to good account, or for the benefit of themselves and their fellow men. We call such men the honourables of the land, whose examples should be written in letters of gold, and on monuments of marble, as helps to social duties and for the imitation of after times.
We have marked for our next number a few extracts which will be interesting to our readers to explain the mode by which the heads of a chapter are illustrated. The biographettes of John Hunter, Simpson, J. Stone, and Fergusson, and the introductory illustrations of Newton, are the most striking portions of the volume; and they maybe read and re-read with increasing advantage. Of Hunter and Fergusson there are good portraits.