132 WOODVILLE : ITS PETS AND ITS PUKSUTTS. 



and as he held along his path, for the sake of the like- 

 minded he still scattered pearls, well wotting that in the 

 same track the rasorial searchers after grubs and grains 

 would also find their food convenient. 



His bold experiment succeeded. Encyclopaedias are no 

 longer the monojDoly of literary dustmen and museum- 

 cinder-sifters, but are repositories in which true and able 

 men may be glad to treasure up their thoughts as well as 

 to expound their great discoveries. And much as Dr 

 Dryasdust mourns over it, a new volume is welcomed 

 like a new quarterly, and Macaulay is as eloquent, and 

 Doran as entertaining, and Goldwin Smith as masterly as 

 if he had no dull or hum-drum neighbours. All honour 

 to James Wilson for having the courage to wear his own 

 attire and speak his own idiom, in what till then had 

 been the Quaker-town of English literature. 



To go over these nine hundred pages we have found 

 anything but a drudgery — the surest sign that to the 

 author there was no sense of drudgery in compiling thorn. 

 Not only did he love the subject, but in the business of 

 composition he had enviable facility and great enjoyment. 

 Of course, there was a large amount of toil involved in 

 bringing his materials together, but as soon as he had 

 mastered the topic and collected his authorities, the pen 

 ran fast and the thought flowed free. So eminently 

 social was his turn, that he preferred to study in the 



