More than one-third of the task assumed by the editors of this work is now completed; and the best testimony in its favor is, that, although it has been freely criticized, sometimes with closeness and severity, and sometimes with studied harshness and evident malice, its reputation has risen among candid and competent readers with the appearance of each volume.  Faults, negative and positive, may undoubtedly be discovered in it; but the same is true, in a greater or less degree, of every other production of human labor; and the eyes neither of malice nor of hypercriticism have been able to find any sufficient reason why this Cyclopaedia should not be accepted as the beat popular dictionary of general knowledge in the English language.  As the work advances, the comprehensiveness of its plan, the honesty of its purpose, and the truly catholic and liberal spirit which animates it, become more and more apparent; and the names of the authors of the articles (a list of which is to be published, we believe, with the last volume) sufficiently show the determination of the editors to secure the cooperation of the first talent in the country.  Among the contributors to the present volume are the Rev. Dr. Bellows, Edmund Blunt, Dion Bourcicault, Professor Dana of Yale College, Edward Everett, Professor Felton of Cambridge, Parke Godwin, Richard Hildreth, George S. Hillard, William Henry Hurlbut, and Professors Lowell and Parsons of Cambridge.

Of the articles, we especially notice Cranmer, remarkable for the candor and the coolness of perception with which the character of its benevolent and gifted, but inconsistent and vacillating subject, is discussed:—­Cromwell, which gives a completer, more authentic, and less prejudiced account of the eventful life of the great Puritan leader than is to be found in any other publication known to us:—­Crusades, a complete picture in little of those great fitful blazes of religious enthusiasm by which it flickered into its final extinction; (for, afterward, only a semblance of it was made a stalking-horse by politicians;) and this article is quite a model of epitome:—­Cuneiform Inscriptions, in which the writer has presented concisely and clearly the fruits of a careful examination of all the many theories that have been broached with regard to these important and puzzling records of the ancient world, without revealing a preference, if he have one, for any; a wise course, where, in a case of such consequence, the views of learned men are so conflicting, but one not always easily followed:—­Damascus Blades, a very interesting, and, for general purposes, a very full description of the peculiarities of those famous, and, it appears, not too much lauded weapons:—­Deaf and Dumb, a very copious article of eleven pages, rich in historical and biographical detail, and giving full accounts of the various methods of instruction adopted for this class of persons in all times and