Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/13

. THE FORMER EDITION. vii The Biographia Britannica is indeed much more an hiftorical work than Bayle's, but is xvritten upon a much lefs extenfive plan. It con- tains the Lives of thoie eminent perrons tf/v/y, who were born in Great Britain and Ireland ; and of thefe the chief alone are felectcd, though many others have a degree of eminence fufficient to render them objects of general curiofity. The Athenae Oxonienfes is written upon a plan ftill more contracted, for it contains an account of fuch authors only, as received their academic education at the Univerfity of Oxford. Mr. Collier's Great Hiftorical, Geographical, Genealogical, Poetical Dictionary may pofiibly feem, by the pretended univerfality of its plan, to have anfwered every purpofe which can be pro- pofed from any new work : but this Dictionary is, as its title (hews, filled with Geographical and Poetical defcriptions, which are no part of our defign ; and with tedious uninterefting Genea- logies, which have neither ufe nor entertainment in them. It is exceedingly defective, both as to the number of the lives, and the fullnefs of the accounts : that is, its accounts of men are too general, too fuperficial, and indeed too ihort, to give fatisfaction. We would not have the reader a 2 to