And yet this is the encyclopædia which has been foisted upon the American people by means of a P. T. Barnum advertising campaign almost unprecedented in book history. And this also is the encyclopædia which, in that campaign, called itself “a history of all nations, an international dictionary of biography, an exhaustive gazetteer of the world, a hand-book to all the arts”; and which announced that “every artist or sculptor of note of any period, and of any land is the subject of an interesting biography.” This last statement is true only in the case of Great Britain. It is, as we have seen, not true of France or Germany; and especially is it not true of America. Not only are many American artists and sculptors of note omitted entirely, but many of those who have been awarded mention are the victims of English insular prejudice. Looking up Benjamin West, who, by historians and critics has always been regarded as an American artist, we find him designated as an “English” painter. The designation is indeed astonishing, since not only does the world know him as an American, but West himself thought that he was an American. Perhaps the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, by some obscure process of logic, considers nationality from the standpoint of one’s sentimental adoption. This being the case, Richard Le Gallienne would be an “American” poet. But when we turn to Le Gallienne’s biography we discover that, after all, he is “English.” Apparently the rule does not work with Englishmen. It is true that West went to London and lived there; but he was born in the United States, gained a reputation for painting here, and did not go to England until he was twenty-five. It is noteworthy that West, the “English” painter, is accorded considerable space. Whistler, who also chose England in preference to America, is given nearly a page and a half with not unfavorable criticism. We cannot refrain from wondering what would have been Whistler’s fate at the hands of the Encyclopædia’s editors had he remained in his native country. Sargent, surely a painter of considerable importance and one who is regarded in many enlightened quarters as a great artist, is dismissed with less than half a column! Even this comparatively long biography for an American painter may be accounted for by the following comment: “Though of the French school, and American by birth, it is as a British artist that he won fame.” Again, Abbey receives high praise and quite a long biography, comparatively speaking. Once more we wonder if this painter’s adoption of England as his home does not account for his liberal treatment. Albert F. Bellows, too, gets fourteen lines, in which it is noted that “he painted much in England.”