We have been astonished by some instances of slovenly writing to be found here and there in Dr. Webster's Dictionary, because he was capable of writing pure and vigorous English. Under MAGAZINE (and by the way, Dr. Webster's definition omits altogether the metaphorical sense of the word) we read that "The first publication of this bind in England was the _Gentleman's Magazine_, which first appeared in 1731, under the name of _Sylvanus Urban_, by Edward Cave, and which is still continued." A reader who knew nothing about the facts would be puzzled to say what the name of the new periodical really was, whether _Gentleman's Magazine_ or _Sylvanus Urban_; and a reader who knew little about English would be led to think that "appeared by" was equivalent to "was commenced by," unless, indeed, he came to the conclusion that its apparition took place in the neighborhood of some cavern known by the name of Edward. We have only a word to say as to the _illustrations_, as they are called, a mistaken profuseness in which disfigures both Dictionaries, another evil result of bookselling competition. The greater part of them, especially those in Webster, are fitter for a child's scrap-book than for a volume intended to go into a student's library. Such adjuncts seem to us allowable only, if at all, somewhat as they were introduced by Blunt in his "Glossographia," to make terms of heraldry more easily comprehensible. They might be admitted to save trouble in describing geometrical figures, or in explaining certain of the more frequently occurring terms in architecture and mechanics, but beyond this they are childish. The publishers of Webster give us all the coats-of-arms of the States of the American Union, among other equally impertinent woodcuts. We enter a protest against the whole thing, as an equally unfair imputation on the taste and the standard of judgment of intelligent Americans. If we must have illustrations, let them be strictly so, and not primer-pictures. Both Dictionaries give us the figure of a crossbow, for instance, as if there could be anywhere a boy of ten years old who did not know the implement, at least under its other name of _bow-gun_. Neither cut would give the slightest notion of the thing as a weapon, nor of the mode in which it was wound up and let off. Dr. Worcester says that it was intended "for shooting _arrows_," which is not strictly correct, since the proper name of the missile it discharged was _bolt_,--something very unlike the shaft used by ordinary bowmen.