Abbe-Barrymore

When Diderot, leader of France's 18th century philosophes, edited his great Encyclopaedia, he was harassed and vilified. Valuable plates were destroyed by Government agents; behind his back, articles were viciously, cruelly emasculated.

When Dr. Samuel Johnson compiled his great Dictionary, he was nagged, hounded by printer's devils. "The great" offered no help; alone he struggled, published.

However, when the late Sir Leslie Stephen started the English Dictionary of National Biography, he received encouraging letters from his friends Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, Henry James; later he was made Knight Commander of the Bath.

And last week, when Dr. Allen Johnson published the first volume of the Dictionary of American Biography, he was feted, dined by luminaries of worlds educational, literary, journalistic. It was inescapable that when Sir Leslie published his biographical dictionary he should be compared to Samuel Johnson. Friends found the same bluff exterior, the same "heart," the same relish in humor. The parallel between Dr. Allen Johnson and Dr. Samuel is obvious, superficial. Dr. Allen Johnson is diffident, crisp, quietly intellectual. Graduated from Amherst in 1892 he received his M. A. from that col lege three years later, the same year that President Coolidge was graduated cum laude. He has published a biography of Stephen A. Douglas, has delved deeply in to early Americana. At Yale, he was Larned Professor of American History. Since 1926 he has edited his Dictionary. The Dictionary will contain in 20 volumes the names of all persons who have made important contributions to American life. No living persons will be mentioned and no persons who "have not lived in the territory now known as the United States." Thus foreigners like the Revolutionary Marquis de La Fayette will undoubtedly find their place in a later volume. As it is the first volume already includes such names as Astronomer Cleve land Abbe (4 columns) ; British Baron Jeffrey Amherst (3 columns) ; President Chester A. Arthur (6 columns) ; Showman Phineas Taylor Barnum (5 columns); Actor Maurice Barrymore (2 columns). The need of such a dictionary was first voiced by the American Council of Learned Societies in 1922. Dr. Johnson was appointed editor-in-chief, and a com mittee cast about to find sufficient funds to start the work. Funds ($500,000) were speedily donated on behalf of the New York Times by its publisher and control ling owner, Adolph S. Ochs. The first volume is a dignified maroon tome. The biographies are entertaining, lucid, informative. There are no pictures. The publishers (Charles Scribner's Sons, Manhattan) are selling the first volume for $12.50, will sell the complete set 6 years hence for $250.