The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 37, July 1933 - April, 1934 Page: 152

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

Campbell; and Judge A. S. Lipscomb by Professor Charles S.
Potts.
The Dictionary, which is fostered by the American Council of
Learned Societies and subsidized by Mr. Adolph S. Ochs and the
New York Times Company, has maintained throughout a high
standard of factual accuracy combined with at least a respectable
literary style. While every discerning reader will question-on
the basis of national importance-the inclusion of some charac-
ters (for example, in this volume, Little Crow V, "a drunkard
and a comfirmed liar, with few redeeming qualities") and the
omission of others more deserving, most of us will agree that
the subjects are selected with striking catholicity and treated
with notable objectivity.
Naturally, the Dictionary becomes more nearly indispensable
with each succeeding volume. It is to be regretted that the price
puts it beyond the convenient reach of many private libraries;
but schools and public libraries can usually compass the purchase
by the installment-plan route.
EUGENE C. BARKER.
Life of John Taylor. By Henry H. Simms. (Richmond, Va.:
The William Byrd Press, Inc., 1932. Pages viii, 234.)
Under the subtitle, The Story of a Brilliant Leader in the
Early Virginia State Rights School, Professor Henry H. Simms
of Ohio State University has written a very thorough and fas-
cinating biography of the man whom Professor Dodd once called
the "prophet of secession."
Stating that "the place and time of Taylor's birth are not
definitely established," the author figures out that "Mill Farm"
in Caroline County and December 19, 1753, were the place and
time. Taylor first attended private school; in 1770 he entered
William and Mary College; he read law for a while under his
guardian, uncle and cousin, Judge Edmund Pendleton, and en-
tered the profession in 1774; from 1775 to 1782 he fought for
American independence, attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel;
he was a member of the Virginia Legislature from 1779 to 1785,
except for the year 1782, and from 1796 to 1800; the decade 1783

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