William Adolphus Wheeler, an American lexicographer, born in Leicester, Mass., Nov. 14, 1833, died in Roxbury, Oct. 28, 1875. He graduated at Bowdoin college in 1853, taught school a few years, and became Dr. Worcester's assistant in compiling his quarto dictionary, published in 1859. To the appendix of this work he contributed a table entitled " Pronunciation of the Names of Distinguished Men of Modern Times." Subsequently, with Richard Soule, he prepared the book known as Worcester's spelling book. He was employed as general reviser of the edition of Webster's dictionary published in 1864, and contributed to it an "Explanatory and Pronouncing Vocabulary of the Names of Noted Fictitious Persons and Places," which was enlarged and published separately (12mo, Boston, 1865). He revised and edited Hole's "Brief Biographical Dictionary," and the " Dickens Dictionary," and had begun a " Cyclopaedia of Shakespearian Literature." Besides this, he left unfinished an index to the principal works of ancient and modern, literature, to be entitled "Who Wrote It?" He had been from 1867 assistant superintendent of the Boston public library.