The literary excellence of these two extensive undertakings is of the same high character. To many this will
need justification: they will not easily concede to the cheap and recent work a right to stand on the same shelf with the old and tried magazine, newly replenished with the best of everything. Those who are cognizant by use of the kind of material which fills the Penny Cyclopædia will need no further evidence: to others we shall quote a very remarkable and certainly very complete testimony. The Cyclopædia of the Physical Sciences, published by Dr. Nichol[[469]] in 1857 (noticed by us, April 4), is one of the most original of our special dictionaries. The following is an extract from the editor's preface:
"When I assented to Mr. Griffin's proposal that I should edit such a Cyclopædia, I had it in my mind that I might make the scissors eminently effective. Alas! on narrowly examining our best Cyclopædias, I found that the scissors had become blunted through too frequent and vigorous use. One great exception exists: viz., the Penny Cyclopædia of Charles Knight.[[470]] The cheapest and the least pretending, it is really the most philosophical of our scientific dictionaries. It is not made up of a series of treatises, some good and many indifferent, but is a thorough Dictionary, well proportioned and generally written by the best men of the time. The more closely it is examined, the more deeply will our obligation be felt to the intelligence and conscientiousness of its projector and editor."
After Dr. Nichol's candid and amusing announcement of his scissorial purpose, it is but fair to state that nothing of the kind was ultimately carried into effect, even upon the work in which he found so much to praise. I quote this testimony because it is of a peculiar kind.
The success of the Penny Magazine led Mr. Charles Knight in 1832 to propose to the Useful Knowledge Society a Cyclopædia in weekly penny numbers. These two works stamp the name of the projector on the literature of our day in very legible characters. Eight volumes of 480 pages each were contemplated; and Mr. Long[[471]] and Mr. Knight were to take the joint management. The plan embraced a popular account of Art and Science, with very brief biographical and geographical information. The early numbers of the work had some of the Penny Magazine character: no one can look at the pictures of the Abbot and Abbess in their robes without seeing this. By the time the second volume was completed, it was clearly seen that the plan was working out its own extension: a great development of design was submitted to, and Mr. Long became sole editor. Contributors could not be found to make articles of the requisite power in the assigned space. One of them told us that when he heard of the eight volumes, happening to want a shelf to be near at hand for containing the work as it went on, he ordered it to be made to hold twenty-five volumes easily. But the inexorable logic of facts beat him after all: for the complete work contained twenty-six volumes and two thick volumes of Supplement.
The penny issue was brought to an end by the state of the law, which required, in 1833, that the first and last page of everything sold separately should contain the name and address of the printer. The penny numbers contained this imprint on the fold of the outer leaf: and qui tam[[472]] informations were laid against the agents in various towns.
It became necessary to call in the stock; and the penny issue was abandoned. Monthly parts were substituted, which varied in bulk, as the demands of the plan became more urgent, and in price from one sixpence to three. The second volume of Supplement appeared in 1846, and during the fourteen years of issue no one monthly part was ever behind its time. This result is mainly due to the peculiar qualities of Mr. Long, who unites the talents of the scholar and the editor in a degree which is altogether unusual. If any one should imagine that a mixed mass of contributors is a punctual piece of machinery, let him take to editing upon that hypothesis, and he shall see what he shall see and learn what he shall learn.
The English contains about ten per cent more matter than the Penny Cyclopædia and its supplements; including the third supplementary volume of 1848, which we now mention for the first time. The literary work of the two editions cost within 500l. and 50,000l.: that of the two editions of the Britannica cost 41,000l. But then it is to be remembered that the Britannica had matter to begin upon, which had been paid for in the former editions. Roughly speaking, it is probable that the authorship of a page of the same size would have cost nearly the same in one as in the other.
The longest articles in the Penny Cyclopædia were "Rome" in 98 columns and "Yorkshire" in 86 columns. The only article which can be called a treatise is the Astronomer Royal's "Gravitation," founded on the method of Newton in the eleventh section, but carried to a much greater extent. In the English Cyclopædia, the longest article of geography is "Asia," in 45 columns. In natural history the antelopes demand 36 columns. In biography, "Wellington" uses up 42 columns, and his great military opponent 41 columns. In the division of Arts and Sciences, which includes much of a social and commercial character, the length of articles often depends upon the state of the