Another work, however, afterwards thrown on the market, which also became the property of Messrs. A. and C. Black, is of such literary importance that we must again for a moment retrace our steps, in order to keep up the proper sequence of our narrative.
The idea of a compilation that should embrace all human knowledge is of very great antiquity. Pliny, in fact claims the name of “Encyclopædia” for his Natural History; but it was not till the sixteenth century that any attempt was made at arranging the matter in a systematic manner, though the Arabians are said to have had a true Encyclopædia centuries before that date. It was long, however, before the idea occurred of employing the lexographic plan as a basis of a universal répertoire of learning, and the first great step in advance was the Lexicon Technicum of Dr. Harris, completed and published at London in the year 1710. The Cyclopædia of Ephraim Chambers, with which we have previously dealt, appeared in 1728, and for a long time was the supreme authority; through its success at home and abroad a new impulse was given to the desire for such publications. In France the Encyclopédie was projected by the Abbé de Gua, and was based originally on an unpublished translation of Chambers’s Cyclopædia, made by an Englishman named Mills. In consequence of a quarrel with the publishers, De Gua threw it up, and it was then transferred to Diderot and D’Alembert; to become the text-book of the French philosophers. The publication of the seventeen volumes extended from 1751 to 1765, and six years after the latter date appeared the first volume of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
The plan and all the principal articles of this now important work were in this first edition devised and written by William Smellie.
Smellie began life as a compositor, and he used to lay down his composing-stick for an hour or two daily to attend the classes of the Edinburgh University. At the age of nineteen he was engaged by Murray and Cochrane as corrector of their press in general and conductor and compiler of the Scots Magazine at a salary of sixteen shillings a week. If the saying that “Edinburgh never had a Grub Street” is true, it must have arisen rather from the perseverance of the writers than from the uniform generosity of the publishers.
The agreement upon which the Encyclopædia was undertaken was still in existence when Kerr wrote Smellie’s Life; as a literary curiosity we quote it:—
“Mr. Andrew Bell to Mr. William Smellie.
“Sir,—As we are engaged in publishing a ‘Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences,’ and as you have informed us that there are fifteen capital sciences, which you will undertake for, and write up the sub-divisions and detached parts of them, conforming to your plan, and likewise to prepare the whole work for the press, &c., &c. We hereby agree to allow you £200 for your trouble.”
The first proprietors were Andrew Bell, engraver, and Colin Macfarquhar, printer. The publication was commenced in weekly numbers in 1771, and completed in 1773, by which time the bulk in all consisted only of three small quarto volumes. A second edition was called for in 1776, and Smellie was offered a share in the property, but he declined to have anything more to do with it, as upon the recommendation of “a very distinguished nobleman” it was resolved to introduce a complete system of biography. The proprietors engaged, instead, James Tytler, a laborious miscellaneous writer, and a man of extraordinary knowledge. A large proportion of the additional matter, by which the work was extended from three to ten volumes, was due to his pen, but the payment for this labour is said to have been very small, and the unfortunate author was not able to support his family in a style superior to that of a common labourer. At one time, during the progress of the work, he lived at the village of Duddingston, in the house of a washerwoman, whose tub inverted formed the only desk at his disposal, and one of his children was frequently despatched with a parcel of “copy” upon which their next meal depended.
This second edition consisted of 1500 copies, and extended to ten volumes quarto. The third edition, to which Tytler also contributed, was commenced in 1789. Till then it had been considered in the south as “a Scots rival of little repute” (to Chambers’s Cyclopædia), but in this edition, beside the method and comprehensiveness of the plan, it rose greatly above its former level in its practical and speculative departments. It was completed in 1797, in eighteen volumes, to which Professor Robison supplied two supplementary volumes to complete the series he had commenced when the principal work was far advanced. The sale of this edition extended to ten thousand copies, and the proprietors are said to have netted £42,000 of clear profit, besides being paid for their respective work—the one as printer, the other as engraver. Much of this, of course, was due to poor Tytler’s labours, who was still living in the utmost penury. He was, however, perfectly regardless about poverty, having no desire to conceal it from the world. He would finish his frugal meal of a cold potato before the eyes of a stranger with as much nonchalance as if it had been a sumptuous repast. He had that contentment with poverty which is so apt to make it permanent, and this, in addition to his imprudent and intemperate habits, cut off all chance of a higher social position. As a proof of his extraordinary stock of general knowledge, his biographer relates a characteristic anecdote.
“A gentleman in this city of Edinburgh once told me he wanted as much matter as would form a junction between a certain history and its continuation to a later period. He found Tytler lodged in one of those elevated apartments called garrets, and was informed by the old woman with whom he resided, that he could not see him, as he had gone to bed rather the worse for liquor. Determined, however, not to depart without his errand, he was shown into Mr. Tytler’s apartment by the light of a lamp, where he found him in the situation described by the landlady. The gentleman having acquainted him with the nature of the business which brought him at so late an hour, Mr. Tytler called for pen and ink, and in a short time produced about a page and a half of letterpress, which answered the end as completely as if it had been the result of the most mature deliberation, previous notice, and a mind undisturbed by any liquid capable of deranging its ideas.”
On the death of Macfarquhar the whole work became the property of Andrew Bell.