ENCOIGNURE, in furniture, literally the angle, or return, formed by the junction of two walls. The word is now chiefly used to designate a small armoire, commode, cabinet or cupboard made to fit a corner; a chaise encoignure is called in English a three-cornered chair. In its origin the thing, like the word, is French, and the delightful Louis Quinze or Louis Seize encoignure in lacquer or in mahogany elaborately mounted in gilded bronze is not the least alluring piece of the great period of French furniture. It was made in a vast variety of forms so far as the front was concerned; in other respects it was strictly limited by its destination. As a rule these delicate and dainty receptacles were in pairs and placed in opposite angles; more often than not the top was formed of a slab of coloured marble.
ENCYCLICAL (from Late Lat. encyclicus, for encyclius = Gr. ἐγκύκλιος, from ἐν and κύκλος, “a circle”), an ecclesiastical epistle intended for general circulation, now almost exclusively used of such letters issued by the pope. The forms encyclica and encyclic are sometimes, but more rarely, used. The old adjectival use of the word in the sense of “general” (encircling) is now obsolete, though it survives in the term “encyclopaedia.”
ENCYCLOPAEDIA. The Greeks seem to have understood by encyclopaedia (ἐγκυκλοπαιδεία, or ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία) instruction in the whole circle (ἐν κυκλῷ) or complete system of learning—education in arts and sciences. Thus Pliny, in the preface to his Natural History, says that his book treated of all the subjects of the encyclopaedia of the Greeks, “Jam omnia attingenda quae Graeci τῆς ἐγκυκλοπαιδείας vocant.” Quintilian (Inst. Orat. i. 10) directs that before boys are placed under the rhetorician they should be instructed in the other arts, “ut efficiatur orbis ille doctrinae quam Graeci ἐγκυκλοπαιδείαν vocant.” Galen (De victus ratione in morbis acutis, c. 11) speaks of those who are not educated ἐν τῇ ἐγκυκλοπαιδείᾳ. In these passages of Pliny and Quintilian, however, from one or both of which the modern use of the word seems to have been taken, ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία is now read, and this seems to have been the usual expression. Vitruvius (lib. vi. praef.) calls the encyclios or ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία of the Greeks “doctrinarum omnium disciplina,” instruction in all branches of learning. Strabo (lib. iv. cap. 10) speaks of philosophy καὶ τὴν ἄλλην παιδείαν ἐγκύκλιον. Tzetzes (Chiliades, xi. 527), quoting from Porphyry’s Lives of the Philosophers, says that ἐγκύκλια μαθήματα was the circle of grammar, rhetoric, philosophy and the four arts under it, arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy. Zonaras explains it as grammar, poetry, rhetoric, philosophy, mathematics and simply every art and science (ἁπλῶς πᾶσα τέχνη καὶ ἐπιστήμη), because sophists go through them as through a circle. The idea seems to be a complete course of instruction in all parts of knowledge. An epic poem was called cyclic when it contained the whole mythology; and among physicians κύκλῳ θεραπεύειν, cyclo curare (Vegetius, De arte veterinaria, ii. 5, 6), meant a cure effected by a regular and prescribed course of diet and medicine (see Wower, De polymathia, c. 24, § 14).
The word encyclopaedia was probably first used in English by Sir Thomas Elyot. “In an oratour is required to be a heape of all maner of lernyng: whiche of some is called the worlde of science, of other the circle of doctrine, whiche is in one worde of greke Encyclopedia” (The Governour, bk. i. chap. xiii.). In his Latin dictionary, 1538, he explains “Encyclios et Encyclia, the cykle or course of all doctrines,” and “Encyclopedia, that lernynge whiche comprehendeth all lyberall science and studies.” The term does not seem to have been used as the title of a book by the ancients or in the middle ages. The edition of the works of Joachimus Fortius Ringelbergius, printed at Basel in 1541, is called on the title-page Lucubrationes vel potius absolutissima κυκλοπαιδεια. Paulus Scalichius de Lika, an Hungarian count, wrote Encyclopaediae seu orbis disciplinarum epistemon (Basileae, 1599, 4to). Alsted published in 1608 Encyclopaedia cursus philosophici, and afterwards expanded this into his great work, noticed below, calling it without any limitation Encyclopaedia, because it treats of everything that can be learned by man in this life. This is now the most usual sense in which the word encyclopaedia is used—a book treating of all the various kinds of knowledge. The form “cyclopaedia” is not merely without any appearance of classical authority, but is etymologically less definite, complete and correct. For as Cyropaedia means “the instruction of Cyrus,” so cyclopaedia may mean “instruction of a circle.” Vossius says, “Cyclopaedia is sometimes found, but the best writers say encyclopaedia” (De vitiis sermonis, 1645, p. 402). Gesner says, “κύκλος est circulus, quae figura est simplicissima et perfectissima simul: nam incipi potest ubicunque in illa et ubicunque cohaeret. Cyclopaedia itaque significat omnem doctrinarum scientiam inter se cohaerere; Encyclopaedia est institutio in illo circulo.” (Isagoge, 1774, i. 40).
In a more restricted sense, encyclopaedia means a system or classification of the various branches of knowledge, a subject on which many books have been published, especially in Germany, as Schmid’s Allgemeine Encyklopädie und Methodologie der Wissenschaften (Jena, 1810, 4to, 241 pages). In this sense the Novum Organum of Bacon has often been called an encyclopaedia. But it is “a grammar only of the sciences: a cyclopaedia is not a grammar, but a dictionary; and to confuse the meanings of grammar and dictionary is to lose the benefit of a distinction which it is fortunate that terms have been coined to convey” (Quarterly Review, cxiii. 354). Fortunius Licetus, an Italian physician, entitled several of his dissertations on Roman altars and other antiquities encyclopaedias (as, for instance, Encyclopaedia ad. Aram mysticam Nonarii, Pataviae, 1631, 4to), because in composing them he borrowed the aid of all the sciences. The Encyclopaedia moralis of Marcellinus de Pise (Paris, 1646, fol., 4 vols.) is a series of sermons. Encyclopaedia is often used to mean a book which is, or professes to be, a complete or very full collection or treatise relating to some particular subject, as Blaine’s work, The Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports (London, 1852); The Encyclopaedia of Wit (London, 1803); The Vocal Encyclopaedia (London, 1807, 16mo), a collection of songs, catches, &c. The word is frequently used for an alphabetical dictionary treating fully of some science or subject, as Murray, Encyclopaedia of Geography (London, 1834); Lefebvre Laboulaye, Encyclopédie technologique: Dictionnaire des arts et manufactures (Paris, 1845-1847). Whether under the name of “dictionary” or “encyclopaedia” large numbers of this class of reference-work have been published. These are essentially encyclopaedic, being subject books and not word-books. The important books of this character are referred to in the articles dealing with the respective subjects, but the following may be mentioned here: the Jewish Encyclopedia, in 12 vols. (1901), a descriptive record of the history, religion, literature and customs of the Jewish people from the earliest times; the Encyclopaedia of Sport, 2 vols. (1897-1898); Holtzendorff’s Encyklopädie der Rechtswissenschaft (1870; an edition in 2 vols., 1904); the Dictionary of Political Economy, edited by R.H. Inglis Palgrave, 3 vols. (1894; reprinted 1901); the Encyclopaedia Biblica, edited by T.K. Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black, 4 vols. (1899-1903); the Dictionary of the Bible, edited by James Hastings, 4 vols., with a supplementary volume (1904); an interesting series is the Répertoire général du commerce, dealing with the foreign trade of France, of which one part, the Encyclopaedia of Trade between the United States of America and France, with a preface by M. Gabriel Hanotaux, appeared, in French and English, in 1904.
The great Chinese encyclopaedias are referred to in the article on [Chinese Literature]. It will be sufficient to mention here the Wên hien t’ung k’ao, compiled by Ma Twa-lin in the 14th century, the encyclopaedia ordered to be compiled by the Emperor Yung-loh in the 15th century, and the Ku Kin t‘u shu thi ch‘êng prepared for the Emperor K‘ang-hi (d. 1721), in 5020 volumes. A copy of this enormous work, bound in some 700 volumes, is in the British Museum.
The most ancient encyclopaedia extant is Pliny’s Natural History in 37 books (including the preface) and 2493 chapters, which may be thus described generally:—book 1, preface; book 2, cosmography, astronomy and meteorology; books 3 to 6, geography; books 7 to 11, zoology, including man, and the invention of the arts; books 12 to 19, botany; books 20 to 32, medicines, vegetable and animal remedies, medical authors and magic; books 33 to 37, metals, fine arts, mineralogy and mineral remedies. Pliny, who died A.D. 79, was not a naturalist, a physician or an artist, and collected his work in his leisure intervals while engaged in public affairs. He says it contains 20,000 facts (too small a number by half, says Lemaire), collected from 2000 books by 100 authors. Hardouin has given a list of 464 authors quoted by him. His work was a very high authority in the middle ages, and 43 editions of it were printed before 1536.