Ephraim Chambers (q.v.) published his Cyclopaedia; or an Universal Dictionary of Art and Sciences, containing an Explication of the Terms and an Account of the Things Signified thereby in the several Arts, Liberal and Mechanical, and the several Sciences, Human and Divine, London, 1728, fol. 2 vols. The dedication to the king is dated October 15, 1727. Chambers endeavoured to connect the scattered articles relating to each subject by a system of references, and to consider “the several matters, not only in themselves, but relatively, or as they respect each other; both to treat them as so many wholes and as so many parts of some greater whole.” Under each article he refers to the subject to which it belongs, and also to its subordinate parts; thus Copyhold has a reference to Tenure, of which it is a particular kind, and other references to Rolls, Custom, Manor, Fine, Charter-land and Freehold. In his preface he gives an “analysis of the divisions of knowledge,” 47 in number, with classed lists of the articles belonging to each, intended to serve as table of contents and also as a rubric or directory indicating the order in which the articles should be read. But it does so very imperfectly, as the lists are curtailed by many et caeteras; thus 19 occur in a list of 119 articles under Anatomy, which has nearly 2200 articles in Rees’s index. He omits etymologies unless “they appeared of some significance”; he gives only one grammatical form of each word, unless peculiar ideas are arbitrarily attached to different forms, as precipitate, precipitant, precipitation, when each has an article; and he omits complex ideas generally known, and thus “gets free of a vast load of plebeian words.” His work, he says, is a collection, not the produce of one man’s wit, for that would go but a little way, but of the whole commonwealth of learning. “Nobody that fell in my way has been spared, antient or modern, foreign nor domestic, Christian or Jew nor heathen.” To the subjects given by Harris he adds theology, metaphysics, ethics, politics, logic, grammar, rhetoric and poetry, but excludes history, biography, genealogy, geography and chronology, except their technical parts. A second edition appeared in 1738, fol. 2 vols., 2466 pages, “retouched and amended in a thousand places.” A few articles are added and some others enlarged, but he was prevented from doing more because “the booksellers were alarmed with a bill in parliament containing a clause to oblige the publishers of all improved editions of books to print their improvements separately.” The bill after passing the Commons was unexpectedly thrown out by the Lords; but fearing that it might be revived, the booksellers thought it best to retreat though more than twenty sheets had been printed. Five other editions were published in London, 1739 to 1751-1752, besides one in Dublin, 1742, all in 2 vols. fol. An Italian translation, Venezia, 1748-1749, 4to, 9 vols., was the first complete Italian encyclopaedia. When Chambers was in France in 1739 he rejected very favourable proposals to publish an edition there dedicated to Louis XV. His work was judiciously, honestly and carefully done, and long maintained its popularity. But it had many defects and omissions, as he was well aware; and at his death, on the 15th of May 1740, he had collected and arranged materials for seven new volumes. John Lewis Scott was employed by the booksellers to select such articles as were fit for the press and to supply others. He is said to have done this very efficiently until appointed sub-preceptor to the prince of Wales and Prince Edward. His task was entrusted to Dr (afterwards called Sir John) Hill, who performed it very hastily, and with characteristic carelessness and self-sufficiency, copying freely from his own writings. The Supplement was published in London, 1753, fol. 2 vols., 3307 pages and 12 plates. As Hill was a botanist, the botanical part, which had been very defective in the Cyclopaedia, was the best.
Abraham Rees (1743-1825), a famous Nonconformist minister, published a revised and enlarged edition, “with the supplement and modern improvements incorporated in one alphabet,” London, 1778-1788, fol. 2 vols., 5010 pages (but not paginated), 159 plates. It was published in 418 numbers at 6d. each. Rees says that he has added more than 4400 new articles. At the end he gives an index of articles, classed under 100 heads, numbering about 57,000 and filling 80 pages. The heads, with 39 cross references, are arranged alphabetically. Subsequently there were reprints.
One of the largest and most comprehensive encyclopaedias was undertaken and in a great measure completed by Johann Heinrich Zedler, a bookseller of Leipzig, who was born at Breslau 7th January 1706, made a Prussian commerzienrath in 1731, and died at Leipzig in 1760,—Grosses vollständiges Universal Lexicon Aller Wissenschaften und Künste welche bishero durch menschlichen Verstand und Witz erfunden und verbessert worden, Halle and Leipzig, 1732-1750, fol. 64 vols., 64,309 pages; and Nöthige Supplement, ib. 1751-1754, vols. i. to iv., A to Caq, 3016 pages. The columns, two in a page, are numbered, varying from 1356 in vol. li. to 2588 in vol. xlix. Each volume has a dedication, with a portrait. The first nine are the emperor, the kings of Prussia and Poland, the empress of Russia, and the kings of England, France, Poland, Denmark and Sweden. The dedications, of which two are in verse, and all are signed by Zedler, amount to 459 pages. The supplement has no dedications or portraits. The preface to the first volume of the work is by Johann Peter von Ludewig, chancellor of the university of Halle (born 15th August 1690, died 6th September 1743). Nine editors were employed, whom Ludewig compares to the nine muses; and the whole of each subject was entrusted to the same person, that all its parts might be uniformly treated. Carl Günther Ludovici (born at Leipzig 7th August 1707, public teacher of philosophy there from 1734, died 3rd July 1778) edited the work from vol. xix., beginning the letter M, and published in 1739, to the end, and also the supplement. The work was published by subscription. Johann Heinrich Wolff, an eminent merchant and shopkeeper in Leipzig, born there on the 29th of April 1690, came to Zedler’s assistance by advancing the funds for expenses and becoming answerable for the subscriptions, and spared no cost that the work might be complete. Zedler very truly says, in his preface to vol. xviii., that his Universal Lexicon was a work such as no time and no nation could show, and both in its plan and execution it is much more comprehensive and complete than any previous encyclopaedia. Colleges, says Ludewig, where all sciences are taught and studied, are on that account called universities, and their teaching is called studium universale; but the Universal Lexicon contains not only what they teach in theology, jurisprudence, medicine, philosophy, history, mathematics, &c., but also many other things belonging to courts, chanceries, hunting, forests, war and peace, and to artists, artizans, housekeepers and merchants not thought of in colleges. Its plan embraces not only history, geography and biography, but also genealogy, topography, and from vol. xviii., published in 1738, lives of illustrious living persons. Zedler inquires why death alone should make a deserving man capable of having his services and worthy deeds made known to the world in print. The lives of the dead, he says, are to be found in books, but those of the living are not to be met with anywhere, and would often be more useful if known. In consequence of this preface, many lives and genealogies were sent to him for publication. Cross references generally give not only the article referred to, but also the volume and column, and, when necessary, such brief information as may distinguish the word referred to from others similar but of different meaning. Lists of authorities, often long, exact and valuable are frequently appended to the articles. This work, which is well and carefully compiled, and very trustworthy, is still a most valuable book of reference on many subjects, especially topography, genealogy and biography. The genealogies and family histories are excellent, and many particulars are given of the lives and works of authors not easily found elsewhere.
A work on a new plan was published by Dennis de Coetlogon, a Frenchman naturalized in England, who styled himself “Knight of St Lazare, M.D., and member of the Royal Academy of Angers”—An Universal History of Arts and Sciences, London, 1745, fol. 2 vols., 2529 pages, 33 plates and 161 articles arranged alphabetically. He “endeavours to render each treatise as complete as possible, avoiding above all things needless repetitions, and never puzzling the reader with the least reference.” Theology is divided into several treatises; Philosophy into Ethicks, Logick and Metaphysick, each under its letter; and Physick is subdivided into Anatomy, Botany, Geography, Geometry, &c. Military Art is divided into Army, Fortification, Gunnery. The royal licence is dated 13th March 1740-1741, the dedication is to the duke of Gisors, the pages are numbered, there is an appendix of 35 pages of astronomical tables, and the two indexes, one to each volume, fill 69 pages, and contain about 9000 subjects. The type is large and the style diffuse, but the subject matter is sometimes curious. The author says that his work is the only one of the kind, and that he wrote out with his own hand every line, even the index. But notwithstanding the novelty of his plan, his work does not seem ever to have been popular.
Gianfrancesco Pivati, born at Padua in 1689, died at Venice in 1764, secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Venice, who had published in 1744 a 4to volume containing a Dizionario universale, wrote Nuovo dizionario scientifico e curioso sacro-profano, Venezia, 1746-1751, fol. 10 vols., 7791 pages, 597 plates. It is a general encyclopaedia, including geography, but not history or biography. He gives frequent references to his authorities and much curious information. His preliminary discourse (80 pages) contains a history of the several sciences from mathematics to geography. The book was published by subscription, and at the end of the last volume is a Catalogo dei Signori Associati, 252 in number, who took 266 copies. It is also remarkable for the number of its plates, which are engraved on copper. In each volume they are placed together at the end, and are preceded by an explanatory index of subjects referring to the plates and to the articles they illustrate.
One of the greatest and most remarkable literary enterprises of the 18th century, the famous French Encyclopédie, originated in a French translation of Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopaedia, begun in 1743 and finished in 1745 by John Mills, an Englishman resident in France, assisted by Gottfried Sellius, a very learned native of Danzig, who, after being a professor at Halle and Göttingen, and residing in Holland, had settled in Paris. They applied to Lebreton, the king’s printer, to publish the work, to fulfil the formalities required by French law, with which, as foreigners, they were not acquainted, and to solicit a royal privilege. This he obtained, but in his own name alone. Mills complained so loudly and bitterly of this deception that Lebreton had to acknowledge formally that the privilege belonged en toute propriété to John Mills. But, as he again took care not to acquaint Mills with the necessary legal formalities, this title soon became invalid. Mills then agreed to grant him part of his privilege, and in May 1745 the work was announced as Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire universel des arts et des sciences, folio, four volumes of 250 to 260 sheets each, with a fifth of at least 120 plates, and a vocabulary or list of articles in French, Latin, German, Italian and Spanish, with other lists for each language explained in French, so that foreigners might easily find any article wanted. It was to be published by subscription at 135 livres, but for large paper copies 200 livres, the first volume to be delivered in June 1746, and the two last at the end of 1748. The subscription list, which was considerable, closed on the 31st of December 1745. Mills demanded an account, which Lebreton, who had again omitted certain formalities, insultingly refused. Mills brought an action against him, but before it was decided Lebreton procured the revocation of the privilege as informal, and obtained another for himself dated the 21st of January 1746. Thus, for unwittingly contravening regulations with which his unscrupulous publisher ought to have made him acquainted, Mills was despoiled of the work he had both planned and executed, and had to return to England. Jean Paul de Gua de Malves, professor of philosophy in the college of France (born at Carcassonne in 1713, died on the 15th of June 1785), was then engaged as editor merely to correct errors and add new discoveries. But he proposed a thorough revision, and obtained the assistance of many learned men and artists, among whom Desessarts names Louis, Condillac, d’Alembert and Diderot. But the publishers did not think his reputation high enough to ensure success, withheld their confidence, and often opposed his plans as too expensive. Tired at last of disputes, and too easily offended, de Gua resigned the editorship. The publishers, who had already made heavy advances, offered it to Diderot, who was probably recommended to them by his very well received Dictionnaire universel de medicine, Paris, 1746-1748, fol. 6 vols., published by Briasson, David and Durand, with notes and additions by Julien Busson, doctor regent of the faculty of medicine of Paris. It was a translation, made with the assistance of Eidous and Toussaint, of the celebrated work of Dr Robert James, inventor of the fever powders, A Medicinal Dictionary, London, 1743-1745, fol. 3 vols., 3275 pages and 98 plates, comprising a history of drugs, with chemistry, botany and natural history so far as they relate to medicine, and with an historical preface of 99 pages (in the translation 136). The proposed work was to have been similar in character. De Gua’s papers were handed over to Diderot in great confusion. He soon persuaded the publishers to undertake a far more original and comprehensive work. His friend d’Alembert undertook to edit the mathematics. Other subjects were allotted to 21 contributors, each of whom received the articles on this subject in Mills’ translation to serve as a basis for his work. But they were in most cases so badly composed and translated, so full of errors and omissions, that they were not used. The contributions were to be finished in three months, but none was ready in time, except Music by Rousseau, which he admits was hastily and badly done. Diderot was imprisoned at Vincennes, on the 29th of July 1749, for his Lettre sur les aveugles. He was closely confined for 28 days, and was then for three months and ten days a prisoner on parole in the castle. This did not stop the printing, though it caused delay. The prospectus by Diderot appeared in November 1750. The work was to form 8 vols. fol., with at least 600 plates. The first volume was published in July 1751, and delivered to the subscribers in August. The second appeared in January 1752. An arrêt of the council, 9th of February, suppressed both volumes as injurious to the king’s authority and to religion. Malesherbes, director-general of the Librairie, stopped the issue of volume ii., 9th of February, and on the 21st went with a lettre de cachet to Lebreton’s to seize the plates and the MSS., but did not find, says Barbier, even those of volume iii., as they had been taken to his own house by Diderot and one of the publishers. The Jesuits tried to continue the work, but in vain. It was less easy, says Grimm, than to ruin philosophers. The Dictionnaire de Trévoux pronounced the completion of the Encyclopédie impossible, and the project ridiculous (5th edition, 1752, iii, 750). The government had to request the editors to resume the work as one honourable to the nation. The marquis d’Argenson writes, 7th of May 1752, that Mme de Pompadour had been urging them to proceed, and at the end of June he reports them as again at work. Volume iii., rather improved by the delay, appeared in October 1753; and volume vii., completing G, in November 1757. The clamours against the work soon recommenced. D’ Alembert retired in January 1758, weary of sermons, satires and intolerant and absurd censors. The parlement of Paris, by an arrêt, 23rd of January 1759, stopped the sale and distribution of the Encyclopédie, Helvetius’s De l’Esprit, and six other books; and by an arrêt, 6th February, ordered them all to be burnt, but referred the Encyclopédie for examination to a commission of nine. An arrêt du conseil, 7th of March, revoked the privilege of 1746, and stopped the printing. Volume viii. was then in the press. Malesherbes warned Diderot that he would have his papers seized next day; and when Diderot said he could not make a selection, or find a place of safety at such short notice, Malesherbes said, “Send them to me, they will not look for them there.” This, according to Mme de Vandeul, Diderot’s daughter, was done with perfect success. In the article Pardonner Diderot refers to these persecutions, and says, “In the space of some months we have seen our honour, fortune, liberty and life imperilled.” Malesherbes, Choiseul and Mme de Pompadour protected the work; Diderot obtained private permission to go on printing, but with a strict charge not to publish any part until the whole was finished. The Jesuits were condemned by the parlement of Paris in 1762, and by the king in November 1764. Volume i. of plates appeared in 1762, and volumes viii. to xvii., ten volumes of text, 9408 pages, completing the work, with the 4th volume of plates in 1765, when there were 4250 subscribers. The work circulated freely in the provinces and in foreign countries, and was secretly distributed in Paris and Versailles. The general assembly of the clergy, on the 20th of June 1765, approved articles in which it was condemned, and on the 27th of September adopted a mémoire to be presented to the king. They were forbidden to publish their acts which favoured the Jesuits, but Lebreton was required to give a list of his subscribers, and was put into the Bastille for eight days in 1766. A royal order was sent to the subscribers to deliver their copies to the lieutenant of police. Voltaire in 1774 relates that, at a petit souper of the king at Trianon, there was a debate on the composition of gunpowder. Mme de Pompadour said she did not know how her rouge or her silk stockings were made. The duc de la Vallière regretted that the king had confiscated their encyclopaedias, which could decide everything. The king said he had been told that the work was most dangerous, but as he wished to judge for himself, he sent for a copy. Three servants with difficulty brought in the 21 volumes. The company found everything they looked for, and the king allowed the confiscated copies to be returned. Mme de Pompadour died on the 15th of April 1764. Lebreton had half of the property in the work, and Durand, David and Briasson had the rest. Lebreton, who had the largest printing office in Paris, employed 50 workmen in printing the last ten volumes. He had the articles set in type exactly as the authors sent them in, and when Diderot had corrected the last proof of each sheet, he and his foreman, hastily, secretly and by night, unknown to his partners in the work, cut out whatever seemed to them daring, or likely to give offence, mutilated most of the best articles without any regard to the consecutiveness of what was left, and burnt the manuscript as they proceeded. The printing of the work was nearly finished when Diderot, having to consult one of his great philosophical articles in the letter S, found it entirely mutilated. He was confounded, says Grimm, at discovering the atrocity of the printer; all the best articles were in the same confusion. This discovery put him into a state of frenzy and despair from rage and grief. His daughter never heard him speak coolly on the subject, and after twenty years it still made him angry. He believed that every one knew as well as he did what was wanting in each article, but in fact the mutilation was not perceived even by the authors, and for many years was known to few persons. Diderot at first refused to correct the remaining proofs, or to do more than write the explanations of the plates. He required, according to Mme de Vandeul, that a copy, now at St Petersburg with his library, should be printed with columns in which all was restored. The mutilations began as far back as the article Intendant. But how far, says Rosenkranz, this murderous, incredible and infamous operation was carried cannot now be exactly ascertained. Diderot’s articles, not including those on arts and trades, were reprinted in Naigeon’s edition (Paris, 1821, 8vo, 22 vols.). They fill 4132 pages, and number 1139, of which 601 were written for the last ten volumes. They are on very many subjects, but principally on grammar, history, morality, philosophy, literature and metaphysics. As a contributor, his special department of the work was philosophy, and arts and trades. He passed whole days in workshops, and began by examining a machine carefully, then he had it taken to pieces and put together again, then he watched it at work, and lastly worked it himself. He thus learned to use such complicated machines as the stocking and cut velvet looms. He at first received 1200 livres a year as editor, but afterwards 2500 livres a volume, besides a final sum of 20,000 livres. Although after his engagement he did not suffer from poverty as he had done before, he was obliged to sell his library in order to provide for his daughter. De Jaucourt spared neither time, trouble nor expense in perfecting the work, for which he received nothing, and he employed several secretaries at it for ten years. To pay them he had to sell his house in Paris, which Lebreton bought with the profits derived from De Jaucourt’s work. All the publishers made large fortunes; their expenses amounted to 1,158,000 livres and their profits to 2,162,000. D’Alembert’s “Discours Preliminaire,” 45 pages, written in 1750, prefixed to the first volume, and delivered before the French Academy on his reception on the 19th of December 1754, consists of a systematic arrangement of the various branches of knowledge, and an account of their progress since their revival. His system, chiefly taken from Bacon, divides them into three classes, under memory, reason and imagination. Arts and trades are placed under natural history, superstition and magic under science de Dieu, and orthography and heraldry under logic. The literary world is divided into three corresponding classes—érudits, philosophes and beaux esprits. As in Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopaedia, history and biography were excluded, except incidentally; thus Aristotle’s life is given in the article Aristotelisme. The science to which an article belongs is generally named at the beginning of it, references are given to other articles, and the authors’ names are marked by initials, of which lists are given in the earlier volumes, but sometimes their names are subscribed in full. Articles by Diderot have no mark, and those inserted by him as editor have an asterisk prefixed. Among the contributors were Voltaire, Euler, Marmontel, Montesquieu, D’Anville, D’Holbach and Turgot, the leader of the new school of economists which made its first appearance in the pages of the Encyclopédie. Louis wrote the surgery, Daubenton natural history, Eidous heraldry and art, Toussaint jurisprudence, and Condamine articles on South America.
No encyclopaedia perhaps has been of such political importance, or has occupied so conspicuous a place in the civil and literary history of its century. It sought not only to give information, but to guide opinion. It was, as Rosenkranz says (Diderot, i. 157), theistic and heretical. It was opposed to the church, then all-powerful in France, and it treated dogma historically. It was, as Desnoiresterres says (Voltaire, v. 164), a war machine; as it progressed, its attacks both on the church and the still more despotic government, as well as on Christianity itself, became bolder and more undisguised, and it was met by opposition and persecution unparalleled in the history of encyclopaedias. Its execution is very unequal, and its articles of very different value. It was not constructed on a regular plan, or subjected to sufficient supervision; articles were sent in by the contributors, and not seen by the editors until they were in type. In each subject there are some excellent articles, but others are very inferior or altogether omitted, and references are often given to articles which do not exist. Thus marine is said to be more than three-fourths deficient; and in geography errors and omissions abound—even capitals and sovereign states are overlooked, while villages are given as towns, and towns are described which never existed. The style is too generally loose, digressive and inexact; dates are seldom given; and discursiveness, verbosity and dogmatism are frequent faults. Voltaire was constantly demanding truth, brevity and method, and said it was built half of marble and half of wood. D’Alembert compared it to a harlequin’s coat, in which there is some good stuff but too many rags. Diderot was dissatisfied with it as a whole; much of it was compiled in haste; and carelessly written articles and incompetent contributors were admitted for want of money to pay good writers. Zedler’s Universal Lexicon is on the whole much more useful for reference than its far more brilliant successor. The permanent value of encyclopaedias depends on the proportion of exact and precise facts they contain and on their systematic regularity.
The first edition of the Encyclopédie, in 17 vols. folio, 16,288 pages, was imitated by a counterfeit edition printed at Geneva as the volumes appeared in Paris. Eleven folio volumes of plates were published at Paris (1762 to 1772), containing 2888 plates and 923 pages of explanation, &c. A supplement was printed at Amsterdam and Paris (1776-1777), fol. 5 vols., 3874 pages, with 224 plates. History was introduced at the wish of the public, but only “the general features which mark epochs in the annals of the world.” The astronomy was by Delalande, mathematics by Condorcet, tables by Bernouilli, natural history by Adanson, anatomy and physiology by Haller. Daubenton, Condamine, Marmontel and other old contributors wrote many articles, and several were taken from foreign editions. A very full and elaborate index of the articles and subjects of the 33 volumes was printed at Amsterdam in 1780, fol. 2 vols. 1852 pages. It was made by Pierre Mouchon, who was born at Geneva on the 30th of July 1735, consecrated minister on the 18th of August 1758, pastor of the French church at Basel 1766, elected a pastor in Geneva on the 6th of March 1788, principal of the college there 22nd of April 1791, died on the 20th of August 1797. This Table analytique, which took him five years to make, was undertaken for the publishers Cramer and De Tournes, who gave him 800 louis for it. Though very exact and full, he designedly omits the attacks on Christianity. This index was rendered more useful and indispensable by the very diffuse and digressive style of the work, and by the vast number of its articles. A complete copy of the first edition of the Encyclopédie consists of 35 vols. fol., printed 1751-1780, containing 23,135 pages and 3132 plates. It was written by about 160 contributors. About 1761 Panckoucke and other publishers in Paris proposed a new and revised edition, and bought the plates for 250,000 livres. But, as Diderot indignantly refused to edit what he considered a fraud on the subscribers to the as yet unfinished work, they began simply to reprint the work, promising supplementary volumes. When three volumes were printed the whole was seized in 1770 by the government at the complaint of the clergy, and was lodged in the Bastille. The plan of a second French edition was laid aside then, to be revived twenty years later in a very different form. Foreign editions of the Encyclopédie are numerous, and it is difficult to enumerate them correctly. One, with notes by Ottavio Diodati, Dr Sebastiano Paoli and Carlo Giuliani, appeared at Lucca (1758-1771), fol. 17 vols. of text and 10 of plates. Though it was very much expurgated, all engaged in it were excommunicated by the pope in 1759. An attempt made at Siena to publish an Italian translation failed. An addition by the abbé Serafini and Dr Gonnella (Livourne, 1770), &c., fol. 33 vols., returned a profit of 60,000 piastres, and was protected by Leopold II., who secured the pope’s silence. Other editions are Genève, Cramer (1772-1776), a facsimile reprint. Genève, Pellet (1777-1779), 4to, 36 vols. of text and 3 of plates, with 6 vols. of Mouchon’s index (Lyon, 1780), 4to; Genève et Neufchâtel, Pellet (1778-1779), 4to, 36 vols. of text and 3 of plates; Lausanne (1778-1781), 36 vols. 4to, or 72 octavo, of text and 3 of plates (1779-1780); Lausanne et Bern, chez les Sociétés Typographiques (1780-1782), 36 vols. 8vo of text and 3 vols. 4to of plates (1782). These four editions have the supplement incorporated. Fortuné Barthelemy de Felice, an Italian monk, born at Rome on the 24th of August 1723, who had been professor at Rome and Naples, and had become a Protestant, printed a very incorrect though successful edition (Yverdun, 1770-1780) 4to, 42 vols. of text, 5 of supplement and 10 of plates. It professed to be a new work, standing in the same relationship to the Encyclopédie as that did to Chambers’s, which is far from being the case. Sir Joseph Ayloffe issued proposals, 14th December 1751, for an English translation of the Encyclopédie, to be finished by Christmas 1756, in 10 vols. 4to, with at least 600 plates. No. 1 appeared in January 1752, but met with little success. Several selections of articles and extracts have been published under the title of L’Esprit de l’Encyclopédie. The last was by Hennequin (Paris, 1822-1823), 8vo, 15 vols. An English selection is Select Essays from the Encyclopedy (London, 1773), 8vo. The articles of most of the principal contributors have been reprinted in the editions of their respective works. Voltaire wrote 8 vols. 8vo of a kind of fragmentary supplement, Questions sur l’Encyclopédie, frequently printed, and usually included in editions of his works, together with his contributions to the Encyclopédie and his Dictionnaire philosophique. Several special dictionaries have been formed from the Encyclopédie, as the Dictionnaire portatif des arts et métiers (Paris, 1766), 8vo, 2 vols. about 1300 pages, by Philippe Macquer, brother of the author of the Dict. de chimie. An enlarged edition by the abbé Jaubert (Paris, 1773), 5 vols. 8vo, 3017 pages, was much valued and often reprinted. The books attacking and defending the Encyclopédie are very many. No original work of the 18th century, says Lanfrey, has been more depreciated, ridiculed and calumniated. It has been called chaos, nothingness, the Tower of Babel, a work of disorder and destruction, the gospel of Satan and even the ruins of Palmyra.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica, “by a society of gentlemen in Scotland, printed in Edinburgh for A. Bell and C. Macfarquhar, and sold by Colin Macfarquhar at his printing office in Nicolson Street,” was completed in 1771 in 3 volumes 4to, containing 2670 pages, and 160 copperplates engraved by Andrew Bell. It was published in numbers, of which the two first were issued in December 1768, “price 6d. each, or 8d on a finer paper,” and was to be completed in 100 weekly numbers. It was compiled, as the title-page says, on a new plan. The different sciences and arts were “digested into distinct treatises or systems,” of which there are 45 with cross headings, that is, titles printed across the page, and about 30 other articles more than three pages long. The longest are “Anatomy,” 166 pages, and “Surgery,” 238 pages. “The various technical terms, &c., are explained as they occur in the order of the alphabet.” “Instead of dismembering the sciences, by attempting to treat them intelligibly under a multitude of technical terms, they have digested the principles of every science in the form of systems or distinct treatises, and explained the terms as they occur in the order of the alphabet, with references to the sciences to which they belong.” This plan, as the compilers say, differs from that of all the previous dictionaries of arts and sciences. Its merit and novelty consist in the combination of De Coetlogon’s plan with that in common use,—on the one hand keeping important subjects together, and on the other facilitating reference by numerous separate articles. It is doubtful to whom the credit of this plan is due. The editor, William Smellie, a printer (born in 1740, died on the 24th of June 1795), afterwards secretary and superintendent of natural history to the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, is said by his biographer to have devised the plan and written or compiled all the chief articles; and he prints, but without date, part of a letter written and signed by Andrew Bell by which he was engaged in the work:—“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 subdivisions and detached parts of these conform 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, &c.” Prof. Macvey Napier says that Smellie “was more likely to have suggested that great improvement than any of his known coadjutors.” Archibald Constable, who was interested in the work from 1788, and was afterwards intimately acquainted with Bell, says Colin Macfarquhar was the actual projector of the Encyclopaedia, and the editor of the two first editions, while Smellie was merely “a contributor for hire” (Memoirs, ii. 311). Dr Gleig, in his preface to the third edition, says: “The idea had been conceived by him (Colin Macfarquhar) and his friend Mr Andrew Bell, engraver. By whom these gentlemen were assisted in digesting the plan which attracted to that work so much public attention, or whether they had any assistance, are questions in which our readers cannot be interested.” Macfarquhar, according to Constable, was a person of excellent taste and very general knowledge, though at starting he had little or no capital, and was obliged to associate Bell, then the principal engraver in Edinburgh, as a partner in his undertaking.
The second edition was begun in 1776, and was published in numbers, of which the first was issued on the 21st of June 1777, and the last, No. 181, on the 18th of September 1784, forming 10 vols. 4to, dated 1778 to 1783, and containing 8595 pages and 340 plates. The pagination is continuous, ending with page 9200, but 295 pages are inserted in various places, and page 7099 is followed by 8000. The number and length of the articles were much increased, 72 have cross headings, and more than 150 others may be classed as long articles. At the end is an appendix (“Abatement” to “Wood”) of 200 pages, containing, under the heading Botanical Table, a list of the 931 genera included in the 58 natural orders of Linnaeus, and followed by a list of 526 books, said to have been the principal authorities used. All the maps are placed together under the article “Geography” (195 pages). Most of the long articles have numbered marginal titles; “Scotland,” 84 pages, has 837. “Medicine,” 309 pages, and “Pharmacy” have each an index. The plan of the work was enlarged by the addition of history and biography, which encyclopaedias in general had long omitted. “From the time of the second edition of this work, every cyclopaedia of note, in England and elsewhere, has been a cyclopaedia, not solely of arts and sciences, but of the whole wide circle of general learning and miscellaneous information” (Quarterly Review, cxiii. 362). Smellie was applied to by Bell to edit the second edition, and to take a share of one-third in the work; but he refused, because the other persons concerned in it, at the suggestion of “a very distinguished nobleman of very high rank” (said by Professor Napier to have been the duke of Buccleuch), insisted upon the introduction of a system of general biography which he considered inconsistent with the character of a dictionary of arts and sciences. James Tytler, M.A., seems to have been selected as the next most eligible compiler. His father, a man of extensive knowledge, was 53 years minister of Fearn in Forfarshire, and died in 1785. Tytler (outlawed by the High Court of Justiciary, 7th of January 1793, buried at Salem in Massachusetts on the 11th of January 1804, aged fifty-eight) “wrote,” says Watt, “many of the scientific treatises and histories, and almost all the minor articles” (Bibliotheca Brit.).