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ENCYCLOPAEDIA


and “Socrates” were supplied by Dr Hampden, afterwards bishop of Hereford. Among the numerous contributors of eminence, mention may be made of Sir David Brewster, Prof. Phillips, Prof. Spalding, John Hill Burton, Thomas De Quincey, Patrick Fraser Tytler, Capt. Basil Hall, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Antonio Panizzi, John Scott Russell and Robert Stephenson. Zoology was divided into 11 chief articles, “Mammalia,” “Ornithology,” “Reptilia,” “Ichthyology,” “Mollusca,” “Crustacea,” “Arachnides,” “Entomology,” “Helminthology,” “Zoophytes,” and “Animalcule”—all by James Wilson.

The eighth edition, 1853–1860, 4to, 21 vols. (and index of 239 pages, 1861), containing 17,957 pages and 402 plates, with many woodcuts, was edited by Dr Thomas Stewart Traill, professor of medical jurisprudence in Edinburgh University. The dissertations were reprinted, with one on the “Rise, Progress and Corruptions of Christianity” (97 pages), by Archbishop Whately, and a continuation of Leslie’s to 1850, by Professor James David Forbes, 198 pages, the work of nearly three years, called by himself his “magnum opus” (Life, pp. 361, 366). Lord Macaulay, Charles Kingsley, Isaac Taylor, Hepworth Dixon, Robert Chambers, Rev. Charles Merivale, Rev. F. W. Farrar, Sir John Richardson, Dr Scoresby, Dr Hooker, Henry Austin Layard, Edw. B. Eastwick, John Crawfurd, Augustus Petermann, Baron Bunsen, Sir John Herschel, Dr Lankester, Professors Owen, Rankine, William Thomson, Aytoun, Blackie, Daniel Wilson and Jukes, were some of the many eminent new contributors found among the 344 authors, of whom an alphabetical list is given, with a key to the signatures. In the preface a list of 279 articles by 189 writers, classed under 15 heads, is given. This edition was not wholly reset like the seventh, but many long articles were retained almost or entirely intact.

The publication of the ninth edition (A. & C. Black) was commenced in January 1875, under the editorship of Thomas Spencer Baynes until 1880, and subsequently of W. Robertson Smith, and completed in 1889, 24 vols., with index. This great edition retained a certain amount of the valuable material in the eighth, but was substantially a new work; and it was universally acknowledged to stand in the forefront of the scholarship of its time. Its contributors included the most distinguished men of letters and of science. In 1898 a reprint, sold at about half the original price, and on the plan of payment by instalments, was issued by The Times of London; and in 1902, under the joint editorship of Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, President Arthur T. Hadley of Yale University, and Hugh Chisholm, eleven supplementary volumes were published, forming, with the 24 vols. of the ninth edition, a tenth edition of 35 volumes. These included a volume of maps, and an elaborate index (vol. 35) to the whole edition, comprising some 600,000 entries. In May 1903 a start was made with the preparation of the 11th edition, under the general editorship of Hugh Chisholm, with W. Alison Phillips as chief assistant-editor, and a staff of editorial assistants, the whole work of organization being conducted up to December 1909 from The Times office. Arrangements were then made by which the copyright and control of the Encyclopaedia Britannica passed to Cambridge University, for the publication at the University Press in 1910–1911 of the 29 volumes (one being Index) of the 11th edition, a distinctive feature of this issue being the appearance of the whole series of volumes practically at the same time.

A new and enlarged edition of the Encyclopédie arranged as a system of separate dictionaries, and entitled Encyclopédie méthodique ou par ordre de matières, was undertaken by Charles Joseph Panckoucke, a publisher of Paris (born at Lille on the 26th of November 1736, died on the 19th of December 1798). His privilege was dated the 20th of June 1780. The articles belonging to different subjects would readily form distinct dictionaries, although, having been constructed for an alphabetical plan, they seemed unsuited for any system wholly methodical. Two copies of the book and its supplement were cut up into articles, which were sorted into subjects. The division adopted was: 1, mathematics; 2, physics; 3, medicine; 4, anatomy and physiology; 5, surgery; 6, chemistry, metallurgy and pharmacy; 7, agriculture; 8, natural history of animals, in six parts; 9, botany; 10, minerals; 11, physical geography; 12, ancient and modern geography; 13, antiquities; 14, history; 15, theology; 16, philosophy; 17, metaphysics, logic and morality; 18, grammar and literature; 19, law; 20, finance; 21, political economy; 22, commerce; 23, marine; 24, art militaire; 25, beaux arts; 26, arts et métiers—all forming distinct dictionaries entrusted to different editors. The first object of each editor was to exclude all articles belonging to other subjects, and to take care that those of a doubtful nature should not be omitted by all. In some words (such as air, which belonged equally to chemistry, physics and medicine) the methodical arrangement has the unexpected effect of breaking up the single article into several widely separated. Each dictionary was to have an introduction and a classified table of the principal articles. History and its minor parts, as inscriptions, fables, medals, were to be included. Theology, which was neither complete, exact nor orthodox, was to be by the abbé Bergier, confessor to Monsieur. The whole work was to be completed and connected together by a Vocabulaire Universel, 1 vol. 4to, with references to all the places where each word occurred, and a very exact history of the Encyclopédie and its editions by Panckoucke. The prospectus, issued early in 1782, proposed three editions—84 vols. 8vo, 43 vols. 4to with 3 columns to a page, and 53 vols. 4to of about 100 sheets with 2 columns to a page, each edition having 7 vols. 4to of 250 to 300 plates each. The subscription was to be 672 livres from the 15th of March to July 1782, then 751, and 888 after April 1783. It was to be issued in livraisons of 2 vols. each, the first (jurisprudence, vol. i., literature, vol. i.) to appear in July 1782, and the whole to be finished in 1787. The number of subscribers, 4072, was so great that the subscription list of 672 livres was closed on the 30th of April. Twenty-five printing offices were employed, and in November 1782 the 1st livraison (jurisprudence, vol. i., and half vol. each of arts et métiers and histoire naturelle) was issued. A Spanish prospectus was sent out, and obtained 330 Spanish subscribers, with the inquisitor-general at their head. The complaints of the subscribers and his own heavy advances, over 150,000 livres, induced Panckoucke, in November 1788, to appeal to the authors to finish the work. Those en retard made new contracts, giving their word of honour to put their parts to press in 1788, and to continue them without interruption, so that Panckoucke hoped to finish the whole, including the vocabulary (4 or 5 vols.), in 1792. Whole sciences, as architecture, engineering, hunting, police, games, &c., had been overlooked in the prospectus; a new division was made in 44 parts, to contain 51 dictionaries and about 124 vols. Permission was obtained on the 27th of February 1789, to receive subscriptions for the separate dictionaries. Two thousand subscribers were lost by the Revolution. The 50th livraison appeared on the 23rd of July 1792, when all the dictionaries eventually published had been begun except seven—jeux familiers and mathématiques, physics, art oratoire, physical geography, chasses and pêches; and 18 were finished,—mathematics, games, surgery, ancient and modern geography, history, theology, logic, grammar, jurisprudence, finance, political economy, commerce, marine, arts militaires, arts académiques, arts et métiers, encyclopediana. Supplements were added to military art in 1797, and to history in 1807, but not to any of the other 16, though required for most long before 1832. The publication was continued by Henri Agasse, Panckoucke’s son-in-law, from 1794 to 1813, and then by Mme Agasse, his widow, to 1832, when it was completed in 102 livraisons or 337 parts, forming 1661/2 vols. of text, and 51 parts containing 6439 plates. The letterpress issued with the plates amounts to 5458 pages, making with the text 124,210 pages. To save expense the plates belonging to architecture were not published. Pharmacy (separated from chemistry), minerals, education, ponts et chaussées had been announced but were not published, neither was the Vocabulaire Universel, the key and index to the whole work, so that it is difficult to carry out any research or to find all the articles on any subject. The original parts have been so often subdivided, and have been so added to by other dictionaries, supplements and appendices, that, without going into great detail, an exact account cannot be given of the work, which contains 88 alphabets, with 83 indexes, and 166 introductions, discourses, prefaces, &c. Many dictionaries have a classed index of articles; that of économie politique is very excellent, giving the contents of each article, so that any passage can be found easily. The largest dictionaries are medicine, 13 vols., 10,330 pages; zoology, 7 dictionaries, 13,645 pages, 1206 plates; botany, 12,002 pages, 1000 plates (34 only of cryptogamic plants); geography, 3 dictionaries and 2 atlases, 9090 pages, 193 maps and plates; jurisprudence (with police and municipalities), 10 vols., 7607 pages. Anatomy,