Encyclopedias and Scientific Dictionaries. 26* 



dius, a German protestant divine, who, in the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century, published an 

 Encyclopaedia, which was highly esteemed, even 

 among catholics. It was printed at Lyons, and 

 had much circulation over a considerable part 

 of the continent of Europe. These appear to have 

 been the most important, if not the whole of the 

 works of this kind which appeared prior to the 

 eighteenth century; for the Dictionaries of Bayle, 

 and Moreri, published towards the close of the 

 preceding age, though works of great labour and 

 learning, yet being chiefly of a biographical and 

 historical nature, can scarcely have a place assigned 

 them, with propriety, in the present list. 



About the beginning of the eighteenth century,* 

 Dr. John Harris, an English clergyman, of dis- 

 tinguished erudition, published his Lexicon Tech- 

 nicam, a work in two volumes folio, embracing a 

 great variety of knowledge, as it then stood, and, 

 at that period, highly instructive and much esteem- 

 ed. The next compilation of this kind was that 

 produced by Mr. Ephraim Chambers, also of 

 Great-Britain, which first appeared in 1728, in 

 two volumes folio, and was doubtless much supe- 

 rior to all that had gone before it. Chambers 

 denominated his work a Cyclopedia. It was the 

 result of many years intense application to study > 

 and was received by the public in the most favour- 

 able manner. It went through a number of edi- 

 tions in the native country of its author, within a 

 few years after its first appearance; was soon 

 translated into the Italian language, and had many 

 honours heaped upon it by the learned of those 

 times. This work has been since enlarged and 

 printed in four volumes folio, by Dr. Rees, and 

 in this improved form is yet much valued. 



* It is believed that Dr. Harris's work was first published in 1704, 

 VOL. II. a M 



