Chap. XXIV.] Encydopccdias, &;c. US 



on some subjects, it is far from containing the 

 same depth and extent of scientific research 

 with the French Ency dope die, yet it presents a 

 rich variety of knowledge, and in the general 

 usefulness of its tendency far exceeds that cele- 

 brated performance. 



From the last edition of the Encydopcedia Bri- 

 tannica., an American impression has been given 

 by Mr. Thomas Dobson, a respectable printer 

 and bookseller of Philadelphia, who, with a de- 

 gree of zeal and enterprise then altogether un- 

 rivalled in the United States, soon after the 

 commencement of the publication in Britain, an- 

 nounced his intention of giving it to the Ame- 

 rican public through the medium of his own 

 press. His plan has been executed in a manner 

 equally honourable to himself and his patrons 3 

 and his edition, on account of many valuable 

 additions and corrections, deserves to be consi- 

 dered as decidedly superior to that from which 

 the greater part of it was copied*. 



In 17S3 some of the literati of France, not sa- 

 tisfied either with the plan or the execution of 

 the grand Encydopedie, which had attracted so 

 much of the public attention, commenced a new 

 work under the title of the Encydopedie Metho' 

 dique. This has been, with some propriety, called 

 a Didionary of Diclionaries. It is entirely on a 

 new plan, and was lately finished, having reached 

 the wonderful extent of tiuo hundred volamts in 

 quarto. It is scarcely necessary to say, that this 



* Beside other new matter, Mr. Dobson's edition contains 

 much important information respecting the United States not 

 contained in tJie work as it game from the British prcia. 



