PUBLISHED BY 



GRIFFIN AND COMPANY, 



LONDON AND GLASGOW. 



ENCYCLOPAEDIA METROPOLITANA; 



r, Spstent of SEtuDersal Itnotolefige : 

 ON A METHODICAL PLAN, PROJECTED BY S. T. COLERIDGE. 



New and Revised Edition^ printed in Crown 8vo. 

 Published in Monthly Volumes, each containing a Complete Treatise. 



The SECOND EDITION of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA METROPOLITANA, will be 

 handsomely printed in a series of CABINET VOLUMES in CROWN OCTAVO, 

 on Long Primer Type. The whole Work will be THOROUGHLY REVISED, 

 many NEW TREATISES will be added, and the articles will all be provided 

 with comprehensive INDEXES, or with analytical TABLES OF CONTENTS. 

 It will be abundantly Illustrated by Maps, Woodcuts, and Engravings. 

 The PLAN of the WORK, the NAMES of the CONTRIBUTORS, and a Detailed 

 Account of the CONTENTS, are given in a PROSPECTUS, which may be had 

 gratis of all Booksellers. 



CRITICAL OPINIONS OF THIS WORK, 



" The greatest and most important literary enterprise of the time." Critic. 



" A great mistake was made in the determination, adopted by the original proprietors of the 

 Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, not to sell their treatises separately. While many were asking 

 after the valuable separate works which the proprietors had caused to be written, they supplied 

 the demand by offers of detached portions at a guinea each. ' Herschel on Light,' for instance, 

 which was translated into French, and could thus be procured for a few shillings, formed a por- 

 tion of five or six guinea parts, and latterly of a bulky volume. The string is broken by the new 

 proprietors, who have a better eye to their own interest ; and the bulky Encyclopedia has become 

 a collection of separately-sold treatises. There is no greater mistake than the supposition that 

 the public will buy any whole on a large scale for the sake of some of the parts, when they 

 do not want the rest. A few persons may be compelled to make the outlay ; but the publisher's 

 profit is made generally by the maxim that much silver is better than little gold, and that four 

 may often be got in the form of two and two, where it cannot in a single figure." Athenaeum, 

 Slay 9th, 18i9, in a Review of the Re-issue of the 4to Editicn in Parts. 



"We have here the Ninth Volume of the New Edition of the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, 

 which is now in progress of publication. The idea of thus re-publishing that excellent work in 

 Cabinet volumes, each containing a complete treatise, deserves all encouragement. Among the 

 contributors to the first edition of the Encyclopedia were men of great eminence in their several 

 departments. Their articles were not meagre compilations hastily got up by raw recruits, but. 

 the matured results of deep investigation on the part of men who had won for themselves high 

 standing. Those of Dr. Whately on ' Logic ' and ' Rhetoric ' have long ago been published separ- 

 ately, with additions, and now rank among the best treatises on these subjects. There is a com- 

 pleteness about all the articles here reprinted, that renders them well worthy of being re-issued 

 in a separate form. They are thus brought within the reach of readers who" might shrink from 

 the purchase of the whole Encyclopaedia. In most cases they have been specially revised and 



