114 ■ TRANSACTIONS. 1906-7. 



great text book, and by some religious orders is still regarded as 

 authoritative. Worthy of note is a work by an English Francis- 

 can, Bartholomew de Glanville "De Proprietatibus Rerum" 

 published in 1360 and long popular in John Tre visa's translation, 

 dated 1398. We may well be amazed at the courage of those 

 who thus attempted to concentrate universal knowledge, even 

 though such knowledge was limited in extent, as compared with 

 its vast range now; but no one can pore over the imposing folios 

 of these distant times without feeling awed by their laborious 

 patience and diligence. I pass over such famous works as John 

 Bale's ponderous "Index", published at Ipswich 1548, and re- 

 pubhshed at Basle in 1557, or Peter HeyHn's Cosmographie, the 

 Chorography and History of the whole World, in four books 

 (published 1574), as well as Bacon's immortal " Novum Organum 

 Scientiarum" 1605. The encyclopaedia of Johan Alstedius, of 

 Weissembourg, dated 1630, however, deserves mention as it 

 defined the term itself in the following words: ''Encyclopaedia 

 est systema omnium systematum quibus res homine dignae, 

 methodo certa explicantur. " The work was in seven volumes, 

 and a later edition appeared in folio in two volumes. Cornelli in 

 1696, projected in Venice, an encyclopaedia, the "Galeria de 

 Minerva" in 45 folio volumes, but like many a similar venture it 

 was never completed, only seven volumes appearing. In 1703 

 there was published anonymously an English Universal Dic- 

 tionary, Historical, Geographical, Chronological and Classical, 

 in two volumes, but it can hardly rank as an encyclopaedia, any 

 more than Dr. Harris's Lexicon Technicum or Universal English 

 Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, in two folio volumes (1706 

 and 1710). Zedler's great Universal Lexicon, 64 volumes, occupy- 

 ing eighteen years in publication (1732-1750) merits little notice 

 as the matter is inferior excepting for some interesting genealogies. 

 The Cyclopaedia of Ephraim Chambers, 1728 is a remarkable 

 ■ production, and it not only passed through five editions (each two 

 large folio volumes), but it is notable as furnishing the basis for 

 the famous Encyciopedie Frangais. The Abbe de Gua, there is 

 good ground for holding, had Chambers' volumes before him, 

 for it had been translated into French, as well as into Italian and 

 other languages, and when the Encyclopedie passed from the 

 Abbe's hands into those of Diderot, D'Alembert, and the other 

 great encyclopaedists, it is rather remarkable that they specifically 

 mention Chambers's production, but with a very patently assumed 



