116 TRANSACTIONS. 1906-7. 



in 23 volumes, of which the first appeared in 1854 and the last in 

 1862. 



It was in four divisions : Geography, Biography, Natural His- 

 tory, and the Arts and Sciences. Sir David Brewster's Edinburgh 

 Encyclopaedia and Lardner's Cyclopedia are less remarkable, 

 but the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana stands almost as a rival to 

 the great " Britannica " itself. The first edition took 28 years to 

 complete and its editors, three Church of England clergymen, 

 Henry J. Rose, Hugh J. Rose and Edward Smedley, counted on 

 their staff men no less notable than Air|y, Babbage, Coleridge, 

 De Morgan, Cardinal Newman, the Herschels, F. D. Maurice, 

 Whewell, Whately, and others. Its 32 volumes consist of 23,000 

 pages of text and 600 plates, and cost, exclusive of paper and 

 actual publishing, no less than $220,000. It was re-issued in a 

 second edition in 1849 under Coleridge's editorship. Coleridge 

 prefaced it by his famous essay on the Doctrine of Method, a piece 

 of brilliant but utterly futile ingenuity, the basis upon which he 

 attempts to methodize all human knowledge into a system, being 

 wholly artificial and fanciful. The famous Edinburgh publishers, 

 the Messrs. .W. and R. Chambers brought out, in 1860, their 

 valued encyclopaedia. It was in ten volumes and occupied eight 

 years in pubhcation (1860-1868). A second edition appeared 

 in 1888, and improved revised editions have from time to time 

 been issued, the contributors including some of the ablest of the 

 younger authorities in the various branches of knowledge. 



Amidst this voluminous stream of encyclopaedic literature 

 the Encyclopaedia Britannica appeared at first somewhat ob- 

 scurely, and its three modest quarto volumes, issued in 10c, or 

 rather sixpenny numbers, little foreshadowed the ponderous and 

 imposing volumes which now stand as the world's great standard 

 work of reference. William Smellie was its first editor and it 

 consisted of abridgments of special articles compiled, as the pros- 

 pectus states, by a "Society of gentlemen in Scotland," one of 

 whom was James Tytler, brother of William Tytler, of Wood- 

 houselee, who wrote a notable work on Scottish music, and pub- 

 lished James First's famous poem " The King's Quair, " two and 

 a half centuries after it was written. Smellie it may be men- 

 tioned was the author of a Natural History, now forgotten. Twelve 

 years later a second edition, expanded into ten volumes (8,595 

 pages) appeared, and unhke the first edition, it included biography 

 and history, but metaphysics and ethical philosophy were ex- 



