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Diderot. Grimm, lately published, have furnished us with some 

 V ™""Y""*' anecdotes relative to the publication, not previously 

 brought to light, which are too curious to be omit- 

 ted. 



M. le Breton, first printer in ordinary to the king, 

 had an interest, to the extent of one half, in the profits 

 of the Encyclopaedia, and was besides charged with the 

 printing of the whole work. The other half was shared 

 among three booksellers, two of whom died ; in con- 

 sequence of which, le Breton and Briason came to be 

 the exclusive proprietors of the whole. These two in- 

 dividuals, therefore, divided among them the whole 

 profits of the work, leaving to Diderot all the glory, the 

 danger, and the persecution. His stipend, as editor of 

 a work which occupied one half of his life, was fixed at 

 2500 livres for each of the seventeen volumes of trea- 

 tises, and a sum of 20,000 livres in one payment. The 

 Encyclopaedia, from its commencement, had incurred 

 the censure of government, and been made the object 

 of proscription. In order to prevent new prosecutions 

 during the further progress of the work, it was resolved 

 to publish the ten last volumes together ; and with a 

 view to procure a knowledge of the seizures ordered by 

 the police, and to avoid the impediments which fresh 

 informations might throw in the way of the continu- 

 ation of the undertaking, M. le Breton obtained the cen- 

 sorship of the trade. These precautions insuring safety 

 during the progress of the impression, le Breton be- 

 came anxious also to avert the storms which he conceived 

 might tin-eaten him after publication ; and, for this pur- 

 pose, he adopted a plan, which is probably unparallel- 

 ed in the annals of book-making. The different ar- 

 ticles were printed off as they came out of the hands of 

 the several contributors ; but after Diderot had revised 

 the last proof of each sheet, Le Breton and his associate 

 took possession of the copy, cut, retrenched, suppressed 

 all that appeared to them too bold, or calculated to excite 

 the clamours of the enemies of the work ; and thus, of 

 their own authority, reduced the greater number of the 

 best articles to the state of mutilated fragments. The 

 impression was drawing towards a close, when Diderot, 

 having occasion to consult one of his great philosophi- 

 cal articles in the letter S, found it entirely mutilated ; 

 and upon further examination, he discovered that the 

 .same plan had been pursued in regard to the whole of 

 the leading articles furnished by himself and his ablest 

 co-adjutors. This discovery threw him into a state of 

 phrensy and despair, which may be more easily con- 

 ceived than described. The evil, however, did net ad- 

 mit of a remedy ; the injury that had been committed 

 was irreparable. The manuscripts had been destroyed; 

 and they were already arrived at the impression of the 

 last volume. Besides, the friends of Diderot advised 

 him, for his own sake, to preserve silence in regard to 

 the breach of trust of which the printer had been guil- 

 ty ; because it was impossible for him to make the pub- 

 he acquainted with the facts, without furnishing his 

 enemies with a legal proof of his continuing to be the 

 editor of the dictionary, after it had been suppressed by 

 authority, which would probably have forced him to 

 quit his native country. It is remarkable, as Baron 

 Grimm observes, that no complaint on the subject of 

 these proceedings was ever uttered by any of the 

 authors of the different articles, and that the fact of 

 the mutilation was never known to more than four or five 

 individuals. 



To the Dictionnaire Encyclopedique, Diderot devoted Diderot 

 the labour of almost twenty years; during which period II 



he, however, found leisure to publish several separate P' d y es - 

 works, some of which were useful and creditable to his """Y~" 

 talents ; while others, particularly his Bijozix Indiscrets, 

 proved detrimental to his own reputation, and injurious 

 to the morals of his countrymen. The Encyclopaedia, 

 although a very popular work, was, as we have seen, 

 profitable only to the booksellers, and produced to the 

 editors no adequate remuneration for the time and la- 

 bour which they had bestowed upon it. * After it was 

 brought to a conclusion, Diderot's affairs were so much 

 involved, that he was obliged to come to the resolu- 

 tion of selling his library, which was purchased by the 

 Empress Catherine of Russia ; who, with a rare liberali- 

 ty that does credit to her memory, paid him 50,000 

 livres for it, or, according to Baron Grimm, 66,000 

 livres, and, at the same time, allowed him to retain the 

 use of it during his life. 



Diderot seemed more desirous of resting the reputa- 

 tion of his literary character on his productions in the 

 department of the belles letires, than upon his scienti- 

 fic labours. When he produced his two comedies, Le 

 Pere de Famille, and Lejils Nature/, he wished to be 

 considered as the inventor, as he was the eulogist, of 

 that species of the drama, which is known among us by 

 the name of sentimental comedy, and which the French 

 denominate Comedie larmoyante, Tragedie domestique, 

 or bourgeohe. But this kind of comedy had been previ- 

 ously introduced by Paul Landois, an obscure and now 

 almost forgotten author; and afterwards attempted, with 

 more ability and greater success, by La Chaussee. The 

 comedies of Diderot do not exhibit much dramatic genius. 

 His dialogue is stiff and sententious, and his characters 

 too romantic for real life. 



Diderot published several memoirs on mathematical 

 subjects. He applied himself particularly to the stu- 

 dy of music, and drew up, in dialogues between mas- 

 ter and pupil, a luminous and pleasing treatise on the 

 elementary principles of that science, and the art of 

 performing on the piano-forte. Among his miscellane- 

 ous works, there is also an excellent essay on acoustics. 

 Besides, he is said to have left behind him in^manuscript, 

 a quantity of observations on music sufficient to fill a 

 quarto volume. 



The fame of Diderot will perhaps be found ultimate- 

 ly to rest, in a great measure, upon the share he had 

 in the publication of the Dictionnaire Encyclopedique. 

 During his lifetime, he probably owed much of the re- 

 putation he enjoyed, to his talent for that species of ani- 

 mated conversational eloquence, which is capable of 

 communicating its own enthusiasm to all around, and 

 which is better adapted to the social circle or the lite- 

 rary coterie, than to the study of the man of science. 

 His style of writing is by no means correct. He fre- 

 quently endeavours to clothe common-place ideas in 

 pompous language ; and, although sometimes luminous 

 and instructive, he is often obscure, feeble, superficial, 

 and affected. 



He died suddenly as he was rising from table, in the 

 month of July 1784. (a) 



DIDO. See Carthage, p. 560, 564. 

 DIDYMANDRA, a genus of plants of the class 

 Polygamia, and order Monoecia. See Botany, p. 343. 

 DlDYMELES, a genus of plants of the class Dioe- 

 cia, and order Monandria. See Botany, p. 333. 



* Voltaire mentions, that four editions of this work, which had been proscribed in France, were printed abroad ; and that nnon't 

 eighteen hundred thousand crowns thus went into the pockets of foreigners. See Grimra's Memoires, vol. i. p. 314-. 



