October 19, 1861. _The English Cyclopaedia._ Conducted by Charles
Knight.[445] 22 vols.: viz., _Geography_, 4 vols.; _Biography_, 6
vols.; _Natural History_, 4 vols.; _Arts and Sciences_, 8 vols.
(Bradbury & Evans.)
_The Encyclopaedia Britannica: a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and
General Literature._ Eighth Edition. 21 vols. and Index. (Black.)
The two editions above described are completed at the same time: and they
stand at the head of the two great branches into which pantological
undertakings are divided, as at once the largest and the best of their
classes.
When the works are brought together, the first thing that strikes the eye
is the syllable of difference in the names. The word _Cyclopaedia_ is a bit
of modern purism. Though [Greek: enkuklopaideia][446] is not absolutely
Greek of Greece, we learn from both Pliny[447] and Quintilian[448] that the
circle {281} of the sciences was so called by the Greeks, and
Vitruvius[449] has thence naturalized _encyclium_ in Latin. Nevertheless we
admit that the initial _en_ would have euphonized but badly with the word
_Penny_: and the _English Cyclopaedia_ is the augmented, revised, and
distributed edition of the _Penny Cyclopaedia_. It has indeed been said that
Cyclopaedia should mean the education _of_ a circle, just as Cyropaedia is
the education _of_ Cyrus. But this is easily upset by Aristotle's word
[Greek: kuklophoria],[450] motion _in_ a circle, and by many other cases,
for which see the lexicon.
The earliest printed Encyclopaedia of this kind was perhaps the famous
"myrrour of the worlde," which Caxton[451] translated from the French and
printed in 1480. The original Latin is of the thirteenth century, or
earlier. This is a collection of very short treatises. In or shortly after
1496 appeared the _Margarita Philosophica_ of Gregory Reisch,[452] the same
we must suppose, who was confessor to the Emperor Maximilian.[453] This is
again a collection of treatises, of much more pretension: and the
estimation formed of it is proved by the number of editions it went
through. In 1531 appeared the little collection of _works_ of
Ringelberg,[454] which is truly called an Encyclopaedia by {282} Morhof,
though the thumbs and fingers of the two hands will meet over the length of
its one volume. There are more small collections; but we pass on to the
first work to which the name of _Encyclopaedia_ is given. This is a
ponderous _Scientiarum Omnium Encyclopaedia_ of Alsted,[455] in four folio
volumes, commonly bound in two: published in 1629 and again in 1649; the
true parent of all the Encyclopaedias, or collections of treatises, or works
in which that character predominates. The first great _dictionary_ may
perhaps be taken to be Hofman's _Lexicon Universale_[456] (1677); but
Chambers's[457] (so called) _Dictionary_ (1728) has a better claim. And we
support our proposed nomenclature by observing that Alsted accidentally
called his work _En_cyclopaedia, and Chambers simply Cyclopaedia.
We shall make one little extract from the _myrrour_, and one from
Ringelberg. Caxton's author makes a singular remark for his time; and one
well worthy of attention. The grammar rules of a language, he says, must
have been invented by foreigners: "And whan any suche tonge was perfytely
had and usyd amonge any people, than other people not used to the same
tonge caused rulys to be made wherby they myght lerne the same tonge ...
and suche rulys be called the gramer of that tonge." Ringelberg says that
if the right nostril bleed, the little finger of the right hand should be
crooked, and squeezed with great force; and the same for the left.
{283}
We pass on to _the_ Encyclopedie,[458] commenced in 1751; the work which
has, in many minds, connected the word _encyclopaedist_ with that of
_infidel_. Readers of our day are surprised when they look into this work,
and wonder what has become of all the irreligion. The truth is, that the
work--though denounced _ab ovo_[459] on account of the character of its
supporters--was neither adapted, nor intended, to excite any particular
remark on the subject: no work of which D'Alembert[460] was co-editor would
have been started on any such plan. For, first, he was a real _sceptic_:
that is, doubtful, with a mind not made up. Next, he valued his quiet more
than anything; and would as soon have gone to sleep over an hornet's nest
as have contemplated a systematic attack upon either religion or
government. As to Diderot[461]--of whose varied career of thought it is
difficult to fix the character of any one moment, but who is very
frequently taken among us for a pure atheist--we will quote one sentence
from the article "_Encyclopedie_," which he wrote himself:--"Dans le moral,
il n'y a que Dieu qui doit servir de modele a 1'homme; dans les art, que la
nature."[462]
A great many readers in our country have but a very hazy idea of the
difference between the political Encyclopaedia, as we may call it, and the
_Encyclopedie Methodique_,[463] which we always take to be meant--whether
rightly or not we cannot tell--when we hear of the "great French
Encyclopaedia." This work, which takes much from its {284} predecessor,
professing to correct it, was begun in 1792, and finished in 1832. There
are 166 volumes of text, and 6439 plates, which are sometimes incorporated
with the text, sometimes make about 40 more volumes. This is still the
monster production of the kind; though probably the German Cyclopaedia of
Ersch and Gruber,[464] which was begun in 1818, and is still in progress,
will beat it in size. The great French work is a collection of
dictionaries; it consists of Cyclopaedias of all the separate branches of
knowledge. It is not a work, but a collection of works, one or another
department is to be bought from time to time; but we never heard of a
complete set for sale in one lot. As ships grow longer and longer, the
question arises what limit there is to the length. One answer is, that it
will never do to try such a length that the stern will be rotten before the
prow is finished. This wholesome rule has not been attended to in the
matter before us; the earlier parts of the great French work were
antiquated before the whole were completed: something of the kind will
happen to that of Ersch and Gruber.
The production of a great dictionary of either of the kinds is far from an
easy task. There is one way of managing the _En_cyclopaedia which has been
largely resorted to; indeed, we may say that no such work has been free
from it. This plan is to throw all the attention upon the great treatises,
and to resort to paste and scissors, or some process of equally easy
character, for the smaller articles. However it may be done, it has been
the rule that the Encyclopaedia of treatises should have its supplemental
Dictionary of a very incomplete character. It is true that the treatises
are intended to do a good deal; and that the Index, if it be good, knits
the treatises and the dictionary into one whole of reference. Still there
are two stools, and between them a great deal will fall to the ground. The
dictionary portion of the _Britannica_ is not to be compared with its {285}
treatises; the part called Miscellaneous and Lexicographical in the
_Metropolitana_[465] is a great failure. The defect is incompleteness. The
biographical portion, for example, of the Britannica is very defective: of
many names of note in literature and science, which become known to the
reader from the treatises, there is no account whatever in the dictionary.
So that the reader who has learnt the results of a life in astronomy, for
example, must go to some other work to know when that life began and ended.
This defect has run through all the editions; it is in the casting of the
work. The reader must learn to take the results at their true value, which
is not small. He must accustom himself to regard the Britannica as a
splendid body of treatises on all that can be called heads of knowledge,
both greater and smaller; with help from the accompanying dictionary, but
not of the most complete character. Practically, we believe, this defect
cannot be avoided: two plans of essentially different structure cannot be
associated on the condition of each or either being allowed to abbreviate
the other.
The defect of all others which it is most difficult to avoid is inequality
of performance. Take any dictionary you please, of any kind which requires
the association of a number of contributors, and this defect must result.
We do not merely mean that some will do their work better than others; this
of course: we mean that there will be structural differences of execution,
affecting the relative extent of the different parts of the whole, as well
as every other point by which a work can be judged. A wise editor will not
attempt any strong measures of correction: he will remember that if some
portions be below the rest, which is a disadvantage, it follows that some
portions must be above the rest, which is an advantage. The only practical
level, if {286} level there must be, is that of mediocrity, if not of
absolute worthlessness: any attempt to secure equality of strength will
result in equality of weakness. Efficient development may be cut down into
meager brevity, and in this way only can apparent equality of plan be
secured throughout. It is far preferable to count upon differences of
execution, and to proceed upon the acknowledged expectation that the
prominent merits of the work will be settled by the accidental character of
the contributors; it being held impossible that any editorial efforts can
secure a uniform standard of goodness. Wherever the greatest power is
found, it should be suffered to produce its natural effect. There are,
indeed, critics who think that the merit of a book, like the strength of a
chain, is that of its weakest part: but there are others who know that the
parallel does not hold, and who will remember that the union of many
writers must show exaggeration of the inequalities which almost always
exist in the production of one person. The true plan is to foster all the
good that can be got, and to give development in the directions in which
most resources are found: a Cyclopaedia, like a plant, should grow towards
the light.
The _Penny Cyclopaedia_ had its share of this kind of defect or excellence,
according to the way in which the measure is taken. The circumstance is not
so much noticed as might be expected, and this because many a person is in
the habit of using such a dictionary chiefly with relation to one subject,
his own; and more still want it for the pure dictionary purpose, which does
not go much beyond the meaning of the word. But the person of full and
varied reference feels the differences; and criticism makes capital of
them. The Useful Knowledge Society was always odious to the organs of
religious bigotry; and one of them, adverting to the fact that geography
was treated with great ability, and most unusual fullness, in the _Penny
Cyclopaedia_, announced it by making it the sole merit of {287} the work
that, with sufficient addition, it would make a tolerably good gazetteer.
Some of our readers may still have hanging about them the feelings derived
from this old repugnance of a class to all that did not associate direct
doctrinal teaching of religion with every attempt to communicate knowledge.
I will take one more instance, by way of pointing out the extent to which
stupidity can go. If there be an astronomical fact of the telescopic
character which, next after Saturn's ring and Jupiter's satellites, was
known to all the world, it was the existence of multitudes of double stars,
treble stars, etc. A respectable quarterly of the theological cast, which
in mercy we refrain from naming, was ignorant of this common
knowledge,--imagined that the mention of such systems was a blunder of one
of the writers in the _Penny Cyclopaedia_, and lashed the presumed ignorance
of the statement in the following words, delivered in April, 1837:
"We have forgotten the name of that Sidrophel who lately discovered
that the fixed stars were not single stars, but appear in the heavens
like soles at Billingsgate, in pairs; while a second astronomer, under
the influence of that competition in trade which the political
economists tell us is so advantageous to the public, professes to show
us, through his superior telescope, that the apparently single stars
are really three. Before such wondrous mandarins of science, how
continually must _homunculi_ like ourselves keep in the background,
lest we come between the wind and their nobility."
Certainly these little men ought to have kept in the background; but they
did not: and the growing reputation of the work which they assailed has
chronicled them in literary history; grubs in amber.
This important matter of inequality, which has led us so far, is one to
which the _Encyclopaedia_ is as subject as the _Cyclopaedia_; but it is not
so easily recognized as a fault. {288} We receive the first book as mainly
a collection of treatises: we know their authors, and we treat them as
individuals. We see, for instance, the names of two leading writers on
Optics, Brewster[466] and Herschel.[467] It would not at all surprise us if
either of these writers should be found criticising the other by name, even
though the very view opposed should be contained in the same _Encyclopaedia_
with the criticism. And in like manner, we should hold it no wonder if we
found some third writer not comparable to either of those we have named. It
is not so in the _Cyclopaedia_: here we do not know the author, except by
inference from a list of which we never think while consulting the work. We
do not dissent from this or that author: we blame the book.
The _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ is an old friend. Though it holds a proud
place in our present literature, yet the time was when it stood by itself,
more complete and more clear than anything which was to be found elsewhere.
There must be studious men alive in plenty who remember when they were
studious boys, what a literary luxury it was to pass a few days in the
house of a friend who had a copy of this work. The present edition is a
worthy successor of those which went before. The last three editions,
terminating in 1824, 1842, and 1861, seem to show that a lunar cycle cannot
pass without an amended and augmented edition. Detailed criticism is out of
the question; but we may notice the effective continuance of the plan of
giving general historical dissertations on the progress of knowledge. Of
some of these dissertations we have had to take separate notice; and all
will be referred to in our ordinary treatment of current literature.[468]
The literary excellence of these two extensive undertakings is of the same
high character. To many this will {289} need justification: they will not
easily concede to the cheap and recent work a right to stand on the same
shelf with the old and tried magazine, newly replenished with the best of
everything. Those who are cognizant by use of the kind of material which
fills the _Penny Cyclopaedia_ will need no further evidence: to others we
shall quote a very remarkable and certainly very complete testimony. The
_Cyclopaedia of the Physical Sciences_, published by Dr. Nichol[469] in 1857
(noticed by us, April 4), is one of the most original of our special
dictionaries. The following is an extract from the editor's preface:
"When I assented to Mr. Griffin's proposal that I should edit such a
Cyclopaedia, I had it in my mind that I might make the _scissors_
eminently effective. Alas! on narrowly examining our best Cyclopaedias,
I found that the scissors had become blunted through too frequent and
vigorous use. One great exception exists: viz., the _Penny Cyclopaedia_
of Charles Knight.[470] The cheapest and the least pretending, it is
really the most philosophical of our _scientific_ dictionaries. It is
not made up of a series of treatises, some good and many indifferent,
but is a thorough _Dictionary_, well proportioned and generally written
by the best men of the time. The more closely it is examined, the more
deeply will our obligation be felt to the intelligence and
conscientiousness of its projector and editor."
After Dr. Nichol's candid and amusing announcement of his scissorial
purpose, it is but fair to state that nothing of the kind was ultimately
carried into effect, even upon the work in which he found so much to
praise. I quote this testimony because it is of a peculiar kind.
{290}
The success of the _Penny Magazine_ led Mr. Charles Knight in 1832 to
propose to the Useful Knowledge Society a Cyclopaedia in weekly penny
numbers. These two works stamp the name of the projector on the literature
of our day in very legible characters. Eight volumes of 480 pages each were
contemplated; and Mr. Long[471] and Mr. Knight were to take the joint
management. The plan embraced a popular account of Art and Science, with
very brief biographical and geographical information. The early numbers of
the work had some of the _Penny Magazine_ character: no one can look at the
pictures of the Abbot and Abbess in their robes without seeing this. By the
time the second volume was completed, it was clearly seen that the plan was
working out its own extension: a great development of design was submitted
to, and Mr. Long became sole editor. Contributors could not be found to
make articles of the requisite power in the assigned space. One of them
told us that when he heard of the eight volumes, happening to want a shelf
to be near at hand for containing the work as it went on, he ordered it to
be made to hold twenty-five volumes easily. But the inexorable logic of
facts beat him after all: for the complete work contained twenty-six
volumes and two thick volumes of Supplement.
The penny issue was brought to an end by the state of the law, which
required, in 1833, that the first and last page of everything sold
separately should contain the name and address of the printer. The penny
numbers contained this imprint on the fold of the outer leaf: and _qui
tam_[472] informations were laid against the agents in various towns. {291}
It became necessary to call in the stock; and the penny issue was
abandoned. Monthly parts were substituted, which varied in bulk, as the
demands of the plan became more urgent, and in price from one sixpence to
three. The second volume of Supplement appeared in 1846, and during the
fourteen years of issue no one monthly part was ever behind its time. This
result is mainly due to the peculiar qualities of Mr. Long, who unites the
talents of the scholar and the editor in a degree which is altogether
unusual. If any one should imagine that a mixed mass of contributors is a
punctual piece of machinery, let him take to editing upon that hypothesis,
and he shall see what he shall see and learn what he shall learn.
The _English_ contains about ten per cent more matter than the _Penny
Cyclopaedia_ and its supplements; including the third supplementary volume
of 1848, which we now mention for the first time. The literary work of the
two editions cost within 500l. and 50,000l.: that of the two editions of
the _Britannica_ cost 41,000l. But then it is to be remembered that the
_Britannica_ had matter to begin upon, which had been paid for in the
former editions. Roughly speaking, it is probable that the authorship of a
page of the same size would have cost nearly the same in one as in the
other.
The longest articles in the _Penny Cyclopaedia_ were "Rome" in 98 columns
and "Yorkshire" in 86 columns. The only article which can be called a
treatise is the Astronomer Royal's "Gravitation," founded on the method of
Newton in the eleventh section, but carried to a much greater extent. In
the _English Cyclopaedia_, the longest article of geography is "Asia," in 45
columns. In natural history the antelopes demand 36 columns. In biography,
"Wellington" uses up 42 columns, and his great military opponent 41
columns. In the division of Arts and Sciences, which includes much of a
social and commercial character, the length of articles often depends upon
the state of the {292} times with regard to the subject. Our readers would
not hit the longest article of this department in twenty guesses: it is
"Deaf and Dumb" in 60 columns. As other specimens, we may cite Astronomy,
19; Banking, 36; Blind, 24; British Museum, 35; Cotton, 27; Drama, 26;
Gravitation, 50; Libraries, 50; Painting, 34; Railways, 18; Sculpture, 36;
Steam, etc., 37; Table, 40; Telegraph, 30; Welsh language and literature,
39; Wool, 21. These are the long articles of special subdivisions: the
words under which the _En_cyclopaedia gives treatises are not so prominent.
As in Algebra, 10; Chemistry, 12; Geometry, 8; Logic, 14; Mathematics, 5;
Music, 9. But the difference between the collection of treatises and the
dictionary may be illustrated thus: though "Mathematics" have only five
columns, "Mathematics, recent terminology of," has eight: and this article
we believe to be by Mr. Cayley,[473] who certainly ought to know his
subject, being himself a large manufacturer of the new terms which he
explains. Again, though "Music" _in genere_, as the schoolmen said, has
only nine columns, "Temperament and Tuning," has eight, and "Chord" alone
has two. And so on.
In a dictionary of this kind it is difficult to make a total clearance of
_personality_: by which we mean that exhibition of peculiar opinion which
is offensive to taste when it is shifted from the individual on the
corporate book. The treatise of the known author may, as we have said,
carry that author's controversies on its own shoulders: and even his
crotchets, if we may use such a word. But {293} the dictionary should not
put itself into antagonism with general feeling, nor even with the feelings
of classes. We refer particularly to the ordinary and editorial teaching of
the article. If, indeed, the writer, being at issue with mankind, should
confess the difference, and give abstract of his full grounds, the case is
altered: the editor then, as it were, admits a correspondent to a statement
of his own individual views. The dictionary portion of the Britannica is
quite clear of any lapses on this point, so far as we know: the treatises
and dissertations rest upon their authors. The Penny Cyclopaedia was all but
clear: and great need was there that it should have been so. The Useful
Knowledge Society, starting on the principle of perfect neutrality in
politics and religion, was obliged to keep strict watch against the
entrance of all attempt even to look over the hedge. There were two--we
believe only two--instances of what we have called personality. The first
was in the article "Bunyan." It is worth while to extract all that is
said--in an article of thirty lines--about a writer who is all but
universally held to be the greatest master of allegory that ever wrote:
"His works were collected in two volumes, folio, 1736-7: among them
'The Pilgrim's Progress' has attained the greatest notoriety. If a
judgment is to be formed of the merits of a book by the number of times
it has been reprinted, and the many languages into which it has been
translated, no production in English literature is superior to this
coarse allegory. On a composition which has been extolled by Dr.
Johnson, and which in our own times has received a very high critical
opinion in its favor [probably Southey], it is hazardous to venture a
disapproval, and we, perhaps, speak the opinion of a small minority
when we confess that to us it appears to be mean, jejune and
wearisome."
--If the unfortunate critic who thus individualized himself had been a
sedulous reader of Bunyan, his power over {294} English would not have been
so _jejune_ as to have needed that fearful word. This little bit of
criticism excited much amusement at the time of its publication: but it was
so thoroughly exceptional and individual that it was seldom or never
charged on the book. The second instance occurred in the article
"Socinians." It had been arranged that the head-words of Christian sects
should be intrusted to members of the sects themselves, on the
understanding that the articles should simply set forth the accounts which
the sects themselves give of their own doctrines. Thus the article on the
Roman Church was written by Dr. Wiseman.[474] But the Unitarians were not
allowed to come within the rule: as in other quarters, they were treated as
the gypsies of Christianity. Under the head "Socinians"--a name repudiated
by themselves--an opponent was allowed not merely to state their alleged
doctrines in his own way, but to apply strong terms, such as "audacious
unfairness," to some of their doings. The protests which were made against
this invasion of the understanding produced, in due time, the article
"Unitarians," written by one of that persuasion. We need not say that these
errors have been amended in the English Cyclopaedia: and our chief purpose
in mentioning them is to remark, that this is all we can find on the points
in question against twenty-eight large volumes produced by an editor whose
task was monthly, and whose issue was never delayed a single hour. How much
was arrested before publication none but himself can say. We have not
alluded to one or two remonstrances on questions of absolute fact, which
are beside the present purpose.
Both kinds of encyclopaedic works have been fashioned upon predecessors,
from the very earliest which had a predecessor to be founded upon; and the
undertakings before us will be themselves the ancestors of a line of
successors. Those who write in such collections should be {295} careful
what they say, for no one can tell how long a mis-statement may live. On
this point we will give the history of a pair of epithets. When the
historian De Thou[475] died, and left the splendid library which was
catalogued by Bouillaud[476] and the brothers Dupuis[477] (Bullialdus and
Puteanus), there was a manuscript of De Thou's friend Vieta,[478] the
_Harmonicon Coeleste_, of which it is on record, under Bouillaud's hand,
that he himself lent it to Cosmo de' Medici,[479] to which must be added
that M. Libri[480] found it in the Magliabecchi Library at Florence in our
own day. Bouillaud, it seems, entirely forgot what he had done. Something,
probably, that Peter Dupuis said to Bouillaud, while they were at work on
the catalogue, remained on his memory, and was published by him in 1645,
long after; to the effect that Dupuis lent the manuscript to Mersenne,[481]
from whom it was procured by some intending plagiarist, who would not give
it back. This was repeated by Sherburne,[482] in 1675, who speaks of the
work, which "being communicated to Mersennus was, by some perfidious
acquaintance of that honest-minded person, surreptitiously taken from him,
and irrecoverably lost or suppressed, to the unspeakable detriment of the
lettered world." Now let the {296} reader look through the dictionaries of
the last century and the present, scientific or general, at the article,
"Vieta," and he will be amused with the constant recurrence of
"honest-minded" Mersenne, and his "surreptitious" acquaintance. We cannot
have seen less than thirty copies of these epithets.