It was a French translation by John Mills of Chambers' "Cyclopedia" which originally formed the basis of that fam ous "Encyclopedie" which, becoming in the hands of D'Alembert and Diderot the organ of the most advanced and revolu tionary opinions of the time, was the object of the most violent persecution by the conservative party in Church and State, and suffered egregious mutilations at the hands not only of hostile censors but of timorous printers. Appearing at Paris in 28 vols. between 1751 and 1772, it was followed by a supplement in 5 vols. (Amst. 1776-1777), and an analy tical index in 2 vols. (Paris, 1780). Vol taire's "Questions sur l'Encyclopedie" (1770) was a kind of critical appendix. La Porte's "Esprit de l'Encyclopedie" (Paris, 1768), gave a résumé of the more important articles, and under the same title Hennequin compiled a similar epi tome (Paris, 1822-1823). Numerous editions of the whole work, more or less expurgated or recast, were issued outside of France; and many minor encyclope dias, such as Macquer's "Dictionnaire Portatif des Arts et Metiers (1766), Barrow's "New and Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences" (1 vol. fol. 1753), and Croker, Williams, and Clerk's "Com plete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences" (3 vols. fol. 1766), were to a considerable extent quarried out of their massive pre decessor, or molded according to the method expounded by D'Alembert in his preliminary dissertation.
Between 1768 and 1771 there appeared at Edinburgh in 3 vols. 4to the first edi tion of the "Encyclopedia Britannica," which was from the beginning a kind of compromise between the alphabetical and the scientific distribution of subjects. Co lin Macfarquhar, Andrew Bell, and William Smellie share the credit of the plan. Biographical and historical art idles were first introduced in the 2d edi tion (10 vols. 4to 1776-1784). It was re vised in 1907.
During the period that the "Encyclope dia Britannica" has been growing from edition to edition, numerous important encyclopedias have appeared in English —the "Edinburgh Encyclopedia" (18 vols. 1810-1830), edited by Sir David Brewster; Wilkes's "Encyclopedia Lon dinensis (24 vols. 4to. Lond. 1810-1829) ; "Encyclopedia Perthensis" (23 vols. Edin. 1816), a striking proof of the en ergy of its compilers, Aitchison of Edin burgh and Morison of Perth; the "En cyclopedia Metropolitana" (30 vols. 1818 1845), arranged, according to a philoso phic plan by Coleridge, in four divisions: (1) pure sciences, (2) mixed and applied sciences, (3) biography and history, and (4) miscellaneous and lexicographic ar ticles; the "Penny Cyclopedia" edited by Charles Knight for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (29 vols., 2 supplemental, 1833-1846) ; and the "English Cyclopedia" (22 vols. 1853 1861; a sy..optical index, 1862; four supp. vols. 1869-1873), founded on thr copyright of the "Penny Cyclopedia" but rearranged in four divisions—viz, geography, natural history, biography, and arts and sciences.
The cyclopedia now known as Brock haus' "Conversations - Lexicon," which was started by L8bel at Leipsic, in 1796, and passed into the hands of F. A. Brockhaus in 1808, gave a great impetus to the production of similar works. It is still one of the most popular of Ger man encyclopedias. Its principal rivals are Pierer's, and Meyer's "Konversa tions-Lexikon." The former (Altenburg, 1822-1836, 26 vols. with 14 supplemental vols. 1840-1856), which had somewhat fallen out of date, reappeared in 12 vols. in 1888-1893; while the latter has become in completeness and compression the best work of its kind (1st ed. 15 vols. Leop. 1857-1860), a striking characteristic be ing the free use made of maps, tabular conspectuses, woodcuts, and lithographic illustrations. The Brockhaus "Lexikon" became the basis, more or less entirely, of cyclopedias in most of the civilized languages of Europe—"Encyclopedia Espaiiola" (Madrid, 1848-1851) ; "Nuova Enciclopedia Popolare Italiana" (Turin, 1841-1851) ; "Nordisk Conversations-Lex ikon (5 vols. Copenhagen, 1858-1863; 3d
edition, 1883, etc.). Four English works were professedly founded on it—"Ency clopedia Americana" (14 vols. Phila. 1829-1846) ; "New American Cyclope dia" (16 vols. New York, 1858-1864), edited by Ripley and Dana, and fre quently quoted as "Appleton's" from the name of the publisher; the "Popular Cy clopedia" (7 vols. Glasgow, new ed., 1883) ; and "Chambers' Encyclopedia" (10 vols. Edin., 1860-1868, edited by Dr. Andrew Findlater; new ed. 10 vols., edited by David Patrick, 1888-1892).
Other cyclopedias are: "Zell's Popular Encyclopedia" (3 vals. 8vo, Philadelphia, 1871) ; Colange, "National Encyclope dia" (New York, 1872, etc.) ; "American Dictionary and Cyclopedia" (10 vols. 8vo, New York and Chicago, 1900) ; "John son's Universal Cyclopedia" (4 vols. New York, 1874-1878; new ed. 8 vols. 1890 1895; 12 vols., 1900) ; New International Encyclopedia, revised in 1914 (22 vols.) ; "Imperial Reference Library" (6 vols. 8vo, Philadelphia, 1898) ; "Appleton's Cyclo pedia of American Biography" (6 vols. 8vo, New York, 1885-1887) ; Heck and Baird, "Iconographic Encyclopedia" (4 vols., 2 vols. plates, New York, 1860); Brand and Cox, "Diet. of Science, Lit., and Art" (3 vols. 1865-1867; new ed., 1875) ; the "National Encyclopaedia" (Lond., 1884, etc.) ; and Blackie's "Mod ern Cyclopmdia" (8vo, Lond., 1889, etc.). Nor should we omit La-ousse, "Grand Diet. du XIX. siecle" (4to, Paris, 1878) ; Chevreuil, "Grand Diet. illustre" (4to, Paris, 1883) ; and Dreyfus, "La Grande Encyclopedie" (4to, 1885, etc.). Parry's "Encyclopedia Cambrensis" (1862-1863) is of interest.
An attempt to remedy the defect of protracted production has frequently led to the issue of supplemental volumes, planned so as to bring up the earlier articles to the same level as the later articles, in more than one instance, nota bly that of Brockhaus' and Meyer's "Konversations-Lexikon" and the New International Year Book.
In contrast with the larger cyclopxdias may be mentioned the modern attempts to boil down the circles of the sciences into portable form. Thus Brockhaus issued a "Kleineres Conversations-Lexi kon" (3 vols. Leip., 1854-1856; 4th ed. 2 vols. Leip„ 1885) ; Meyer's "Konversa tions-Lexikon" is admirably epitomized in Meyer's "Handlexikon" (5th ed. 3 vols. Leip., 1892-1893) ; and Spemann issues a pocket encyclopaedia (Ktisch ner's) which is a model of compression. Similar English productions are Beeton's "Encyclopaedia" (2 vols. 8vo, Lond., n. d.) ; Beeton's "Dictionary of Science" (8vo, Lond., n. d.); Champlin's "Young Folks' Cyclopaidia of Common Things" (New York, 1879), with the English re issue known as Cox's "Little Encyclo paidia of Common Things" (8vo, Lond., 1882; 3d ed. 1884) ; Champlin's "Young Folks' Cyclopmdia of Persons and Places" (1880) ; "Hazell's Annual" is a yearly cyclopaidic record ; Sampson Low's "Pocket Cyclopxdia" (1889) ; Phillip's "Million of Facts" (8vo, 1836; and later without date) ; and in more recent years many others.
Special Cyclopa'dias.—This class has naturally become more and more numer ous; though in many cases the works are neither designated cyclopmdia nor dictionary. A valuable series is Meyer's "Fach-Lexika" (general history, ancient history, philosophy, geography, etc.), which applies the method of the "dic tionary" to the treatment of individual subjects in separate volumes, thus differ ing from Lardner's "Cabinet Cyclopaa dia," and the "Encyclopaedia Metropoli tana," which were practically a series of treatises.