Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/15

Rh compiled in the form of a Dictionary, its subjects are, nevertheless, treated in alphabetical order; and each Science and Art is discussed in a general treatise;—a part of its plan, which probably suggested a distinguishing feature, to be afterwards mentioned, in that of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

On the Continent, as well as in England, the Cyclopædia of Chambers gave a new impulse to the desire for such publications. Before the middle of the century, it had been translated into the Italian language; and had, in France, become the foundation of the Encyclopédie,—the most extensive and celebrated undertaking of the kind, that had yet appeared in the world. This great work, originally intended to consist of ten, was ultimately enlarged to seventeen folio volumes; of which the first was published in 1751, the last in 1765. It is well known to those who are conversant with its history, that it was founded upon a French translation of Chambers’s Cyclopædia, at first designed for separate publication. This translation was undertaken in 1743, and completed in 1745, by an Englishman of the name of Mills, assisted by a native of Dantzic, named Sellius. Soon after, a scheme was formed for publishing an Encyclopædia, upon a more extensive scale than that of Chambers; and the manuscript translation of his work was put into the hands of its intended Conductors, as the ground-work of the undertaking. It is not, perhaps, so generally known, that the Abbe de Gua was the author of this design; and that it was only in consequence of a dispute between him and the Booksellers concerned, that the execution of it was committed to D’Alembert and Diderot. While both these authors concur in bestowing the highest encomiums upon the Encyclopedical method which Chambers exemplified in his Dictionary, they represent his execution as that of a servile compiler and copyist, particularly from French writers; observing, that the project of publishing the translation of his work was abandoned, because it was discovered, that the public would thereby get little,