Third edition

The third edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, “A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature,” was longer than the second, appearing in parts forming 18 volumes of 14,579 pages (1788–97). The same plan was followed, and there were 542 copperplates by Bell. Dedicated by Bell and Macfarquhar to the king (i.e., George III), it was edited by Macfarquhar until his death in 1793, when he had reached the treatise “Mysteries.” George Gleig (1753–1840), a Scottish Episcopalian clergyman of Stirling who later became bishop of Brechin, took over the work, but the lack of continuity is apparent in various omissions and duplications in the second part of the edition. When the edition was completed, Bell bought the whole copyright. A two-volume supplement edited by Gleig and printed for Thomson Bonar, Bell’s son-in-law, appeared in 1801. It contained 50 copperplates by Daniel Lizars (none by Bell). Gleig’s dedication of that supplement to the king includes the following remarks: “The French Encyclopédie has been accused, and justly accused, of having disseminated, far and wide, the seeds of Anarchy and Atheism. If the Encyclopædia Britannica shall, in any degree, counteract the tendency of that pestiferous Work, even these two Volumes will not be wholly unworthy of Your Majesty’s Patronage.”

The new treatises in the third edition included “Aerostation” (on balloon flights, treated in the supplement to the second edition), “Husbandry,” “Logarithms,” “Polytheism,” and (in the supplement) “Galvanism” (“the influence discovered nearly eight years ago by the celebrated Galvani”), and “Critical Philosophy” (i.e., Kant’s). Indexes were appended to four more treatises: “Astronomy,” “Chemistry,” “Electricity,” and “Surgery.”

As before, many of the ordinary articles exceeded the treatises in length, such as “Revolution” (50 pages, on the French Revolution), “America” (80 pages, covering colonial history and the War of Independence as well as geography and American Indians), “Scripture” (68 pages), “Microscope” (50 pages, which covered both description and use of the instrument), and “Language” and “Telescope” (both 32 pages). Some of the shorter treatises reappeared in the third edition as ordinary articles. Subjects of general interest, such as “Friendship” and “Infidelity,” began to appear, and biographical articles were increased in number and scope; “Paulo (Marco)” was included for the first time, and “Dante” was given more space than in the second edition.

Instead of printing a list of publications consulted, as in the two previous editions, the third edition mentioned in the preface the names of the chief contributors. Certain articles, although not signed in the body of the work, could thus be ascribed to their authors, while others remained reprints of earlier articles originally extracted from books. Macfarquhar’s death left many articles in the first part of the alphabet without a record of authorship, though the preface suggested probable names, such as that of Tytler as the contributor responsible for several of the scientific treatises, including, as might be expected, “Aerostation.” John Robison, professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh, provided various treatises and other articles, besides being readily available for consultation. The editor, Gleig, wrote or collaborated on about 20 main subjects and must in fact have compiled a great many of the shorter articles. Most of the contributors were distinguished Scottish scholars of the period, and the edition was a worthy monument to Edinburgh’s “Augustan Age.”

According to Robert Kerr, about 10,000 copies of the third edition were printed, and the profit to Bell and Macfarquhar’s heirs was £42,000. According to Archibald Constable, an enterprising Edinburgh publisher, who bought the copyright of it from Bell’s heirs for £14,000 and the copyright of the Supplement to the third edition from Bonar for £100, 13,000 copies were sold.

There were two pirated editions of the third edition. Thomas Dobson, a printer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, published a reprint titled simply Encyclopædia (which he called the first American edition), with some parts rewritten to correct British bias. James Moore’s Dublin reprint (1791–97) was an exact reproduction of the third edition, with the addition of “Moore’s Dublin Edition” at the top of the title page and his imprint at the foot and with some minor changes in the title page wording.

Fourth edition

The fourth edition appeared from 1801 to 1809, and when completed it was bound in 20 volumes of 16,033 pages, dated 1810. The first volume of the complete edition was prefaced by a dedication to the king written by Bell before his death in 1809. Essentially, it was a revised reprint of the third edition, with two additional volumes to include new and enlarged treatises, extra pages to bring history articles up to date, and more biographical articles. However, the fourth edition excluded the supplement to the third edition, of which Bell did not possess the copyright. The editor, James Millar (1762–1827), an Edinburgh physician and natural scientist, took pains to repair the deficiencies caused in the third edition by the untimely death of Macfarquhar. He reorganized some of the material to avoid omissions and duplications, and in particular he tried to repair omissions among the biographies. The fourth edition was the earliest in which articles appeared on Amurath (i.e., Murad, the name of several Ottoman sultans), the Croatian astronomer and mathematician Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich (titled “Roger Joseph Boscovich”), the ancient Greek physician Galen, the French general Lazare Hoche (titled “Lazarus Hoche”), the English scholar Sir Henry Savile, and the Scottish political economist Adam Smith. “America” was brought up to 1800 and quoted the U.S. constitution, while Britain’s history was brought up to 1803, India’s to 1804, and Spain’s to 1809.

There were several treatises on new subjects such as “Conchology,” “Mammalia,” “Political Economy,” and “Science, Amusements or Recreations of,” a title defended as follows: “It must not be supposed…that the subjects which we are here to discuss are puerile or trifling. They will be such as are best calculated to excite the attention, quicken the ingenuity, and improve the memory of our young readers.” Some of the treatises were different from those in the previous edition, such as “Galvanism” (which first appeared in the supplement to which Bell did not own copyright) and “Midwifery,” while others were enlarged. Among the latter was “Gardening,” which reprinted the descriptive piece from the second and third editions and added to it a new section with practical instructions for each month of the year that reverted to the treatment in the first edition.

As in the third edition, notable contributors were singled out in the preface, which was itself largely reprinted from the third edition. Several treatises, however, still remained anonymous; although Millar did not claim to have written any, he may well have done so.

Fifth and sixth editions

The fifth edition was a corrected reprint of the fourth, and the sixth was a reprint of the fifth with some articles brought up to date. Both were of small importance compared with the Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions, which were being concurrently prepared and printed.

Fifth edition

The fifth edition, on which work started immediately after the fourth was finished in 1810, was completed in 20 volumes, dated 1815, and sold at a price of £36. After the first five volumes, which were supervised by Bonar, it was again edited by Millar and was brought out by Constable. On Bonar’s death in 1814, Constable bought his share in the third edition from his heirs for £4,500. Realizing the inadequacy of simply reprinting the fourth edition, Constable at once began planning supplementary volumes, which started to appear at the end of 1815, the year that the fifth edition was completed. Before the supplementary volumes were themselves completed in 1824, however, a sixth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica had been published.