PUBLISHED BY NUTTALL, FISHER, AND DIXON, (PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY) AT THEIR WAREHOUSE, 87, BARTHOLomew close, LONDON; And may be had by giving Orders to any of the Booksellers in Great Britain. Every Country, Kingdom, Empire, and State, of which any Records remain, under the various heads of Geographical Situation, Extent, Boundaries, and Divisions.—Natural History and Curiosities.—Original Inhabitants and Modern Population.--Manners, Customs, Laws, and Government.-Sovereigns, and Distinguished Characters.-Religion.-Language, Literature, Arts, and Commerce. Methodically arranged, and illustrated with EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL REMARKS; Tables of Comparative Chronology, and Geographical Maps, ancient and modern; HISTORICAL CHARTS AND ENGRAVINGS; and accurate GENEALOGICAL TABLES Of all the illustrious Families of ancient and modern Times. TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY On the Nature, Definitions, and Classifications of History and Chronology, and the Systems of various Writers. BY JEHOSHAPHAT ASPIN, To be comprised in 4 or 5 Quarto Volumes, the first of which is now printed, and the remainder of the Work in a great degree of forwardness. Publishing in Parts, at 5s. each. No other Work on Universal History will be found equal to the above, combining at once brevity and perspicuity: yet it embraces a complete course of political, military, and ecclesiastical history where every one may discover somewhat to amuse and instruct, whatever may be the peculiar bias of his genius, or the nature of his pursuits. FOURTH EDITION. THE PANORAMA OF Science and Art; EMBRACING THE SCIENCES OF AEROSTATION, AGRICULTURE AND GARDENING, ARCHITECTURE, ASTRONOMY, CHEMISTRY, ELECTRICITY, GALVANISM, HYDROSTATICS AND HYDRAULICS, MAGNETISM, MECHANICS, OPTICS, AND PNEUMATICS: THE ARTS OF Building, Brewing, Bleaching, Clockwork, Distillation, Dyeing, Drawing, Engraving, THE METHODS OF WORKING IN WOOD AND METAL, applicable in ANNEALING, BORING AND DRILLING, FILING, GRINDING, TEMPERING STEEL, MAKING SCREWS, SOLDERING, COMMON AND ELLIPTIC TURNING, &c. and A MISCELLANEOUS SELECTION of INTERESTING AND USEFUL PROCESSES AND EXPERIMENTS. BY JAMES SMITH. In 2 Volumes, Octavo, illustrated by 49 Engravings by eminent artists, price £1. 14s. 6d. in boards; or, to suit the convenience of purchasers, in 14 Parts, at 2s. 6d. each. So highly has this interesting Work been esteemed by the public, that in a very short space of time FOUR large editions have been called for. It exhibits a comprehensive view of the present state of knowledge on the most generally interesting and important branches of science and art, in explaining of which, the most familiar illustrations are made use of; and a variety of philosophical experiments and useful recipes and observations are introduced, which are both amusing and valuable. SECOND EDITION. THE MECHANIC; OR, COMPENDIUM of PRACTICAL INVENTIONS. BY JAMES SMITH, Author of the "Panorama of Science and Art." In 2 Volumes, Octavo, illustrated by 80 to 100 Copperplate Engravings; published in Parts, at 3s. each; eight of which are now before the public, and the remainder in a forward state. In the progress of mechanical invention, every individual has an interest; and the discoveries continually making, fully evince that the occupations of life, in all their varied branches, admit of improvements to which no limits can be set. The present work embraces a wide range of subjects, all of which have practical utility for their object; and it is hoped that every individual will find in it something or other directly applicable to his particular views. It consists of three principal divisions: the first of which contains Inventions relative to Manufactures and Trade; the second, Inventions relative to Philosophical Apparatus; the third, Inventions relative to Rural and Domestic Affairs. The general plan has been to notice those inventions only which are not generally known. "HOLOMEW CLOSE, LONDON. ON JANUARY 1, 1818, WILL BE PUBLISHED, OF THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA METROPOLITANA, OR Universal Dictionary of Knowledge, ON AN ORIGINAL PLAN; COMPRISING THE TWO-FOLD ADVANTAGE OF A PHILOSOPHICAL AND AN ALPHABETICAL ARRANGEMENT. With appropriate and entirely new Engravings. Ότι πρό τε τῆς ἀρχῆς ἄλλη ἀεὶ φάινεται ἀρχὴ· μέτά τε τὴν τελευτὴν ἑτέρα ὑπολειπομένη τελευτὴ τὰ μὲν ἐλλείπειν, τὰ δὲ πλεονάζειν, θρύπτεσθαι δὲ, οἶμαι, κερματιζόμενον τὸ πᾶν ανάγκη· Οὐκοῦν δὴ φανῆναι καὶ ἀπτόμενα καὶ χωρὶς ἑαυτῶν, καὶ κινουμένα πάσας κινήσεις, καὶ ἐτῶτα πανταχῆ, καὶ γιγνόμενα καὶ ἀπολλύμενα καὶ μηδέτερα, ει ἑνὸς μὴ ὄντος πολλά έτιν; ΠΛΑΤΩΝ· Παρμενίδης. "The strength of all sciences, which consisteth in their harmony, each supporting the other, is, as the strength of the old man's faggot, in the band. For were it not better for a man in a fair room to set up ONE GREAT LIGHT, or BRANCHING CANDLESTICK OF LIGHTS, than to go about with a small watch candle into every corner?" LD. BACON. CONDITIONS. 1. THIS Work will consist of 25 Volumes, 4to. in four principal divisions, the 25th being an Index to the whole Work. Two Parts to make a Volume. II. Of these divisions, which may be called for distinction in this place, the Philosophical, the Scientific, the Biographical, and the Miscellaneous portions of the Work, the same proportion in point of quantity will be given in every Part as they bear to each other in the whole Work; the volume of Index being published last. III. The price of the Parts, in boards, will be One Guinea; the Work will be handsomely printed, and the Purchasers may be assured not only of the uniformity and punctuality of its appearance, but also of its completion within the PRESCRIBED LIMITS, on the entirely new ground of its digested PLAN; to which therefore particular attention is requested. IV. Each part will contain on the average Twelve Engravings, and care will be taken that the plates and the correspondent text are published as much as possible together. Authentic Portraits will accompany the Biographical part, V. A few Copies will be printed on super royal paper, with proof impressions of the plates, price Two Guineas in boards. LONDON: PRINTED FOR REST FENNER, 23, PATERNOSTER ROW; AN ENCYCLOPEDIA is indispensable to every Library. In the extensive collections of our Universities and Literary Institutions, of our Nobility Gentlemen of the liberal Professions, and opulent private individuals, it s essentially important as a concentration of Human Knowledge, and the more necessary as a work of reference and arrangement as the collection becomes more enlarged. In the smallest Libraries it always occupies the most prominent situation, and is invaluable for the amplitude of its circumference; while to the Voyager, the Naval and Military Officer, the Colonist, and that numerous class of enterprizing Britons whose want of a settled residence may isolate them from the world of letters, it is the only possible substitute for all other books. Works of this description are therefore among those few literary projects which have uniformly secured the patronage of the public: the reason is obvious; an Encyclopædia is to the rising education of the country at once a reservoir and a fountain,-it receives perpetual accessions of knowledge from the genius of the age, which it yields again in willing abundance to posterity. But the word Encyclopædia is, in modern times, a mere proper name. serving to distinguish the works so called, but without designating their contents or their specific object. It has been retained in title-pages, as an old stone, with the arms of a family long extinct, is sometimes, as an ornament or a curiosity, cemented into the wall, or over the door-way of a new building. If ever we recall the original import of the word, (Instruction in a circle) it is to provoke an innocent smile at its incongruity with its present application-viz. Instruction in a straight line from A. to Z. This indeed may appear a mere trifle, and for itself would be adduced only as an amusing instance of the revolutions to which words are liable. But unfortunately the inapplicability of a strictly scientific method to a modern Encyclopædia, has led to the abandonment of all principle of rational arrangement; and it may be safely asserted of all our Universal Dictionaries hitherto, that the chief difference between them, in respect of their plan, consists in the more or less complete disorganization of the Sciences and Systematic Arts. Nor has the imperfection rested here. The position of those alphabetical fragments into which the whole system of Human Knowledge has been splintered, was but too frequently determined by the caprice or convenience of the compiler. The division of parts into minor parts had no settled limit; and the arrangement became neither properly scientific, nor properly alphabetical. It had the inconveniences of both, without the advantages of either. The results are such as might have been expected, in part from the necessity of such plans, and in part from the interference of individual whim, carelessness, and procrastination. Numerous articles of important information will be found where the reader could have least expected to find them; while articles of equal interest (either because they were forgotten, or because the references to them were made by one writer and overlooked by another) are in many cases not to be found at all. HOLOMEW CLOSE, LONDON. 3 A second result is, that an Universal Dictionary so constructed, as well as a methodical Encyclopædia, requires alphabetical references; but with a twofold inconvenience, from which the latter would be free. The references, instead of being collected in one appropriate index, are scattered throughout the whole work; which is no slight annoyance, when a scientific term happens to have many synonymes;-and they must eventually lead the reader through as many volumes, as those other words happen to be placed in, which are necessary to be previously understood. A third evil, resulting from the same causes, is the utter want of all proportion in the space occupied by each article, relatively either to the importance of the particular subject, or to the promised limits of the whole work. Hence too, it arises, that the Proprietors are frequently reduced to a choice of evils. They contract to give the public an Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, but the execution outgrows the plan. Either openly then, in many more Volumes than are promised, or in the form of Supplementary Volumes, (bearing a large proportion to the entire work) this pledge must be redeemed. In both cases the disorder and dislocation, and in many instances the deficiencies, remain unremedied. We might look in vain for any reason, why this article is allowed to branch out on all sides, in full luxuriance of limb and foliage, while others of equal, and not seldom of far greater, interest are reduced to a mere sterile definition. Thus in one of our most popular Encyclopædias, a word of barbarous, or perhaps of sportive, origin, “ Alamodality," occupies seven or eight times the space assigned to NATURAL THEOLOGY," which is dismissed to our astonishment, in a very inadequate definition of a line and a half. 66 The fourth ill-consequence of this arbitrary arrangement calls for a somewhat fuller consideration. The most voluminous Encyclopædia, which has yet appeared, is evidently too narrow to contain an Universal History of Knowledge in its present state; selection is imperiously required; and certain fixed and intelligible principles should be pre-established. An Encyclopædia neither is, nor can reasonably be considered as, the book which a man of profound science is likely to consult for those things in which he is himself eminent. He will seek for accessions to his knowledge in the works of contemporaries employed like himself in extending the boundaries of science, and will often be most interested in speculations, the worth and stability of which are yet undetermined. But an Encyclopædia is a History of Knowledge, in which therefore speculations, which can be at best but truths in the future tense, have no rightful or beseeming place. This indeed we hold to be a principle of such paramount importance, that we take the earliest opportunity of avowing our determination of a strict and systematic adherence to it and we here : |