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ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK’S PUBLICATIONS.
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA,
EIGHTH EDITION.
In every country where Science and Literature have been long and successfully cultivated,
and books extensively multiplied, attempts more or less skilful have been made to reduce the
mass of information to a compendious and regulated form, and to furnish a ready access to its
varied details by means of Encyclopaedias. Of the importance and advantages of such publica¬
tions, there can scarcely be two opinions. Executed on a plan sufficiently comprehensive, they
ought to embrace all the departments of human learning, rendering the Alphabet a ready key,
not only to the Arts and Sciences, but to the multiplied details of History, Biography, Geo¬
graphy, and Miscellaneous Literature. A work thus constructed is not only valuable to the
Scholar and the man of Science as a Dictionary of Universal Reference, but the subjects being
treated in a form consistent with Systematic Exposition, as well as with Alphabetical Arrange¬
ment, the book becomes an inestimable treasure to those who, although they cannot afford
leisure for very laborious research or profound investigation, are yet desirous to possess that
general information on all subjects which constitutes an intelligent and well-informed man.
Among books of this class, the Encyclopedia Britannica has long been conspicuously
eminent. As a Great Repertory of Human Knowledge, it has continued since 1771
to accumulate the ever-increasing treasures of Science and Literature. It was first published
in three volumes 4to, 1771 ; next, in ten volumes, in 1778; in eighteen volumes in 1797, to
which was added the Supplement, in two volumes, by Bishop Gleig, in 1801; this was fol¬
lowed by an edition in twenty volumes, in 1810 ; and other two editions during the succeeding
ten years ; to which was added the celebrated Supplement, in six volumes 4to, edited by Pro¬
fessor Napier, commenced in 1815, and finished in 1824.
The Seventh Edition, which was completed in 1842, embodied whatever remained
valuable in the previous editions and in the Supplements, and was further enhanced in value
by the addition of some of the most celebrated disquisitions which have adorned the literature
of the nineteenth century. The publication thus of Seven Editions with successive improve¬
ments, and the Sale of 35,000 copies, not during an excitement raised by a factitious reputa¬
tion, but during a succession of years, in which the work was tested and approved by the most
accomplished and scientific scholars, remains an irrefragable proof of its unquestionable merit,
and have given it so decided a preference in public favour, that its popularity, instead of suffer-

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