Certainly these little men ought to have kept in the background; but they did not: and the growing reputation of the work which they assailed has chronicled them in literary history; grubs in amber.
This important matter of inequality, which has led us so far, is one to which the _Encyclopædia_ is as subject as the _Cyclopædia_; but it is not so easily recognized as a fault. { 288} We receive the first book as mainly a collection of treatises: we know their authors, and we treat them as individuals. We see, for instance, the names of two leading writers on Optics, Brewster[466] and Herschel.[467] It would not at all surprise us if either of these writers should be found criticising the other by name, even though the very view opposed should be contained in the same _Encyclopædia_ with the criticism. And in like manner, we should hold it no wonder if we found some third writer not comparable to either of those we have named. It is not so in the _Cyclopædia_: here we do not know the author, except by inference from a list of which we never think while consulting the work. We do not dissent from this or that author: we blame the book.
The _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is an old friend. Though it holds a proud place in our present literature, yet the time was when it stood by itself, more complete and more clear than anything which was to be found elsewhere. There must be studious men alive in plenty who remember when they were studious boys, what a literary luxury it was to pass a few days in the house of a friend who had a copy of this work. The present edition is a worthy successor of those which went before. The last three editions, terminating in 1824, 1842, and 1861, seem to show that a lunar cycle cannot pass without an amended and augmented edition. Detailed criticism is out of the question; but we may notice the effective continuance of the plan of giving general historical dissertations on the progress of knowledge. Of some of these dissertations we have had to take separate notice; and all will be referred to in our ordinary treatment of current literature.[468]
The literary excellence of these two extensive undertakings is of the same high character. To many this will { 289} need justification: they will not easily concede to the cheap and recent work a right to stand on the same shelf with the old and tried magazine, newly replenished with the best of everything. Those who are cognizant by use of the kind of material which fills the _Penny Cyclopædia_ will need no further evidence: to others we shall quote a very remarkable and certainly very complete testimony. The _Cyclopædia of the Physical Sciences_, published by Dr. Nichol[469] in 1857 (noticed by us, April 4), is one of the most original of our special dictionaries. The following is an extract from the editor's preface: