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A new and enlarged edition of the Encyclopédie arranged as a system of separate dictionaries, and entitled Encyclopédie Méthodique ou par ordre de matières, was undertaken by Charles Joseph Panckoucke, a publisher of Paris (born at Lille on November 26, 1736, died December 19, 1798). His privilege was dated the June 20, 1780.
The articles belonging to different subjects would readily form distinct dictionaries, although, having been constructed for an alphabetical plan, they seemed unsuited for any system wholly methodical, two copies of the book and its supplement were cut up into articles, which were sorted into subjects.
The division adopted was:
I, mathematics; 2, physics; 3, medicine; 4, anatomy and physiology; 5, surgery; 6, chemistry, metallurgy and pharmacy; 7, agriculture; 8, natural history of animals, in six parts; 9, botany; 10, minerals II, physical geography; 12, ancient and modern geography; 13, antiquities; 14, history; 15, theology; 16, philosophy; 17, metaphysics, logic and morality; IS, grammar and literature; 19, law; 20, finance; 21, political economy; 22, commerce; 23, marine; 24, art militaire; 25, beaux arts; 26, arts et m&eAcute;tiers all forming distinct dictionaries entrusted to different editors.
The first object of each editor was to exclude all articles belonging to other subjects, and to take care that those of a doubtful nature should not be omitted by all. In some words (such as air, which belonged equally to chemistry, physics and medicine)the methodical arrangement has the unexpected effect of breaking up the single article into several widely separated. Each dictionary was to have an introduction and a classified table of the principal articles. History and its minor parts, as inscriptions, fables, medals, were to be included. Theology, which was neither complete, exact nor orthodox.
The whole work was to be completed and connected together by a Vocabulaire Universel, 1 vol. 4to, with references to all the places where each word occurred, and a very exact history of the Encyclopédie and its editions by Panckoucke. The prospectus, issued early in 1782, proposed three editions - 84 vols. 8vo, 43 vols. 4to with 3 columns to a page, and 53 vols. 4to of about 100 sheets with 2 columns to a page, each edition having 7 vols. 4to of 250 to 300 plates each. The subscription was to be 672 livres from the 15th of March to July 1782, then 751, and 888 after April 1783. It was to be issued in livraisons of 2 vols. each, the first (jurisprudence, vol. i., literature, vol. i,) to appear in July 1782, and the whole to be finished In 1787. The number of subscribers, 4072, was so great that the subscription list of 672 livres was closed on the 30th of April. Twenty-five printing offices were employed, and in November 1782 the 1st livraison (jurisprudence, vol. i., and half vol. each of arts et métiers and histoire naturelle) was issued. A Spanish prospectus was sent out, and obtained 330 Spanish subscribers, with the inquisitor-general at their head. The complaints of the subscribers and his own heavy advances, over 150,000 livres, induced Panckoucke, in November 1788, to appeal to the authors to finish the work. Those who were behind made new contracts, giving their word of honor to put their parts to press in 1788, and to continue them without interruption, so that Panckoucke hoped to finish the whole, including the vocabulary (4 or 5 vols.), in 1792.
Whole sciences, as architecture, engineering, hunting, police, games, &c., had been overlooked in the prospectus; a new division was made in 44 parts, to contain 51 dictionaries and about 124 vols. Permission was obtained on the 27th of February 1789, to receive subscriptions for the separate dictionaries. Two thousand subscribers were lost by the Revolution. The 50th livraison appeared on the 23rd of July 1792, when all the dictionaries eventually published had been begun except seven - jeux familiers and mathmatiques, physics, art oratoire, physical geography, chasses and pèches; and 18 were finished,mathématics, games, surgery, ancient and modern geography, history, theology, logic, grammar, jurisprudence, finance, political economy, commerce, marine, arts militaires, arts acadmiques, arts et métiers, encyclopediana. Supplements were added to military art in 1797, and to history in 1807, but not to any of the other 16, though required for most long before 1832.
The publication was continued by Henri Agasse, Panckouckes son-in-law, from 1794 to 1813, and then by Mme Agasse, his widow, to 1832, when it was completed in 102 livraisons or 337 parts, forming 166 1/2 vols. of text, and 51 parts containing 6439 plates. The letterpress issued with the plates amounts to 5458 pages, making with the text 124,210 pages. To save expense the plates belonging to architecture were not published. Pharmacy (separated from chemistry), minerals, education, ponts et chausses had been announced but were not published, neither was the Vocabulaire Universel, the key and index to the whole work, so that it is difficult to carry out any research or to find all the articles on any subject. The original parts have been so often subdivided, and have been so added to by other dictionaries, supplements and appendices, that, without going into great detail, an exact account cannot be given of the work, which contains 88 alphabets, with 83 indexes, and I66 introductions, discourses, prefaces, &c. Many dictionaries have a classed index of articles; that of conomie politique is very excellent, giving the contents of each article, so that, any passage can be found easily.
The largest dictionaries are: Medicine, 13 vols., 10,330 pages; Zoology, 7 dictionaries, 13,645 pages, 1206 plates; Botany, 12,002 pages, 1000 plates (34 only of cryptogamic plants); Geography, 3 dictionaries and 2 atlases, 9090 pages, 193 maps and plates; Jurisprudence (with police and municipalities), 10 vols., 7607 pages. Anatomy, 4 vols., 2866 pages, is not a dictionary but a series of systematic treatises. Assemble Nationale was to be in three parts,(i) the history of the Revolution, (2) debates, and (3) laws and decrees. Only vol. ii., debates, appeared, 1792, 804 pages, Absens to Aurillac.
Ten volumes of a Spanish translation with a volume of plates were published at Madrid to 1806:
- historia natural, i. ii.;
- grammatica, i.;
- arte militar, i., ii.;
- geografia, i.-iii.;
- fabricas, i, ii.;
- plates, vol. i.
A French edition was printed at Padua, with the plates, says Peignot, very carefully engraved. Probably no more unmanageable body of dictionaries has ever been published except Jacques Paul Migne's Encyclopédie théologique, Paris, 1844-1875, 4to, 168 vols., 101 dictionaries, 119,059 pages.