THE Greeks seem to have understood by encyclopaedia (εγκυκλοπαίδεια, or εγκύκλιος παιδεία) instruction in the whole circle or complete system of learning —education in arts and sciences. Thus Pliny, in the preface to his Natural History, says that his book treated of all the subjects of the encyclopaedia of the Greeks, “Jam omnia attingenda quae Graeci τ>}ς εγκυκλοπαίδειας vocant.” Quintilian (Inst. Orat., i. 10) directs that before boys are placed under the rhetorician they should be instructed in the other arts, “ut efficiatur orbis ille doctrinae quam Graeci εγκυκλοπαίδειαν vocant.” Galen (De victus ratione in morbis acutis, c. 11) speaks of those who are not educated εν ττ) εγκυκλοπαίδεια. In these passages of Pliny and Quintilian, however, from one or both of which the modern use of the word seems to have been taken, εγκύκλιος παιδεία is now read, and this seems to have been the usual expression. Vitruvius (lib. vi. praef.) calls the encyclios or εγκύκλιος παιδεία of the Greeks “doctrinarum omnium disciplina,” instruction in all branches of learning. Strabo (lib. iv. cap. 10) speaks of philosophy και τgν αλ∖-ηv πaιMiav ιγκvκλιov. Tzetzes (Chiliades, xi 527), quoting from Porphyry’s Lives of the Philosophers, says that εγκύκλια μαθήματα was the circle of grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, and the four arts under it, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. Zonaras explains it as grammar, poetry, rhetoric, philosophy, mathematics, and simply every art and science (απλώς πάσα τeγvη και lτrιστgμf), because sophists go through them as through a circle. The idea seems to be a complete course of instruction in all parts of knowledge. An epic poem was called cyclic when it contained the whole mythology; and among physicians κύκλω θepaπeveιv, cyclo curare (Vegetius, De Arte Veterinaria, ii. 5, 6), meant a cure effected by a regular and prescribed course of diet and medicine (see Wower, De Polymathia, c. 24, § 14). The word encyclopaedia was probably first used in English by Sir Thomas Elyot. “In an oratour is required to be a heape of all maner of lernyng: whiche of some is called the worlde of science, of other the circle of doctrine, whiche is in one worde of greke Encyclopedia.”—The Goverηour, bk. i. chap. xiii. In his Latin dictionary, 1538, he explains “Encyclios et Encyclia, the cykle or course of all doctrines,” and “Encyclopedia, that lernynge whiche com-prehendeth all lyberall science and studies.” The term does not seem to have been used as the title of a book by the ancients or in the Middle Ages. The edition of the works of Joachimus Fortius Ringelbergius, printed at Basel in 1541, is called on the title-page Lucubrationes vel potius absolutissima κυκλoπαιδεια. Paulus Scalichius de Lika, an Hungarian count, wrote Encyclopaediae seu Orbis' Disciplinarum Epistemon, Basileae, 1599, 4to. Alsted published in 1608 Encyclopaedia Cursus Philosophici, which he afterwards expanded into his great work, first published in 1620, called without any limitation Encyclopaedia, because it treats of everything that can be learned by man in this life. This is now the most usual sense in which the word encyclopaedia is used—a book treating of all the various kinds of knowledge, and it has become in modern times the common title of such books. Cyclopaedia was formerly sometimes used, but is now retained only in English, and is not merely without any appearance of classical authority, but is etymologically less definite, complete, and correct. For as Cyropaedia means “the instruction of Cyrus,” so cyclopaedia may mean “instruction of a circle.” Vossius says, “Cyclopaedia is sometimes found, but the best writers say encyclopaedia” (De Vitiis Sermonis, *1645, p. 402). Gesner says, “κύκλος est circulus, quae figura .est simplicissima et perfectissima simùl: nam incipi potést ubicunque in illa et ubicunque cohaeret. Cyclopaedia itaque significat omnem doctrinarum scientiam inter se cohaerere, Encyclopaedia est institutio in illo circulo.” (Isagoge, 1774, i. 40.) In a more restricted sense, encyclopaedia means a system or classification of the various branches of knowledge, a subject on which many books have been published, especially in Germany, as Schmid’s Allgemeine Encyklopadie und Methodologie der Wissenschaften, Jena, 1810, 4to, 241 pages. In this sense the Novum Organum of Bacon has often been called an encyclopaedia. But it is “a grammar only of the sciences: a cyclopaedia is not a grammar, but a dictionary; and to confuse the meanings of grammar and dictionary is to lose the benefit of a distinction which it is fortunate that terms have been coined to convey” (Quarterly Review, cxiii. 354). Fortunius Licetus, an Italian physician, entitled several of his dissertations oh Roman altars and other antiquities encyclopaedias (as, for instance, Encyclopaedia ad Aram mysticam Nonarii, Pataviae, 1631, 4to), because in composing them he borrowed the aid of all the sciences. The Encyclopaedia Moralis of Marcellinus de Pise, Paris, 1646, fol. 4 vols., is a series of sermons. Encyclopaedia is often used to mean a book which is, or professes to be, a complete or very full collection or treatise relating to some particular subject, as Blaine’s excellent work, The Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports, London, 1852, 8vo; The Encyclopaedia of Wit, London, 1803, 12mo; · 7‰ Vocal Encyclopaedia, London, 1807, 16mo, a collection of songs, catches, &c. The word is more frequently used for an alphabetical dictionary treating fully of some science or· subject, as Murray, Encyclopaedia of Geography, London, 1834, 8yo; Lefebvre Laboulaye, Encyclopedic Technologique: Dictionnaire des Arts et Manufactures, Paris, 1845-47, 8vo. 2 vols.; Holtzendorff, Encyclopädie der Rechtswissenschaft, Leipzig, 1870, <tc., 8vo.

The most ancient encyclopaedia extant is Pliny’s Natural History in 37 books (including the preface) and 2493 chapters, which may be thus described generally :—book 1, preface; book 2, cosmography, astronomy, and meteorology; books 3 to 6, geography; books 7 to 11, zoology, including man, and the invention of the arts; books 12 to 19, botany; books 20 to 32, medicines, vegetable and animal remedies, medical authors, and magic; books 33 to 37, metals, fine arts, mineralogy, and mineral remedies. Pliny, who died 79 a.d., was not a naturalist, a physician, or an artist, and collected his work in his leisure intervals while engaged in public affairs. He says it contains 20,000 facts (too small a number by half, says Lemaire), collected from 2000 books by 100 authors. Hardouin has given a list of 464 authors quoted by him. His work was a very high authority in the Middle Λges, and 43 editions of it were printed before 1536.

Martianus Minaeus Felix Capella, an African, wrote about 470, in mingled verse and prose, a sort of encyclopaedia, which is important from having been regarded in the Middle Ages as a model storehouse of learning, and used in the schools, where the scholars had to learn the verses by heart, as a text-book of high class education in the arts. It is sometimes entitled Satyra, or Satyricon, but is usually known as De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, though this title is sometimes confined to the first two books, a rather confused allegory ending with the apotheosis of Philologia and the celebration of her marriage in the milky way, where Apollo presents to her the seven liberal arts, who, in the succeeding seven books, describe their respective branches of knowledge, namely, grammar, dialectics (divided into metaphysics and logic), rhetoric, geometry (geography, with some single geometrical propositions), arithmetic (chiefly the properties of numbers), astronomy, and music (including poetry). The style is that of an African of the 5th century, full of grandiloquence, metaphors, and strange words. He seldom mentions his authorities, and sometimes quotes authors whom be does not at all seem to have read. His work was frequently copied in the Middle Ages by ignorant transcribers, and was eight times printed from

1499 to 1599. The best annotated edition is by Kopp, I rankfort, 1836, 4to, and the most convenient and the best text is that of Eyssenstadt, Lipsiae, 1866, 8vo.

Isidore, bishop of Seville from 600 to 630, wrote Etymologiarum libri XX. (often also entitled his Origines) at the request of his friend Braulio, bishop of Saragossa, who after Isidore’s death divided the work into books, as it was left unfinished, and divided only into titles.

I he tenth book is an alphabet of 625 Latin words, not belonging to his other subjects, with their explanations as known to him, and often with their etymologies, frequently very absurd. The other books contain 448 chapters, and are:—1, grammar (Latin); 2, rhetoric and dialetics; 3, the four mathematical disciplines— arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy; 4, medicine; 5, laws and times (chronology), with a short chronicle ending in 627; 6, ecclesiastical books and. offices; 7, God, angels, and the orders of the faithful; 8, the church and sects; 9, languages, society, and relationships; 11, man and portents; 12, animals, in eight classes, namely, pecora et jumenta, beasts, small animals (including spiders, crickets, and ants), serpents, worms, fishes, birds, and sιnah winged creatures, chiefly insects; 13, the world and its parts; 14, the earth and its parts, containing chapters on Asia, Europe, and Libya, that is, Africa; 15, buildings, fields, and their measures; 16, stones (of which one is echo) and metals; 17, de rebus rusticis; 18, war and games; 19, ships, buildings, and garments; 20, provisions, domestic and rustic instruments.

Isidore appears to have known Hebrew and Greek, and to have been familiar with the Latin classical poets, but he is a mere collector, and his derivations given all through the work are not unfrequently absurd, and, unless when very obvious, will not bear criticism. He seldom mentions his authorities except when he quotes the poets or historians. Yet his work was a great one for the time, and for many centuries was a much valued authority and a rich source of material for other works, and he had a high reputation for learning both in his own time and in subsequent ages. His Etymologies were often imitated, quoted, and copied. MSS. are very numerous: Antonio (whose editor, Bayer, saw nearly 40) says, “plures passimque reperiuntur in bibliothecarum angulis.” This work was printed nine times before 1529.

Hrabanus Mâurus, whose family name was Magnentius, was educated in the abbey of Fulda, ordained deacon in 802 (“Annales Francorum” in Bouquet, Historiens de la France, V. 66), sent to the school of St Martin of Tours then directed by Alcuin, where he seems to have learned Greek, and is said by Trithemius to have been taught Hebrew, Syriac, and Chaldee by Theophilus an Ephesian. In his Commentaries on Joshua (lib. ii. c. 5), he speaks of having resided at Sidon. He returned to Fulda and taught the school there. He became abbot of Fulda in 822, resigned in April 842, was ordained archbishop of Mayence 26th July 847, and died 4th February 856. He compiled an encyclopaedia De universo (also called in some MSS. De universali natura, De natura remm, and De origine rerum) in 22 books and 325 chapters. It is chiefly a re-arrangement of Isidore’s Etymologies, omitting the first four books, half of the fifth, and the tenth (the seven liberal arts, law, medicine, and the alphabet of words), and copying the rest, beginning with the seventh book, verbally, though with great omissions, and adding (according to Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie, vii. 193, from Alcuin, Augustine, or some other accessible source) the meanings given in the Bible to the subject matter of the chapter; while things not mentioned in Scripture, especially such as belong to classical antiquity, are omitted, so that his work seems to be formed of two alternating parts. His arrangement of beginning with God and the angels long prevailed in methodical encyclopaedias. His last six books follow very closely the order of the last five of Isidore, from which they are taken. His omissions are characteristic of the diminished literary activity and more contracted knowledge of his time. His work was presented to Louis the German, king of Bavaria, at Hersfeld in October 847, and was printed in 1473, fol., probably at Venice, and again at Strasburg by Mentelin about 1472-75, fol., 334 pages.

Michael Constantine Psellus, the younger, wrote Διδασκαλία πavτo⅛aπη, dedicated to the emperor Michael Ducas, who reigned 1071-78. It was printed by Fabricius in his Bibliotheca Groeca, 1712, vol. v., in 186 pages 4to and 193 chapters, each containing a question and answer. Beginning with divinity, it goes on through natural history and astronomy, and ends with chapters on excessive hunger, and why flesh hung from a fig-tree becomes tender. As collation with a Turin MS. showed that 35 chapters were wanting, Harles has omitted the text in his edition of Fabricius, and gives only the titles of the chapters (x. 84-88).

The author of the greatest encyclopaedia of the AIiddle Ages, Vincentius Bellovacensis, or Belvacensis, most probably a native of Beauvais or of the Beauvaisis, was a Dominican friar, called by Louis IX. of France, on his founding Royaumont, a Cistercian monastery, in 1228, to fill the office of lector. He seems also to have been royal librarian, and Louis IX. paid for copying and buying many books for him. Fifteen different dates from 1240 to 1334 have been proposed for his death, but the most probable and the best supported by evidence seems to be 1264. His great work, called Bibliotheca mundi, or Speculum majus, quadruplex, or triplex, is only the third part of what he had prepared and abridged “ad fratrum preces et consilium prelati.” The edition of 1624 contains 4327 folio pages of very small type. That the work excited great attention, and was much used at all times, is proved by the great number of MSS. in all libraries, of which nearly 80 have been described, though no general notice of them has been published. In his prologue or general preface, which is prefixed to each of the three genuine parts, he says it is called Speculum because it briefly contains almost everything he could collect from innumerable books which is worthy of speculation, that is, of admiration or imitation, done or said in the visible and invisible world from the beginning to thé end, and even future things. He was so anxious that the names of the authors quoted should not be lost or transposed in copying that he wrote them, not on the margin, but in the text itself, “inter lineas ipsas sicut in decretis;” therefore Tbomasius {De Plagio, 542-75) acquits him of plagiarism, because he represents his work as a collection, and acknowledges all quotations.

The Speculum Mαjus describes—first, natural things; secondly, human doctrines, grammatical, literary, moral and political, including jurisprudence, mathematics, and physics: thirdly,ancienthistory, sacred and profane, with modern history, civil, literary, and, above all, ecclesiastical. To these three genuine parts a fourth was added, called Speculum morale. The first part, Speculum naturale, finished in 1250, called in some MSS. Speculum in Hexarneron, because arranged according to the order of the creation, contains 32 books and 3718 chapters. Book 1 treats of the creator and the angels; 2 the sensible world and the work of the first day, including light, colours, and demons; 3, second day, the firmament; 5 to 14, the third day,—book 5 waters, 6 the earth, 7 minerals and metals, 9-14 botany, containing eight alphabetical lists, aromatic plants (Absinthium to Erigeron) 198 names, cultivated plants (Abrotanum to Zinziber) 112 names, the others much shorter; book 15, fourth day, astronomy and technical chronology; book 16, fifth day, birds; book 17 fishes (list of 98 names, including sepia, spongia), and marine monsters (45 names); books 18 to 22, sixth day, animals; 23 to 28, man; 29, de universo, relating to the operations of the Creator since the creation, miracles, original sin, &c. The last three books form a sort of appendix :—book 30, nature of things; 31, natural history of human life; 32, places and times. The second part, Speculum doctrinale, contains 17 books and 2374 chapters; book 1, the fall, studies, doctors, words, with an alphabetical dictionary of about 2300 words, Abavus to Zodia; book 2, a very full grammar, with 45 chapters on verbs; book 3, logic, rhetoric, and poetry (with 29 fables); 4, 5, monastic science; 6, economic science; 7, politics; 8, legal actions; 9, 10, crimes; 11, mechanical arts; 12, practical medicine; 13, 14, theoretic medicine; 15, physics; 16, mathematics, including metaphysics; 17, theology. Vincent had an accurate knowledge of Arabic figures and of the decimal notation, and his book was probably the first written in France in which they were explained. He does not mention mechanics or optics by name. The third part, Speculum morale, is undoubtedly not by Vincent de Beauvais. It was written, according to Quetif, between 1310 and 1325, and is not mentioned in the prologue in any MS. written before 1310, in which the division of the work is said to be threefold, and the Speczdum historiale is called the third part, and not the fourth, as it is in the later MSS. No MS. of the Speculum morale contains the prologue. It is divided into 3 books and 347 distinctions, subdivided into articles. Scholastic arguments are more frequent, authors rarely named, and contradictory doctrines placed together. It is chiefly taken from Peter de Tarentasia on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Stephen de Borbone on the Seven Gifts of the Spirit, Richard de Middleton, the anonymous De consideratione novissimorum, and, above all, from the Summa Theologice of Thomas Aquinas. The fourth part, Speculum historiale, in 31 books and 3793 chapters, contains a history of the world from the creation to 1254, with 24 chapters on the death of men, the end of the world, which he places with St Hildegard in 2376 a.d., the reign of Antichrist, the last judgment, and the renewal of the universe. In more ancient times his chief guides are Peter Comestor (died 1178) and the Cistercian Helinand (died 1223). He mentions Turpin as the principal historian of Charlemagne. No one, says Quetif, has written the history of his time with more accuracy and truth, and greater freedom from all flattery. Jacob Van Maerlant translated this Speculum into Flemish verse, and continued it to 1273. A French translation was made by Jean de Vignay (a canon hospitaller of St Jacques du Hautpas, who died in 1341), at the request of Joanna of Burgundy, queen of Philip VI. of France, and printed by Verard, Paris, 1495-6, fol. 5 vols.

Vincent de Beauvais has preserved several works of the Middle Ages, and gives extracts from many lost classics and valuable readings of others, and has done more than any other mediaeval writer to awaken a taste for classical literature. Fabricius {Bibl.Groeca, 1728, xiv. pp. 107-25) has given a list of 328 authors, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin, quoted in the Specul·um naturale. To these should be added about 100 more for the doctrina le and historiale. As he did not know Greek or Arabic, he used Latin translations. The best edition of the Specul·um majus is the first, printed at Strasburg, by Mentelin, 1469? to 1473, fol. 10 vols. The three Venice editions of 1484, 1493-4, and 1591, fol. 4 vols., are very imperfect and incorrect. The last edition, Duaci, 1624, fol. 4 vois., by the Benedictines of St Vaast of Arras, is equally incorrect, and Vincent’s readings of ancient texts are replaced by the current readings of the time.

Brunetto Latini of Florence (born 1230, died 1294), the master of Dante and Guido Cavalcanti, while an exile in France between 1260 and 1267, wrote in French Li Livres dou Tresor, in 3 books and 413 chapters. Book i. contains the origin of the world, the history of the Bible and of the foundation of governments, astronomy, geography, and lastly natural history, taken from Aristotle, Pliny, and the old French Bestiaries. The first part of Book ii., on morality, is from the Ethics of Aristotle, which Brunetto had translated into Italian. The second part is little more than a copy of the well-known collection of extracts from ancient and modern moralists, called the Moralities of the Philosophers, of which there are many MSS. in prose and verse. Book iiι, on politics, begins with a treatise on rhetoric, chiefly from Cicero De Inventione, with many extracts from other writers and Brunetto’s remarks. The last part, the most original and interesting of all, treats of the government of the Italian republics of the time. Like many of his contemporaries, Brunetto revised his work, so that there are two editions, the second made after 1ιis return from exile. MSS. are singularly numerous, and exist in all the dialects then used in France. Others were written in Italy. It was translated into Italian in the latter part of the 13th century by Bono Giamboni, and was printed at Trevigi, 1474, fol. , Venice, 1528 and 1533. The Tesoro of Brunetto must not be confounded with his Tesoretfo, an Italian poem of 2937 short lines. Napoleon I. had intended to have the French text of the Tesoro printed with commentaries, and appointed a commission for the purpose. It was at last published in the Collection des Documents inedis, Paris, 1863,...