Certainly there is much lyrical, useful and entertaining learning to be had. Among the ‘G’s:
GALAXY: In astronomy, that long, white, luminous track which seems to encompass the heavens like a swath, scarf or girdle, and which is easily perceived in a clear night, especially when the moon does not appear. The Greeks call it Galaxy of Milk on account of its colour and appearance; the Latins, for the same reasons, call it via lactea; and we, the milky way. The ancient poets and even philosophers speak of the Galaxy as the road or way by which the heroes went to heaven.
GALILEO (Galilei): The famous mathematician and astronomer, was the son of a Florentine nobleman, and born in the year 1564 … In 1592 he was chosen professor of mathematics at Padua, and during his abode there he invented, it is said, the telescope; or, according to others, improved that instrument, so as to make it fit for astronomical observations. Having observed some solar spots in 1612, he printed that discovery the following year in Rome; in which, and in some other pieces, he ventured to assert the truth of the Copernican system, and brought several new arguments to confirm it. For these he was cited before the Inquisition, and after some months’ imprisonment was released upon a simple promise that he would renounce his heretical opinions and not defend them by word or writing. But having afterwards, in 1632, published at Florence his ‘Dialogues of the two greatest systems of the world, the Ptolemaic and Copernican’, he was again cited before the Inquisition and committed to the prison of that ecclesiastical court at Rome … on this sentence he was detained a prisoner till 1634, and his ‘Dialogues of the system of the world’ were burnt at Rome.
GNOMES: Certain imaginary beings, who, according to the cabalists, inhabit the inner parts of the earth. They are supposed small in stature, and the guardians of quarries, mines &c. See Fairy.
FAIRY: In ancient tradition and romances signifies a sort of deity or imaginary genius, conversant on the earth, and distinguished by a variety of fantastical actions either good or bad. They were most usually imagined to be women of an order superior to human nature, yet subject to wants, passions, accidents, and even death; sprightly and benevolent while young and handsome; morose, peevish and malignant if ugly or in the decline of their beauty; fond of appearing in white …
One of the greatly expanded entries is on Gardening, occupying thirty-eight pages. The occupation has been newly ‘entitled to a considerable rank among the liberal arts’, being ‘an exertion of fancy’ and ‘a subject for taste’. The author remarks that gardening is no longer confined merely to gardens, but may be applied to a park, a farm or a riding, and in all these areas it is a gardener’s duty to improve beauty and correct faults. But beware of over-embellishment: Woburn Farm in Surrey is excessively ornamental.
There is much firm guidance. ‘Mere rocks, unless they are peculiarly adapted to certain impressions, may surprise, but can hardly please: they are too far removed from common life, too barren and inhospitable; rather desolate than solitary, and more horrid than terrible.’ Several English gardens are then appraised in detail, not least the rolling spread at Stowe in Buckinghamshire, and as each season is considered in turn there is much to delight the student of the obvious. In late summer, ‘maturity is always immediately succeeded by decay: flowers bloom and fade; fruits ripen and rot; the grass springs and withers … in the latter months of autumn, all nature is on the decline; it is a comfortless season …’
But Gardening is outdone by Pyrotechny. This explodes on to thirty-one pages, enlightened by four pages of Andrew Bell’s copperplate engravings. We learn of the varying roles of saltpetre, brimstone, benjamin and spur-fire, and what combination is needed for water rockets, rains and spiral wheels. There is detailed instruction on mortars and fuses, while the step-by-step guide to making ‘crackers’ (bangers) is crackers:
Cut some cartridge paper into pieces 3½inches broad and 1 foot long; one end of each fold down lengthwise about ¾ of an inch broad; then fold down the double edge down ¼ of an inch, and turn the single edge back half over the double fold … Then fold it over and over till all the paper is doubled up, rubbing it down every turn; this done, bend it backwards and forwards 2½inches or thereabouts …
And so on for many, many folds before you could add the touchpaper and then visit your local hospital. And this is nothing compared to the complexities of making the home-made fireworks ‘Fixed Sun with a Transparent Face’ or ‘Illuminated Chandelier’. Editor Tytler almost certainly composed this lengthy entry himself, joining his contributions on Chemistry, Earthquake, Electricity, Heat and Hot-air Ballooning, the last a new-found passion.
Inspired by the recent ascent of the Montgolfier brothers, Tytler thought ‘How hard can it be?’ In 1784 he secured financial backing for his first flight in a balloon 40 feet high and 30 feet in diameter. He fired up his coal-burning contraption in Comely Gardens in Edinburgh, and he was cheered off, according to one account, by ‘a crowd of cronies and backers, including a well-known golf caddie nicknamed Lord North’. He flew for about half a mile before crashing on to a road. He went up again shortly afterwards and became entangled in a tree. Robert Burns immortalised him as ‘Balloon Tytler’ in his Notes on Scottish Song. Back on the ground, Tytler made a modest contribution to the third edition of Britannica, but then sailed for America, where he pursued various schemes, not least excessive drinking, and one drunken night he ventured out into the snow, caught a deathly cold and died.
* This detail and much other indispensable information about this second edition is to be found in the chapter ‘James Tytler’s Edition: A Vast Expansion and Improvement’ by Kathleen Hardesty Doig, Frank A. Kafker, Jeff Loveland and Dennis A. Trinkle in Frank A. Kafker and Jeff Loveland (eds): The Early Britannica: The Growth of an Outstanding Encyclopaedia (Voltaire Foundation, Oxford, 2009). For an entertaining if somewhat outdated guide, see also: Herman Kogan, The Great EB (University of Chicago Press, 1958).
* Doig and colleagues question his role in the prostitute guide, although they concede ‘he may have been desperate’. Bell and Macfarquhar’s ambitions for the second edition required partners, and they agreed to print and promote it with eight other Scottish printer/booksellers.
H
HAMILTON’S CHOICE
If you were a chief librarian at King’s College in New York at the time of the American Revolution, and you had a budget to purchase just one major encyclopaedia, something that would inform and inspire young and scrappy students such as Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and Robert R. Livingston, which one should it be? The Britannica was the obvious choice, but there were a few others. Perhaps you would prefer:
A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, Comprehending All the Branches of Human Knowledge, published in five volumes (3500 pages) between 1763 and 1764, edited by A Society of Gentlemen and published by W. Owen at Homer’s Head in Fleet Street. This hoped to be ‘more universal and comprehensive’ than any set published previously: ‘the smallest insect and plant find a place’.