tion of this dictionary sprung from the spirit of rivalry,
occasioned by a French dictionary published in Holland, by the
protestant Basnage de Beauval. The duke set his Jesuits hastily to work;
who, after a pompous announcement that this dictionary was formed on a
plan suggested by their patron, did little more than pillage Furetiere,
and rummage Basnage, and produced three new folios without any
novelties; they pleased the Duc du Maine, and no one else. This was in
1704. Twenty years after, it was republished and improved; and editions
increasing, the volumes succeeded each other, till it reached to its
present magnitude and value in eight large folios, in 1771, the only
edition now esteemed. Many of the names of the contributors to this
excellent collection of words and things, the industry of Monsieur
Barbier has revealed in his "Dictionnaire des Anonymes," art. 10782. The
work, in the progress of a century, evidently became a favourite
receptacle with men of letters in France, who eagerly contributed the
smallest or largest articles with a zeal honourable to literature and
most useful to the public. They made this dictionary their commonplace
book for all their curious acquisitions; every one competent to write a
short article, preserving an important fact, did not aspire to compile
the dictionary, or even an entire article in it; but it was a treasury
in which such mites collected together formed its wealth; and all the
literati may be said to have engaged in perfecting these volumes during
a century. In this manner, from the humble beginnings of three volumes,
in which the plagiary much more than the contributor was visible, eight
were at length built up with more durable materials, and which claim the
attention and the gratitude of the student.

The work, it appears, interested the government itself, as a national
concern, from the tenor of the following anecdotes.

Most of the minor contributors to this great collection were satisfied
to remain anonymous; but as might be expected among such a number,
sometimes a contributor was anxious to be known to his circle; and did
not like this penitential abstinence of fame. An anecdote recorded of
one of this class will amuse: A Monsieur Lautour du Chatel, avocat au
parlement de Normandie, voluntarily devoted his studious hours to
improve this work, and furnished nearly three thousand articles to the
supplement of the edition of 1752. This ardent scholar had had a livel