y
quarrel thirty years before with the first authors of the dictionary. He
had sent them one thousand three hundred articles, on condition that the
donor should be handsomely thanked in the preface of the new edition,
and further receive a copy _en grand papier_. They were accepted. The
conductors of the new edition, in 1721, forgot all the promises--nor
thanks, nor copy! Our learned avocat, who was a little irritable, as his
nephew who wrote his life acknowledges, as soon as the great work
appeared, astonished, like Dennis, that "they were rattling his own
thunder," without saying a word, quits his country town, and ventures,
half dead with sickness and indignation, on an expedition to Paris, to
make his complaint to the chancellor; and the work was deemed of that
importance in the eye of government, and so zealous a contributor was
considered to have such an honourable claim, that the chancellor
ordered, first, that a copy on large paper should be immediately
delivered to Monsieur Lautour, richly bound and free of carriage; and
secondly, as a reparation of the unperformed promise, and an
acknowledgment of gratitude, the omission of thanks should be inserted
and explained in the three great literary journals of France; a curious
instance, among others, of the French government often mediating, when
difficulties occurred in great literary undertakings, and considering
not lightly the claims and the honours of men of letters.

Another proof, indeed, of the same kind, concerning the present work,
occurred after the edition of 1752. One Jamet l'aine, who had with
others been usefully employed on this edition, addressed a proposal to
government for an improved one, dated from the Bastile. He proposed that
the government should choose a learned person, accustomed to the labour
of the researches such a work requires; and he calculated, that if
supplied with three amanuenses, such an editor would accomplish his task
in about ten or twelve years, the produce of the edition would soon
repay all the expenses and capital advanced. This literary projector did
not wish to remain idle in the Bastile. Fifteen years afterwards the
last improved edition appeared, published by the associated booksellers
of Paris.

As for the work itself, it partakes of the character of our
Encyclopaedias; but in this respect it cannot be safely consulted, for
widely has science enlarged its domains and corrected its errors since
1771. But it is preciou