152 CONSTABLE, CADELL, AND BLACK. else ?" At every station the writer made the same inquiry and met with the same result. As through the business talents of the publishers, the printed works of Sir Walter Scott were reduced in price, so through the fame of the author did the auto- graph remains rise to a very wonderful fictitious value. Mr. Cadell made a remarakable collection of all the manuscripts he could purchase, and on the 9th of July, 1868, his collection was sold for 1073 ; while even a corrected proof of "Peveril of the Peak " realized The seventh edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britan- nica" was finished, as we have previously stated, in 1842, and met with, not only an immediate, but also a con- tinuous sale, but human knowledge refuses to be stereotyped, and at the close of 1852 the eighth edition was commenced, occupying nine years in the publica- tion. The proprietors justly claim for it the proud title of "the largest literary enterprise ever under- taken by any single house in Great Britain." The editorial charge was entrusted to Dr. Thomas Stewart Trail, professor of medical jurisprudence in the University of Edinburgh ; and, among the more im- portant new contributors, we may mention Arch- bishop Whately, Professor Blackie, and Dr. Forbes, the latter of whom contributed a new " Dissertation " to the introductory volume. Lord Macaulay con- tributed five of the leading biographies " as a token of friendship to the senior proprietor." " Any article of any value in any preceding edition," says the editor, " has been reprinted in this in all cases with corrections, and frequently with considerable additions. Besides these, it has received so great an accession of original contributions, that nine-tenths of its contents
