As in the case of the founder of the house, the folio _Cyclopædia_, still the only one in the field, occupied the chief attention of the firm. Already in 1746 it had reached a fifth edition; “and whilst,” adds Alexander Chalmers, “a sixth edition was in question the proprietors thought that the work might admit of a supplement in two additional folio volumes. This supplement, which was published in the joint names of Mr. Scott and Dr. Hill, though containing a number of valuable articles, was far from being uniformly conspicuous for its exact judgment and due selection, a small part of it only being executed by Mr. Scott, Dr. Hill’s task having been discharged with his usual rapidity.” There the matter stood for some years, when the proprietors determined to convert the whole into one work. Several editions were tried and found wanting, and finally Dr. John Calder, the friend of Dr. Percy, was engaged, but provisionally only, for the duty. He drew up an elaborate programme, containing no less than twenty-six propositions. The agreement, as it illustrates, in some degree, the relative positions of authors and publishers, may be quoted. Dr. Calder agreed to prepare a new edition of _Chambers’s Cyclopædia_ to be completed in two years. He received £50 as a retaining fee upon signing the agreement, and £50 a quarter until the work was finally out of the printer’s hands. In spite of this retaining fee the proprietors appear to have been smitten with fear, perhaps dreading a repetition of Dr. Hill’s inaccuracies, and sent round a specimen sheet to the eminent _literati_ of the day, asking their opinions upon the matter and the style. All the verdicts were unfavourable, one contemptuous critic complaining that the author had twice referred favourably to the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, “a Scots rival publication in little esteem.” Dr. Johnson cut away a large portion of his sheet as worthless; but, at poor Calder’s request, who began to be perplexedly alarmed by all these adverse reviews, explained this superfluity as arising simply from _trôp de zèle_. “I consider the residuum which I lopped away, not as the consequence of negligence or inability, but as the result of superfluous business, naturally exerted in the first article. He that does too much soon learns to do less.” Then apologizing for Calder’s turbulence and impatience, the kindly doctor prays “that he may stand where he stood before, and be permitted to proceed with the work with which he is engaged. Do not refuse this request, sir, to your most humble servant, Samuel Johnson.” Again and again the doctor interposed his influence, but in vain, and Abraham Rees, a young professor in a dissenting college near town, was engaged, and a new issue of the _Cyclopædia_ (still Chambers’s), in weekly parts, was commenced in 1778, running on till 1786, attaining a circulation of four or five thousand, then a large one, for each number; and Longman, as chief proprietor, must have profited