Adam Black, the son of Charles Black, a builder of Edinburgh, was born in that town in the year 1784, and was educated primarily at the High School, on his entrance as a pupil at which, tradition says, he was accompanied by his father, who, having just left his employment for the purpose, appeared in full working garb, the mason’s white leathern apron included. At the University his talents speedily procured him admittance into that clique of young Liberals who were afterwards to effect such a change in Edinburgh, indeed in cosmopolitan politics. After serving his apprenticeship to the book trade, in partnership with his nephew, the bookselling business of Adam and Charles Black was founded. In 1817 he married Isabella, only daughter of James Tait, architect (sister of William Tait, the well-known originator of _Tait’s Magazine_), and at the time of Constable’s failure was in a steady and prosperous way of business. This disaster was the means of making many fortunes, and in 1826 the _Edinburgh Review_ appeared under the joint proprietorship of Thomas Norton Longman and Adam and Charles Black. As we have followed the career of the _Review_ in our history of the Longman family, it will be unnecessary to enter fully into the changes of management and the success of later numbers. Another work, however, afterwards thrown on the market, which also became the property of Messrs. A. and C. Black, is of such literary importance that we must again for a moment retrace our steps, in order to keep up the proper sequence of our narrative. The idea of a compilation that should embrace all human knowledge is of very great antiquity. Pliny, in fact claims the name of “Encyclopædia” for his _Natural History_; but it was not till the sixteenth century that any attempt was made at arranging the matter in a systematic manner, though the Arabians are said to have had a true _Encyclopædia_ centuries before that date. It was long, however, before the idea occurred of employing the lexographic plan as a basis of a universal _répertoire_ of learning, and the first great step in advance was the _Lexicon Technicum_ of Dr. Harris, completed and published at London in the year 1710. The _Cyclopædia_ of Ephraim Chambers, with which we have previously dealt, appeared in 1728, and for a long time was the supreme authority; through its success at home and abroad a new impulse was given to the desire for such publications. In France the _Encyclopédie_ was projected by the Abbé de Gua, and was based originally on an unpublished translation of Chambers’s _Cyclopædia_, made by an Englishman named Mills. In consequence of a quarrel with the publishers, De Gua threw it up, and it was then transferred to Diderot and D’Alembert; to become the text-book of the French philosophers. The publication of the seventeen volumes extended from 1751 to 1765, and six years after the latter date appeared the first volume of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_.