This second edition consisted of 1500 copies, and extended to ten volumes quarto. The third edition, to which Tytler also contributed, was commenced in 1789. Till then it had been considered in the south as “a Scots rival of little repute” (to Chambers’s _Cyclopædia_), but in this edition, beside the method and comprehensiveness of the plan, it rose greatly above its former level in its practical and speculative departments. It was completed in 1797, in eighteen volumes, to which Professor Robison supplied two supplementary volumes to complete the series he had commenced when the principal work was far advanced. The sale of this edition extended to ten thousand copies, and the proprietors are said to have netted £42,000 of clear profit, besides being paid for their respective work--the one as printer, the other as engraver. Much of this, of course, was due to poor Tytler’s labours, who was still living in the utmost penury. He was, however, perfectly regardless about poverty, having no desire to conceal it from the world. He would finish his frugal meal of a cold potato before the eyes of a stranger with as much nonchalance as if it had been a sumptuous repast. He had that contentment with poverty which is so apt to make it permanent, and this, in addition to his imprudent and intemperate habits, cut off all chance of a higher social position. As a proof of his extraordinary stock of general knowledge, his biographer relates a characteristic anecdote. “A gentleman in this city of Edinburgh once told me he wanted as much matter as would form a junction between a certain history and its continuation to a later period. He found Tytler lodged in one of those elevated apartments called _garrets_, and was informed by the old woman with whom he resided, that he could not see him, as he had gone to bed rather the worse for liquor. Determined, however, not to depart without his errand, he was shown into Mr. Tytler’s apartment by the light of a lamp, where he found him in the situation described by the landlady. The gentleman having acquainted him with the nature of the business which brought him at so late an hour, Mr. Tytler called for pen and ink, and in a short time produced about a page and a half of letterpress, which answered the end as completely as if it had been the result of the most mature deliberation, previous notice, and a mind undisturbed by any liquid capable of deranging its ideas.” On the death of Macfarquhar the whole work became the property of Andrew Bell. The fourth edition, augmented to twenty volumes, was completed in 1810, under the able superintendence of Dr. James Millar; but the editor was prevented from availing himself of Professor Robison’s excellent supplementary articles by a temporary separation of that property from that of the principal work. This issue consisted of three thousand five hundred copies.