William Smellie,
engraved by Henry Bryan Hall after
George Watson (1840)
From: John Wilson and Robert Chambers, The
Land of Burns: A Series of Landscapes and Portraits, Illustrative
of the Life and Writings of the Scottish Poet (Glasgow:
Blackie & Son,
1840), facing vol. II, p. 4.
William Smellie (1740-95) printed the Edinburgh
editions of Robert Burns's works and was a close friend of the
poet. Besides
being a Master Printer, Smellie was a learned and versatile man
of letters and knew many of the most prominent writers and philosophers
of Enlightenment Edinburgh. He edited the first
edition
of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1771), published a Philosophy
of Natural History (1790), and started the Edinburgh
Magazine and Review (1773-76) with Gilbert Stuart.
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