of the rest of Europe, have filled the present
volume. The second will, I hope, contain all I have to say about Venice
itself.

It was of course inexpedient to reduce drawings of crowded details to
the size of an octavo volume,--I do not say impossible, but inexpedient;
requiring infinite pains on the part of the engraver, with no result
except farther pains to the beholder. And as, on the other hand, folio
books are not easy reading, I determined to separate the text and the
unreducible plates. I have given, with the principal text, all the
illustrations absolutely necessary to the understanding of it, and, in
the detached work, such additional text as has special reference to the
larger illustrations.

A considerable number of these larger plates were at first intended to
be executed in tinted lithography; but, finding the result
unsatisfactory, I have determined to prepare the principal subjects for
mezzotinting,--a change of method requiring two new drawings to be made
of every subject; one a carefully penned outline for the etcher, and
then a finished drawing upon the etching. This work does not proceed
fast, while I am also occupied with the completion of the text; but the
numbers of it will appear as fast as I can prepare them.

For the illustrations of the body of the work itself, I have used any
kind of engraving which seemed suited to the subjects--line and
mezzotint, on steel, with mixed lithographs and woodcuts, at
considerable loss of uniformity in the appearance of the volume, but, I
hope, with advantage, in rendering the character of the architecture it
describes. And both in the plates and the text I have aimed chiefly at
clear intelligibility; that any one, however little versed in the
subject, might be able to take up the book, and understand what it meant
forthwith. I have utterly failed of my purpose, if I have not made all
the essential parts of the essay intelligible to the least learned, and
easy to the most desultory readers, who are likely to take interest in
the matter at all. There are few passages which even require so much as
an acquaintance with the elements of Euclid, and these may be missed,
without harm to the sense of the rest, by every reader to whom they may
appear mysterious; and the architectural terms necessarily employed
(which are very few) are explained as they occur, or in a note; so that,
though I may often be found trite or tedious, I trust that I shall not
be obscure. I a