312 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

the lights. Studies made on such a system, if successful, resemble daguerreotypes; and those which I have hitherto published, both in the Seven Lamps, and in the text of the present work, have been mistaken by several persons for copies of them. Had they been so, I should certainly not have stated them to be copies of my own drawings;* but I have used the help of the daguerreotype without scruple in completing many of the mezzotinted subjects for the present series; and I much regret that artists in general do not think it worth their while to perpetuate some of the beautiful effects which the daguerreotype alone can seize.

When the subject is either dependent on colour, or of too little importance absolutely to require elaboration of effect, it will generally be expressed by tinted lithography; but even of such less important subjects there are several which I should be glad to mezzotint, if possible; and the number of mezzotints which I can give must, in great part, depend on the number of subscribers to the work: there will, at any rate, be one in each number; there are two in the present one, and there will be two on the last. It was stated in the prospectus that there would be five plates in each number; when, however, there are several connected with the same subject, and of slight details, they will be considered as one plate, and marked with one number, distinguished only by letters; as in Plate 5 and 5B. of the present number.

As I cannot be certain of the order in which the subjects may be ready for publication, the number of each will be marked, for reference merely, in small Arabic figures at the bottom of the plate on the left-hand side; as the series advances, it may, perhaps, be thought convenient to arrange them in a different order.¹

But for the time of the appearance of the numbers I

* With two exceptions, as stated in the preface to the Seven Lamps [Vol. VIII.] p. 4, and also another exception as stated in The Stones of Venice, Vol. X. p. 310 n..]

¹ [The number were omitted in ed. 2, and are not here shown.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]