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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 9
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.1
8. 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 am especially anxious to rid this essay of ambiguity, because I want to gain the ear of all kinds of persons. Every man has, at some time of his life, personal interest in architecture.2 He has influence on the design of some public building; or he has to buy, to build, or alter his own house. It signifies less whether the knowledge
1 [For particulars under this head, see Vol. XI.]
2 [See for another enforcement of this point, Lectures on Architecture and Painting, § 5, and below, ch. i. § 38, p. 46.]
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[Version 0.04: March 2008]
