Vlll

a person was the celebrated Perrault, whose facade ofthe Louvre is accounted one of the most elegant andmagnificent examples of the art in existence. Withsuch a precedent, there cannot be much apology neces-sary for the cheap copy now presented to the amateurand to the student of architecture.

L. B. Alberti, Baldassare Peruzzi, Palladio, andall the illustrious restorers of the Art, treat Vitruviusas the great master from whom they derived the pre-cepts delivered in their writings; and though perhaps amore utilitarian age has arrived, the sound doctrines ofthe art are unchangeable, for they are based on natureand statics.

Of late we have had much talk of ^Esthetics in thefine arts; or, in plain language, of the doctrine ofexpedients for converting sense into sensation, as ifsome new discovery had been made. That this isno new thing, appears from the author’s directionson the Scamilli impares, as well as on many other mat-ters of detail mentioned in the third book and else-where. It is also quite apparent, from the instructionsfor designing temples, that the laws of statics guidedthem to an equality of voids and solids.

It only remains for me to thank the translator forhis superintendence through the press of this edition,in which, though no material alterations have been ne-cessary, a considerable number of corrections have beenmade, and to which three plates of theatres have beenadded. The present taste for a cheap press precludedanother edition, except in the form here presented.

J. W.

59, High Holborn,