PUBLISHERS’ NOTICE.

^pHE Editors of this work will give, in the preface, a statement of the plan and purpose of their labors; but the

Publishers may be allowed to speak with some pride of their own part in the production of a volume, unique inthis country, and upon which they have expended an amount of time, care, and money, which, if devoted to otherobjects, would certainly have produced a much greater pecuniary return. Few, indeed, not familiar with the details°f a publisher’s business, the difficulty of procuring competent artists and engravers, the high price which must bepaid for the labors of such needful assistants, and the apparently inevitable and costly mistakes which always occurin the progress of a large illustrated work, can have any adequate conception of the laborious details, the continuedanxiety, and the large expense attending such a publication; and it would be difficult to give a just idea of it withinthe proper limits of such a notice as this.

The work was undertaken with the determination that it should be carried on impartially, thoroughly, andindependently; that the best artists and engravers in the country should be employed on their own terms;j that no partiality should be purchased by those whose works are criticised or illustrated; that the best| accessible information and assistance should be obtained for the editorial department; that the whole work| should be prepared with reference to its general and permanent value; the present Exhibition being used merelyto furnish a text and examples for the illustration of general principles. This plan has been conscientiously adheredto. Without any aid or favor whatever from the government of the Exhibition, or from the Exhibitors them-selves,—access to the articles only excepted,—the undersigned have caused whatever was deemed worthy of illustra-tion to be daguerreotyped, drawn and engraved, (excepting in one or two trifling instances,) solely at their own expense.

The whole cost of the volume thus produced, exceeds Fokty Thousand Dollars. But the publishers haveat least the satisfaction of knowing, that whatever degree of favor it may meet with, it has been preparedcarefully, impartially, honestly, and without fear or favor; and that its criticisms cannot have any the lessweight or value, from the fact that they have been beyond the influence of merely selfish considerations.

Of the 504 engravings on wood contained in this work (one hundred, by the way—costing about $3,000—more than our prospectus promised to subscribers), four-fifths have been engraved in New-York, and chiefly byAmerican engravers. It could not be supposed that this art, any more than others, has yet had time toattain perfection in this country; but many of the specimens in our volume indicate a respectable progress, if,indeed, they suffer in comparison with those of the admirable work which was partly our model—the Lon-don Art Journal—to the accomplished editor of which S. C. Hall, Esq., we take the opportunity of returningthanks for practical courtesies and friendly suggestions.

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