This work is not a mere compilation, or republication of anecdote. It will be found to contain much original matter, and much of the most interesting and instructive portions of the history of art. These self-imposed labors have not been assumed through any mercenary or selfish motives. His experience has taught him the precarious results of literary and publishing enterprises of the nature undertaken by him, in the present state of the Fine Arts in our country. The amount of capital and labor he has invested has been enormous, and the risks proportionate; his books admonish him that he has already embarked many thousands of dollars which he can never hope to regain. 

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