PREFACE. The ALTHOUGH the popularity of the present volume has given the publishers little reason to be dissatisfied, still it has been thought advisable to re-model the whole, and not only to make many corrections in the style of diction, but to introduce numerous additional illustrations from the best and most recent sources. work may, indeed, be almost looked upon as a new publication, and, it is hoped, as a not unuseful contribution to the manuals of art which are so essential in teaching the first rules of correct taste, and in enabling us to distinguish accurately between the styles adopted at different times, and by different nations. It is much, however, to be regretted, that our real information as to these "seven wonders," which have, probably from a taste for the mysticism of the number seven, been set forth by the concurrent voice of history as the specimens, par excellence, of what the ancients could achieve, should be so limited as it is. Of some of them scarcely a vestige remains of others we have only traditional memorials, not always written in the best taste or by the most competent authors. It the " may likewise be matter of some question, whether seven wonders of the world are not of greater historical than æsthetic value. The Great Pyramid, for example, has little by which to recommend itself to notice, save its gigantic size and the direful prodigality of human life and labour expended in its construction. The Tower of Babel is too much an architectural enigma for us to venture to speculate even on its probable form, while the very idea of the Colossus at Rhodes involves a feeling of the ludicrous, scarcely agreeable to the dignity of art, or the genuine principles of taste. The application of means to an end is too much sacrificed in these vast undertakings. We may wonder at the extravagant magnificence of the people who could construct them, but, with few exceptions, the cui bono becomes an awkward question, and we feel that they have conduced but little to rendering mankind wiser or happier. So many allusions to ancient art-critics, and writers occur in the following pages, that a brief notice of a few works which form our leading authorities on the subject, will, it is hoped, not be unacceptable. The science of criticism would seem to have been applied to works of art at a period long subsequent to its use in judging of literature and poetry. Although Herodotus, the earliest of extant Greek historians, dwells frequently upon works of art, especially build |