252 Preface to the American Edition. 



Nearly all the plates in this series — indeed, the 

 whole of the landscape subjects — were etched 

 directly from Nature, often under circumstances 

 very different from the convenient surroundings 

 of an engraver's table at home, with rain pouring 

 over the plate, or daylight rapidly declining, joined 

 to serious apprehensions about passing some dan- 

 gerous rapid before I could get to a village inn, or 

 find shelter beneath the thatch of some humble 

 hamlet nestled in a nook of the wooded and rocky 

 shore. Hence they are literally no more than the 

 notes of impressions which an artist takes in his 

 memorandum-book. As for the two or three sub- 

 jects in which the author himself appears, it may 

 be remarked, that, as he could not pose and draw 

 at the same time, there was a peculiar difficulty in 

 these attempts, which the author, from want of 

 practice in figure-drawing, could scarcely be ex- 

 pected to overcome. A friend of mine, who is a 

 figure-painter by profession, kindly made one or 

 two slight sketches as helps ; but, as the artist in 

 question belonged to the severest French classi- 

 cal school (with which, as an artist, I have no 

 affinity whatever, though as a critic I admire much 

 of what it has accomplished), his sketches were 



