TO
Her most Sacred Majesty,
Queen ANNE.
May it please your Majesty!
The Condescension of the late Emperor of Germany to patronize this Work in the Original, could not have incited me to the Presumption of laying the Translation at Your Royal Feet; had not the Art of Perspective, of which it treats, been so nearly ally’d to the Noble Arts of Painting and Architecture. The First of these Your Majesty has been pleas’d to honour, as well in expressing a Satisfaction with the Performances, as in extending Your Royal Munificence to that great Master thereof, Signor Verrio.
And although Affairs of higher Consequence have hitherto deferr’d Your Majesty’s Commands for Raising WHITE-HALL from its Ruins; yet has not Architecture been without Encouragement, under Your Majesty’s Most Auspicious Reign: Witness the great Dispatch lately given to those Noble Fabricks of S. PAUL’s, Greenwich-Hospital, and Blenheim.
These seem to presage, that a Time is coming, when, through the Blessing of Peace, and the Happy Influence of Your Majesty’s Government; WHITE-HALL shall become a Structure worthy its Great Restorer, and its Name as much Celebrated among Palaces, as Your Royal Vertues are Illustrious among Princes: When Your Majesty’s Subjects shall exert themselves as much to their Country’s Honour, in the Arts of Design, and Civil Architecture; as they have already done in the Art Military, and Personal Valour.
Preliminary to such Happy Season, I presume this Art of Perspective made Practicable, may not be improper; being One of the most Useful, though hitherto the most Obscure and Confus’d, of all the Lineary Arts. I therefore, with all Submission, beg Leave to supplicate Your Majesty’s Pardon for this Address, and Your Gracious Protection of this Specimen of English Graving; to which if Your Majesty vouchsafe Your Royal Patronage, it will effectually animate the future Endeavours of,
May it please Your Majesty!