TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.
Footnotes have been moved to the end of the book text, and before the publisher's Book Catalog. Some Footnotes are very long.
The 3-star asterism symbol in the Catalog is denoted by ⁂. On some handheld devices it may display as a space.
To avoid duplication, the page numbering in the publisher's Book Catalog at the back of the book has a suffix C added, so that for example page [23] in the Catalog is denoted as [23C].
Footnotes [13] and [29] are referenced from the prior Footnotes [12] and [28], not from the text itself.
For consistency and to follow the intent of the publisher, the PLATE illustrations have been moved to the beginning of the section describing them. In most cases this was only one or two paragraphs earlier than the original book layout.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. For example, enniched; biasses; dismission; disquisitions; threadbare, thread-bare; shoeblack, shoe-black.
[Pg 17], 'Leonarda da Vinci' replaced by 'Leonardo da Vinci'.
[Pg 18], 'reply the monarch' replaced by 'replied the monarch'.
[Pg 18], 'Leonarda da Vinci' replaced by 'Leonardo da Vinci'.
[Pg 46], Footnote [12], 'Albert Durer' replaced by 'Albrecht Durer'.
[Pg 57], 'Gobelines' replaced by 'Gobelins'.
[Pg 60], Illustration caption: 'BEAUTY, PLATE II.' replaced by 'BEAUTY, PLATE I.'.
[Pg 74], 'Corregio's Sigismunda' replaced by 'Correggio's Sigismunda'.
[Pg 76], 'even by Corregio' replaced by 'even by Correggio'.
[Pg 140], 'similiar compliment' replaced by 'similar compliment'.
[Pg 217], 'artifical light' replaced by 'artificial light'.
Catalog of Books:
[Pg 15C], 'very beau-ful' replaced by 'very beautiful'.
[Pg 38C], 'wholesale de redation' replaced by 'wholesale depredation'.
[Pg 43C], 'booh is a mine' replaced by 'book is a mine'.