"OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US."
ADVICE.
The three chapters [2-13] of "Our Fathers have told us," now submitted to the public, are enough to show the proposed character and tendencies of the work, to which, contrary to my usual custom, I now invite subscription, because the degree in which I can increase its usefulness by engraved illustration must greatly depend on the known number of its supporters.
I do not recognize, in the present state of my health, any reason to fear more loss of general power, whether in conception or industry, than is the proper and appointed check of an old man's enthusiasm: of which, however, enough remains in me, to warrant my readers against the abandonment of a purpose entertained already for twenty years.
The work, if I live to complete it, will consist of ten parts, each taking up some local division of Christian history, and gathering, towards their close, into united illustration of the power of the Church in the Thirteenth Century.
The next chapter, which I hope to issue soon after Christmas, completes the first part, descriptive of the early Frank power, and of its final skill, in the Cathedral of Amiens.
The second part, "Ponte della Pietra," will, I hope, do more for Theodoric and Verona than I have been able to do for Clovis and the first capital of France.
The third, "Ara Celi," will trace the foundations of the Papal power.
The fourth, "Ponte-a-Mare," and fifth, "Ponte Vecchio," will only with much difficulty gather into brief form what I have by me of scattered materials respecting Pisa and Florence.