SIXTH EDITION.
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1870.
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
PREFACE
To
THE THIRD EDITION.
The Author ventures to hope that, on comparing this Third Edition of ‘Sacred and Legendary Art’ with the two preceding, it will be found greatly improved, and rendered more worthy of the kind approbation and sympathy with which it has been received. The whole has been carefully revised; the references to the pictures and other works of Art corrected from the latest authorities, and many new examples have been added. All the Illustrations, which were formerly etched on copper, have been newly etched on steel; two have been omitted, and three others, as more interesting and appropriate, have been substituted; and twelve new woodcuts have been introduced. In a work so multifarious in its nature, and comprising so many hundred subjects and references, there may remain some errors and omissions, but they have not occurred from want of care; and I must not omit to express due thanks for the observations and corrections which have been forwarded to me from time to time, and which have been in this Edition carefully attended to.
A. J.
January 1857.
PREFACE
To
THE FIRST EDITION.
(1848.)
This book was begun six years ago, in 1842. It has since been often laid aside, and again resumed. In this long interval, many useful and delightful works have been written on the same subject, but still the particular ground I had chosen remained unoccupied; and, amid many difficulties, and the consciousness of many deficiencies, I was encouraged to proceed, partly by the pleasure I took in a task so congenial—partly by the conviction that such a work has long been wanted by those who are not contented with a mere manual of reference, or a mere catalogue of names. This book is intended not only to be consulted, but to be read—if it be found worth reading. It has been written for those who are, like myself, unlearned; yet less, certainly, with the idea of instructing, than from a wish to share with others those pleasurable associations, those ever new and ever various aspects of character and sentiment, as exhibited in Art, which have been a source of such vivid enjoyment to myself.
This is the utmost limit of my ambition; and, knowing that I cannot escape criticism, I am at least anxious that there should be no mistake as to purpose and intention. I hope it will be clearly understood that I have taken throughout the æsthetic and not the religious view of those productions of Art which, in as far as they are informed with a true and earnest feeling, and steeped in that beauty which emanates from genius inspired by faith, may cease to be Religion, but cannot cease to be Poetry; and as poetry only I have considered them.