EDINBURGH PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS MDCCCXLIX PREFAC E. As my works upon the aesthetics of colour and form are now eight in number, and as their various titles have been found insufficient to enable those who wished to consult them upon particular points, to find those points without much labour, it has been suggested to me that a descriptive catalogue would be of great use in such cases. This suggestion I adopt the more readily from my having endeavoured, in my works, as much as possible to extend their usefulness to a very wide sphere-embracing, in the first place, all who have to study the arrangement of various colours, either in their dress, their furniture, or their flowergardens; all who manufacture variously-coloured fabrics in silk, worsted, or cotton; all who study natural history, whether as to animals, vegetables, or minerals, and, indeed, all who wish to understand the aesthetic nature and proper nomenclature of colours; and, in the second place, all who have to study proportion and beauty of form, whether in the arts of sculpture, architecture, painting, or ornamental design. Although I have thus attempted to render my works so variously useful, their subjects are of a similar nature and regulated by the same fundamental principles, so that each throws light upon the others, rendering a general knowledge of the whole easy of acquirement. I believe that ninety-nine out of the hundred of those to whom my works are addressed, estimate the value of such productions by the opinions of the press. What is meant by" opinions of the press "are those critical remarks made in literary journals, the value of which is generally estimated by the respectability of the source from which they emanate. It is pretty generally understood that the proprietors of many of those journals obtain only the opinions of highly qualified critics, and men above the suspicion of being actuated by any other motive than that of doing justice between the author whose works are under review, and the reader of the journal in which their remarks are to appear. When opinions, emanating from such respectable sources, are inimical to those of an author, and consequently prejudicial to the value of his works, he has no right to complain, for the critic is only doing his duty to the public. But, on the other hand, when such opinions are favourable, the author has a right to give them all possible publicity, in order to inspire the public with confidence in his works, and thereby enhance their value. But all authors who have struggled to establish truth, where error has been long and deeply rooted, have not only had at first to contend with a strong undercurrent of popular prejudice and ignorance, but, what is still more vexatious, have sometimes found that, when their views were gaining ground amongst the thinking and learned portion of mankind, there were not wanting those who, having no other means of gaining notoriety, were ready to attack and ridicule the truth thus in its progress to a full development. Such obstructors of the progress of truth have found their abettors, too, amongst the prejudiced and ignorant, who were ready to cheer them on, and award them at least the merit of cleverness, however signally they may have failed in their attempts, however mischievous the tendency of their critical remarks, or from whatever motive they may have assumed the character of a critic. Having (with a single exception) been eminently fortunate, both as to the nature of the critical remarks that have been made upon my works, and the great respectability of the sources from which they have emanated, I have accompanied this catalogue by a copious selection. |