Page:To the Court of the Emperor of China - vol I.djvu/14

xiv several at the head of each of the two volumes to which they more particularly belong. The same motive has suggested them all — a desire to gratify the public.

It is with the same intention that the Editor has thought proper to subjoin to the work a notice of the valuable collection of drawings made by M. Van-Braam, who during five years constantly employed two Chinese draughtsmen in forming this numerous and curious assemblage of all kinds of objects. But how much does the Editor regret, that he cannot by this brief notice enable the Reader to participate in the pleasure resulting from a sight of the drawings; a pleasure which increases in proportion as the examination of the details is more dleiberatedeliberate [sic], or is taken by eyes accustomed to find out beauties which elude, as it were, the first hasty view.

The Editor will indulge in no observations concerning the work itself, except that it every where exhibits a character of candour, which is that of the Author. There is nothing, even to the repetitions which the occurrence of similar matters must necessarily produce in a work written in the form of a journal, that does not prove his veracity. The frankness with which M. Van-Braam confesses, in two or three places, that he was mistaken as to points of which he thought himself assured by preceding circumstances, is a valuable testimony