Transcriber's note: Minor spelling inconsistencies, mainly hyphenated words, have been harmonised. Obvious printer errors have been repaired. Accents: In French sentences, most of them italicized, accents have been added, when necessary, according to the French spelling rules of the time. In an English context, French words have no accents if there are no accents in the original text. In case of an inconsistent use of accents, the French spelling has been favoured.
The Latin numbers i and ii in the text refers to transcriber's notes at the end of this e-book. The advertisement for other books in the series have been removed from page 3 to the end of this e-book. View larger image. Winged Victory of Samothrace. I love that citie for hir own sake, and more in hir only subsisting and owne being, than when it is fall fraught and embellished with forraine pompe and borrowed garish ornaments.
I love hir so tenderly that hir spottes, her blemishes and hir warts are deare unto me. I am no perfect French man but by this great citie, great in people, great in regard of the felicitie of hir situation, but above all great and incomparable in varietie and diversitie of commodities; the glory of France and one of the noblest and chiefe ornaments of the world.
God of his mercy free hir and chase away all our divisions from hir. So long as she shall continue, so long shall I never want a home or a retreat to retire and shrowd myselfe at all times. Obviously in so vast a range of study as that afforded by the city of Paris, compression and selection have been imperative: we have therefore limited our guidance to such routes and edifices as seemed to offer the more important objects of historic and artistic interest, excluding from our purview, with much regret, the works of contemporary artists.
On the Louvre, as the richest Thesaurus of beautiful things in Europe, we have dwelt at some length and even so it has been possible only to deal broadly with its contents. A book has, however, this advantage over a corporeal guide; it can be curtly dismissed without fear of offence, when antipathy may impel the traveller to pass by, or sympathy invite him to linger over, the various objects indicated to his gaze.
