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PREFACE. vil
to procure some of them at any expense, and after the search of mamy
years.
Even the plates accompanying this work have often been objects of
peculiar care ; many of them are from original drawings, imparted by
the liberality of English voyagers and travellers: and most of the sin-
gular and beautiful views in France are selected from the Voyage Pitto-
resque de la France, a work which sells at eighty guineas. ‘The Editor has
even been surprised at the anxiety of the Publishers to furnish novelty in
this department ; and the exertions of Mr. Cook, the engraver, deserve
‘honourable mention, both for their accuracy and beauty. ’The first volume
presents two historical pieces on the first successful attempt of English
navigators in modern times, the discovery of northern Russia by Chan-
celor, and the consequent commercial intercourse, which has proved of
so much importance to both nations. The events of 1812 and 1813
will render these subjects: still more interesting than when they were
engraved in 1807. ‘The idea of these decorations was taken from the
Histoire Generale des Voyages; but it was afterwards thought more
advisable, and more consonant to the plan of the work, to substitute real
views. Some readers seem to have expected charts, which are only
useful to navigators ; and to answer that purpose must be executed upon
the largest scale.
Where no traveller has appeared to give a good general account of a
country, that country is of course omitted ; this work being a collection
of voyages and travels, and not a system of geography, or a compilation
from detached authors. A supplemental volume, or volumes, might, in
the course of years, remedy this, with some few other omissions above
specified. Such deficiencies are unavoidable in a collection of this uni-
versal nature; and the supplemental volumes of the French collection
amount to no less than five. ‘The original plan proposed by the Editor
must have extended to twenty volumes ; and he always suspected that the
restriction of the plan to twelve, proposed by the Publishers, could not be
accomplished, without the sacrifice of many essential articles, or an unad-
visable disproportion in the parts allotted to the different divisions of the
globe
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