The text explains the purpose of providing an excerpt from a series of twenty-eight volumes related to arts and crafts, aiming to aid young artists. This excerpt includes the most interesting parts of the discourse, focusing on prints relevant to their collection and removed from unrelated content. It acknowledges the original author and highlights necessary changes made to the Encyclopedia's explanations.
Principles of Drawing
On the various arts and crafts, in a series of twenty-eight folio volumes, whose price has become exceedingly expensive, we believe we are providing an essential service to young artists by offering here an excerpt of what is most interesting in this excellent discourse, applied to the prints that make up our collection, and freed from anything that might be foreign to our subject. To give its Author (whose name we do not know) the justice due, we hereby acknowledge publicly that all that is good in what precedes is taken from this explanation of the plates of the Encyclopedia, to which we have made the changes and additions that we deemed necessary.
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