dable that a
technical word or phrase should occur, an explanation has been added
either in the text or in the glossary; but as this volume and the
companion one on Gothic and Renaissance Architecture are, in effect,
two divisions of the same work, it has not been thought necessary to
repeat in the glossary given with this part the words explained in
that prefixed to the other.

In treating so very wide a field, it has been felt that the chief
prominence should be given to that great sequence of architectural
styles which form the links of a chain connecting the architecture of
modern Europe with the earliest specimens of the art. Egypt, Assyria,
and Persia combined to furnish the foundation upon which the splendid
architecture of the Greeks was based. Roman architecture was founded
on Greek models with the addition of Etruscan construction, and was
for a time universally prevalent. The break-up of the Roman Empire was
followed by the appearance of the Basilican, the Byzantine, and the
Romanesque phases of Christian art; and, later on, by the Saracenic.
These are the styles on which all mediaeval and modern European
architecture has been based, and these accordingly have furnished the
subjects to which the reader's attention is chiefly directed. Such
styles as those of India, China and Japan, which lie quite outside
this series, are noticed much more briefly; and some matters--such,
for example, as prehistoric architecture--which in a larger treatise
it would have been desirable to include, have been entirely left out
for want of room.

In treating each style the object has not been to mention every phase
of its development, still less every building, but rather to describe
the more prominent buildings with some approach to completeness. It is
true that much is left unnoticed, for which the student who wishes to
pursue the subject further will have to refer to the writings
specially devoted to the period or country. But it has been possible
to describe a considerable number of typical examples, and to do so in
such a manner as, it is hoped, may make some impression on the
reader's mind. Had notices of a much greater number of buildings been
compressed into the same space, each must have been so condensed that
the volume, though useful as a catalogue for reference, would have, in
all probability, become uninteresting, and consequently unserviceable
to the class of readers for whom it is intended.

As far as possible