First Sentence

"THE extent-the almost boundless expanse of the subject,-the variety of the matters touched upon,-the novelty of the points of view in which many-perhaps most of them-not to say all of them, will be found presented,-the unavoidably consequent novelty of not a few of the terms which it had been found necessary to employ,-all these things considered, it seemed to the author, that a general, and, how slightly soever, yet all-embracing outline, abstracted, and, like "a panorama explanation," detached from the work at large, for the purpose of preparing the eye for the contents of the more fully-delineated scene, might not be without its use."