Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Great Historic Galleries of England Of all the countries in the world, Great Britain is the richest in art treasures; no one knows what England possesses in painting, sculpture, carving, gems, prints, etc. If, he adds, the day ever comes when an inventory is made of the collections enclosed in the private houses and castles of the English aristocracy, it will be, perhaps, the most instructive existing work relating to the history of art. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.