This work has been translated into English, and published with the following title:--“A complete Course of Lithography, containing clear and explicit Instructions in all the different branches and manners of the Art; accompanied by Illustrative Specimens of Drawings; to which is prefixed a History of Lithography, from its Origin, by Aloys Senefelder, Inventor of the Art of Lithography, or Chymical Printing,” &c. The author of the preface to this work, and friend of the inventor, states that this is an art, whereby the artist, a minister, a man of letters, or a merchant, &c., may multiply his productions at will, without the assistance of a second person. The author of the above work proceeds to give in detail his motives for the original invention, in which he has not only been strictly circumstantial, but no more so than the curiosity of the public requires, which is always excited in a degree proportioned to the confessed utility of a work, or that demand which its elegance has upon cultivated and delicate feeling. His labours may be said to be divided naturally into two parts, of which division the author has availed himself; first, adducing its history, and secondly, affording the operation of its process. Its history appears to have arisen with its origin; and both to have originated in the necessities of the author. From whence it appears, that after he had received a scholastic education to qualify him for the jurisprudence of his country, the death of his father, who was a votary of the Thespian art, deprived him of those resources essential to enable him to pursue his intended honourable vocation; he was consequently driven to seek support from the previous acquisitions of his mind. He accordingly devoted his earnest attention to solicit the favours of the dramatic muse as an author. After encountering numberless difficulties, he produced one play, which was published, and sold considerably well. But the honourable independence of his mind induced him to reflect upon the certainty of the large expense, which necessarily attends the practice of an author, who has not liberal patrons in the public or the trade; and the uncertainty of adequate remuneration from the public, for whose amusement they make such large sacrifices of time, ease, property, health, and often life itself. These reflections induced his ardent and ingenious mind to endeavour to avoid the uncertainty of this contingency. He did not possess property to enable him to establish himself as a printer, which was his desire; he was therefore compelled to have recourse to his own ingenuity. He tried various, and at first, unsuccessful experiments, which he ingeniously details; because, he considered, that nearly as much is learned from the failures of an artist, had he always the honesty to publish them, as is gained from his most successful discoveries.