The first volume ends with the year 1842, and it has for a frontispiece a large view of London, a title-page drawn by Gilbert, and headings to preface and index by Kenny Meadows. The preface is written in the florid style of the introductory address in the first number; but the following passage refers, not inappropriately, to the value and interest of the work to the future historian:-- 'What would Sir Walter Scott or any of the great writers of modern times have given--whether for the purposes of fiction or history, or political example or disquisition--for any museum-preserved volume such as we have here enshrined. The life of the times--the signs of its taste and intelligence--its public monuments and public men--its festivals--institutions--amusements--discoveries--and the very reflection of its living manners and costumes--the variegated dresses of its mind and body--what are--what _must_ be all these but treasures of truth that would have lain hid in Time's tomb, or perished amid the sand of his hour-glass but for the enduring and resuscitating powers of art--the eternal register of the pencil giving life and vigour and palpability to the confirming details of the pen. Could the days of Elizabeth or others as bright and earlier still be unfolded to us through such a mirror, what a mint of wisdom might we gather in from such dazzling periods of the past! Of just as much captivating value then is such a book to the future. It will pour the lore of the Antiquarian into the scholar's yearning soul, and teach him truth about those who have gone before him, as it were, with the Pictorial Alphabet of Art! It is in this sense that we regard the greatness of our design, and are proud of its envied and unexampled success; and it is for this end that we shall strain every nerve to perfect it into order and completeness that may accord with the beauty and brilliancy which many episodes of its execution have already been fortunate to display. Scott might carry Elizabeth to Kenilworth through the regions of his fine imagination, backed and supported by books, and we may take _cum grano salis_ the Antiquarian's and the Poet's word, but the year two thousand will be ten times better assured of all the splendid realities of our own Victoria's visit to the native land of the Northern Magician who enshrined in fiction the glories of Queen Bess. This volume is a work that history _must_ keep.' At the end of the preface is printed the following 'Dedicatory Sonnet:'--