To the courtesy of Robert Clive, Esq., the author is indebted for the original portrait of Mar Shimoon, and for the two views of an old Nestorian church contained in the second volume of this work. A similar acknowledgment is due to C. F. Barker, Esq., whose long residence in the East enabled him to make a better use of the author's imperfect sketches than he could have expected with less suitable aid. The task, however, of preparing these illustrations for the press devolved upon F. C. Cooper, Esq., the artist who was associated with Mr. Layard, by the authorities of the British Museum, to perpetuate by his pencil the long-lost relics of the power and skill of the Ancient Assyrians. Mr. Cooper has lately been making a laudable effort to communicate to the public a portion of his Eastern acquirements, in a popular form, by means of a diorama of Nineveh; and, it is to be hoped, that he will ere long publish the contents of a well-assorted portfolio, illustrative of oriental costume and manners, which he collected during his sojourn in Mesopotamia and Coordistan. The reader will not fail to perceive how much these volumes owe to the talents of the above-named gentlemen; and to Mr. Cooper especially, are the thanks of the author due for his generous and unsolicited offer to undertake a task which has cost him no little time and trouble.
One word on the principal design of this publication. If the researches which it comprises, or the suggestions which the writer ventures to make on the duty of the Anglican Church to promote the spiritual welfare of the ancient Christian communities in the East, and the way in which such a work should be undertaken and carried out, or the expressed goodwill of the clergy and laity of those communities towards us, and their desire to be more closely united to us in brotherly love and in the confession of our common faith, as these favourable manifestations are made known in the following pages; if these, or any other portions of his work shall tend to rouse in the hearts of
