m. walter dunne

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the Library of Universal Classics and Rare Manuscripts, twenty volumes are devoted to the various branches of Government, Philosophy, Law, Ethics, English and French Belles Lettres, Hebraic, Ottoman, and Arabian Literature, and one to a collection of 150 reproductions, bound in English vellum, of the autographs, papers and letters of Rulers, Statesmen, Poets, Artists and Celebrities ranging through three centuries, crowned by an illuminated facsimile of that historic Document, the Magna Carta.
The series in itself is an epitome of the best in History, Philosophy and Literature. The great writers of past ages are accessible to readers in general solely through translations. It was, therefore, necessary that translations of such rare Classics as are embodied in this series should be of the best, and should possess exactitude in text and supreme faithfulness in rendering the author's thought. Under the vigilant scholarship of the Editorial Council this has been accomplished with unvarying excellence. The classification, selection and editing of the various volumes have been the subject of much earnest thought and consultation on the part of more than twenty of the best known scholars of the day.
The Universities of Yale, Washington, Cornell, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Columbia, London, Toronto and Edinburgh are all represented among the contributors, the writers of special introductions, or upon the consulting staff, the latter including the Presidents of five of the Universities mentioned. Among others who contribute special essays upon given subjects may be mentioned the late Librarian of the British Museum, Dr. Richard Garnett, who furnishes the essay introducing "Evelyn's Diary." From the Librarian of the National Library of France, Léon Vallée, comes the fascinating introduction to the celebrated "Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon." The scholarly minister to Switzerland (late First Assistant Secretary of State), Dr. David J. Hill, lent his wide reading to the brilliant and luminous essay that precedes the "Rights of War and Peace." The resources of the Congressional Library at Washington, as well as of foreign libraries, have all been drawn upon in the gigantic task of compressing into the somewhat narrow limits of twenty volumes all that was highest, best, most enduring and useful in the various ramifications of literature at large.
The first section of the Library is devoted entirely to the manuscript reproductions of the autographs of celebrated men in all ranks and phases of life, covering a period of three centuries. They are, in fact, the American edition of the reproduction of rare and celebrated autographs drawn from the British Museum that was issued in England under the editorship of the Assistant Keeper of the Manuscripts. They afford an opportunity to the inquiring reader to study the characters of Rulers, Statesmen, Writers, and Artists through the medium of their chirography.
It has long been recognized that character is traceable through handwriting. So it is interesting to discern in the characters traced by Henry VIII the hardened, sensual and selfish character of that autocrat and polygamist; in the writing of Thomas Wolsey, those crafty traits combined with perseverance and mock humility which raised him wellnigh to supremacy in the realm and led him finally to a downfall more complete than any we read of in English history; and in that of Charles V, of Spain, the hard-headed continence of character and superb common sense which enabled him at the height of glory to retire to a monastery while yet there was "daylight in life," as he expressed it, "for the making of his soul." Apart from the historical interest of these Documents, this study of character as revealed in them will prove fascinating to thinking minds.

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