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if his essay on Reynard the Fox (a far jump
certainly) ranks next. Of Reynard,
I may incidentally say, that this
Library has a copy of every English
version of that widely known
European folk tale that I have yet seen,
including the Arber reprint of
Caxtons own quaint
translation, one of the very earliest books
printed in English on english soil. Froude
notes the strange popularity this
antique legend has had with
men for 400 or 500 years, yet
women do not like it, and
never read it a second time.

An early german copy in quarto
with the original Kaulbach illustrations, shows
the highest attainment of the gravers
art, in the attempt to put the whole
scale of human expression and emotion
in to the faces of animals and birds.

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