The Story of the House of Cassell
so in like spirit Professor Morley watched the growth of his literary children, rejoiced in their developing individuality, desired them reverently to follow their own bent as he had followed his, and cheered them along their chosen path, although he might not walk therein. Hence his students, though they may differ widely from him in their modes of work, will ever look lovingly towards the sacred hearth at which the vestal fire was kindled, and will strive in their day, as he strove in his, to keep the flame clear and bright."
The National Library was neither the first nor the last of The "Libraries" issued from La Belle Sauvage. So long ago as 1851 John Cassell, as we have seen, had begun the issue of "Cassell's Library of History, Biography, and Science," in sevenpenny volumes. After the National Library came the Red Library, consisting of reprints of famous works of fiction and poetry, dressed in flaming scarlet. More recently, as one of the schemes devised under the new management, was launched the "People's Library," referred to on an earlier page; it consisted chiefly of masterpieces of fiction, though not limited to them, and was designated by the Times "the last word in cheap reprints." It has run to 120 volumes, originally published at 8d. Of this Library over three million copies have been sold.
From very early days the House concerned itself with the production of dictionaries. So far back as John Cassell's time the catalogue contained French, German, and Latin Dictionaries, which have successors in the present list. The most considerable undertaking of this kind was the "Encyclopædic Dictionary," in fourteen divisional volumes, with illustrations. The editor and chief compiler was the Rev. Robert Hunter, the very type of the unworldly, reclusive scholar who finds his reward far more in his work than in what it brings. Born at Newburgh, Fifeshire, in 1823, he graduated at Aberdeen in 1840. His earliest bent was towards educational work,
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