The following letter explains fully the plan on which Mr. Hubbard’s collection is arranged, and shows as well its admirable completeness. It gives, too, a classification of the pictures into periods, which will be useful to the reader. WASHINGTON, _October, 1894_. S. S. MCCLURE, Esq. _Dear Sir_:—It is about fourteen years since I became interested in engravings, and I have since that time made a considerable collection, including many portraits, generally painted and engraved during the life of the personage. I have from two hundred to three hundred prints relating to Napoleon, his family, and his generals. The earliest of these is a portrait of Napoleon painted in 1791, when he was twenty-two years old; the next in date was engraved in 1796. There are many in each subsequent year, and four prints of drawings made immediately after his death. There are few men whose characters at different periods of life are so distinctly marked as Napoleon’s, as will appear by an examination of these prints. There are four of these periods: First Period, 1796–1797, Napoleon the General; Second Period, 1801–1804, Napoleon the Statesman and Lawgiver; Third Period, 1804–1812, Napoleon the Emperor; Fourth Period, the Decline and Fall of Napoleon, including Waterloo and St. Helena. Most of these prints are contemporaneous with the periods described. The portraits include copies of the portraits painted by the greatest painters and engraved by the best engravers of that age. There are four engravings of the paintings by Meissonier—“1807,” “Napoleon,” “Napoleon Reconnoitering,” and “1814.” FIRST PERIOD, 1796–1797, _Napoleon the General_.—In these the Italian spelling of the name, “Buonaparte,” is generally adopted. At this period there were many French and other artists in Italy, and it would seem as if all were desirous of painting the young general. A French writer in a late number of the “Gazette des Beaux-Arts” is uncertain whether Gros, Appiani, or Cossia was the first to obtain a sitting from General Bonaparte. It does not matter to your readers, as portraits by each of these artists are included in this collection. There must have been other portraits or busts of Bonaparte executed before 1796, besides the one by Greuze given in this collection. These may be found, but there are no others in my collection. Of the portraits of Napoleon belonging to this period eight were engraved before 1798, one in 1800. All have the long hair falling below the ears over the forehead and shoulders; while all portraits subsequent to Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt have short hair. The length of the hair affords an indication of the date of the portrait.