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diff --git a/old/68873-0.txt b/old/68873-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 844d37e..0000000 --- a/old/68873-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10884 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of A century of children's books, by -Florence V. Barry - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: A century of children's books - -Author: Florence V. Barry - -Release Date: August 30, 2022 [eBook #68873] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CENTURY OF CHILDREN'S -BOOKS *** - - - - - - -A CENTURY OF CHILDREN’S BOOKS - - - - - A CENTURY - OF CHILDREN’S BOOKS - - BY - FLORENCE V. BARRY - B. LITT. - - METHUEN & CO. LTD. - 36 ESSEX STREET W. C. - LONDON - - _First Published in 1922_ - - - - -PREFACE - - -This book was begun at Oxford before the War, when I had the great -privilege of being a student in Sir Walter Raleigh’s class. Through his -generous encouragement, it was continued at intervals and under many -difficulties; and if he had not found some things to like in it, I should -hardly venture to put it forth in its present shape. - -It is true that the interest of great men in little books (a token of -romance since the eighteenth century) is no gauge of public favour; but -the history of children’s books is in some sort a record of childhood. -Lovers of children may be willing to look through the shelves of old -nurseries, if only for the portraits. - -The farther one goes upon such small business, the more intricate it -seems; and although I began with some knowledge of the treasures that -Mrs. Field had unearthed in her study of _The Child and His Book_, I had -no idea there were so many of these books, or that I should find it so -difficult to choose. In this I was helped by the older reprints, by the -collections of Mr. E. V. Lucas, and later by Mr. Harvey Darton’s chapter -in the _Cambridge History of English Literature_. - -The book itself is a poor acknowledgment of my gratitude to Oxford: to -Sir Charles Firth and Mr. Nichol Smith for their advice and criticism; to -the late Mr. R. J. E. Tiddy and Mr. Percy Simpson for help in the early -stages; to Miss Helen Darbishire, Miss Janet Spens, and not least to my -fellow students at Somerville who, in the midst of serious things, found -time to be amused. - - F. V. B. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAP. PAGE - - INTRODUCTION 1 - - I. CHAP-BOOKS AND BALLADS 13 - - II. FAIRY TALES AND EASTERN STORIES 35 - - III. THE LILLIPUTIAN LIBRARY 58 - - IV. ROUSSEAU AND THE MORAL TALE 85 - - V. THE ENGLISH SCHOOL OF ROUSSEAU 105 - - VI. DEVICES OF THE MORALIST 122 - - VII. SOME GREAT WRITERS OF LITTLE BOOKS 147 - - VIII. MISS EDGEWORTH’S TALES FOR CHILDREN 175 - - IX. THE OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN OF VERSES 194 - - APPENDIX A.—NOTES AND EXTRACTS 224 - - ” B.—CHRONOLOGICAL LIST 250 - - - - -A CENTURY OF CHILDREN’S BOOKS - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -To open a child’s book nowadays is to discover some part of that unknown -world which touches experience at so many points. The city beyond the -clouds, the underground country, all the enchantments of woods and -islands are open to the little traveller. From _The Water Babies_ to -_Peter Pan_ there has been little else in nursery tales but the stuff of -dreams. - -It is hard to believe that the child who read the story of Rosamond and -the Purple Jar, less than a hundred years ago, had no curiosity about -dream countries, no sense of poetry in nature; yet the first sign of a -romantic movement in children’s books was the printing of unknown or -forgotten fairy tales under the title of _The Court of Oberon_, in 1823. -The actual awakening came later, with the nature stories of the Howitts -and the imaginative nonsense of Edward Lear. - -A century of little books had passed before a child could read fairy -tales without shame, and the taste for true “histories” prevailed long -after Miss Edgeworth had written her last sequel. - -For although there were eighteenth century chap-books that kept alive -old tales of chivalry, these had no proper place on the nursery shelves. -Books written for children were always designed to instruct as well as -to amuse, and it was only because the human interests of the eighteenth -century included children that it became a century of children’s books. - -Those that survived the use of their first owners,—a little company -in old sheepskin or flowered paper covers,—are either treasured by -collectors or hidden away in some old library; but some of the best -are still to be had in reprints and collections of “Old-fashioned” or -“Forgotten” children’s books. - -The new generation, pressing forward to discover more of the dream -country, cares little for tales that reflect the quiet schooling of its -ancestors; yet the most moral and instructive of these books mark the -child’s escape from a sterner school. It was on his way to the Child’s -Garden that he passed through this town of Georgian dolls’ houses, where, -indeed, he found some rare and curious things. - -In the earlier centuries a child made shift with such tales as his elders -chose to tell him. There were few books that he could call his own, and -those were devised to advance him in knowledge or courtesy. Yet the monks -of the eleventh and twelfth centuries had a way of turning the natural -instincts of children to account. They taught Latin by means of imaginary -conversations, and put the raw material of wonder tales into their -instructive “Elucidarium”, a sort of primitive “Child’s Guide” which told -of fabulous beasts and gave miraculous accounts of heaven and earth. - -The successors of these old schoolmasters devised a book for parents -which they might share with their children. This was the _Gesta -Romanorum_, a collection of stories put together in Latin about the -fourteenth century to serve as texts for “Moralities”. It became the -popular story-book of the Middle Ages, and a woodcut in the early -editions shows a whole family gathered round the fire on a winter night -telling stories to pass the time. - -This was no book for children, even in the days before nurseries; yet it -contained variants of the Arabian Tales, a story that Chaucer afterwards -used for his “History of Constance”, and two strands of the _Merchant of -Venice_ plot. - -Travellers’ tales, also shared between men and children, filled a gap -between the truthful records of King Alfred and Caxton’s new-discovered -wealth of romance. Marco Polo and other voyagers brought back stories and -fables from the East; Sir John Mandeville wrote of “the Meruayles of Ynde -and of other diuerse Coûtries”. These cross the border between truth and -fancy much as children do; but children knew them only from hearsay. - -Caxton alone, had he been so minded, could have filled a child’s library; -for besides his _Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye_, he printed Sir -Thomas Malory’s _Noble Histories of King Arthur_ with many romances of -his own translating and legends and lives of Saints. He was actually the -first printer and editor of the very books which Locke, in the eighteenth -century, prescribed for children: Æsop’s _Fables_ and _The History of -Reynard the Fox_; but Caxton intended none of these for children. The -_Fables_ showed men their follies; and _Reynard_ was then a satire that -ridiculed unjust rulers under the figures of beasts. For children, he -chose the kind of books that their parents would buy: the instructive -_Parvus et Magnus Chato_, with its woodcut print of a monastery school; -_Stans Puer ad Mensam_, a museum of quaint formalities, and _The Book of -Courtesy_, addressed to “Lytyl John” in “tendre enfancye”. - -Thus early did grown-up persons monopolise the pleasures of fiction, -while they prepared handbooks of learning and courtesy for youth. -Chaucer, it will be remembered, wrote a scientific treatise instead of a -story for his little boy; and _The Babees Book_, designed for the royal -wards and pages of the fifteenth century, had not a word of romance or -fable; nothing but precepts of fair behaviour, and lessons that should -teach those “Bele Babees” how to give their reasons smoothly, “in words -that are gentle but compendious”. - -There were many such books, nor were they all confined to children of -gentle birth. _The Book of Courtesy_ was for the sons “of gentleman, -yeoman or knave”, and Symon’s _Lesson of Wisdom_ (1500) “for all manner -children”. - -As for Caxton’s successors, they were content with his ideas about -children’s books; it was simply a choice between manners and learning. -Wynkyn de Worde, though he printed the splendid romance of _Bevis of -Southampton_, gave his child-readers a “Wyse Chylde of Thre Year Old” -that could answer the fearful question: “Sage enfaunt, how is the -skye made?”; and William Copland produced _The Secret of Secrets of -Aristotle_, “very good to teach children to read English”, while he -lavished the adventures of Guy of Warwick upon their parents. - -It is true that the child of the sixteenth century had much to compensate -him for a lack of books. If he dwelt in the country, he saw _Robin -Hood_ and _St. George_ played out upon the village green, or if in a -town, he might meet with strange merchantmen in any street. He lived in -an age of practical romance, and could match you the exploits of Guy -or Bevis any day from the adventures of his neighbours. Moreover the -Elizabethan child, if he could not read the old stories, at least had a -chance of hearing them set to a new measure. Puttenham in his _Art of -English Poesie_ (1589) writes of the “Blind Harpers and such like taverne -Minstrels” who sang “stories of old time” to ballad tunes: “the tale of -Sir Topas, the reportes of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwick, Adam -Bell and Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical -rimes”. - -But a boy had to evade his schoolmaster before he could listen to -such things; and the schoolmaster saw to it that he had no English -story-books. The new learning, which poured out its treasures for -scholars, meant little more to the average boy than longer hours of study -and more stripes; and reformers in education, although they looked upon -him as a creature of promise, and were concerned to make his lot more -bearable, came no nearer than their predecessors to the secrets of his -mind. - -Companies of schoolboy-players,—the children of the Chapel, or of -Paul’s—might make the most of such plays as they could understand; and -the Queen’s wards had times of “honest recreation” when they might tell -each other stories; but their hours with tutors and music-masters would -astonish the youth of these days. - -Perhaps the happiest child of the great age of romance was the truant who -could follow some pedlar along the road. For the pedlar’s songs were more -enthralling than his “unbraided wares”; and he had ballads, such as “The -Two Children in the Wood” and “Chevy Chace”, that a child could paste -upon his nursery walls. - -There was at least one writer who recognised the pedlar’s claims, and -made him the hero of an instructive book. This was Thomas Newberry, who -in 1563 wrote “A booke in English metre, of the great Marchaunt man -called Dives Pragmaticus, very pretye for chyldren to rede: wherby they -may the better, and more readyer, rede and wryte Wares and Implements, in -this World contayned”. - -This merchant knows all crafts and deals in every kind of wares; but he -does it in the manner of Autolycus, calling all men to come and buy. His -“Inkyll, crewell and gay valances fine” perhaps made copy for _A Winter’s -Tale_; his “ouches, brooches and fine aglets for Kynges” might lie in the -pack with - - “Bugle bracelet, necklace amber, - Perfume for a lady’s chamber”; - -and though he had neither songs nor ballads, he spoke in verse and could -find poetry in the “chyselle” and “blade” which Stevenson, more than -three centuries later, praised in his _Child’s Garden_: - - “A chisel, both handle and blade, - Which _a man who was really a carpenter made_.” - -It was a hard day for the men of the road when the Roundhead prevailed -over King Charles. Had the Puritans been gifted with the worldly wisdom -of old religious orders, the pedlar’s songs, interpreted as allegories, -would have passed, with a word or two altered here and there; as it -was, many of these poor merchants were reduced to carrying tracts -that reflected the gloomy spirit of the times. But the seventeenth -century garlands still preserved some of the older ballads, and the -true Autolycus was never without copies of _Tom Thumb_, _The Wise Men -of Gotham_, and other chap-books for the unregenerate. He suffered the -penalties of rogues and vagabonds, and the child shared his disgrace. - -George Fox, in his _Warning to all Teachers_, condemns, among other sins -of children, “the telling of Tales, Stories, Jests, Rhimes and Fables”. -The doctrine of Original Sin left no hope of grace by means of books. -Courtesy, as concerning the mere outward forms and carriage of a child, -was held of no account, and instruction itself was abandoned in favour -of “Emblems”, “Warnings”, and morbid “Examples for Youth”: such books, -for example, as James Janeway’s _Token for Children_, which contained -“an exact account of the conversion, holy and exemplary lives and joyful -deaths of several young children”: a literature of denial and negation. - -And yet the greatest child’s book of the age was written by a Puritan. -John Bunyan was the first to reconcile the claims of religion and -romance, and he never could have written _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ if he -had not been a good customer of the pedlar in his youth. But in writing -it, Bunyan had no more thought of children than Caxton when he printed -the stories of King Arthur. Both were thinking of grown-up children. And -when, some eight years later, Bunyan tried his hand at a _Book for Boys -and Girls_, he made it a mere collection of “Emblems” in doggerel verse. -The alternative title, _Country Rhimes for Children_, seems to refer to -certain farmyard creatures which he introduced to point analogies even -more absurd than those of the old monkish Bestiaries; but the monks had -sirens and other wonderful things in their natural history. There is -nothing to atone for the dulness of these rhymes; any child would be -better entertained in the Interpreter’s House. - -After the Restoration, the pedlar had a better market for his books, -but he also came upon new enemies; for it was then that members of the -Royal Society were beginning to question those “strange and wonderful -Relations” which simple folk, seeing them in print, received as true. - -When Shakespeare’s shepherdess asked the pedlar “Is it true, think you?” -he answered “Five justices’ hands at it, and witnesses more than my pack -will hold”; but these men of letters and science accepted no evidence -save that of their own reason, and this was fatal to the common matter -of chap-books. It is the more surprising that one of their number should -have been an unacknowledged maker of children’s books. - -John Locke was the first to apply the methods of the Royal Society to -education. He cared neither for creeds nor grammars, followed Montaigne -in denouncing the pedantry of the old schoolmasters, and held with -Rabelais that “the greatest clerks are not the wisest men.” - -It is true that his concern for literal truth made him a very imperfect -reader of children’s minds. He never understood the part that imagination -plays in a child’s life, and his plan of education allows no scope for -it; yet he understood children so well on the practical side that every -eighteenth century writer of little books quoted his maxims, despised -romance and produced “fables” that made a certain appeal to childish -interests while they proved the advantages of common sense. - -Locke’s book, _Some Thoughts concerning Education_, which he published -in 1693, was put together from the letters he had written during his -exile in Holland, to Edward Clarke; but it suggests notes rather than -letters. Locke so condenses the human element that it reads like a book -of educational prescriptions. The key is to be found in the letters of -his friends, and in the records of his pupil, the third Lord Shaftesbury, -author of the _Characteristics_. Locke was the first earl’s friend and -medical adviser, and for a time had taught his son; the third earl came -to him as “Mr. Anthony” at the age of three, and was his “more peculiar -charge” till he was twelve years old. After the grandfather’s death, they -sent him to Westminster, entirely against Locke’s wish, for he hated -schools; but when “Mr. Anthony” came to write about his childhood, he had -not a good word for “pedants and schoolmasters”; only for Mr. Locke to -whom, next his “immediate parents”, he owed “the highest gratitude and -duty”. - -Men do not write thus of tutors who were not their friends; and doubtless -others could have said the same of Locke: the younger brothers of Lord -Shaftesbury, the Dutch Quaker’s little boy, Arent Furly, a kind of -foster-child of his in Holland, or little Frank Masham, his last pupil, -who was between four and five when Locke came to live with his family. -They all owed him good health and a happy childhood, and it does not -appear that they hankered after the forbidden joys of romance. - -Locke’s belief in physical training was a welcome contrast to the average -tutor’s insistence upon books. He put aside the rod, invented games for -his pupils and, as soon as possible, treated them as “rational creatures”. - -By reversing the order of Books of Courtesy, he relieved them of rules -and maxims. Virtue stood first in his judgment, then wisdom, then -breeding, and learning last. At heart he was not less concerned for -manners than the old masters of courtesy; but he thought they could only -be acquired by habit and good company. It is the more curious to find -him, in another part of the book, assuming that the right kind of tutor -could teach Virtue and Wisdom as another might teach Latin. Locke himself -came as near as a man could to his ideal of a tutor more wise than -learned, a man of the world that knew how to bear himself in any company; -and it mattered little to his pupils that such a tutor could not be found -for every child. - -Intelligent parents found in his published _Thoughts_ some confirmation -of their own experience, and his very inconsistencies made his ideas -seem the more reasonable to them. For it cannot be denied that Locke, -although he believed in teaching children not what, but how to think, -yet fell into the error of impressing facts upon their memory, and facts -that could only be learned from books. His Irish friend Molyneux, on -whose advice the _Thoughts_ were put together, brought up his little -boy according to Locke’s plan, and proved that the system could produce -a rival to Wynkyn de Worde’s Wyse Chylde: one that at five years old -could read perfectly and trace out upon the globes “all the noted parts, -countries and cities of the world”. At six, his knowledge was incredible, -he was “obedient and observant to the nicest particular”, and his father -believed that no child “had ever his passions more perfectly at command”. - -There is nothing in Locke’s theory to account for the encyclopædic -knowledge of this child; but in practice he had replaced Latin and Greek -with Geometry, Chronology, the use of the Globes, and even some part of -“the incomparable Mr. Newton’s” Philosophy, so far as it was justified by -“Matter of Fact”. - -This helps to explain the little pedantries of later children’s books, -although many of these do not go beyond Locke’s directions for teaching a -child to read. - -“There may be Dice and Play-things with the letters on them,” he says, -“to teach Children the Alphabet by Playing; and twenty other Ways may -be found, suitable to their particular Tempers, to make this Kind of -Learning a Sport to them. Thus Children may be cozen’d into a Knowledge -of the Letters....” - -If this smacks of artifice, there is no question of his wisdom about -essentials: “If you have any Contests with him, let it be in Matters of -Moment, of Truth and Good Nature; but lay no Task on him about A.B.C.” - -About books he is very plain: when “by these gentle Ways” a child begins -to read, “some easy pleasant Book, suited to his Capacity should be put -into his Hands, wherein the Entertainment that he finds might draw him -on, and reward his Pains in Reading, and yet not such as should fill -his Head with perfectly useless Trumpery, or lay the Principles of Vice -and Folly. To this purpose I think Æsop’s Fables the best, which being -Stories apt to delight and entertain a Child, may yet afford useful -Reflections to a grown Man; and if his Memory retain them all his Life -after, he will not repent to find them there, amongst his manly Thoughts -and serious Business”. - -Then, after recommending an _Æsop_ with pictures in it, he adds: -“_Reynard the Fox_ is another Book I think may be made Use of to the same -Purpose”. Talking beasts that can be made the mouthpiece of a moralist -are Locke’s nearest approach to the supernatural. In another place, he -admonishes parents to preserve a child’s mind “from all Impressions -and Notions of _Spirits_ and _Goblins_, or any fearful Apprehensions -in the Dark”. Thus the child is to be protected from ghost-stories or -fairy-tales and “cozen’d” into reading what will be useful to him when he -is a man. - -Locke knew no other books in English “fit to engage the liking of -children and tempt them to read”; and indeed there were few to know. _The -Seven Wise Masters of Rome_ is an example of what was thought fit for -children. This was a very old sequence of Eastern parables first printed -by Wynkyn de Worde. Francis Kirkman, who translated it from the French -in 1674, declared that it was “held in such estimation in Ireland that -it was always put into the hands of young children immediately after the -horn book”. English copies were common; but the tales had less interest -for children than those of the _Gesta_. “Pedants and Schoolmasters” must -have conspired to keep it in print. - -Thus at the close of the seventeenth century the greater number of -children, if they read anything, amused themselves with chap-books -or broadsheets,—all of which, doubtless, came under Locke’s ban as -“perfectly useless Trumpery”; and for those that read no books, in spite -of Locke, there were still tales “of Sprites and Goblins”. - - - - -CHAPTER I - -CHAP-BOOKS AND BALLADS - - Children and the Supernatural—Steele’s Account of a boy’s - reading—Characteristics of chap-book “histories”—Folk-lore - and legendary settings—_The History of Friar - Bacon_—_Fortunatus_—Other chap-book survivals—The Georgian - Autolycus—Travellers’ tales—A great chap-book—Books for men and - children—Chap-books and ballads—Treatment of romances—The fairy - world—Legend and history—Border and Robin Hood ballads. - - -Steele’s account of his two god-children[1] (perhaps the choicest of his -_Tatler_ papers) discovers the weak point of Locke’s philosophy. Nothing -could so shake a blind faith in Æsop as the frank words of Steele’s -little boy who, at eight years old, although he was “a very great -Historian in Æsop’s Fables”, declared “that he did not delight in that -Learning, because he did not believe they were true”. - -His sister Betty defied Mr. Locke upon another side, for she dealt -“chiefly in Fairies and Sprights”; and would “terrifie the Maids with her -Accounts” till they were afraid to go up to bed. - -Now, neither of these children had the least difficulty about the -supernatural. The boy could have believed in beasts that talked; but he -detected the man inside the lion’s skin: the man that pointed a moral. -These _Fables_, once understood as ridiculing the follies of mankind, -were no longer “true”; but there were other stories of the boy’s own -choosing which, though full of magic, were true to the spirit of their -kind. - -Steele says he had “very much turned his studies for about a Twelvemonth -past into the Lives and Adventures of _Don Bellianis of Greece_, _Guy of -Warwick_, the _Seven Champions_, and other Historians of that Age”. - -Not only does the sympathetic godfather enter into these literary -adventures, as Mr. Locke, with all his wisdom, never could have done, but -he knows the virtue of an unpointed moral: the boy, he says, “had made -Remarks, which might be of Service to him during the Course of his whole -Life. He would tell you the Mismanagements of _John Hickathrift_, find -Fault with the passionate Temper in _Bevis of Southampton_ and loved _St. -George_ for being the Champion of _England_; and by this Means had his -Thoughts insensibly moulded into the Notions of Discretion, Virtue and -Honour”. - -In the reign of Anne, these stirring “Histories” were a part of every -pedlar’s stock-in-trade. They were sold at fairs or hawked from door -to door; and a boy that could never stumble through the maze of a -seventeenth century folio might read as many romances as he had -halfpence. Some had been among the earliest printed books. They were -mostly from French originals, though Sir Bevis and Sir Guy had been -“_Chevaliers d’Angleterre_” from the beginning. The chap-book _Seven -Champions_ and _Life and Death of St. George_ were both based on Richard -Johnson’s _History of the Seven Champions_, a medley of other romances -in which Caxton’s “Saynt George of Capadose” had become St. George of -Coventry. But the romance spirit was cosmopolitan, born of the Crusades, -and foreign champions like Don Bellianis of Greece were hardly less -popular.[2] - -Late writers varied the old adventures; but the chap-book printer, who -did his own editing, cut down the heavy matter of the folios to a bare -chain of incidents. His words were few and ill-chosen, he had neither -style nor grammar; but the core of interest was sound: the stories -touched the imagination of his readers like ballads and fairy tales. - -Gallant Knights came straight from the fields of France to the -magnificence of Eastern cities; youths, setting out from the English -towns, adventured among dwarfs and Saracens, giants and dragons, and won -their knighthood by the way. - -If the hero never failed to subdue his enemies and win a lady of -surpassing beauty, there was still a doubt (enough to keep the reader -curious) whether a rival would snatch her from him and put him upon a -more dangerous adventure to win her back; or whether, if they fared on -together, they would meet an enchanter or a giant first. - -Repetition seldom tires a child. The feats of Acquitaine could be -repeated at Damascus; and the wood-cuts in the chap-books proved that -Montelion and Parismus could fight in the armour of Don Bellianis or -St. George. Nor was it a chance association of the pedlar’s pack which -threw these champions into the company of a village strongman, John -Hickathrift, more commonly called Tom; for although Hickathrift fought -with a cart-wheel and axle-tree for shield and sword, he could beat the -best of them at giant-killing.[3] - -The romances, indeed, are full of the common stuff of folk-lore. If the -hero blow a trumpet at a castle-gate, a giant may be expected; if he -blow it at the mouth of an enchanted cave, a prophetic voice replies, or -if he enter the cave by chance, he may find the prophecy inscribed on a -pillar of sapphire—the prelude, in _Don Bellianis_, to the coming of the -Enchantress through a pair of ivory gates. - -A hundred folk-tales tell of the Princess rescued from a dragon; -transformation is an affair of every day: Don Bellianis slays a magician -“in the shape of a griffin”; St. Denis, in the _Seven Champions_, is -transformed into a hart, the Princess of Thessaly into a mulberry-tree; -and St. David sleeps seven years in an enchanted garden—the Magic Sleep -of the fairy tales. Nor is the champion of romance without his wonderful -sword or cloak. - -The Sword “Morglay” (no more than a stout weapon in the old version of -_Sir Bevis_) is called “wonderful” in the chap-books. Don Bellianis draws -a magic sword from a pillar, as Arthur pulled his out of the stone; St. -George has invincible armour; and the later _History of Fortunatus_ is -the tale of a Wonderful Purse and a Wishing Cap. - -But whoever looks upon a child as a pure romantic, has learned but half -his lesson; for in many tales that have stood the test of time, there is -little interest outside sheer matter of fact; and even the romances owed -something to legendary settings which touched a borderland of truth. To -know that Bevis lived in the reign of Edgar, that Guy, returning from -his pilgrimage, found King Athelstane at Winchester, beset by the Danes, -would confirm a child’s belief; but the little reader of chap-books knew -more than this; he could give the exact measurements of Tom Hickathrift’s -grave in Tilney Churchyard, knew where to find Guy’s armour and his -porridge-pot at Warwick, and never doubted that Bevis built Arundel -Castle for love of his horse. - -It might be done indeed, for such a horse: no mere product of a wizard’s -cunning, but a steed fit to carry a champion: alive as the persons of the -romances never were. He figures in every adventure, carries the thread -of the story from point to point, and yet stands out, a very symbol of -romance. - -The chap-book writer makes no picture of the knighting of Bevis, and -never mentions his shield with the three blue eagles on a field of gold; -but he remembers well enough how the Saracen King’s daughter, Josian the -fair, presented Bevis with the sword “Morglay” and the “wonderful steed -called Arundel”. - -From that point the story goes to a sound of hoofs; and though the King -betrayed Bevis into the hands of his enemy and gave the horse Arundel to -Bevis’s rival, King Jour, and though Bevis lay in a dungeon for seven -years, Josian herself was not more faithful to him than Arundel; for when -at last he escaped, and came, disguised as a poor pedlar, to the castle -of Jour, Josian knew him not; but Arundel, hearing his master speak, -“neighed and broke seven chains for joy”. - -As to the men and women of romance, they borrowed life from their -adventures, but apart from these, were mere types of strength or beauty. -The original portraits, though vague, were not without poetry: the -impression of “The Squyere Guy” has a hint of Chaucer: - - “Feyre he was and bryght of face, - He schone as bryght as ane glace.” - -The chap-book writer contents himself with the remark that King Ermine -was “prepossessed with Guy’s looks”. He bestows more care on the heroine, -Felyce, but covers the faint outline with his trowel. Felyce, once - - “the Erlys Doghtur, a swete thynge”, - -becomes “this heavenly Phillis, whose beauty was so excellent that Helen -the pride of all Greece might seem as a Black a Moor to her”. - -Many striking situations and dramatic incidents of the older stories -are lost in the chap-books, for want of picture-making phrases and live -speech. A name here and there, such as Brademond, King of Damascus, -would lift a boy like a magic carpet, and set him down among Saracen -pavilions; bare facts might call up pictures; there was the ransom of -King Jour,—“Twenty tun of gold and three hundred white steeds”; but -the unlettered writer shirked most of the details which, in telling -the story aloud, he would express by gestures. The fine fight with the -dragon, in _Guy of Warwick_, makes but a paragraph in the chap-book; the -monster’s head is off before the fight is well begun. Not even a “picture -of the dragon, thirty feet in length, worked in a cloth of arras and hung -up in Warwick Castle for an everlasting monument” could make amends for -this. - -Yet a child, making his own pictures out of the poor phrases of these -writers, might have in his mind’s eye something not unlike the images of -the old translator: the boy Bevis on a hillside with his sheep, looking -down at the Castle “that should be his”; the four Knights selling him to -the Saracen merchantmen; or the giant Ascapart wading out to the ship, -with Bevis and Josian and the horse Arundel tucked under his arm. - -These stand in clear outline, and, in the roughest shape, have -suggestions of pathos or incongruity; but they pass at once into action, -which is what a child wants: the boy comes down from the hill, forces his -way into the castle and attacks the usurper with his shepherd’s crook; -the Saracens carry him overseas, and set him in the way of adventure; -Ascapart proves himself “a mariner good at need”, hoists sail and brings -his master and mistress safely into harbour. - -Laughter is rare in the romances, but this story of Ascapart has a humour -of its own. Bevis, having beaten the giant, spares his life on condition -that he becomes his servant; and in the course of their adventures the -vanquished rescues the victor, the servant picks up his master and -carries him about like a toy. Such a feat measures the great creature -more effectually than the exact method of the chap-book writer: “thirty -Foot high and a Foot between his eyebrows”. - -Another “famous History” which came with these into the chap-books, was -that of _Valentine and Orson_, first printed by Wynkyn de Worde, and -reprinted at the close of the nineteenth century as an “old fairy tale”. -It has some novel features besides the usual stage properties of romance. -Of the twin brothers separated in childhood, one is brought up at Court -and trained in knightly exercises; the other carried off by a bear and -nourished with her cubs. This is a foretaste of _The Jungle Book_: - -“In a cave, the bear had four young ones, among whom she laid the child -to be devoured, yet all the while the young bears did it no harm; but -with their rough paws stroked it softly. The old bear, perceiving they -did not devour it, showed a bearish kind of favour towards it, inasmuch -that she kept it and gave it suck among her young ones for the space of -one year”. - -The second chapter records how the bear’s nursling, Orson, grew up into -a Wild Man, and how the young knight Valentine, his brother, meeting him -in a wood, won a victory of skill against strength; after which, still -unconscious of their relationship, he tamed the Wild Man and taught him -the arts of chivalry. - -The more magical elements of the story have a flavour of the East, and -doubtless belong to the older strata of Eastern romance. The adventure of -the Dwarf Pacolet suggests the tale of the “Magic Horse” in the _Thousand -and One Nights_; for by his art this dwarf, who was an Enchanter, “had -contrived a horse of wood, and in the forehead a fixed pin, by turning of -which he could convey himself to the farthest part of the world”. - -Many such marvels, related during the Middle Ages by merchants or -Crusaders returning from the East, had been caught up in the weavings -of romance; but it is a sort of magic that has little to do with the -myth-making power of childhood. Pacolet’s flying horse is made of wood; -the touch of its hoof never brought water from a mountain-side. It -represents the magic of ingenuity which comes half-way between pure -romance and the practical marvels of a scientific age. - -Indeed, it is but a step from the flying horse of Eastern tales to Roger -Bacon’s horseless chariots and flying “instruments”. The “Learned Friar”, -a clerk of Oxford in the thirteenth century, foretold many things to be -performed by “Art and Nature”, wherein should be “nothing magical”. Yet -he studied such strange matters that he was persecuted for practising -magic, and the chap-books set him down a conjurer. The Enchanted Head -of Brass which in _Valentine and Orson_ reveals the parentage of the -brothers, reappears in the _Famous History of Friar Bacon_, as the -Brazen Head, wrought in so many sleepless nights by the Friar and his -brother-in-magic, Friar Bungay. - -Greene, in his play of _Fryer Bacon and Fryer Boungay_ (1591), follows -this well known tract,[4] which came down with few changes to the -eighteenth century. Here the old magic machinery goes with the light -movement of a popular tale. The Brazen Head should have disclosed a -secret whereby Friar Bacon “would have walled England about with brass”; -but the stupidity of his servant Miles prevented it. For when the two -magicians, worn out with toil, lay down to sleep, they set him to watch -the Head, commanding him to call them the moment it should speak; and he, -the while, kept up his spirits “with tabor and pipe and song”. - -When at last the Head spake these words: “Time Is,” and no more, Miles, -understanding nothing by that, fell to mockery: “If thou canst speak no -wiser, they shall sleep till doomsday for me. Time is! I know Time is, -that you shall hear, Goodman Brazen Face!” - -So saying, he fitted the words to the tune of “Dainty, come thou to me”, -and sang for half-an-hour. Thereupon the Head spake again, saying two -words and no more: “Time Was”; whereat the Simpleton railed afresh, and -another half-hour went by. - -Then the Brazen Head spake again, these words: “Time is Past”, and then -fell down; and presently followed a terrible noise, with strange flashes -of fire, so that Miles was half-dead with fear. - -“Out on thee, villain,” cried Friar Bacon, “thou hast undone us both; -hadst thou but called us when it did speak, all England had been walled -about with brass, to its glory and our eternal fame.” - -Locke’s followers were never tired of setting the “plain Magique of -tru Reason’s Light” against Friar Bacon’s conjurings. There were later -moralists who recognized the Wizard as a pioneer of science; but these -would have none of his magic, and rejected all tales of undeserved good -fortune. - -Wordsworth alone had the courage to tum a child loose in the enchanted -woods. He praised _The History of Fortunatus_, which is more like -“Aladdin” than any tale of chivalry. By sheer luck the Spendthrift -finds a Galley of Venice lying at anchor and gets his choice of gifts. -These vanished like fairy gold in the hands of his sons, and children -remembered little else but his Wishing Cap and his Purse that never was -empty. Yet Fortunatus was a name to conjure by, and the pure spirit of -adventure was in his first setting out, as the woodcut shows, “with a -Hawk in his Hand”. - -It seems odd that the eighteenth century child should have ballads -about King Arthur and his Knights, but no account of them in prose. -Malory’s “Noble Histories”, like the once famous cycles of Amadis and the -Palmerins, escaped the chap-book writers; but they had one or two relics -of the old _Historyes of Troye_, in which Priam’s palace had become an -enchanted castle, and Hector a knight errant. - -The pedlar had no chronology. Patient Grissel, fresh from a new -translation of Boccaccio, was a lady of the eighteenth century, and what -pleased the country fireside of 1700 still pleased it in 1760. The tales -that Mr. Burchell gave the children in _The Vicar of Wakefield_ might -have come out of a chapman’s bundle in almost any part of the century: -“the story of the Buck of Beverland, with the History of Patient Grissel, -the Adventures of Catskin and then Fair Rosamond’s Bower.” - -Among other “useless Trumpery” were riddles, nonsense-books and farcical -tales of rogues or simpletons.[5] These are full of the topsy-turvy -nonsense that children love, and the coarse jests from which they were -seldom guarded. The older stories, even when they deal with everyday -life, give it a romantic flavour. The Cobbler feasts with the King; the -Valiant London Prentice leaves his shop on London Bridge, and sets out to -joust with eastern princes. A Tudor pedlar, Tom Long, in the course of -his absurd adventures, visits the Cave of the Seven Sleepers, whose story -makes a welcome interlude: - -“Coming to the town, they found everything altered, the inhabitants being -other sort of people than they were the night before. So, going to buy -food, the people refused to take their money, saying they knew not the -coin; but enquiring further, found that since their being there, three -generations had been dead and the fourth was in being”. - -Tom Long was the puppet of a nonsense-book; but other chap-books, -following Deloney, told the “true histories” of industrious -fortune-makers who were not out of place in a commercial age; and the -life of an eighteenth century pedlar was plain enough to pass for truth. -An account (in a late Stirling tract)[6] of the “Flying Stationer”, -Peter Duthie, shows that he took up his trade in 1729, when he was eight -years old, and was upon the road for eighty years—a Georgian Autolycus, -known for his quaint wit “in every city, town, village and hamlet in -great Britain”. At some time, perhaps, he sold “lives” of his brethren -Dougal Graham and John Cheap the Chapman, whose story was “moralised” by -Hannah More. - -The traveller is always a romantic figure. No amount of fact can take the -pleasure of expectation and surprise out of a journey, and the setting -of most chap-books was a journey by land or sea. The “Flying Stationer” -asked no more for the Wonderful Voyages of Sir John Mandeville than for -the rough yarn of a ship-wrecked sailor. - -This last, if it pointed a moral, might serve a double purpose, for the -old allegories were dying out, except in burlesques. Abstractions always -had a way of coming alive when they set foot on English ground, and _The -History of Laurence Lazy_, of “Lubberland Castle in the County of Sloth” -was no mere allegory of Idleness, but the tale of a scapegrace who, to -the joy of all children, got the better of the Schoolmaster, the Squire’s -Cook and the Farmer. His “Arraignment and Trial” in the Town Hall of -“Never Work” was a triumphant apology for idlers; yet a scene like this -may have suggested the symbolic trial of Christian and Faithful in the -Town of Vanity. - -That splendid chap-book, _The Pilgrim’s Progress_,[7] is built up of -such things. Bunyan’s reading, outside the Bible (although he counted -it among his sins) had acquainted him with romances, tales of magic and -enchantment, “histories” of live persons; and all these, or nearly all, -were concerned with adventures upon the road.[8] - -Bible stories and Christian legends were common in Bunyan’s youth. There -was a versified “history” of Joseph and his Brethren, and the beautiful -legend of the Glastonbury Thorn was as well known as that of _The Seven -Sleepers_ or _The Wandering Jew_. - -But _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ dealt in terms of unmistakable experience -with the journey that every man must go; the figures of its allegory were -live persons, such as a man might meet upon any road, and its setting -changed as the way ran through towns and villages, past fields and -sloughs and thickets, over hills where the surest-footed might fall “from -running to going and from going to clambering upon his hands and knees, -because of the steepness of the place”, or beside rivers that ran through -meadows and orchards, with lilies underfoot, and above, “green trees with -all manner of fruit”. - -These things give place at certain points, as they do in life, to the -scorched plains of torment, the overwhelming Shadow of Death, or, where -the river and the way for a time part, to the Dungeon of Despair. There -are glimpses by the way of strange and beautiful lands, of vineyards and -mountains upon which “the sun shineth night and day”; but here also is -the road running through the midst of the country to a city more splendid -than the cities of romance, for “it was builded of pearls and precious -stones, also the streets thereof were paved with gold”. - -The child would start on this journey with some knowledge of his -bearings, for, like Bunyan, he had set out on an earlier pilgrimage -with Guy of Warwick.[9] At the Palace Beautiful, he would remember how -Montelion had been armed by nymphs, and at Doubting Castle, how Bevis had -escaped from his prison in Damascus. - -No knight ever strove with giant or dragon as Christian struggled with -Apollyon; none of the Seven Champions had encountered the dangers of this -road. Yet these were adventures that might happen to a man in the midst -of his ordinary business; that much a child might understand beneath the -surface of romance which for him is the chief matter of the book. - -This was the first of three great books which pleased both men and -children in the eighteenth century. The others are _Robinson Crusoe_[10] -and _The Travels and Adventures of Captain Lemuel Gulliver_.[11] Each, in -its own kind, is a _Voyage Imaginaire_ and the unwrought matter of all -three was to be found in chap-books. The tale of the shipwrecked man had -never been told with such apparent truth as in _Robinson Crusoe_. Readers -of the chap-book history of Drake, who were familiar with accounts -of “Monsters and Monstrous People”, would read this sober journal as -the purest matter of fact; nor was there anything beyond belief in -Gulliver’s adventures, to anyone who knew the pedlar’s book of _Sir John -Mandeville_. For here, among greater marvels, was a notable account of -giants and pigmies. - -The island setting of _Robinson Crusoe_, the figure of Friday, the -footprint in the sand, belong to the world of romance; so do the giants -and dwarfs of _Gulliver_. Yet in both books, the things that happen are -human and practical; the setting gives scope for the chief interests -of the century: men and morals and matters of fact. Defoe pointed his -moral, and as an afterthought explained the Voyage of Robinson Crusoe as -an allegory of his life; Swift used the contrary device of satire. But -no child was ever concerned with an under-sense, where he could follow -every turn of the adventure. A philosopher would not have discovered -Crusoe’s allegory, and a child is more likely to suspect satire in -_Reynard the Fox_ than in _Gulliver_. - -The adventures of Lilliput and Brobdignag are the convincing “history” -of a nation of Tom Thumbs and a nation of Blunderbores; only a little -Gradgrind would question their truth. A child reading _The Pilgrim’s -Progress_ is himself the Pilgrim; in the adventure of the island he is -the shipwrecked man; and in the Travels, first the big man upon whose -body the little men climb with ladders, then the little man, paddling his -toy boat to amuse the giants. - -These books, like the romances, were for little men as well as big ones; -but their authors renewed the old devices by a masterly simple style. -They made pictures such as were never found in chap-book prose, and -rarely in tales that had passed into ballad form. - - * * * * * - -The eighteenth century pedlar had fewer ballads than his predecessors; -yet those he had, like the songs of Autolycus, were “for man or woman, of -all sizes”. - -Ballad tunes, from Shakespeare to Wordsworth, were “Food for the hungry -ears of little ones,” and there is something in the simple conventions -of ballads that suggests the story-telling of a child. Those printed -ballads, “darling songs of the common People”, which Addison found upon -the walls of eighteenth-century houses, attracted him by their classic -simplicity, but the two he liked the best: “Chevy Chase” and “The Two -Children in the Wood”, had been the joy of Elizabethan nurseries.[12] - -Most of the chap-book stories were sung as ballads. “The Seven -Champions”, “St. George”, “Patient Grissel” and “The London Prentice” -were all in the _Collection of Old Ballads_ printed in 1723, with “The -Noble Acts of King Arthur” from Malory;[13] and others were reprinted -in Percy’s _Reliques_ (1765) from a folio manuscript of the seventeenth -century. - -The ballad maker, dealing with romances, preferred short episodes. A -tedious story would never go to his quick measures; but by laying his -chief stress on speech and movement, or adding a refrain, he made a thing -quite unlike the short versions of the chap-books, and gave a certain -dramatic unity to the separate parts. - -Thus the incident of “Guy and Colebrande”, in Percy’s folio, had been -chosen from _Guy of Warwick_, and the ballad of St. George, in the -Collection of 1723, deals only with the dragon story. Some ballads, it is -true, cover a sequence of adventures. “The Lord of Lorn,”, like _Bevis of -Southampton_, gives the whole story of a child robbed of his inheritance: -a shepherd boy that should have been a lord; and the scene changes from -Britain to France and back again; but so much is told in dialogue that -the story dances to its end: - - “Do thou me off thy sattin doublett - Thy shirtband wrought with glistering gold, - And doe mee off thy golden chaine - About thy necke so many a fold. - - “Do thou me off thy velvett hat. - With fether in that is so ffine; - All unto thy silken shirt - That’s wrought with many a golden seam. - - ... - - “‘What must be my name, worthy Steward? - I pray thee now, tell it me:’ - ‘Thy name shalbe Pore Disaware, - To tend sheepe on a lonelye lee.’” - -Of the fairy world revealed in “Thomas Rymer”, the ghostly suggestion -of “The Wife of Usher’s Well,” there is no trace till the close of the -century. The true ballads of Elfland are more song than story, and rise -by suggestion above the simplicity of fairy tales: - - “O they rade on and farther on, - And they waded rivers abune the knee - And they saw neither sun nor moon, - But they heard the roaring of the sea.” - -The breath of enchantment is rare in English ballads. There is nothing -in print before Scott’s _Minstrelsy_ like the magic of these lines; but -Percy reprinted a sixteenth century ballad, “The Mad-Merry Prankes of -Robbin Goodfellow” which Puck himself might have sung: - - “From Oberon in Fairyland - The King of ghosts and shadows there, - Mad Robbin I at his command - Am sent to view the night-sports here. - What revell rout - Is kept about - In every corner where I goe - I will oresee - And merry be - And make good sport with ho, ho, ho.” - -This is the triumphant laughter of a child. The “shrewd and knavish -sprite” has neither the delicacy of smaller fairies nor the courtly -dignity of his master. He is the spirit of childish mischief: greeting -night-wanderers “with counterfeiting voice”, shape-changing, “whirrying” -over hedges and pools, or playing tricks on lads and lasses at village -feasts. “Hobgoblin” or “sweet Puck”, half-child, half-fairy, he roams the -English country, - - “Through woods, through lakes, - Through bogs, through brakes, - Ore bush and brier”, - -and boasts of greater powers. - -There is no doubting either voice or words: - - “More swift than lightning can I flye - And round about this ayrie welkin soone. - And in a minutes space descry - Each thing that’s done belowe the moone”. - -There are two more fairy songs in the _Reliques_: one given “with some -corrections” from a seventeenth century garland, the other, Bishop -Corbet’s “Farewell” to the fairies. The first contradicts the second, for -obeying the invocation - - “Come, follow, follow me - You fairy elves that be”, - -a team of little atomies appear, proving that they were never out of -England since Shakespeare wrote, but “unheard and unespy’d”, were gliding -through Puritan key-holes and spreading their feasts while the Bishop was -composing his lament, - - “Farewell, rewards and fairies!” - -Yet these, like Robin Goodfellow, are spirits of Earth; they eat more -than fairy bread. A mortal surely suggested the details of their feast, -but they dance a fairy measure: - - “The grasshopper, gnat and fly, - Serve for our minstrelsy; - Grace said, we dance awhile, - And so the time beguile; - And if the moon doth hide her head, - The gloe-worm lights us home to bed. - - “On tops of dewie grasse - So nimbly do we passe; - The young and tender stalk - Ne’er bends when we do walk: - Yet in the morning may be seen - Where we the night before have been.” - -Rhymed nursery tales seldom show the true ballad quality. The only -children’s stories in the Collection of 1723 are “The Children in the -Wood”, and “Sir Richard Whittington”: the one a true ballad, newly -licensed and approved by Addison; the other (also mentioned in the -_Spectator_) taking precedence of such rhymes as “Catskin” and “Tom -Thumb” for a popular grafting of the romance of Fortune upon a stock of -historical fact. - -Southern ballad-printers favoured the merry or tragic themes of legend -and history,[14] and if few of their songs had the trumpet-note of “Chevy -Chase”, they lacked neither freshness nor vigour. Some, like “the Blind -Beggar’s Daughter of Bednall-Green”, gave a fresh turn to Elizabethan -traditions, and made up for indifferent workmanship by a plentiful -force of rhythm. Late nursery poets could not better this trick of the -ballad-maker’s: - - “It was a blind beggar that long lost his sight, - He had a fair daughter of beauty most bright; - And many a gallant brave suitor had she, - For none was so comely as pretty Bessee.” - -Another of these old broadsides, “Johnny Armstrong’s Last Good Night” -appeared among Dryden’s Miscellanies in 1702, in the Collections of 1723 -and 1724, and again in Evans’s _Old Ballads_ (1777). - -“The music of the finest singer is dissonance,” wrote Goldsmith, “to what -I felt when our old dairymaid sung me into tears with Johnny Armstrong’s -last Good Night or the Cruelty of Barbara Allen.” - -These are the true stuff of ballads; but a child cares most about action, -and, asked to choose between them, would be pretty sure to call for the -Border Song. - -The story of John Armstrong, which came down to prose in the chap-books, -has points in common with “Robin Hood”, but John and his “Merry Men” have -no touch of Robin’s careless humour. They fight like the heroes of Chevy -Chase, and ask no quarter: - - “Said John, Fight on, my merry men all, - I am a little hurt, but I am not slain. - I will lay me down for to bleed a while - Then I’le rise and fight with you again.” - -The pirate song of “Sir Andrew Barton”[15] is a sailor’s variant of this. -Lord Howard defies Sir Andrew upon the high seas much as Erle Percy, in -despite of the Douglas, takes his pleasure in the Scottish woods. There -was never a better fight on shore, and when at last the pirate falls to -an English bowman, he repeats the border cry: - - “‘Fight on, my men!’ says Sir Andrew Barton, - ‘I am hurt, but I am not slain; - I’le lay mee downe and bleed awhile, - And then I’le rise and fight again’.” - -Sir Andrew stands out from his fellows, though the portrait is not to be -compared with Robin Hood’s; and the king himself speaks his epitaph: - - “‘I wo’ld give a hundred pound,’ says King Henrye - ‘The man were alive as he is dead!’” - -Another of these narrative ballads, “Adam Bell”,[16] has a forest -background that suggests Robin Hood: - - “Merry it was in grene forest - Among the leves grene - Where that men walke both East and West - Wyth bowes and arrowes kene.” - -The full title, “Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough and William of -Cloudesley”, has a sufficing rhythm, and the story is good; not unlike a -Norse Saga, where they set fire to the outlaw’s house, and like _William -Tell_, where Cloudesley splits an apple on his son’s head at six score -paces. - -But the true Robin Hood ballads take a child into his own country, and -he finds it peopled with his friends. From the first stanzas of “The -Curtall Friar”, he is Robin’s man: - - “In summer time, when leaves grow green - And flowers are fresh and gay - Robin Hood and his merry men - _Were disposed to play_.” - -In this play-humour, the outlaws themselves are children, as every child -is by nature an outlaw. They know better than to take life for a serious -business. To them, as to a child, it is one long and absorbing game of -make-believe. - -Robin, like Fulk Fitz-Warine or Hereward, could play at any trade—a -potter, a beggar, a shepherd, a fisherman. His band were mostly men who -had forsaken some dull craft for this great game of hiding and hunting -and robbery. In the midst of active enjoyment, they set themselves to -redress the unequal balance of fortune; but they never doubted their own -solid advantages over sheriffs and abbots,—the people who dwelt in towns -and cloisters, and had forgotten how to play. - -Early collectors of the eighteenth century found no ballads that echoed -the sound of the greenwood: - - “notes small - Of Byrdis mery syngynge”, - -or that made pictures of the deer shadowed in green leaves; but there -were imitations of the older songs, and the setting was always implied. - -After 1765, there must have been children who knew the prelude to “Guy of -Gisborne”, from Percy’s _Reliques_: - - “When shaws been sheene and shradds full fayre, - And leaves both large and longe, - It is merrye walking in the fayre forrest, - To heare the small birdes songe. - - “The woodweele sang and wold not cease, - Sitting upon the spraye - So lowde, he wakened Robin Hood - In the greenwood where he lay.” - -A child cares little about landscape for its own sake, but much for the -things which it suggests. Here, the setting is essential to the game -these outlaws are playing; they are as much a part of it as the deer they -chase. The beauty of the forest and the song of birds lead on to the -adventure; but they are as nothing compared to the romantic fact that -this is a place where any man may meet with Robin Hood. - -In the same way, a child appreciates character as it affects the course -of events. Robin Hood’s men are neither an army nor a clan; they join -his company of their own free choice, after proof of sportsmanship; and -the chief of them—Little John, Scarlett and Much the miller’s son, are -distinct personalities. The result is a spirit of individual adventure -which gives the stories unusual interest and variety. - -The earliest songs of Robin Hood had grown into a ballad-epic, “A Lytell -Geste of Robyn Hood”,[17] in which Robin’s character was proved in talk -and incidents, and further shown by the story-teller’s comments on his -courage and gentleness, his respect for women, his love of the forest; -but gentle attributes failed to impress the writers of eighteenth century -broadsheets. They recall the more obvious traits by a few epithets: - - “I will you tell of a bold outlaw,” - -or - - “A story of gallant brave Robin Hood - Unto you I will declare.” - -Taking the rest for granted, they deal directly with Robin’s combats and -escapes, his farcical adventures with bishops and beggars, his daring -rescues; and in these, the quality that comes uppermost is the roguish -humour which above all distinguishes him from the conventional knight of -chivalry. - -A single attempt to connect him with the romances—the late ballad of -“Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon”—marks the difference of kind; for -though Robin kills the prince, and John and Scadlock bag a giant apiece, -they move like live men among shadows. - -The children of the eighteenth century did not meet the outlaws of the -“golden world”. They knew the Curtal Friar and Alan a Dale, and what -happened when Robin Hood - - “Weary of the Wood-side - And chasing of the fallow deer,” - -tried his fortunes at sea. They had two ballads at least that varied -old themes of the _Geste_, “Robin Hood and the Bishop” and “The King’s -Disguise”. And Little John was their friend,—not of course, the old -Little John who praised the season in the words of a poet; but “A jolly -brisk blade right fit for the trade”, more like the scapegrace in a -popular “History”. - -_Robin Hood’s Garland_, printed in 1749, gave a mere collection of -stories for the sequence of the _Geste_, and many chap-books copied it in -prose; but a rough cadence is better than none, and Robin Hood was first -praised in a ballad. - -The chap-books, indeed, were no more than the dead leaves of romance; -it took the vivid play of a child’s fancy to revive them; but whatever -the ballad-maker touched,—fairy tale or legend or history,—he made a new -thing of it: a story to sing or tell, but short enough to be sung or told -many times over. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -FAIRY TALES AND EASTERN STORIES - - Unwritten fairy tales—“Child Rowland”—Traditional matter and - printed books—_The History of Thomas Hickathrift_—Giants - and Dwarfs—Logic and Realism in _Tom Thumb_—Lack of Magic - in English Folk-tales—Whittington and his Cat—Perrault’s - _Contes_—The partnership between Youth and Age—English - versions—“Court” adaptations and “moral” fairy - tales—Eastern stories—The “little yellow canvas-covered - book”—Nursery criticism—Aladdin and Sinbad—The “Oriental - Moralist”—Traditional tales moralised: _Tom Thumb_ and _Robin - Goodfellow_—_The Two Children in the Wood_—_The Enchanted - Castle_. - - -Fairies were not altogether unknown in the Age of Reason, though the -Royal Society kept no record of their delicate transactions. The little -Betty of Steele’s paper, who terrified the maids with her accounts of -“Fairies and Sprights”, must have learned them, as children do, from the -“Grasshoppers’ Library”; for the pedlar had no such tales in print. - -They were sometimes told as a mixture of ballad and fairy tale—a story -with snatches of ballad rhyme. Children guarded them jealously, passing -them on word for word, with none of the slips that a printer would have -made. - -Such a tale was “Child Rowland”, first set down by Jamieson in 1814,[18] -as an old country tailor told it to him when he was seven or eight years -old. But that old tailor had heard it in his own childhood, and so, -doubtless had his great-grandfathers in theirs; for this tale of the -three brothers seeking their lost sister, of her being stolen by the -King of Elfland and kept under a spell, is the same that Shakespeare -quoted in _King Lear_: - - “Child Rowland to the dark tower came, - His word was still ‘Fie, foh and fum, - I smell the blood of a British man’.” - -A child would remember the giant-formula, though he forgot every word -of that “easy pleasant Book, suited to his Capacity” which Mr. Locke -prescribed for him; he would remember the whole exquisite story: how the -youngest brother found his sister, and what passed between them (most of -it in rhyme) and how he fought with the Elf-King and broke the spell. - -If Child Rowland had been the only story of its kind, Mr. Locke had yet -to reckon with the fancies that a child might weave for himself out of -common experience: the moving tree that casts the shadow of a pursuing -giant, the wind that wears an invisible cloak, the enchanter sun who can -pave any road with gold. These baffled all his efforts to drive fairies -out of the nursery. - -But printed tales, before Perrault, were few enough: in prose, the -giant killers, “Hickathrift” and “Jack”; in rhyme, “Catskin” and “Tom -Thumb” and “Whittington”. Like printed ballads, they favoured themes of -action and reality. Catskin, the English Cinderella, did without a fairy -godmother; Tom Thumb, although he tilted with the knights of the Round -Table, never saw Fairyland till he died, and Whittington’s cat was a mere -mouser, a poor relation of Puss in Boots. - -The truth is that a child never asks himself whether a tale belongs to -the dream world or to the world of reality, because either will serve his -turn, and either may be true. Any setting convinces him if the adventure -hold; and a tale that lost its imaginative colouring in the chap-books -might regain it in a winter night. - -Between 1690 and 1790, there is little change in “The Pleasant History -of Thomas Hickathrift”,[19] and not a trace in print of the “astonishing -image” that Coleridge remembered: the “whole rookery that flew out -of the giant’s beard, scared by the tremendous voice with which this -monster answered the challenge of the heroic Tom Hickathrift”.[20] The -nearest thing to it (in a chap-book of 1780) is the likening of the -giant’s head, when it was off, to “the root of a mighty Oak.” But this -image of the monstrous beard, a piece of pure myth, if it were not -the addition of some imaginative teller, came down from a time when -childlike men invented it to explain the giant shapes of trees. A child, -recognizing the analogy, feels the same shock of surprise and pleasure -as his forest-dwelling ancestors, and finds in this play of likeness and -contrast, the source and sustaining interest of all giant tales. For -there never was a giant without dwarfs to measure him, nor a dwarf that -had not his giant; nor indeed is Jack’s fight with Blunderbore a more -engrossing spectacle than Tom Thumb dancing a Galliard on the Queen’s -left hand.[21] - -Yet there is little of the fairy about Tom Thumb. He is a real child, -mischievous, even thievish,—taking advantage of his size to creep into -other boys’ cherry-bags and steal. His one poor trick of magic is to -hang pots upon a sunbeam, his one adventure into romance, a mock-heroic -episode at King Arthur’s court. - -When Dr. Johnson “withdrew his attention” from the great man who bored -him and “thought about Tom Thumb”, the escape was not from dull facts -into a world of dreams, but from the pedantry of words into a simple -realism. - -Given a little creature in a land of giants, Tom’s experiences are -strictly logical. He stands on the edge of a bowl in which his mother -is mixing batter, and falls in. When his mother goes milking, she ties -him to a thistle, and he is swallowed by a cow. A raven that spies him -walking in a furrow carries him off “even like a grain of corn”. - -As for his life at Court, there is example for it, “Tom being a dwarf”; -nor was he the first mischief-maker to find his way there, nor the first -poor man’s son that overcame his betters. But his method of attack was -new; no champion in the annals of romance had beaten Sir Launcelot, Sir -Tristram and Sir Guy with no other weapon than a laugh. - -At Court, Tom bears himself as to the manner born; wears the King’s -signet for a girdle, creeps nimbly into the royal button-hole, and finds -a place, sooner than most courtiers, “near his Highness heart”. At home, -he is still the gentle scapegrace beloved of village folk. If he craves a -boon of the King, it is to relieve the wants of his parents: and the boon, - - “as much of silver coin - As well his arms could hold”, - -amounts to the great sum of _threepence_, - - “A heavy burden which did make - His weary limbs to crack.” - -There is a kind of natural magic in all this that a child can grasp -without the help of a magician. Tom Thumb although he is wingless, can -wear a fairy dress: an oak-leaf hat, a spider-woven shirt, hose and -doublet of thistle-down and - - “shoes made of a mouse’s skin - And tann’d most curiously”. - -Small creatures that creep among grass-blades seem to have furnished the -rhymer with analogies. Tom’s house is but half a mile from the court, -yet he takes two days and nights to make the journey; he sleeps in a -walnut-shell, and his parents feast him three days upon a hazel-nut, - - “that was sufficient for a month - For this great man to eat”. - -“A few moist April drops” are enough to delay his return, till his -“careful father” takes a “birding trunk” and with a single blast, blows -him back to court. - -Last comes the notable account of his death, which tells how the doctors -examined him through “a fine perspective glass” and found— - - “His face no bigger than _an ant’s_, - Which hardly could be seen”. - -The rhyme is a dwarf epic, perhaps begun by some child that had found an -ant-hill, or a thistle taller than himself; carried on, with a phrase -here and a picture there from older tales, by the “careful father”, who -set it to the unequal beat of little feet at his side. - -But no child could endure the unhappy end. A second part and a third -(both sorry imitations of the first) brought the “little knight” back to -fresh adventures; and even the printers of instructive books understood -the value of his name on a title-page. - -Catskin,[22] long forgotten through the more glorious transformations of -her French sister, could hold Dr. Primrose’s children with the old theme -of disguise and changing fortune. Five parts in verse gave her whole -history: how she was banished, like Cordelia, by an angry father; how -she disguised herself in a hood of Catskin, and took service in a great -house; how (following here the very print of the Glass Slipper) she went -to the ball and danced with a Knight; and how, one day when she forgot -her Catskin hood, the Knight, discovering her “in rich attire”, fell in -love with her and married her. - -English folk-tales, compared with others more magical, are like the -toys that a child will make for himself out of a stick, beside the fine -inventions of a conjurer; they appeal chiefly to practical interests, -and leave much to the imagination. Jack killed Cormoran and Blunderbore -and the giant with two heads before anybody thought of giving him a cap -of knowledge, or shoes of swiftness, or even a magic sword. These things -were the addition of a Second Part. - -Indeed, a tale never was so plain that it gathered no colour in the -telling. There was an old story of Whittington without a Cat,[23] and how -the cat got into the story was more than the whole Society of Antiquaries -could tell, though it met together in 1771 expressly to discuss the -problem. In our own time, most antiquaries are agreed that the Cat found -its way from Genoa or Persia or Portugal,—no matter whence,—and that it -is a piece of folk-lore grafted upon authentic biography. Try as they -will, they can get little nearer to the heart of the matter than Mr. -Pepys, when he watched the puppet-show of Whittington at Southwark Fair, -“which was pretty to see”, and remarked “how that idle thing do work upon -people that see it, and even myself too”. - -The very truth underlying the modest fable of the Cat and the song of Bow -Bells, had more power than the Wishing Hat of Fortunatus, and would have -carried more fanciful embellishments; but it is never safe to lose sight -of the double paradox of childish imagination—that reality is romance, -romance, reality. If “_Cendrillon_” had never been done into English, -Catskin or Cap o’ Rushes might have worn the Glass Slipper and ridden in -a Pumpkin Coach. As it fell out, the little kitchen-maid surpassed them -both,—the girl whose ragged dress was transformed at a touch into “_drap -d’or et d’argent, tout charmarez de pierreries_.” - -Cinderella’s biographer was no less a person than Charles Perrault, a -member of the French Academy, and a friend of La Fontaine. He also wrote -the famous “histories” of little Red Riding Hood and the Sleeping Beauty, -of Hop o’ my Thumb (a distant kinsman of Tom Thumb), Puss in Boots, and -others who have lived so long in English nurseries that their French -names are forgotten. - -In his youth, Perrault had rebelled against the formal education of his -day, and when he was little short of seventy, he turned from his serious -works and produced a children’s book by which he is still remembered. - -Fairy tales, indeed, were already popular in France, but they had become -a part of that fantastic world into which the Court of Louis XIV had been -transformed: a world of courtly shepherds and shepherdesses, who told -“_Contes des fées_” (“_mitonner_”, Madame de Sévigné says they called it) -to prove that they had gone back to the Golden Age. - -Perrault knew better than to copy them. He wrote for a public at once -more appreciative and more critical: the nursery society of which, in the -introduction to his rhymed tales (1695) he wrote: “_On les voit dans la -tristesse et dans l’abbattement tant que le héros ou l’héroine du conte -sont dans le malheur, et s’écrie de joie quand le temps de leur bonheur -arrive_”. - -His knowledge of children alone might have carried him through, but -his choice of a collaborator was an act of genius. When in 1697, the -_Contes_ were collected and published,[24] it was not to M. Perrault -of the Academy that the “_privelège du roy_” was granted, but to his -ten-years-old son, Perrault Darmancour. The device of anonymity was -common among the early writers of children’s books, and some critics -have suggested that it was beneath the dignity of an Academician to -acknowledge the authorship of fairy-tales; but Mlle. L’Héritier, -Perrault’s niece, who contributed one tale to the book, declared, before -it was published, that little Darmancour could write fairy-tales “with -much charm”; and Mr. Andrew Lang, following M. Lacroix, believed that -the boy had a real share in the book. He detected the actual note of a -child’s voice in the dialogue: - -“_Toc, toc, qui est là? C’est voire fille, le petit chaperon rouge—qui -vous apporte une galette et un petit pot de beurre que ma mère vous -envoye ... tira la chevillette, la bobinette chera_”. But this, after -all, is the language of fairy-tales. Here it is again, when the little -princess finds the old woman spinning: “_Que faites-vous là, ma bonne -femme—je file, ma belle enfant.... Ha! que cela est joli ... comment -faites-vous? Donnez-moy que je voye si j’en ferois bien autant_”. - -It is the language of fairy-tales; and that, of course, is child’s talk. -But the father’s part is clear in the artistic handling of the tales, in -the addition of “_Moralités_” after the manner of Æsop, and in asides of -laughter or comment intended for grown-up ears,—a sly dig at the lawyers -in “_Le Maître Chat_”, or at women, through the Ogre’s wife in “_Le Petit -Poucet_”. - -Some such partnership between youth and age there must be in all real -children’s books; whether it be arranged between them is another matter. -The wise writer will always take hints from the child, will remember -the way he turns his phrases, the tones of his voice, the things that -interest him; but if he remember his own childhood, it may serve as well. - -These stories are all memories of childhood. As their more intimate -title, “_Contes de ma Mère Loye_”, suggests, they were handed down for -centuries, gathering new features by the way, till this boy of Perrault’s -had them from his nurse. But no child could have written them as Perrault -wrote. “Cinderella”—the “story of stories”: the boy could repeat it word -for word; but if he had tried to set it down, he would have lost the -thread at the point of transformation. Those dramatic strokes of the -clock would have been forgotten in the music of the ball. This balance, -this art of simplicity is the work of a man,—an academician, the writer -who, in a French “Battle of the Books”, took up the cause of the Moderns -against the Classics, and yet lived in the kindly reasonable humour that -belongs to the Augustan Age. - -Perrault’s _Contes_ are essentially romantic; the Sleeping Beauty gives -place only to Persephone,—she and her sleeping household, shut in by the -great hedge of thorns; but every tale has quaint human touches which puts -it precisely at the right angle to life: the little girl, her basket of -goodies, and the sick grandmother, all things of experience; and then, -with a quick turn of the “World Upside Down”—_the Grandmother that was -really a Wolf_ in bed. A nurse might have told it well enough; but the -artist knew the true colours, the just economy of lines, and the point -where one could turn from the pictures and listen for talk. - -Perrault must have followed every footstep in the tales with the eager -sympathy of the boy at his side. Together they hid with Little Thumb -under his father’s stool, and heard the poor parents’ desperate shift to -be rid of their children. They were with the tiny hero when he filled his -pockets full of small white pebbles, and made the trail by which he and -his six brothers found their way home; and they joined in the hopeless -search of the second adventure, when Little Thumb dropped crumbs instead -of pebbles, and the birds ate them. That brings the story to the very -heart of interest: when the hungry boys, lost in the forest at nightfall, -fancied they heard on every side of them the howling of wolves coming -to eat them up. For then Little Thumb, the youngest and smallest and -cleverest of them all “climbed up to the top of a tree, to see if he -could discover anything; and having turned his head about on every side, -he saw at last a glimmering light, like that of a candle, but a long way -from the forest.” This is matter of romance, though there is nothing in -it beyond Nature. But—that “glimmering light” threw its beams from _an -Ogre’s window_, and there was yet to come the Adventure of the Seven -League Boots: those boots that would fit a foot of any size, from the -Ogre’s to Little Thumb’s; in which either Perrault _père_ or Perrault -_fils_ could go seven leagues at a step. - -No copy remains of the first translation of Perrault’s tales by Samber -(1729),[25] nor of John Newbery’s edition; but a seventh edition appeared -in 1777, under the title of “Mother Goose’s Tales”, and an eighth in -1780. At the close of the century, Harris printed another, “Englished by -G. M. Gent”, of which copies are still found. The book fits a very small -hand, and though every trace of gold be rubbed off the covers, the Dutch -paper pattern can still be seen through diamond patches of colour. The -frontispiece shows an old woman with her distaff, seated by the fire, -telling stories to a group of children; and there are quaint woodcuts in -the text. - -The welcome given in court circles to fairy-tales marked the beginning, -or rather, a special phase of romantic interest; but this had little -to do with children. Such tales, originally simple, caught the -elaborate grace of their new setting, and borrowing variations from the -newly-translated eastern stories, ran into an endless series in the -_Cabinet des Fées_. In English they were represented chiefly by the -_Contes_ of Madame la Comtesse D’Aulnoy, which were translated before -Perrault’s.[26] These were common as nursery chap-books in the second -half of the century. - -Nothing could be more unlike the simplicity of Perrault. Madame -D’Aulnoy’s stories are rich in embroideries of the folk-tale themes. -She makes something very like a novel of her “_L’Oiseau Bleu_”; but the -adventures of the bird-lover are well known in such ballads as “the -Earl of Mar’s Daughter”, and no artifice can hide the traces of an old -“_cante-fable_”. The wicked step-mother of all fairy-tales transforms the -prince into a bird; but the spy set to watch the princess at last falls -asleep, and then the princess opens her little window and sings: - - “_Oiseau bleu, couleur de temps,_ - _Vole à moi, promptement_”. - -“These,” explains Madame la Comtesse, “are her own words, which it has -been thought best to keep unchanged”. Elsewhere she is less concerned for -her originals. Her “_Finette Cendron_” (the English “Finetta”) is an -odd mixture of Perrault’s “Cinderella” and “Little Thumb”, in which both -stories are spoilt. - -Gold and silver are the meanest ornaments in these fairy novels; they -have much of the glitter of a transformation scene. When the colours -fade, there is only a confused memory of the setting; but fairies and -talking animals remain. Children are not likely to forget “The White -Cat”, “The Hind in the Wood”, or that lurker in dark corners of the -nursery, “The Yellow Dwarf”. - -As the century advanced, grown-up persons from time to time ventured -into the unknown regions of romance; and it is odd to find that the more -thrilling their discoveries in poetry and fiction, the more determined -they were to hide them from children, or to cloak them with moral -applications. - -The rhymed “_Moralités_” which Perrault added to his tales were a tactful -concession to public opinion. No moralist ever succeeded in reforming -Puss in Boots, though one, early in the nineteenth century, claimed him -as the ancestor of a _Moral Cat_. It is clear, however, that Perrault, -left to himself, would have trusted his readers to find their own morals; -for in the dedication to his _Contes_ he says: “they all contain a very -obvious moral, and one that shows itself more or less according to the -insight of the reader.” - -The task of reconciling parents and children upon the vexed question of -the supernatural was achieved by Madame le Prince de Beaumont, with her -educational or moral fairy-tales. - -Allegorical persons often appeared in the court adaptations with names -and images drawn from classical authority. Mlle. L’Héritier had already -foisted into the old folk-tale of “Diamonds and Toads” a fairy called -“_Eloquentia Nativa_”; but Madame de Beaumont’s tales were simpler -and more convincing. From the parental point of view she had undoubted -advantages over her predecessors in the fairy-tale, for, in the words of -an editor of the _Cabinet des Fées_, she “devoted herself entirely to the -education of children”. - -Born in 1711, six years after the death of Madame D’Aulnoy, she spent a -great part of her life in London. Her _Magasin des Enfans_, published in -1757,[27] properly belongs to the type of moral miscellany introduced -by Sarah Fielding’s Governess[28]; but the schoolroom setting could -not spoil fairy-tales which, however obvious their moral purposes, had -refreshing touches of humour. In her intercourse with English children, -Madame de Beaumont had somehow acquired a belief in the educational value -of nonsense. - -Charles Lamb’s rhyme of “Prince Dorus” is simply an adaptation of Madame -de Beaumont’s “_Prince Désir_”; her story of “The Three Wishes” found -in so many chap-books, is a well-known “droll”, and there are playful -touches in her most serious tales. - -Yet a child might venture a protest on discovering that the little white -rabbit in “_Prince Chéri_”, that leaps into the King’s arms as he rides -hunting, is an educational fairy in disguise; and it is impossible not to -sympathise with the prince who, in spite of a ring that pricks whenever -he is naughty, becomes a scapegrace, and has to undergo a Circeian -transformation ere he is reformed. - -Like all successful _gouvernantes_, Madame de Beaumont can be severe. Her -fairy in “_Fatal et Fortune_” deserves a place in Spartan folklore; this -is how she answers the mother who pleads for a son doomed to misfortune: - -“_Vous ne savez pas ce que vous demandez. S’il n’est pas malheureux, il -sera méchant!_” - -One at least of Madame de Beaumont’s tales is worthy of Perrault. “Beauty -and the Beast” would decide her title to nursery fame, if she had written -nothing else. In 1740, Madame de Villeneuve had spun out the same theme -at extraordinary length; but the story as children know it first appeared -in the _Magasin des Enfans_, and it bears all the marks of a genuine -folk-tale. - -It was late in the century before the Arabian tales,[29] translated from -the French of M. Galland in 1708, appeared in English children’s books. -In France, they received a welcome surpassing that of the fairy-tales, -and produced a fantastic literature of supposed translations, in -which Eastern imagery and the incidents of Western folk-lore were -curiously mixed. Yet the new pattern was not altogether incongruous. -Dwarfs and magicians were the stock figures of romance; the Quest of -the Talking Bird, Singing Tree and Yellow Water was but a variant of -the Fortune-Seeker’s adventures; the Magic Mirror a commonplace of -fairy-tales; and there were old ballads, like “The Heir of Linne”, with -Arabian, Persian and Turkish variants. - -Eastern stories, nevertheless, had more in common with Court fairy-tales -than with those of natural growth. They were woven, like oriental -carpets, for Kings’ palaces, and the “Folk” elements were simply repeated -as a part of the design. Children as yet knew nothing of these visions -of splendour and terror, which turned the French Court from its pose of -simplicity, and coloured the whole fabric of the _Cabinet des Fées_. - -But the British tendency to moralise was never stronger than in the -eighteenth century, and eastern fables and aphorisms were rich in -illustrations of philosophy. Thus, for the greater part of the century, -the English oriental tale was moralised, and if children came into any -part of their legacy, it was either by courtesy of the moralist, or -through illicit traffic with the pedlar. - -Neither Steele nor Johnson mentions these tales among children’s books; -but the “precious treasure” of Wordsworth’s childhood, a “little yellow -canvas-covered book”,[30] although it was but “a slender abstract of the -Arabian tales,” was within the reach of other children. Wordsworth tells -how he and another boy hoarded their savings for many months to buy the -“four large volumes” of “kindred matter”. Failing in resolution, they -never got beyond the smaller book; yet this, if it had only the tales -of the Merchant and the Ginni, the Fisherman, the Sleeper Awakened and -the Magic Horse, would build them a city of dreams. Whereas it almost -certainly contained the Voyages of Sinbad,[31] and the two apocryphal -tales, never doubted by children, “Aladdin” and “The Forty Thieves”. - -Such a book was a maker of magicians. The child that possessed it found -himself richer than Ali Baba, for he knew the magic formula that would -open all the treasure-caves of the East. He was the shipmate of Sinbad, -that sailor of enchanted seas; the fellow of Aladdin, possessing the -ring and lamp that gave him mastery over slaves “terrible in aspect, -vast in stature as the giants”, who could carry him a thousand leagues -while he slept, or build in a single night a palace “more splendid than -imagination can conceive”. - -The tastes of Wordsworth and his schoolfellows were probably more -catholic than those of the little De Quinceys, who discussed in -the nursery the relative merits of the _Arabian Nights_, and dared -to question the judgment of Mrs. Barbauld, “the queen of all the -bluestockings”, because she preferred “Aladdin” and “Sinbad” to all the -rest.[32] Most children would agree with her, for even the cave where -they measured gold like grain lacks the splendour of the garden in which -the trees “were all covered with precious stones instead of fruit, and -each tree was of a different kind, and had different jewels of all -colours, green and white and yellow and red.” - -The palace, though all its storeys were of jasper and alabaster and -porphyry and mosaics, was not half so dazzling as this garden of jewels. - -As to “Sinbad”, it may be, as De Quincey judged, “a mere succession of -adventures”; to a child, it is a second Odyssey. The giant that throws -masses of rock at Sinbad’s raft is a brother of the Cyclops; Proteus -is one with the Old Man of the Sea. But the adventures of Odysseus are -plain and straight compared with the extravagant splendours of this -merchant-adventurer. He walks by a river of dreams (which is yet a real -river) till he finds the tall vessel that pleases him; but once afloat -with black slaves and pages and bales of merchandise, he cares less for -the occupation of traffic than for “the pleasure of seeing the countries -and islands of the world”. - -This is the very desire of the child; nor did dream-islands ever yield -romance in greater profusion. One, indeed, is no island, but a great -fish, on whose back the sand has been heaped up till trees have grown -upon it; no sooner is the sailors’ fire alight than the solid ground -sinks under their feet. In another, Sinbad descries from the top of a -tree a “white object of enormous size”, the egg of a Roc, that gigantic -bird whose wings obscure the sun. - -Sir John Mandeville might have set down the adventures of the rhinoceros -and the elephant, the valley of diamonds or the river of jacinths and -pearls; but his account could never compare with this for reality. - -These voyages among the islands, from El-Basrah to Sarandib, though they -are set down in the language of myth, are as easy to trace upon a map as -the wanderings of Odysseus between Troy and Ithaca. Nor is the Eastern -story-teller without a Homeric interest in things seen and discovered, -both great and small: a thousand horsemen clad in gold and silk, or a -letter sent by the King of Sarandib to Harun Er-Rashid, written “on -the skin of the Khawi, which is finer than parchment”, in writing of -ultramarine. - -The quality of realism is indeed one of the distinguishing features -of Eastern romance. Sinbad’s account of the building of his raft from -the planks and ropes of the wrecked ship almost reads like an entry -in Crusoe’s journal, and there is the characteristic opening which -simulates a narrative of fact: “In the time of the Khalifeh, the Prince -of the Faithful Harun Er-Rashid, in the city of Baghdad”. All the sounds -and colours of the East are in the setting of these tales, all the -details of life and traffic; and yet it is never out of keeping with -the supernatural. Wizards and fairies simply move among the natural -inhabitants of bazaars or palaces,—a thing in no way surprising to a -child; and forms of enchantment surpassing the illusions of a dream rise -up in existing cities. - -In a realistic age, such a setting would atone for the elements of -unreality; yet the authors of the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ (those gentle -schoolmasters of grown-up children) held it of less account than the -aptness of the stories to “reflection” and philosophy. For this they -could forgive “that Oriental extravagance which is mixed with it”; but -the more philosophical the tale, the less it needed a real background -and moving figures. Vague allusions took the place of description, and -incidents were turned to illustrate particular virtues or to point the -arguments of Mr. Locke. Thus treated, the stories were said to be “writ -after the Eastern manner, but _somewhat more correct_.” - -Johnson followed the same method, but with more profound philosophy, in -the _Rambler_; and it was in this “moralised” form that Eastern tales -came, straight from the pages of the _Spectator_ and the _Rambler_, -into the first books which John Newbery devised “for the Amusement and -Instruction” of children. - -Thus the story of Alnascar, the Persian Glassman,[33] is printed in -the last section (“Letters, Poems, Tales and Fables”) of _A Museum for -Young Gentlemen and Ladies_: or, _a Private Tutor for little Masters and -Misses_ (1763); and the _Twelfth Day Gift_ (1767) has Johnson’s tale of -Obidah and the Hermit,[34] here called “The Progress of Life”. - -Nor was there any attempt to choose the lighter and more entertaining -stories for children. Such a tale, for example, as Will Honeycomb’s -of Pug’s adventures (_Spectator_, 343), which Addison borrowed from -the _Chinese Tales_, never found its way into the early children’s -miscellanies, though Mrs. Barbauld, at the close of the century, produced -a somewhat similar series of adventures in _Evenings at Home_. - -In France, as in England, there were Eastern tales which came half way -between the romance of pure adventure and the “Moral Tale”. Marmontel -chose an Eastern setting for two of his stories; but English writers -for children not unnaturally preferred Johnson’s “oriental” examples -of conduct and duty, and were willing to sacrifice interest to moral -significance. - -Johnson himself would have advised them better. “Babies do not want to -hear about babies,” he told Mrs. Thrale; “they like to be told of giants -and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little -minds.”[35] - -He expressly warned her against the nursery editions which contained, as -a substitute for genuine romance, his own moralised “Eastern tales”. But -the Great Cham’s remarks upon children’s books were not published with -his works, and parents went on buying the books which he declared that -children never read. - -Mrs. Sheridan’s _Nourjahad_ (1767) appeared as a nursery chap-book in -1808, and Miss Edgeworth, in her tale of “Murad the Unlucky” (one of the -_Popular Tales_), gives similar contrasted examples of wisdom and folly. - -Minor moralists were unnumbered. Mr. Cooper, the author of _Blossoms of -Morality_, having by his own account “accidentally met with a French -edition of the Arabian Nights during a trip on the Continent”, and being -“induced to wade through it, having no other book at hand”, was so far -moved by the entertainment as to select and adapt some of the tales “for -Youth”, under the title of _The Oriental Moralist_.[36] - -A remark at the close of “Prince Agib and the Adamantine Mountain” -gives a fair example of his treatment: “It may not be amiss to remind -my youthful readers that an unwarrantable curiosity, and a degree of -obstinacy too natural to young people, were the causes of the third -Calender losing his eye”. - -The author of _The Governess_; or, _Evening Amusements at a Boarding -School_, though she allows Persian stories, admits that whenever she -found “a sentiment that would answer her purpose”, she did not hesitate -to “make it breathe from the lips of the Eastern Sage”. - -_The Grateful Turk_, one of Thomas Day’s moral tales, appeared in the -same year as Mrs. Pilkington’s _Asiatic Princess_, and Miss Porter -followed with _The Two Princes of Persia_, “adapted to youth”. Alluring -titles, such as “The Ruby Heart” and “The Enchanted Mirror” were another -means of recommending improving histories. - -Yet the oriental tale suffered less than native romance and folk-lore, -by this sort of adaptation. Perhaps the Jinn, being “the slaves of him -who held the lamp”, or “of him on whose hand was the ring”, were more -helpless than other spirits in the power of the Moralist. - -English fairies were not so submissive; indeed they played strange tricks -with the little didactic works that bore their names. - -Already (in 1746) Tom Thumb had turned pedagogue and published his -“Travels”,[37] a barefaced introduction to Topography. _Tom Thumb’s -Folio_ (1768) was followed in 1780 by _Tom Thumb’s Exhibition_, “being -an account of many valuable and surprising curiosities which he had -collected in the course of his travels, for the instruction and amusement -of the British Youths”. - -This is somewhat more entertaining than the “Travels”, having an odd -humour of its own; but the Tom Thumb of the Exhibition has changed his -fairy dress for a schoolmaster’s gown, and lies in wait for pupils “in a -large commodious room at Mr. Lovegood’s, number 3 in Wiseman’s Buildings, -at the upper end of Education Road”. - -Here he examines, under the lens of an “Intellectual Perspective Glass”, -the unreasonable things which please a child. For example, unripe apples -or gooseberries thus scrutinized, “instantly appear to be changed into a -swarm of worms and other devouring reptiles”. - -From this it is tempting to infer that the same merciless glass had -discovered, instead of the traditional wren or robin, that “little -feathered songster called the _Advice Bird_” which a child might see -at the Exhibition. Such a lens, focussed upon Whittington’s Cat, would -doubtless prove it a figment, or applied to a magic sword, might -instantly change it to a piece of rusty iron. - -Old ballads suffered the same transforming process. Robin Goodfellow,[38] -dragged from his haunts to show “a virtuous little mortal” the way to -Fairyland, took on the likeness of a Philosopher, the better to fool his -victims. - -Fairyland, he asserts, is “neither a continent nor an island, and yet it -is both or either. It exists in the air, at a distance of about five feet -and a half or six feet at most from the surface of the Earth”. - -The solution of this pleasing riddle is found in a diagram of the human -frame, whereon the Fairyland of Philosophy is shown to exist nowhere but -in a man’s head, hard by those notable tracts, the “Land of Courage” and -the “Land of Dumplins”. - -A knavish sprite, this, who can find matter for jests in a fairy -revolution; for by his account, “the reigning Monarch Fancy, and Whim, -his royal Consort” have usurped the throne of Oberon; and Imagination is -their eldest son. - -In such an age, the boldest outlaw would have much ado to rescue -Robin Hood; and since Robin could point but a one-sided moral, the -writer of little books forgot his virtues and published his “Life” -as a “Warning-piece”. He, forsooth, “did not know how to work”, had -“neglected to learn a trade”, and being justly outlawed, skulked with -his “gang” in Sherwood Forest, living “_what they called_ a merry life”. - -_The Two Children in the Wood_ afforded ampler scope for moral contrasts. -Addison’s praise had included even the pretty fiction of the robins, on -the authority of Horace and his doves; but the makers of toy-books were -not satisfied with this. They expunged the robins and prepared two prose -versions of the ballad, one expanding the story into a novel of domestic -life, and the other marring it with a happy ending.[39] - -The novel, an amusing medley, deals in an underplot with the adventures -of the wicked Uncle at sea, laying bare a past about which the ballad was -silent; the rest is concerned with the home life of the two children, -and contains a chapter of stories told for their benefit. At the end (by -way of reparation, perhaps) the ballad itself is printed. The novelist -carries enough moral ballast to float it all, and anticipates its effect -in rhyme: - - “The tender Tale must surely please. - If told with sympathetic ease; - Read, then, the Children in the Wood, - And you’ll be virtuous and good.” - -But of all these “restorations”, none was a greater outrage than the -attempt of a nursery moralist to rebuild the Enchanted Castle of Romance. - -“The History of the Enchanted Castle; or, The Prettiest Book for -Children” appeared in Francis Newbery’s list in 1777, and was reprinted -for Harris early in the nineteenth century. On the title page it is -further described as “the Enchanted Castle, situated in one of the -Fortunate Isles and governed by the _Giant Instruction_. Written for -the Entertainment of little Masters and Misses by Don Stephano Bunyano, -Under-Secretary to the aforesaid Giant”. - -The wheel has come full circle: folk-tales, ballads, romances, not one -of the forms of popular literature has escaped. Here at last is the -giant himself surrendering his stronghold to the moralist, delivering up -captives and stolen, treasure, engaging Secretaries, and parcelling out -the Enchanted Castle into a Picture Gallery, Museum and Library. - -The parallel between the Giant Instruction and Giant Despair is -sufficiently obvious; but the giant’s under-secretary, with official -sagacity, turns it to account. He boldly proclaims himself “a distant -relation of the famous John Bunyan, the pious and admired author of the -_Pilgrim’s Progress_”, and proceeds to explain the symbolic pictures and -curiosities in the Castle, after the manner of Mr. Interpreter. - -Yet there is one rare thing among the oddities of this little book; a -statement of aim which involves direct criticism of existing children’s -books. This betrays the Giant’s intention to make children “as capable -of thinking and understanding what is what (according to their years) as -their Papas and Mammas, or as the greatest Philosophers and Divines in -the whole Country”. - -To this end it is forbidden to present even “very little Masters and -Misses” with “idle nonsensical stories” and “silly unmeaning rhymes”. - -It is little wonder that Wordsworth, remembering - - “A race of real children; not too wise, - Too learned, or too good....”, - -denounced moralist and pedagogue, and cried in vain for the old nursery -tales: - - “Oh! give us once again the wishing-cap - Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat - Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood - And Sabra in the forest with St. George!” - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE LILLIPUTIAN LIBRARY - - Locke and the baby Spectator—Gulliver in the nursery—The - children’s bookseller—_A Little Pretty Pocket Book_, _The - Circle of the Sciences_ and _The Philosophy of Tops and - Balls_—Mr. Newbery’s shop in St. Paul’s Churchyard—_The - Lilliputian Magazine_—“The History of Mr. Thomas Trip”—Nursery - “Richardsons”—_Mother Goose’s Melody_—“A very great Writer - of very little Books”—_The History of Goody Two-Shoes_ as an - epitome of the Lilliputian Library—The question of Goldsmith’s - authorship—Late “Lilliputians”—The Wyse Chylde in many - rôles—_Juvenile Trials_—_The Juvenile Biographer_—Lilliputian - Letters—A hint of revolution—The new _Tatler_ and _Spectator_—A - farthing sugar-paper series—Lilliputian books in the provinces. - - -For every parent that read Locke’s _Thoughts_, a hundred took his ideas -at second hand from _The Spectator_. Many, indeed, seem to have confused -his notion of childhood with the description of the baby Addison, who -threw away his rattle before he was two months old, and would not make -use of his coral until they had taken away the bells from it. - -It was no new thing to regard a child as a small man or woman. Since -Shakespeare’s time, children had followed the fashions of their elders. -But the tastes of grown-up Elizabethans were not so different from those -of children. Never, until the eighteenth century, had a child been -taught to think and act like a man of middle age. The little Georgian -walked gravely where his for-bears danced, and was expected to read -dwarf essays, extracts from Addison and Pope, and little novels after -Richardson. - -Swift’s engrossing pictures of Lilliput had no sooner captured the -nursery than grown-up persons began to fancy themselves in the part of -Gulliver stooping to instruct a little nation; and the logical outcome of -this was a “Lilliputian Library”. - -The ingenious artist of an older generation, who could put “all th’ -Iliads in a Nut” must have passed on his secret to the makers of -toy-books; and of these the first and greatest was John Newbery, a -descendant of the very Newbery who, in the sixteenth century, had -published the rhyme of the “great Marchaunt Man”. - -There is no better portrait of John Newbery than the one drawn by -Goldsmith in _The Vicar of Wakefield_. That “good-natured man” with his -“red pimpled face” who befriended Dr. Primrose when he lay sick at a -roadside inn, was “no other than the philanthropic bookseller of St. -Paul’s Churchyard, who has written so many little books for children”. - -Goldsmith was writing for Newbery between 1762 and 1767, and on more than -one occasion he, like his Vicar, “borrowed a few pieces” from the kindly -publisher. He could not have chosen a more graceful way of thanking him, -nor one more likely to give him pleasure, than by thus imitating Mr. -Newbery’s own method of internal advertisement, associating him with -those “little books for children”, and adding that “he called himself -their friend, but he was the friend of all mankind”. - -The rest of the passage recalls Dr. Johnson’s caricature of Newbery as -“Jack Whirler,” in _The Idler_: - -“Overwhelmed as he is with business, his chief desire is to have still -more. Every new proposal takes possession of his thoughts; he soon -balances probabilities, engages in the project, brings it almost to -completion and then forsakes it for another.” - -But Goldsmith again lays stress on his pet project: - -“He was no sooner alighted but he was in haste to be gone; for he was -ever on business of the utmost importance, and was at that time actually -compiling materials for the history of one Mr. Thomas Trip.” - -An account of John Newbery’s career would itself furnish matter for a -children’s book. He was a very Whittington of booksellers—a farmer’s son -who made his way in the world “by his talents and industry and a great -love of books”. Every day of his life was an adventure, and he never lost -his Pepysian interest in men and things. Goldsmith’s story of the inn (or -its counterpart) might almost have come out of the pocket-book in which -Mr. Newbery kept a record of his journey through England in 1740, with -notes of his various “projects” and purchases.[40] - -It was at Reading, where he had begun his trade of printer and publisher, -that he produced his first children’s book: _Spiritual Songs for -Children_, by one of the many imitators of Dr. Watts;[41] but the genuine -“Newberys” appeared after he settled in London, first at the Bible and -Crown, without Temple Bar, and afterwards at the famous little shop in -St. Paul’s Churchyard. - -He began with miscellanies—quaint imitations of the periodicals, -announced by whimsical “advertisements”, and professing the aims and -methods of John Locke: _A Little Pretty Pocket Book_ (1744),[42] and _The -Lilliputian Magazine_, advertised in the _General Evening Post_, March 4, -1751. - -Two quotations in the _Pocket Book_ suggest a connection between two -prevailing interests of the day, Education and Landscape-gardening. The -first is from Dryden: - - “Children, like tender Osiers, take the Bow - And as they first are fashioned always grow”; - -the second from Pope: - - “Just as the Twig is bent the Tree’s inclined, - ’Tis Education forms the vulgar Mind”. - -But the prefatory letter addressed “To all Parents, Guardians, -Governesses, etc.”, illustrates the difference between the “fashioning” -of trees and children. It is all pure Locke: - -“Would you have a virtuous Son, instil into him the Principles of -Morality early.... Would you have a wise Son, teach him to reason early. -Let him read and make him understand what he reads. No Sentence should be -passed over without a strict Examination of the Truth of it.... Subdue -your children’s Passions, curb their Temper and make them subservient to -the Rules of Reason; and this is not to be done by Chiding, Whipping or -severe Treatment, but by Reasoning and mild Discipline.” - -So much for the Parents who bought the _Pretty Pocket Book_. The rest is -a judicious mixture of Amusement and Instruction for its readers. There -are alphabets big and little, “select Proverbs for the use of children”, -_Moralités_ in plenty; but by the precise authority of Mr. Locke, there -are also pictures of sorts, songs and games and rhymed fables. There is -even a germ of the “Moral Tale” in accounts of good children, set down -somewhat in the manner of seventeenth century “Characters”. - -Between this and _The Lilliputian Magazine_ came an instructive -“Snuff-box” series: The _Circle of the Sciences_,[43] described in the -Advertisement as “a compendious library, whereby each Branch of Polite -Learning is rendered extremely easy and instructive”. But the Newbery -Pedant is never quite serious. When, later, he sets himself to adapt the -Newtonian System “to the Capacities of young Gentlemen and Ladies”, he -does it in a _Philosophy_ of _Tops and Balls_,[44] and seems immensely -diverted by this notion of making the Giant Instruction stoop to play. - -In 1745 John Newbery left the Bible and Crown, and set up at the Bible -and Sun, near the Chapter House in St. Paul’s Churchyard. By this time he -had become “a merchant in medicines as well as books” and had acquired -a partnership in the sale of the famous fever powders of his friend Dr. -James, which he advertised with other remedies in his nursery books, -often working them into the story. - -Like all really busy people, he could always find time for a new -enterprise; but the “little books” were no mere relaxation from serious -work. His son says that at this time he was “in the full employment of -his talents in writing and publishing books of amusement and instruction -for children”, and adds that “the call for them was immense, an edition -of many thousands being sometimes exhausted during the Christmas -holidays”.[45] - -This, in fact, was a favourite “project” of Mr. Newbery’s, never forsaken -for another, but continued up to the time of his death. - -One can imagine him, delighted as Mr. Pepys with his puppet -show,—inspecting the woodcuts, examining different patterns of Dutch -flowered paper for the binding, deciding the exact size (4 inches by 2¾) -for the biography of Mr. Trip; or watching the young apprentices (these -paper covers were painted by children) each filling a row of diamond -spaces with his appointed colour. - -His next venture was _The Lilliputian Magazine_[46] announced as “an -attempt to amend the World, to render the Society of Man more amiable, -and to re-establish the Simplicity, Virtue and Wisdom of the Golden Age”. - -Details of the proposed method are set forth in the following “Dialogue” -between a gentleman and the Author: - - _Gentleman_: I have seen, Sir, an Advertisement in the Papers of the - Lilliputian Magazine to be published at Three Pence a - Month: pray, what is the Design of it? - - _Author_: Why, Sir, it is intended for the Use of Children, as you - may perceive by the Advertisement, and my Design is, by - Way of _History_ and _Fable_, to sow in their Minds the - Seeds of Polite Literature and to teach them the great - Grammer (_sic_) of the Universe: I mean the Knowledge - of Men and Things. - -The framework of the book suggests a combination (in miniature) of -the Royal Society and the Spectator Club; for the various Pieces are -submitted to a Society of young Gentlemen and Ladies (including a young -Prince and several of the young Nobility) presided over by little Master -Meanwell (who by reading a great many Books and observing everything his -Tutor said to him, acquired a great deal of Wisdom). - -The “Histories” and “Fables” that follow are not mixed from Mr. -Locke’s prescription. They are amusing parodies of Mr. Newbery’s (or -his contributor’s) reading from the _Spectator_ and _Gulliver_ and -Richardson’s novels. Not even Gulliver escapes the moralising tendency, -and Lilliput (here translated to the “Island of Angelica”) is a new -Utopia, where no man is allowed more money than he needs. The inhabitants -are so little removed from common experience that they appear to be “no -more than a gigantic Sort of Lilliputian, about the size of the Fairies -in Mr. Garrick’s Queen Mab”.[47] - -Locke would have scorned the fanciful descriptions of this _Voyage -Imaginaire_; nor would “A History of the Rise and Progress of Learning in -Lilliput” (which precedes it) have pleased him better; he never could -have understood the sly humour of its author. - -Indeed, but for the date, there might be some truth in the suggestion -that Goldsmith edited _The Lilliputian Magazine_. For among its -contributions was that notable “History of Mr. Thomas Trip” in which his -philanthropic bookseller was engaged; and in the “History”, a rhyme of -“Three Children Sliding on the Ice”[48] that Goldsmith might well have -invented to temper the virtues of Mr. Trip; for indeed, this hero, though -he scarcely overtops Tom Thumb, is the Wyse Chylde in little: “whenever -you see him, you will always find a book in his hand”. - -But Goldsmith was not yet in London when _The Lilliputian Magazine_ -appeared; the rhyme of “Three Children” is now said to be John Gay’s; -and it was Goldsmith himself who named John Newbery as Tommy Trip’s -biographer. - -The other contributions are mere attempts to fit children of middle -age with little novels of morality and sentiment,—surely not the least -flattering imitations of Richardson.[49] - -First comes the “History of Florella, sent by an unknown Hand (and may, -for aught we know, have been published before)”, and after an interval -for further reference and collation, “The History of Miss Sally Silence, -communicated by Lady Betty Lively”. But neither the story nor the -sentiment rings true. As yet, the Lilliputian novel has no life: and all -that there is to be said of Miss Sally is condensed in her epitaph: - - “Here lie the Remains of the Duchess of Downright: - Who, when a Maid, was no other - than Sarah Jones - A poor Farmer’s Daughter. - From her Attachment to Goodness she - became great. - Her Virtue raised her from a mean State - To a high Degree of Honour - and - Her Innocence procured her Peace in her last Moments. - She smiled even in Agony - And embraced Death as a friendly Pilot - Who was to steer her - To a more exalted State of Bliss.” - -Here the author, as if doubting his effect, adds a direct appeal: - - “Little Reader, - Whoever thou art, observe these her Rules - And become thyself - A Copy of this bright Example.” - -It was somewhere between 1760 and 1765, when a latent spirit of romance -was beginning to move the grown-up world, that the children’s bookseller -turned his attention to Nursery Rhymes. - -Some of these were already in print. _Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book_[50] -had appeared in 1744: two tiny volumes in Dutch flowered boards, of which -the second only has survived. This was a great advance on the song-books -commonly given to children as soon as they could read; but there is -something more than the usual nonsense and rhythm in the Newbery rhymes. -The very title: _Mother Goose’s Melody_,[51] brings them into touch with -the first book of fairy-tales; and indeed those two voices (the child’s -and the man’s) can be heard here as in Perrault—a merry new partnership -of song and laughter—, the one piping high in lively see-saw, the other -declaiming a mock-learned “Preface”, fitting each rhyme with an ironic -“Note” or “Maxim”, burlesquing the commentators and setting the wit of -nursery sages against the wisdom of the pedants. - -The editor of _Mother Goose’s Melody_, although the Preface declares him -“_a very great Writer_ of very little Books”, has none of that contempt -for “Nonsense” which philosophers are apt to show. He traces “the Custom -of making Nonsense Verses in our Schools” to “the Old British Nurses, -the first Preceptors of Youth”, and speaks of them with evident respect. -Yet he shows no bias towards the more imaginative absurdities. It is the -use of a rhyme for ironic comment, or its lyric quality that directs his -choice. - -The song about Betty Winckle’s Pig that lived in clover (“but now he’s -dead and that’s all over”) is annotated thus: “A Dirge is a Song for -the Dead; but whether this was made for Betty Winckle or her Pig is -uncertain—no Notice being taken of it by Cambden or any of the famous -Antiquarians”. - -This is “Amphion’s Song of Eurydice”: - - “I won’t be my Father’s Jack - I won’t be my Mother’s Jill - I will be the Fiddler’s Wife - And have Musick when I will. - T’other little Tune - T’other little Tune - Prithee, Love, play me. - T’other little Tune.” - -And this the comment (in small type, for Parents): “Those Arts are the -most valuable which are of the greatest Use”. - -Such gentle irony would be lost upon the serious student of Lilliputian -Ethics. Grown-up wiseacres and little philosophers must have puzzled -their heads in vain over some of these “Maxims” and exclaimed at the -effrontery of a Writer, however “great”, who, after suggesting that an -unmeaning rhyme “might serve as a Chapter of Consequence in the New Book -of Logick”, could add (in a note upon “Margery Daw”): “It is a mean and -scandalous Practice among Authors to put Notes to Things that deserve no -Notice. (Grotius)”. - -There is no direct evidence of Goldsmith’s hand in this; but he was -well acquainted with nonsense-songs, and Miss Hawkins, writing of her -childhood in a letter, connects him with a nursery-rhyme: “I little -thought”, she says, “what I should have to boast when Goldsmith taught me -to play Jack and Gill by two bits of paper on his fingers.” - -If this “very great Writer of very little Books” was not Goldsmith, it is -an extraordinary coincidence that the rhyme in the Preface should be the -same that he sang to his friends on the first night of _The Good Natur’d -Man_, and “never consented to sing but on special Occasions”—which runs -thus: - - “There was an old Woman tossed in a Blanket, - Seventeen times as high as the moon, - But where she was going no mortal could tell. - For under her arm she carried a Broom, - Old Woman, old Woman, old Woman, said I, - Whither, ah whither, ah whither so high? - To sweep the Cobwebs from the Sky, - And I’ll be with you by and by.” - -There is only one Lilliputian book that has been attributed to -Goldsmith with the consent of his biographer, and that is Mr. Newbery’s -masterpiece, the quaint and original _History of Goody Two-Shoes_.[52] - -Here is the characteristic notice that appeared in _The London Chronicle_ -(December 19-January 1, 1765): - -“The Philosophers, Politicians, Necromancers, and the Learned in every -Faculty are desired to observe that on the 1st of January, being New -Year’s Day (Oh, that we may all lead new lives!), Mr. Newbery intends -to publish the following important Volumes, bound and gilt, and hereby -invites all his little Friends who are good to call for them at the Bible -and Sun, in St. Paul’s Churchyard: but those who are naughty are to have -none”. - -Here follows a list of the “important Volumes”: “The Renowned History -of Giles Gingerbread: a little Boy who lived upon Learning;” Easter, -Whitsuntide and Valentine “Gifts”; “The Fairing”; and after these -an announcement of greater interest, that “there is in the Press and -speedily will be published, either by Subscription or otherwise, as the -Public shall please to determine, The History of Little Goody Two-shoes, -otherwise called Margery Two-Shoes”. - -The “Gifts” are so many variants of the Lilliputian Miscellany,[53] and -as to _Giles Gingerbread_, there is nothing about him to attract a child, -unless his name should conjure up a flavour of those gingerbread books -sold at Fairs, which could be eaten when the reading grew tedious. The -story (made to fit a penny chap-book) tells, without digression, how -young Gingerbread learnt to read, that he might have a fine coach and -emulate the success of one Sir Toby Wilson, who also was a poor man’s son. - -But _Goody Two-shoes_, though it offers a similar prize for self-help, -teaches no such politic morality. Indeed, it shows what can be done with -the babies’ novel, by a writer who understands children and has a winning -gift of humour; but for all that, it presents in epitome the whole -Lilliputian Library. - -The title-page at once proclaims its likeness to those records of -triumphant virtue, the nursery “Richardsons”; the “Introduction” is -a miniature essay on land-reform. Mr. Welsh, who reprinted _Goody -Two-Shoes_ in 1882, found an exact picture of the Deserted Village in the -Parish of Mouldwell, where little Margery’s father suffers the “wicked -Persecutions” of Sir Timothy Gripe and “an overgrown Farmer called -Graspall”. - -A passage at the close of the “Introduction” certainly lends some colour -to the idea that it was a half-playful study of Goldsmith’s, for his -serious argument: - -“But what, says the Reader, can occasion all this? Do you intend this -for children, Mr. Newbery? Why, do you suppose this is written by Mr. -Newbery, Sir? This may come from another Hand. This is not the Book, Sir, -mentioned in the Title, but the Introduction to that Book; and it is -intended, Sir, not for those Sort of Children, but for Children of six -Feet high, of which ... there are many Millions in the Kingdom”. - -The change, after all, is merely from Lilliput to Brobdignag,—a voyage -that represents no more difficulty to the editor than to Gulliver himself. - -It is in Lilliputian pedagogy that the writer of _Goody Two-Shoes_ has so -completely outdistanced his fellows. - -For although none of them could produce a more whole-hearted supporter of -Locke’s theories than “little Two-Shoes”, she wastes no time in abstract -reasoning, but puts them at once into practice. - -No sooner did she learn to read (and that was startlingly soon) than she -began to teach her companions, and finding them by no means so quick nor -so diligent as herself, she cut out of several pieces of wood ten “Setts” -of large letters and ten of small (all printed very clear in the text); -“and every Morning she used to go round to teach the Children with these -Rattletraps in a Basket—_as you see in the Print_”. - -The letter-games of Goody Two-Shoes were doubtless among the “twenty -other Ways” hinted at by Mr. Locke when he described his own, in which -“Children may be cozen’d into a Knowledge of the Letters”. There are -minute directions for playing them in the chapter that tells “How little -Two-Shoes became a _trotting Tutoress_”. - -Nor is virtue (the philosopher’s chief concern) neglected for this matter -of mere learning. There are lessons and reflections enough for the old -“Schools of Virtue”; but little Margery’s true piety makes amends for her -preaching and saves her from the prudential excess of the “little Boy who -lived upon Learning”. When she admonished the sick gentleman for his -late hours by the example of the rooks, she forced him to laugh and admit -that she was “a sensible Hussey”. The Reader (more often admonished) does -the same. - -In this blending of morality and humour, the author is only following -the practice of eighteenth century novelists. His morality (in the main, -very sound and reasonable) hangs by the humour of separate incidents; yet -these, together, form a sequence of moral and “cautionary” tales. There -is, for example, the warning against useless display in the account of -Lady Ducklington’s funeral,—“the Money they squandered away would have -been better laid out in little Books for Children, or in Meat, Drink and -Cloaths for the Poor”;—against superstition,—the story of the ghost in -the church, or the dramatic Witch story of the Second Part; and there are -parallel examples of kindness and good sense. - -A small child would make his first reading by the woodcuts (which are -much like a child’s drawings): here, first, are little Margery and her -brother, left, like the Children in the Wood “to the Wide World”; here -is Tommy Two-Shoes (at an incredibly tender age) dressed like a little -sailor—“_Pray look at him_”,—and there again, wiping off Margery’s tears -with the end of his jacket—“_thus_”—and bidding her cry no more, for that -he will come to her again when he returns from sea. He is much blurred in -this picture—perhaps with tears. - -At this point the story goes back to the frontispiece: by far the best -picture of Margery, in a setting of trees and fields, with a little house -on one side of her and a church in the distance. She is wearing her _two -shoes_ for the first time (for until a charitable good man gave her a -pair, she had but one): “stroking down her ragged Apron _thus_”, and -crying out: “_Two Shoes, Mame, see two Shoes_”. - -Next comes that serious business of Letters and Syllables. But Somebody -(with a Basket of Rattle-traps) is at the door. - -“Tap, tap, tap, who’s there?” (It might have been Red Riding-Hood! “_Toc, -toc! Qui est là?_”) But it is only little Goody Two-Shoes, greeting her -new scholar in the same childish voice. - -Thus the little one gets through the lessons and proverbs of the next -few pages, and at Chapter VI, which tells “How the whole Parish was -frighted”, knows the triumph and delight of reading. - -“Babies do not want to hear about babies”, said Dr. Johnson; but he was -never, like Goldsmith, intimate with the Nursery in all its moods, and it -did not occur to him that his favourite Tom Thumb was but a child seen -through the diminishing-glass of a woodcut. - -This, moreover, is a story that _grows up_ in the reading. At Chapter VI, -there is no more baby-talk. These are mature, even elderly villagers who -are so “frighted” at the idea of a ghost in the church: the argument is -between the Parson, the Clerk and the Clerk’s Wife: - -“I go. Sir, says William, why the Ghost would frighten me out of my -Wits.—Mrs. Dobbins too cried, and laying hold of her Husband said, he -should not be eat up by the Ghost. A Ghost, you Blockheads, says Mr. -Long in a Pet, did either of you ever see a Ghost, or know any Body that -did? Yes, says the Clerk, my Father did once in the Shape of a Windmill, -and it walked all round the Church in a white Sheet, with Jack Boots -on, and had a Gun by its Side instead of a Sword. A fine Picture of a -Ghost truly, says Mr. Long, give me the Key of the Church, you Monkey; -for I tell you there is no such Thing now, whatever may have been -formerly.—Then taking the Key, he went to the Church, all the People -following him. As soon as he had opened the Door, what Sort of a Ghost do -you think appeared? Why little _Two-shoes_, who being weary, had fallen -asleep in one of the Pews during the Funeral Service, and was shut in -all Night——”. - -Such incidents would make even a grown-up reader forget the Lilliputian -context. - -Nor is the Second Part (as in other “Histories”) of less interest, -although it presents the dutiful contriving little Two-shoes as -“Principal of a Country College—for instructing little Gentlemen and -Ladies in the Science of A.B.C.”. A formidable theme, if her inventive -genius could not produce any number of variations upon Mr. Locke’s method -of playing at schools. - -A reference to the _Spectator_ at the close of Part I would make Mistress -Two-Shoes a predecessor of Shenstone’s Schoolmistress; but this is -clearly an anachronism. The village Dame as Shenstone studies her, still -sits - - “disguised in look profound - And eyes her fairy-Throng, and turns her Wheel around”; - -whereas Goody Two-Shoes, knowing that “Nature intended Children should be -always in Action”, places her letters and alphabets all round the school, -so that everyone in turn is obliged to get up to fetch a letter or to -spell a word. - -Her children have forgotten the hornbook, and with it, doubtless, “St. -George’s high Achievements” which used to decorate the back. It was -Shenstone’s Dame who kept “tway birchen Sprays” to reclaim her pupils’ -wandering attention from St. George. But Mrs. Margery ruled “by Reasoning -and mild Discipline”, and could dispense with these. - -“Her Tenderness extended not only to all Mankind, but even to all -Animals that were not noxious”. Such humanity alone (notwithstanding the -reservation) sets her above the poet’s heroine, to whose credit he could -only place - - “One ancient Hen she took Delight to feed - The plodding Pattern of this busy Dame, - Which ever and anon as she had need - Into her School begirt with Chickens came.” - -Indeed, Mrs. Margery surpasses Æsop and Tommy Trip in her manner of -pressing Beasts and Birds into the service of Education. - -Locke, whose imagination had stopped short at pictures of animals, -would have detected the insidious workings of romance in a school where -the ushers were birds, where a dog acted as door-keeper and a pet lamb -carried home the books of the good children in turn. - -Yet in another place, the youthful Dame shows herself a mistress of -utilitarian argument: - -“Does not the Horse and the Ass carry you and your burthens? Don’t the Ox -plough your Ground, the Cow give you Milk, the Sheep cloath your Back, -the Dog watch your House, the Goose find you in Quills to write with, the -Hen bring Eggs for your Custards and Puddings, and the Cock call you up -in the Morning——? If so, how can you be so cruel to them, and abuse God -Almighty’s good Creatures?” - -Thus the creatures are protected chiefly for their services; Nature, -as yet, is no more than a useful and necessary background. It is still -Humanity that counts. - -As to Romance, the writer’s attitude must be judged by default. There is -but one reference to Fortunatus and Friar Bacon to indicate a preference -for works of Reason and Ingenuity. - -This follows one of those quaint interludes that prove the quick wit and -hide the laughter of Mistress Two-Shoes. In her character of village -peacemaker, she contrives a “Considering Cap”, “almost as large as a -Grenadier’s, but of three equal Sides; on the first of which was written, -I may be wrong; on the second, It is fifty to one but you are; and on -the third, I’ll consider of it. The other Parts on the out-side, were -filled with odd Characters, as unintelligible as the Writings of the -old Egyptians; but within Side there was a Direction for its Use, of -the utmost Consequence; for it strictly enjoined the Possessor to put -on the Cap whenever he found his Passions begin to grow turbulent, and -not to deliver a Word whilst it was on, but with great Coolness and -Moderation.... They were bought by Husbands and Wives, who had themselves -frequent Occasion for them, and sometimes lent them to their Children. -They were also purchased in large Quantities by Masters and Servants; by -young Folks who were intent on Matrimony, by Judges, Jurymen, and even -Physicians and Divines: nay, if we may believe History, the Legislators -of the Land did not disdain the Use of them; and we are told, that when -any important Debate arose, _Cap was the Word_, and each House looked -like a grand Synod of Egyptian Priests.” - -After this, lest the old spells should work upon some unguarded child, -Friar Bacon is called in, to advertise this “Charm for the Passions” in a -letter of advice: - -“What was Fortunatus’ Wishing Cap when compared to this?... Remember what -was said by my Brazen Head, _Time is, Time was, Time is past_: now the -_Time is_, therefore buy the Cap immediately, and make a proper Use of -it, and be happy before the _Time is past_”. - -The Learned Friar has burnt his books, and there is an end of Magic. Mrs. -Margery has no dealings in a “Gothick Mythology of Elves and Fairies”; -her Familiars are the tame creatures of her household, she does her -conjuring by the legitimate powers of Science. And when, through her -cleverness in contriving a weather-glass to save her neighbours’ hay, she -is accused of witchcraft by the people of other parishes, her advocate, -like a true Lilliputian, defends her with the arguments of Addison and -Goldsmith.[54] - -This witch-story is the climax (if such a haphazard little plot can have -a climax) and it gives a masterly last touch to the heroine’s portrait. - -She is standing with all her pets about her, when Gaffer Goosecap (full -of the weather-glass mystery) comes to spy upon her: - -“This so surprised the Man that he cried out a Witch! a Witch! upon this -she laughing, answered, a Conjurer! a Conjurer! and so they parted; but -it did not end thus, for a Warrant was issued out against Mrs. Margery, -and she was carried to a Meeting of the Justices, whither all the -Neighbours followed her”. - -At the trial her triumph is complete. Even her judges join in the -laughter when she produces the weather-glass and cries: “If I am a Witch, -this is my Charm”. - -The writer, whoever he was, had little to learn from Rousseau. Miss -Edgeworth herself could not have invented a more reasonable and -intelligent heroine. - -It is easy to see why Charles Lamb put _Goody Two-Shoes_ among “the old -classics of the Nursery”[55], and no matter for wonder that it should be -set down to Goldsmith. - -For apart from that hint of _The Deserted Village_ in the “Introduction”, -it has living characters, natural speech and incidents of genuine comedy. -The playful tenderness of the first chapters suggests Goldsmith’s -treatment of children, and the whole theme is near enough to his idea of -a story “like the old one of Whittington _were his Cat left out_”[56]. -For if he ever had written such a story and managed to keep the cat out -of it, he would certainly have repented and introduced some other animal -in its place, or with native inconsistency, might have multiplied it into -a menagerie such as Goody Two-Shoes kept. The idea of talking animals -had once attracted him, and if he could write a good Fable, why not a -“History”? - -Forster records Godwin’s “strong persuasion” that Goldsmith wrote _Goody -Two-Shoes_, and Godwin, himself a publisher of children’s books, may -have had good reason for his belief; yet there is no certain evidence to -confirm it, nor will the book, as a whole, bear all the claims of its -admirers. - -Nichols, in his _Literary Anecdotes_,[57] associates this and other -“Lilliputian Histories” with the brothers Griffiths and Giles Jones, and -family tradition credits Giles with _Goody Two-Shoes_ as well as _Giles -Gingerbread_ and _Tommy Trip_; but if, as Goldsmith would have it, Mr. -Newbery was the real author of _Tommy Trip_, there is no reason why he -should not have had a hand in the rest. _Goody Two-Shoes_, in fact, -has several turns of speech and grammatical slips which occur in John -Newbery’s journal;[58] nor is it at all unlikely that Goldsmith, the -friend of Giles Jones and Newbery, contributed such lively matter as the -ghost and witch stories, or so quaint a fancy as the “Considering Cap”. - -John Newbery’s successors[59] carried on the tradition, but at his death -the great period of “Lilliputian Histories” was past. Their numbers were -always increasing, but they were mostly imitations and moralised echoes -of folklore like _Tom Thumb’s Exhibition_ or _The Enchanted Castle_. - -Yet there are a few late “Lilliputians” that have the true Newbery touch, -and even a fresh spice of satire. _The Lilliputian Masquerade_,[60] -though it goes back to _Gulliver_, belongs to the age of the Pantheon -and Almack’s, and its gay “Masks” (all “Lilliputians of Repute”) include -two romantic surprises. For in the company of Sir William Wise and Sir -Francis Featherbrain of Butterfly Hall, there is the unexpected figure of -a Beggar “singing merrily”, and one undoubted harbinger of the New Age—a -little hero of Blake and of Charles Lamb,—the Chimney Sweeper, new as yet -to the mystery of his “cloth”. - -In the meantime, a whole section of the dwarf library was devoted -to the Wyse Chylde in a variety of rôles. Following that “Rise and -Progress of Learning in Lilliput”, there came a formidable crowd of -little Philosophers, little Statesmen, little Judges, little Divines -and (to keep an accurate record of their careers) little Historians and -Biographers. - -“Self-Government” in the Schoolroom (by no means, as some may suppose, -a present-day innovation) made its first appearance in _Juvenile -Trials_,[61] the acknowledged device of a Tutor and Governess who -prescribe it as a “Regimen” for their “unruly Pupils”, and thus, -profiting by the wisdom of Cato, induce the authors of great evils to -remove them. - -This is the first hint of a Lilliputian Republic: the logical outcome of -Locke’s principles in a revolutionary age. The Lilliputians give their -best support to the new Government and throw themselves with zest into -their parts. - -Little Judge Meanwell who, though but twelve years old, has “all the -Appearance of Gravity and Magistracy”, in a long robe and full-bottomed -wig, anticipates parental criticism by reminding the public that “neither -Vanity, nor Ambition, nor the Desire of governing Others at an Age in -which he stands so much in Need of being governed himself, has raised him -to this Office, which he cannot execute but with Regret”. - -He adds (doubtless after consultation with his Leaders) that the Trials, -as the result of their “wisest Deliberation”, are by no means to be -treated as “the Sport of Boys and Girls”. - -The Tutor and Governess take full advantage of the scheme, and after the -royal ceremony of inauguration, leave the unruly ones to the judgment -of their peers. Perhaps it is this unwonted freedom which lets loose a -stream of live and humorous dialogue; for no sooner do the “Trials” begin -than these Lilliputians betray the natural propensities and dramatic -instincts of real children. - -Mr. Newbery himself could hardly have drawn better pictures of country -life, or spoken better dialect than the Farmer in one of these “trials”. -In another (which suggests the ordeal of the Knave of Hearts) the -evidence is not unworthy of Defoe,—the Prosecution putting in a plan of -the kitchen where the stolen plum-cake was baked; and a third,—the case -of Miss Stirling _versus_ Miss Delia, “for raising Strife and Contention -among her Schoolfellows”—is wholly “conveyed” from Sarah Fielding’s -_Governess_,[62] a source that may explain many unexpected features in -the book. - -But the old standards of Authority are restored in _The Juvenile -Biographer_,[63] a collection of “characters” in moral contrast, with a -“Bust of the little Author” as frontispiece. Some account of him at the -end, had it been prefatory, would have prepared the reader for much of -his philosophy. Throughout the book he speaks plain Prig,—a development -that might be foreseen in one who “when he came to be breeched, laid -aside all juvenile Sports”. His playfellows think him “a dull heavy -little Fellow”, he is “a very poor Hand at Marbles, Trap Ball or -Cricket, and little attentive to Play”; when other boys are engaged in -strife, he retires into a corner with some little Book. - -No doubt he is a very proper person to record those juvenile virtues -and foibles that might escape a natural child,—to discern the “Thought, -Prudence and admirable Needlecraft” of Miss Betsey Allgood, to speculate -upon the literary ancestry of Master Francis Bacon, or to deprecate the -failings of that “genteel Child,” Miss Fiddle-Faddle, who “at seven Years -of Age, could spend a whole Forenoon at her Glass, and devote an Hour to -pitching upon the proper Part of her Face to stick that Patch on”. This -“little Author” is, in fact, a reincarnation of the Baby Spectator. - -There is a year or two between these “Lives” and the first book of -Lilliputian “Letters”. No children’s novel followed Richardson so closely -as to adopt the letter form; but Locke had expressly advised that -children should write letters “wherein they should not be put upon any -Strains of Wit or Compliment, but taught to express their own plain easy -Sense”, and had further recommended that when they were perfect in this, -they might, “to raise their Thoughts”, have Voiture’s letters set before -them as models.[64] - -The Lilliputian editor, loth to await the child’s readiness for Voiture, -adapted Locke in his own fashion, and devised new models for the Nursery, -which should admit the usual “Characters” and “Reflections” of the -miscellanies, and at the same time give a suggestion of reality to formal -dialogues. - -However full these letters might be of grown-up sentiment, their very -directions and signatures gave proof (convincing to a child) of the -editor’s good faith. - -_The Letters between Master Tommy and Miss Nancy Goodwill_, published -by Carnan and Newbery in 1770, was revised in 1786 with “the Parts not -altogether properly adapted to the Improvement and Entertainment of -little Masters and Misses expunged”.[65] What remains, however, shows no -change in style or substance; the Lilliputian features are intact. As -the editor observed: “The epistolatory Style here adopted is that which -little Masters and Misses should use in their Correspondence with each -other” (not that which they naturally would fall into) and it is designed -“to regulate their Judgments, to give them an early Taste for true -Politeness and inspire them with a Love of Virtue”. - -The “Holiday Amusements” described in the letters seem to be “regulated” -on the same plan (the editor had obviously forgotten his own); and it is -something of a relief to find Master Tommy (whose relationship to the -Juvenile Biographer is close) warning his sister and her schoolfellows -against the cult of nursery bluestockings.[66] He hopes they are “not -going to turn Philosophers”; if they are, he will put them in mind of -their needles, their pins and their thread papers. “Leave these Subjects” -advises this lordly midget, “to us Boys (I was going to say Men) and we -may perhaps now and then condescend to give you some short Lectures upon -those Matters”. - -Miss Nancy, schooled in the sisterly virtues, responds with Persian -stories, references to Mr. Addison, quotations from Pope, and (to clear -herself of any suspicion of the bluestocking heresy) a present of worked -ruffles. Upon this, he, with restored confidence, imparts an allegorical -dream, an instructive story and a “Dissertation on the Value of Time” -which closes on this characteristic note: - -“But of all the Diversions of Life, there is none so proper to fill up -its empty Spaces as the reading useful and entertaining Authors. For this -Reason, my dear Nancy, you will receive by the next Coach, Mr. Newbery’s -_Circle of the Sciences_, and such other of his Books as I apprehend -could anyway contribute to your Instruction and Amusement.” - -There is one letter, and one only, in which Master Tommy forgets his -Philosophy and lets the Child in him escape: - -“O, my dear Nancy, how shall I tell you that my sweet Kite which boasted -of the two finest glass Eyes perhaps ever seen, which was so crowded with -Stars and which cost me such immense Labour, is lost.” - -The revised edition was doubtless an attempt to keep pace with the -rival firm of John Marshall; for between the two issues (about 1777) -they had printed a new collection under the title of _Juvenile -Correspondence_,[67] which in some ways was better adapted to Locke’s -original plan, as well as to the theories of Rousseau. - -The very fact that these letters are “suited to Children from four to -above ten Years of Age”, and that their aim is to encourage “a natural -Way of Writing”, implies a change in the general view of education; -yet it would be rash to assume that the writer had more than a passing -acquaintance with Rousseau, or that she (this writer is almost certainly -a woman) drew any clear distinction between childhood and youth. The -whole design of _Juvenile Correspondence_ is Lilliputian; its aim is -expressed almost in the exact phrase of the Royal Society, and its -origin (apart from the Goodwill “Letters”) can be traced to a remark of -Pope’s (quoted in the book) that he “should have Pleasure in reading the -Thoughts of an Infant, could it commit them to Writing as they arose in -its little Mind”. - -Moreover the children who write the letters, instead of developing on -Rousseau’s lines, become more Lilliputian with each year of growth.[68] -All the natural touches are in the letters of the younger ones; from -five to seven, they would pass for living children. Indeed, the first -letter “from Miss Goodchild, a little more than seven Years of Age to her -Brother nearly five” suggests that the next generation of Lilliputians -will refuse to grow up so soon: - -“Would you think it? I am sitting in a little Room full of Books, with a -Desk for Reading and my Papers round me, as if I were a Woman! _But I am -not so silly as to forget that I am but a little Girl_, - - and, my dear Brother, - - Your loving Sister, JANE GOODCHILD.” - -This is the first sign of revolution. The puppets are still content to -play their parts, but they refuse to believe in them. Instead, they -begin to assert their own “Gothick Mythology”, and are no longer so -“subservient to the Rules of Reason” as to despise the name of Fairies. - -Miss Goodchild “could talk all day of the Play” (Mr. Garrick’s “Fairy -Tale” from Shakespeare).[69] She actually quotes the song beginning: -“Come follow, follow me, ye fairy Elves that be” from an Entertainment -“full of Fairies”, and confesses that she and Jenny were ready to jump up -and join in the chorus, singing: - - “Hand in Hand we’ll dance around - For this Place is Fairy Ground.” - -But the book is full of contradictions; nothing in it bears out the -promise of those early letters. Master Gentle, at the age of seven, -is delivered into the hands of Mr. Birch who, as his name forebodes, -believes neither in Reasoning nor mild Discipline; and at ten, Mr. -Birch’s pupils become little monsters of virtue and precocity. They are -Lilliputians of a larger growth, but they certainly are not boys. This -book, moreover, lacks the Newbery touch of comedy. Its humour is mostly -unconscious, as in the account of a father who asks permission to read -his son’s letters, where the boy confides to a friend that he feels “like -the Swain in Shenstone: ‘_fearful, but not averse_’”. - -Among the numberless books for children printed between 1780 and 1810, -there were three which, although they discarded the nursery badge -of “Flowery and Gilt”, and had little in common with the Newbery -miscellanies, followed Lilliputian precedent in form and title. - -These were the _Juvenile Tatler_ (1783), the _Fairy Spectator_ (1789) and -the _Juvenile Spectator_ (1810).[70] The first two are among the earliest -books that show the influence of Marmontel and Madame de Beaumont; they -therefore are no true Lilliputians: the third mimics Addison’s method -with absolute fidelity, and sparkles with the satirical spirit of its -original; yet this too breaks loose from Lilliputian convention; it has -almost enough sanity and wit to be called a nursery Jane Austen. - -These three will be seen to better advantage with others of their kind. - -A strong revival of romance in children’s books would have driven out the -Lilliputians at the close of the eighteenth century; but the progress -of Theory prevented it, and produced, with a fresh crop of moral tales, -innumerable reprints. - -Canning’s amusing paper in the _Eton Microcosm_ (June 11, 1787),[71] did -more than mark the vogue of those tiny “16 mo’s” at Mr. Newbery’s and -“the Bouncing B, Shoe Lane”: it was also a tempting advertisement; and in -the early nineteenth century small Londoners who could not rise to the -splendours of “twopence Gilt” might buy their own New Year and Easter -Gifts at Catnach’s or the “Toy and Marble Warehouse” in Seven Dials, -for a half-penny, or even (with covers of rough blue sugar-paper) for a -farthing.[72] - -In 1779 Saint, the north-country Newbery, had printed a Newcastle edition -of _Tommy Trip_, and between 1790 and 1812, the entire Lilliputian -library was revived in the York chap-books by Wilson and Spence. Other -provincial booksellers, following these, began to improve their stocks -of school-books and battledores with pirated “Newberys”; and some, like -Rusher of Banbury, retouched old rhymes and tales with local colour. It -was Rusher who restored the tradition of _Giles Gingerbread_ with the -_History of a Banbury Cake_;[73] and in the childhood of Queen Victoria, -his little shop was still famous for toy-books. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -ROUSSEAU AND THE MORAL TALE - - Locke and Rousseau—A New Conception of Childhood—Rousseau’s - Theory of Education—Parent and Tutor, Artificial Experiences, - Books, Handicrafts, Attitude to Nature and Humanity—The - Infallible Parent—Marmontel’s _Contes Moraux_—Berquin’s _L’Ami - des Enfans_—_The Looking Glass for the Mind_—Madame d’Epinay’s - _Conversations d’Emilie_—Madame de Genlis and her Books—French - Lilliputians: _Le Petit Grandison_ and _Le Petit La Bruyère_. - - -Rousseau, even when he repeated Locke’s precepts, caught the ear of a -wider public because he appealed not so much to reason as to feeling, and -instead of commending his doctrines by argument, charged them with warmth -and eloquence. - -Locke had been before him in exposing the shams and pedantry of -schoolmasters, as in striving for a more natural method of education; -but he carried out his task in a quiet professional way, regarding the -child as a patient in need of a new regimen, but never setting him on a -pedestal. - -It was Rousseau’s inspiration to take the beauty and promise of childhood -for his text, to make the child stand forth as the hope of the race, the -centre of all its aspirations, the proof of its powers.[74] Thus his -philosophy acquired the dignity of a new faith; and yet the child lost -nothing of his personal and human interest, for in Rousseau’s scheme, he -was the very core of a new conception of family life. There could be no -better setting for a natural education than the family, no simpler unit -of fellowship; and Rousseau drew persuasive pictures of the child at -successive stages of his growth,—pictures which writers of moral tales -reproduced with modifications of their own, and a greater or less amount -of theory. - -For there was this great difference between Locke and Rousseau, in their -effect on children’s books: that Locke, beyond encouraging Fables, did -no more than furnish a toy library with his _Thoughts_; whereas Rousseau -taught two generations of writers to substitute living examples for -maxims. - -In making Emile an orphan, Rousseau was guarding against interference -with his experiment; it is no part of his doctrine that a child should be -brought up by any but his parents, unless they are unable or unwilling to -do their duty. Then, indeed, a Tutor must be found, though he will never -be required, after the manner of tutors, to instruct. A child needs no -other teacher than Experience, no schoolroom but the open country which -is also his playground; all that the tutor need do is to enter into -his interests and amusements as an equal, and watch over him while he -educates himself. This marks a revolutionary change in the attitude of -the Philosopher to the Child. Locke’s theory of habit, his practice of -reasoning with children, have no place in the new scheme. Rousseau would -as soon have a child be five feet in height as to have judgment at the -age of ten. Children, he declares, are incapable of reason, Nature meant -them to be children before they become men. To forget this is to force a -fruit that has neither ripeness nor savour, to produce old infants and -child-philosophers. - -Rousseau hits hard and straight at the pedantic mania for instruction -that filled the early miscellanies with Geography, Chronology and other -studies “remote from man and especially from the child”. Emile must never -be allowed to cheat himself with words. He shall learn nothing by heart, -not even Fables; for these he is sure to misinterpret. And how is a child -to grow up with any respect for truth, if his first book teach him that -_Foxes speak and speak the same language as Ravens_? - -With Words and Fables, Rousseau dismisses all the inventions of primitive -imagination that find their natural place in a child’s mind. - -At twelve, Emile hardly knows what a book is. He has spent his whole life -in the country, with a tutor whom he regards as a playfellow. In climbing -among rocks and trees and leaping over brooks, he has learnt to measure -himself with his surroundings and has lost all sense of danger. No human -will has ever opposed him, and since it is useless to fight against -circumstance, he submits to necessary evils, and bears pain without -complaining. - -Emile is stronger and more capable than other children; yet conscious of -his dependence on others, of his need of protection. Abstract terms, such -as duty and obligation, mean nothing to him, nor will he practise the -empty forms of courtesy; but he has the basis of all good breeding, being -candid and fearless, but neither arrogant nor self-conscious. - -From twelve to fifteen, Emile’s education is equally practical. Curiosity -moves him to experiment and discovery, and thus he learns the simple -truths of science without teaching. Locke’s belief in utility was not -greater than Rousseau’s. The word “useful”, he says, is the key to the -whole situation. Emile is always to test his discoveries by the question -“What is this good for?” and things which do not satisfy this test are -of no account. The tutor still attends the boy like his shadow, never -seeming to influence the course of events; but since Nature cannot be -trusted to adapt herself to his scheme, he now finds it necessary to -contrive artificial experiences which Emile accepts as natural. - -Rousseau sees nothing inconsistent in this use of artifice by which the -Child of Nature, though wholly dependent on the will of his tutor, thinks -he is governing himself; yet everything is so planned and so foreseen -that he does nothing of his own choice. - -It is here that Rousseau grudgingly admits the need of books; but he -takes care to restrict his Emile to a single book which deals chiefly -with practical affairs. “What is this wonderful Book? is it Aristotle? is -it Pliny? is it Buffon? No, it is _Robinson Crusoe_.” - -Here at any rate, Rousseau made no mistake. Had Emile been free to -choose, this is precisely the book he would have chosen, though for less -philosophical reasons; and the very fact that it fits Rousseau’s scheme -of education is a proof that the scheme is sound. Robinson Crusoe, alone -on his island, with neither house nor tools, gradually providing for his -needs; it is Rousseau’s allegory of the triumph of man, and failure of -civilisation. Emile cannot understand this yet, but the book will be a -touchstone for his taste and judgment, and serve him and his tutor as a -text for all their talk on the natural sciences. The boy’s interest is -wholly practical; but it stimulates “the _real_ castle-building of that -happy age when we know no other happiness than necessity and freedom”. Of -free and imaginative castle-building, Rousseau has no notion, but Emile -will know his Robinson Crusoe all the better, if he is allowed to act the -story. - -“I would have his head turned by it,” says Rousseau, “and have him always -busy about his Castle, his goats and his plantation.... I would have him -imagine he is Robinson himself.” - -It is the reality of drama that appeals to the educator; the hint was not -lost upon writers of children’s books. - -And now, since Emile cannot remain always in his island, it is time to -recall him to everyday life. His natural interest in handicrafts will -smooth the transition. The tutor goes with him from shop to shop, that -he may understand the division of labour among men. Thus he learns more -in an hour than from a whole day’s explanation. And lest this should -be only surface knowledge, he must learn some trade (for choice a -carpenter’s) which will guard him against common prejudice, and make him -independent of fortune. - -Rousseau keeps the road so clear for his young traveller that he is not -afraid of chance encounters. In these years, Emile is to learn nothing of -the relations of man to man. His heart is not to be touched by suffering -nor his imagination kindled by the “living spectacle of Nature” which -Rousseau himself paints in such glowing colours. Eloquence and poetry -are wasted on a child. Moral and spiritual teaching can safely be left -till his sixteenth year. Up to that point Emile has studied nothing but -the natural world. He has little knowledge, but what he has is real and -complete. Simple surroundings have taught him to be content with what he -has and to despise luxury, which, according to Rousseau, is the secret of -true happiness. His body is strong and active, his mind unprejudiced; he -has courage, industry, self-control,—all the virtues proper to his age. - -Rousseau’s disciples had some excuse for disregarding one of his chief -discoveries: the distinction between childhood and youth. It was -obviously impossible to draw a hard and fast line between the two stages, -and Rousseau would not give an inch to individual difference. Thus his -followers were either forced back upon precedent, or had to trust to -their own experience of children. On the one hand, they clung to the -old encyclopædic methods; on the other, they transferred Rousseau’s -provisions for youth and manhood to an earlier stage. Experience taught -them that a child could be stirred by other motives besides prudence and -self-love, that moral and spiritual influences in early childhood were -not to be ignored, that there were such things as childish imagination -and sympathy. - -The greater number of moral tales owe their very existence to Rousseau’s -inconsistency; for although he had exposed the fallacy of maxims and -fables, he found no better substitute than the Example of a perfect -Parent or Tutor—a man without passion or prejudice, detached and -colourless, who, without seeming to guide or correct, should watch the -child’s every movement and on occasion teach Nature herself how to go -about her business. - -The first generation of Emile, which proved Rousseau’s theory of -Childhood, disposed, once for all, of the Infallible Parent in real -life. A child might suspect that it was a literary rather than a -practical idea, and the few parents who, after a vigorous course of -self-discipline, felt equal to the part, would find it easier to sustain -by proxy in a moral tale. They decided, at any rate, to ignore Rousseau’s -veto upon books for children under twelve, and writers quickly rose to -the demand for a new sort of Fables, wherein the Child of Nature, walking -in the shadow of the Perfect Parent, acquired a measure of wisdom and -philanthropy beyond his years. Such tales, inspired by the Emile, are a -satirical comment on the writing of books to prove that books are useless. - -Marmontel, though he did not write for children, was an admirable guide -for lesser moralists. His vivid character-contrasts, dramatic incidents -and humorous treatment of every-day life taught them that art might not -be thrown away upon a child’s book, if it only served to keep alive -interest and curiosity. The “Good Mother” and “Bad Mother” of the _Contes -Moraux_[75] supplied useful variants of the good and bad child, and the -“School for Fathers” encouraged the writers of little books to venture -satirical comments on the faults of parents. - -It is true that Marmontel’s types are less convincing when reduced for -the nursery and coloured by Rousseau. “The School for Fathers” turned out -a uniform pattern of the Infallible Parent, and “The Good Mother”, “_La -femme comme il y en a peu_”, assuming the proportions of her virtues, -cast a monstrous shadow over two generations; yet there were books -that reflected Marmontel’s wise moderation, his sympathy with youthful -follies, all that was implied in the motto of his bon Curé, “_Moins de -prudence et plus de bonté_”. - -The Nursery had its Marmontel in Armand Berquin, better known by the name -of his most famous book, _L’Ami des Enfans_,[76] an addition that no man -deserved better then he. Like Perrault, Berquin owed his reputation to -a book that he wrote for children; but times had changed: education had -now become of so much consequence that the writer of children’s books -was regarded as a public benefactor. Perrault the Academician had never -openly acknowledged the _Contes_ of 1697; but in 1784, Berquin’s _L’Ami -des Enfans_ was crowned by the French Academy. - -Perhaps it was well for Berquin that by this time fairies were -discredited in France, and Perrault was gone from his old shelf, so -that no child could choose between them. As it was, children of all -sizes and conditions, with and without tutors, but all equally ignorant -of magic, read Berquin’s stories and read them again. Something of his -own sweetness and humour got into his book; they felt that he loved and -understood them, and those who lived near him used to crowd round him, -eager for a word or a handshake, whenever he came out of his house. - -Berquin’s book owes something to Weisse’s _Der Kinderfreund_, from which -he took some of the stories, as well as to the writings of Campe and -Salzmann; but no German ever pointed a moral with such playful grace. - -There is hardly a point in Rousseau’s argument that Berquin does not -illustrate; but he does it in a perfectly natural way, drawing the events -out of simple situations, and showing delightful glimpses of childish -character. - -Marmontel’s “Bad Mother”, with her blind and cruel preference for one of -her two children, is easily recognised in the story of “_Philippine et -Maximin_”. His device of moral contrast appears in every variation of -Rousseau’s theme. - -These are mostly little studies in black and white: Industry opposed to -Idleness in “The Two Apple Trees”; a rational education preferred to -riches in the story of Narcisse and Hippolyte; the character-contrast -grafted on fable in a similar study of two dogs. - -Emile’s gentle consciousness of his dependence on others (one of his -more amiable traits) is shown in the docility of Prosper, who, by -accepting the gardener’s advice, finds in due season ripe strawberries -of an exquisite flavour hanging from his plants. “Ah, had I only planted -some in my garden,” cries the brother who jeered at him. Whereupon the -generous one replies: “You can eat them as if they were your own.” - -M. Sage, who might be Emile’s tutor, believes that if he can make his boy -Philippe content with what he has, instead of longing for things which he -cannot get, he will do more for his happiness than by leaving him untold -wealth. - -When the boy envies a rich man’s garden, his father says that he himself -possesses a finer one. Taking Philippe by the hand, he leads him to the -top of a hill that overlooks the open country. “Shall we soon come to -our garden, papa?” the boy asks eagerly. “We are already there!” answers -M. Sage. - -Rousseau himself was not a greater lover of gardens than Berquin. -Gardening is the theme of half his stories: “_Le rosier à cent feuilles -et le genêt d’Espagne_”; “_Les cerises_”; “_Les tulipes_”; “_Les fraises -et les grosseilles_”; “_Les deux pommiers_”; the greater number deal with -country life and have their setting in the family. - -The tale of the farmer who brings a jar of candied fruits to his -landlord’s children, is an eloquent sermon against ill-breeding and -prejudice. - -This is a sequence of moral contrasts. First, the insolent treatment of -the farmer by the two boys is set against their little sister’s courtesy, -then contrasted with the simple friendliness of their father; and the -corresponding scene of their entertainment at the farm is drawn with the -same delicate point. The two boys are compared with the farmer’s sons, -more capable, even more accomplished than themselves; and stung to shame -by the generosity and natural courtesy of their host. - -Farming, according to Rousseau, is the most honourable of industries. -After farmers he places blacksmiths and carpenters. Berquin brings his -children into a natural contact with men of various crafts, the farmer, -the blacksmith, the mason. They watch the building of a house and -learn the need for division of labour. He can dispense with Rousseau’s -artifice. He never hampers himself with theory, but allows Emile’s -virtues to appear in common adventures with men and birds and animals. - -Clementine, who loads the little peasant girl with useless gifts, learns, -in a dialogue with her mother, to serve the real needs of her protegée; -the dentist’s visit to Laurette and Marcellin is a test of courage; “_Le -menteur corrigé par lui-même_” becomes a champion of truth. - -Foolish wishes and false judgments are corrected according to Rousseau’s -plan. Little Fleuri, who, as each new season arrives, would have it last -for ever, is made to set down his fickle desires on his father’s tablets, -and, faced in Autumn with his Winter, Spring and Summer wishes, decides -that all the seasons of the year are good. Armand would cut away the -brambles that take toll of the sheep’s wool, but in the nesting season, -discovers how the wool is used. - -Berquin cannot bring himself to judge the things that are merely -beautiful by Rousseau’s standard of utility. Lucette, when she finds gay -flowers in a place where her father planted those “_tristes oignons_”, -learns with astonishment that these were tulip-roots; and Berquin allows -her to rejoice where a rigid Rousseauist would have compared the uses of -flowers and vegetables. - -“The time of faults is the time for fables,” said Rousseau; but he put -it late, when Emile was no longer a child. Berquin knows what happens in -nurseries: that Josephine will forget to feed her canary, that Firmin -and Julie will eat forbidden cherries, that Ferdinand, all frankness and -generosity, if he cannot control his temper, will be a danger to his -friends, and Camille if they give her the chance, will tyrannise over the -whole family. - -The remedies are mostly found in the natural consequences of these -things; but Berquin brushes aside Rousseau’s strict law of necessity -with a light mischievous touch; nor does he ever sanction the plan of -governing a child by letting him suppose he is the master. - -“The Children who wanted to govern themselves”, having tried it, do not -wish to repeat the experiment; and Camille is completely reduced by the -officer who advises her Mother to give her _a uniform and a pair of -moustaches_, in which she can more appropriately indulge her fancy for -ordering people about. - -These children of Berquin’s are less hard and self-reliant than Emile. -Even the good ones are not unnatural. There is little Alexis on a showery -day in June, running first down to the garden to look at the sky, and -then back, three steps at a time, to the barometer—only to find that -the two are in league against him; and the eight-years-old Marthonie, -a delicious picture in her white linen dress, a pair of morocco shoes -on her “dear little feet”, and her hair, dark as ebony, hanging in -loose curls on her shoulders; Marthonie, who insisted on being dressed -for a picnic in a frock of the prettiest apple-green taffetas, with -rose-coloured ribbons and shoes—and came home hatless and draggled, a -tearful Cinderella with one shoe left in the mud. The Mother who met her -thus and only said, “Would you like me to have another silk frock made up -for you to-morrow?” owes her wisdom to Rousseau, but her playful irony to -Berquin and Marmontel. - -Berquin’s parents are nearly infallible, but he does not give them every -point in an argument. In the affair of Charlotte and the watch, for -example, it is not always M. de Fonrose who scores. - -Charlotte invents a dozen reasons for wanting a watch, and her inexorable -parent disposes of them all, till she is forced back on Rousseau’s final -position. A watch must needs be a _useful_ possession, since her Papa, -philosopher as he is, cannot do without it. This, obviously, is a point -to Charlotte. If she wants the thing for its _usefulness_, it is hers. -The sudden capitulation is too much for Charlotte. She suspects her Papa -of badinage. Not at all; he is perfectly serious. She will find the watch -hanging from the tapestry by the side of his bed. - - _Charlotte_: What! that ancient thing, that King Dagobert - perhaps used for a pot to feed his dogs? - - _M. de Fonrose_: It is a very good one, I assure you. They were - all made like that in your grandfather’s time. I regard it as - an heirloom. But in giving it to you, I shall not let it go - out of the family, nor shall I lose sight of it when I see you - wearing it. - - _Charlotte_: But what will other people say, who are not my - grandpapa’s descendants? - -Few English children could buy the first translation of Berquin, in -twenty-four volumes. A selection, including many little dramas for three -or four persons, appeared later under the title of _The Children’s -Friend_; but the true English version was the admirable _Looking Glass -for the Mind_[77] adapted by Mr. Cooper for E. Newbery and illustrated -by John Bewick’s inimitable cuts. Alexis transfers his best grace to -Bewick’s “little Anthony”, standing a-tiptoe on a chair to read the -barometer; Caroline walks as proudly as Marthonie in her finery; and the -four little pupils of Mademoiselle Boulon are not less French for their -English names. - -It is odd, considering Rousseau’s attitude to the education of girls -(for in his account of Sophie he reverses the whole method of Emile’s -training) that the trilogy of educational romance, begun with Emile, -should have been completed by two women. - -Madame d’Epinay, Rousseau’s friend and benefactress, published her -_Conversations d’Emilie_[78] at his request, and Madame de Genlis, in -_Adèle et Théodore_,[79] worked out her own scheme of practical education -on his principles. - -Of the two, Madame d’Epinay is more faithful to Rousseau, and so great -was the interest aroused by the _Emile_, that she was awarded the French -Academy prize for “a work of the greatest benefit to humanity”. - -She herself declared that her book contained “neither a plan of -education, nor any connection in the ideas”; yet it is plain that Emilie -follows Emile like an obedient younger sister. - -An age that believed in freedom and equality could not long stand by -the privilege of sex, and Emilie, although she suffers some of the -restrictions imposed on Sophie, shares the natural education of Emile, -and is taught to practise most of his virtues. She gains her knowledge, -as he does, from experience; Nature is the wise Mistress who refuses -her request for more lessons, and had Emilie’s mother followed her own -inclination, it is likely that the little girl at ten years old “Would -not yet have known how to read.” - -As it is, she is allowed to spend ten years (for Emile’s twelve) in -jumping and running, and her enlightened Parent (the counterpart of -Emile’s guardian) believes that the time has not been wasted. Not -that Emilie is ever allowed to forget Rousseau’s Salic Law concerning -obedience and restraint. She is sternly snubbed for romping with her -brothers, and after a disastrous adventure with a beautiful green ladder, -admonished that “the modesty of her sex requires a decorum which should -restrain the giddiness and warmth even of childhood”. This sends her back -to her doll, the care of which has so far exercised her ingenuity that -her mother “will not oppose a continuation of it for some time to come”. -And to Sophie’s sewing and embroidery, Emilie adds a new amusement: that -of passing these instructive conversations on to her doll. - -Thus even “moments of relaxation” are to be employed by a vigilant mother -in order to form the understanding of her child. There is no escape for -little Emilie, she must be educated every minute of the day. Her play is -always under supervision, always liable to interference and criticism. -Her mother, usually her sole companion, is present at all interviews -between Emilie and other human creatures. - -The book is, in one sense, a simplified _Emile_, intended for children -as well as parents; but Madame d’Epinay has not a vestige of Berquin’s -humour to help her along the “paths of pleasure and amusement”. These -repeated portraits of Emilie and her mother look dull indeed beside -Berquin’s dainty groups, and her insistent doctrine almost hides the one -beauty of the book: the character of Emilie. - -There is no merit in Madame d’Epinay’s fancy portrait of herself as the -Perfect Parent, but Emilie is lifelike, and holds out for a number of -years in her stronghold of childhood. It is only on the eve of her tenth -birthday that she remarks resignedly, “To-morrow will be an important -day. When I rise, _I shall no longer be a child_”. - -The tyranny of reason had, in fact, begun much sooner, when Emilie, -curious about her own small part in the Universe, learnt that _in time_ -she would become a Reasonable Being. - - _Emilie_: But what am I now, being but a child? - - _Mother_: How! You are _five years old_ and have not yet - reflected on what you are! Endeavour to find out yourself. - - _Emilie_: I cannot think of anything! - -This is a priceless opportunity to impress the lesson of dependence,—to -prove that it is only by mildness, docility and attention that she can -hope for a continuation of help and protection. - -Punishment, says the Maternal Governess, is proper only for intractable -and servile dispositions; but she is willing, before Rousseau, to correct -faults by means of Fables. - -This is how she deals with her pupil after a courageous burst of -naughtiness: - - _Mother_: Take a book from that shelf: that which you see at - the end of the second lowest shelf. - - _Emilie_: Is it this, Mamma? - - _Mother_: Yes, bring it to me. - - _Emilie_: Mamma, it is Moral Tales. - - _Mother_: So much the better; it will amuse us. - - _Emilie_: Which shall I read? - - _Mother_: The first. - - _Emilie_: Oh! Mamma. - - _Mother_: What now? - - _Emilie_: It is—Let us read the second. Mamma. - - _Mother_: Why not the first? - - _Emilie_: Mamma, it is “The Naughty Girl”! - - _Mother_: Well, we shall see if it bring to our recollection - any of our acquaintance. - - _Emilie_: Must I read it aloud? - - _Mother_: Without doubt; and pronounce distinctly. - -(The very snap of the consonants can be heard.) - -Madame d’Epinay was too true a disciple of Rousseau to follow him -slavishly. Not only did she ignore his strictures upon reading, through -the fear of being singular, and still more that of making an unfortunate -experiment, but she was even ready to tolerate myths for the sake of -morality, and to compare them with modern instances; on the other hand, -it must be confessed that she only once talked of fairies, and regretted -it afterwards. - -Emilie herself has a child’s love of fairies; but she is made to reason -about them: - -“Mamma, you will make me umpire between you and the fairies,” says the -intelligent little person, making the most of her dull game; and she -obediently works it out against herself: “They were, perhaps, two fairies -and a genii I met this morning. Well, no matter, Heaven bless them, I -say, you are the fairy Luminous and have _disenchanted me_!” - -The Mother never shrinks from this grave responsibility. Berquin, though -he made war upon ghosts, was wise enough to let the fairies alone. At -least he could laugh like one of them. But Madame d’Epinay, in her first -Conversation with Emilie, finds it hard to be amused, and in the twelfth, -the little girl declares: “_In my whole life I never saw you play at -anything_”. - -This, indeed, is a mother that sends Love himself to school: - - _Emilie_: Mamma! Mamma! Let me come and kiss you. - - _Mamma_: Most willingly; but you will tell me upon what account! - -Madame de Genlis’s _Adèle et Théodore_, published in the same year -as _Emilie_, gives her interpretation of Rousseau in the form of -correspondence with a mother who desires to be enlightened, but as yet -clings to the ordinary customs of Society: - -“You prevent your children till the age of thirteen from reading -Telemachus, Fontaine’s Fables and all such books, yet you would inspire -them with a taste for reading! What books would you give them instead -of those I have mentioned? Are they only to read the Arabian Nights and -Fairy Tales till they are thirteen?” - -The answer gives the author’s convictions about children’s books: - -“I neither give my children Fairy Tales to read nor Arabian Nights; not -even Madame d’Aulnoy’s Fables, which were composed for this purpose. -_There is scarcely one of them which has a moral tendency._” - -To provide works “proper for infancy” she wrote _Les Veillées du -Château_,[80] tales which carry Rousseau’s theories along a facile stream -of conversation and incident. Adèle, until she is seven, is allowed to -read no other books. “I shall then”, says Madame de Genlis, “give her the -Conversations of Emilie, a book you have often heard me praise, and this -will employ her till she is eight.” - -The apparent generosity to her rival, however, did not prevent the -writer of _Adèle et Théodore_ from attributing the success of _Emilie_ to -the good will of the Encyclopædists. “Madame d’Epinay was a philosopher,” -she remarks, “and took good care not to talk of religion to her Emilie.” - -It is certainly true that Madame de Genlis had many qualifications for -her task which Madame d’Epinay lacked; and when for a moment she allows -herself to forget her theories, there are glimpses of autobiography in -her books. Her own life, in fact, was the most interesting of her tales, -and the rest are interesting chiefly for reflections of it. - -No child could have reproached Madame de Genlis with never playing at -anything. She had an extraordinary childhood, and her early years in -the quiet Château of St. Aubin were filled with unusual interests.[81] -At eight years old she dictated little romances and comedies to her -governess, and amused herself by playing schoolmistress to some -Burgundian peasant children who came to cut rushes under her window; at -eleven she was the chief attraction of her mother’s theatrical fêtes. It -was characteristic of the society of the day to seek refuge in private -theatres from political and social realities; most owners of country -houses had their own companies composed of friends and neighbours, and -thus Félicie, before her twelfth year, had mixed freely with gentlefolk -and villagers, and had shown the aptitude for teaching and acting which -marked her whole career. Her dramatic talent, indeed, might be said -to cover all her other activities, for with her, teaching was little -more than a favourite and particularly successful rôle. She was active, -curious and enterprising as any child; before her marriage she was -an accomplished harpist and fluent writer; afterwards she acquired a -knowledge of literature, anatomy, music and flower-painting; but there -were other occupations which fitted her even better to be the exponent of -Rousseau’s theories. Writing in the _Memoirs_ of her early married life, -“I endeavoured”, she says, “to gain some insight into field-labour an -gardening. I went to see the cider made. I went to watch all the workmen -in the village at work, the carpenter, the weaver, the basket maker”. - -Rousseau thought her the most natural and cheerful girl he had ever met. -Their friendship was short, but she never wavered in her loyalty to his -teaching, and could say at the age of seventy, “What I pride myself on, -is knowing twenty trades, by all of which I could earn my bread.” - -In 1777, Madame de Genlis was made governess to the daughters of the -Duchess of Chartres, for whom, with her own children, she established a -school at the Convent of Belle Chasse. Her success was so great that, -in 1782, the Duke of Orleans took the unusual step of appointing her as -“governor” to his three sons. The result fully justified his courage and -silenced the critics who ridiculed this new method of using revolutionary -theory to educate princes. - -The Duke purchased a country estate at St. Leu, and here the boys made -experiments in chemistry, studied botany, practised gardening, carpentry, -and other forms of handwork. But Madame de Genlis did more than play -the part of Rousseau with three Emiles. She handed on to her pupils the -delights of her own childhood. These boys could laugh at Emile marooned -in his island. They played out a dozen different Voyages in the park of -St. Leu; and had a theatre of their own in which they acted moral plays -from the _Théâtre d’Education_.[82] - -Madame de Genlis had long ago added authorship to her list of trades and -had written stories for the children of Belle Chasse. It was easy enough -to invent new ones for St. Leu. “There is no great wisdom required in the -composition,” she declared, “but only Nature and common sense.” - -Doubtless her books deserved Madame Guizot’s criticism, “_toujours bien -et jamais mieux_”. She is discursive, even garrulous, and often loses -the thread of the story in moral dialogues; but there are tales in the -_Veillées du Château_ that suggest her own enjoyment of the “delicious -life” with her children; and if none of them betray her love of mischief -and adventure, it is but a fresh proof that she was acting a part, that -she could not move freely under the cloak of the Infallible Parent. For -in actual life she could take either side in a moral contrast, bear her -part in the maddest pranks, assume every virtue of a heroine and hide -with complete success a thousand faults. - -Her books, after all, were simply properties reserved for her parts of -Moralist and Schoolmistress. She dramatised the theories of Rousseau, and -although her wonderful energy hardly atoned for her lack of depth and -soundness, she left a rich legacy of device and suggestion to those who -could use it better. - -Rousseau’s affinity to Locke on the side of theory, and to Richardson -in sentiment may account for some common features of French and English -tales, but it does not explain the writing of “Lilliputian” books by two -such authors as Berquin and Madame de Genlis. - -There is, of course, no great difference between “writing down” -Rousseau’s doctrine for children, and making miniature versions of -Richardson and La Bruyère; but Berquin’s humour should have saved him -from _Le Petit Grandison_,[83] and Madame de Genlis might have reflected -on the undramatic qualities of _Le Petit La Bruyère_.[84] Berquin’s -Lilliputian hero reveals himself in letters to his mother as a perfect -miniature of Sir Charles Grandison, not less insufferable for his youth; -and the little _La Bruyère_ is made up of conventional homilies: “Of -Reading, Study and Application”; “Of Personal Merit”; “Of the Heart” -(introduced by a quotation from Marmontel); “Of Insipidity” (perhaps -evoked by the other platitudes). - -It was Rousseau himself who saw that the subject of education was -entirely new, even after Locke’s treatise, and would be new after his -own. The closest of his followers overlooked his chief discovery. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE ENGLISH SCHOOL OF ROUSSEAU - - Effects of Rousseau’s teaching in England—Henry Brooke’s _Fool - of Quality_, the English _Emile_—Thomas Day: his connection - with the Edgeworths—_Sandford and Merton_—_Little Jack_—Theory - and Romance: Philip Quarll as a Rousseauist—_The New Robinson - Crusoe_—Madame d’Epinay and Mary Wollstonecraft: _The Original - Stories_—Blake’s illustrations—Traces of Marmontel and Madame - le Prince de Beaumont in _The Juvenile Tatler_ and _The Fairy - Spectator_. - - -In England, Rousseau’s teaching had more effect on the actual life of the -family than on books. Children, no longer cramped by the old pedantries, -began to show unexpected powers of action and self-control, and parents, -relieved of their harsher duties, chose to make friends rather than -philosophers of their children. - -It was only in books that theorists could represent this genuine progress -by the make-believe of impossible children and perfect parents. Most -writers of children’s books were theorists of one sort or another, and -now that they had begun to draw from life, they tried to make it fit -their theories. Thus the new books were hardly less didactic than the old. - -Some reflect Johnson’s hostility to Rousseau, others support the new -ideas with definite religious teaching, and many that present the Child -of Nature as an existing type, endow him with the precocious wisdom of -a Lilliputian. There is hardly a book among them, even among the many -adaptations of French stories, in which the setting and characters are -not plainly English. - -The most consistent of all Rousseauists was Thomas Day,[85] the author -of _Sandford and Merton_,[86] and he owed the success of his book at -least as much to his own observations and experiments, as to Rousseau. - -Much of its interest, moreover, can be traced to the example of an -English novelist; for in choosing some pieces for children from Henry -Brooke’s _Fool of Quality_, Mr. Day had been so struck by its simple and -vivid style as to regret that Brooke himself had not written books for -children; and it is clear that, while the theory of _Sandford and Merton_ -came direct from Rousseau, many dramatic situations, which are the life -of the story, were suggested by _The Fool of Quality_.[87] - -This, indeed, was a book after Rousseau’s own heart. The hero, Henry -Earl of Moreland, is an English Emile quickened out of knowledge by more -natural and livelier adventures. Brought up by a foster-mother among -village children, he stands for the virtues of a natural education, -against a brother bred at home in the luxurious fashion of the time. The -scene of his first visit (at five years old) to his parents, is a satire -on Society, and the farcical turn of his adventures brings the romance of -theory into touch with the novel of life and humour. This little Harry -is the most natural child of fiction; like Emile at a later stage, he -knows nothing of the respect due to people of rank, and is quite unmoved -by his unusual surroundings; but as yet he has no philosophy; he values -things as children do, for what they mean to him. A laced hat is useless -as a head-covering, but an effective missile for playing ducks and drakes -among the wine-glasses; when he gets astride a Spanish pointer and rides -him among the company, he sees no reason to dismount because the dog, -growing outrageous, rushes into a group of little masters and misses and -overthrows them like ninepins; and when he has crowned the adventure by -throwing down a fat elderly lady and three men, he arises and strolls -leisurely about the room “with as unconcerned an aspect as if nothing -had happened amiss, and as though he had neither art nor part in this -frightful discomfiture”. - -Emile, a much older boy, at his dinner party, received a hint from his -mentor, and for the rest of the meal “philosophised all alone in his -corner” about luxury, superior all to the grown-up guests. The little -Harry, merely unhappy at having to hold his knife and fork “just so” and -say so many “my lords and my ladies”, very naturally cries, “I wish I was -with my mammy in the kitchen.” Neither then nor at any other time does he -seem conscious of superior wisdom; but Theory hangs upon the foolishness -of his mother. An uncle, whimsical rather than didactic, but none the -less a moralist, fills the place of Rousseau’s tutor, and later, when the -boy appears in clothes “trimmed like those of your beau insects vulgarly -called butterflies,” this humorist so impresses him with the comparison -of that “good and clever boy called Hercules” who was given a poisoned -coat to wear, that Harry rips and rends the lacings of his suit and runs -down to obey a summons “with half the trimmings hanging in fritters and -tatters about him.” - -Where Emile was controlled and self-centred, Harry is all impulse and -warmth of heart. He fights like a little tiger to avenge his brother -or to punish some young scamp, and cares little for the opinion of his -fellows; yet he shows the greatest tenderness to animals or persons in -distress. His mother, seeking proof of his wits and finding him ready to -give away all his clothes except his shirt, decides that “there is but -the thickness of a bit of linen between this child and a downright fool”, -and so leaves him to his more discerning father. - -At times, the author, preoccupied with social and political ideals, -so neglects the story that even his lively humour can scarce restore -it; yet he can forget Rousseau’s theories in scenes that he invents to -illustrate them; nor does he ever accept a theory without proof. To the -philosopher’s contention “that self-love is the motive to all human -actions”, Brooke answers in the words of the estimable Mr. Meekly, -“Virtue forbid”; and his own philosophy is the sounder for a trustworthy -ballast of religion and patriotism. - -Among minor digressions are a dialogue about toys, another on ghosts, -and some of the “thousand little fables” by which Harry’s uncle, “with -the most winning and insinuating address, endeavoured to open his mind -and cultivate his morals”. One of these, “The Fable of the Little Silver -Trouts”, has a tenderness that sets it apart from common fables. It reads -like an Irish folk-tale moralised by some good priest. - -If Henry Brooke could have passed on his gifts of humour and sympathy -to the writers of children’s books, they would have known better than -to tie life down to theory. As it was, they were mostly obsessed by the -desire to teach, and preferred Mr. Day’s model of a faultless hero to one -like the Fool of Quality, who actually discovered two boys within him, -one “proud, scornful, ostentatious and revengeful”, the other “humble, -gentle, generous, loving and forgiving”. - -This English Emile was a moral contrast in himself, an anomaly that might -weaken every “Example” in moral tales. - -Thomas Day would have no such compromise between good and evil. Moral -truths were best expressed by distinct types. To combine these in one -person was to confuse the issue. Mr. Day lived, as he wrote, to prove -his theories, and whenever the unknown quantity of human nature thwarted -him, went back to them with unshaken confidence. A great part of his -life was given to works of active benevolence, and his death was no less -consistent than his life; for he died in trying to prove that a young -horse could be tamed by kindness. - -Only once he seems to have acted in what must have seemed to him an -irrational way, and that was at the request of the lady (Miss Elizabeth -Sneyd) whom at that time he hoped to make his wife. With his natural -propensity to improve and educate, he had asked her, in preparation for -their future life, to forgo many pleasant and harmless diversions which -seemed to him useless or unreasonable. Miss Sneyd, with proper spirit, -suggested that a French dancing-master might help Mr. Day to overcome -certain faults of deportment which displeased her, and so nice was his -sense of justice, that he actually crossed to France and spent some time -in a hopeless experiment. Nobody could have taught Mr. Day to dance; -perhaps the lady knew it. Such graces as he managed to acquire only -provoked her to say that she liked him better as he was before, and he -retired to console himself with philosophy. - -His next venture promised better success. He resolved to educate two -orphan girls upon Rousseau’s plan, so that, in time, one of them might -fill the place he had intended for Miss Sneyd. But Nature again proved -herself too strong for Philosophy. The children quarrelled, refused to -be educated “in Reason’s plain and simple way”, and could not be cured -of shrieking when their guardian frightened them to test their courage. -As they grew up, he was forced to admit another failure; but he clung -to his theories, and oddly enough lost nothing of his belief in the -reasonableness of “female character”. A later pupil of his more than -justified this confidence. Richard Lovell Edgeworth, although he had -been Day’s successful rival in love, was still his friend, and used to -send his little daughter Maria to spend her holidays with him. By that -time Mr. Day had found a lady who could endure his ways, and was settled -in Essex, busy with schemes for the benefit of his poor neighbours. - -Maria Edgeworth, fresh from a conventional boarding school, was quick -to appreciate his odd humours and philosophic mind. She obediently -swallowed his doses of tar-water, submitted to the severest tests in -exact reasoning, and under his influence, acquired that intense regard -for truth which stamped all her later writings. Yet it was not through -any theories derived from him or from her father that she became the -greatest writer of Moral Tales, but through her own experience of life -and character; and her work for children must be considered apart from -her Rousseauist principles. Mr. Day, indeed, whose ideal of womanhood was -in some ways little in advance of Rousseau’s, did his best to crush her -first effort (the translation of _Adèle et Théodore_) by expostulating -with her father for encouraging it; but Maria was too much his pupil to -give way to a prejudice based solely on his horror of “female authorship”. - -Mr. Day was fully alive to the want of good books for children; not only -did he put his own talents at their service, by contributing to Mr. -Edgeworth’s instructive serial _Harry and Lucy_,[88] but he found the -task so interesting that it grew into an independent volume, three parts -dissertation and experiment, and the fourth a fresh effort to express -life in terms of theory. - -Doubtless he found it a relief to work out in a book the experiments -which he had found so disconcerting in practice: to show, as the result -of his system, a super-Fool of Quality,—a farmer’s son, instead of a -nobleman’s,—and to make his foil the spoilt child of rich parents. These -are the two children, Harry Sandford and Tommy Merton, “introduced as the -actors” to give interest and coherence to Mr. Day’s collection of lessons -and stories. - -When he says they are “made to speak and behave according to the order -of Nature,” “Nature” must be understood to mean the “natural” result -of Theory; for it is only the Bad Boy who, in his naughtiness, is a -real child of Nature. The Good Boy of the Moralist is a stock figure of -allegory, but the Bad Boy lives; a hundred models will serve for his -portrait. He is the real hero of _Sandford and Merton_, as Satan is of -_Paradise Lost_. - -Thus, even in a book, human nature was too much for Mr. Day; and yet his -Good Boy, Harry Sandford, is something more than the good half of the -Fool of Quality. His virtues, although superhuman, are not unlike those -of the youthful Thomas Day; but under the guidance of Mr. Barlow, that -insufferable model of the Perfect Tutor, he exhibits the mature head of -Mr. Day on young shoulders, and so becomes the mouthpiece of Rousseau, -the lay-preacher of Mr. Barlow’s sermons, and the chief instrument of the -Bad Boy’s reformation. - -There is a note of English severity in Mr. Day’s reading of Rousseau. -His notion of self-control is stricter than anything in the _Emile_: -“Mr. Barlow says we must only eat when we are hungry and drink when -we are dry”; he is utterly intolerant of wealth: “The rich do nothing -and produce nothing, the poor everything that is really useful”. Mr. -Barlow, Harry Sandford and the amiable Miss Simmons take it in turns -to express Mr. Day’s opinions of the idle and frivolous pastimes of -Society. Mr. Barlow was “an odd kind of man who never went to assemblies -and played upon no kind of instrument,” he was “not fond of cards” and -preferred relating moral histories. Harry Sandford found the theatre -“full of nothing but cheating and dissimulation;” and when the youthful -guests of Tommy’s house-party were preparing for a Ball, “Miss Simmons -alone appeared to consider the approaching _solemnity_ with perfect -indifference”. - -Much of this is autobiography. Under the figure of Miss Simmons’s uncle, -Mr. Day, in fact, discloses himself: “a man of sense and benevolence, but -a very great humorist”. It is his humour to look at the world as his poor -boy looks at the rich man’s house: - -“To the great surprise of everybody, he neither appeared pleased nor -surprised at anything he saw.” - -Many incidents of the story, which, like the fight between Harry and -Master Mash, owe little to Henry Brooke, may be taken as reminiscent of -Mr. Day’s boyhood; for although he has a true instinct for drama, he is -incapable of pure invention. - -“The originality of the author” he says “is a point of the least -consequence in the execution of such a work as this”. Harry Sandford -refusing to betray the hare to the huntsman, or at loggerheads with the -“little gentry”, is the Fool of Quality; but when he discusses the World -with Miss Simmons, he is a brother of the philosophic Emile. - -Mr. Day borrows many of his instructive details from Rousseau: the -juggler, who taught Emile the use of magnets by means of an artificial -duck, conspires with Mr. Barlow and Harry to teach the uninformed Tommy -Merton; but there are other experiments more practical than Rousseau’s, -which suggest actual experience and the co-operation of Mr. Edgeworth. -These alternate with short tales introduced according to what Mr. Day -calls the “natural order of association”; but their effect is to weaken -the genuine interest of the enveloping story. “The Gentleman and the -Basket Maker”[89] gains nothing by the Good Boy’s elocution; Leonidas -shakes himself free from Mr. Barlow’s patronage. - -Yet, with all these digressions, children found matter of interest in -_Sandford and Merton_ for another century. The most didactic parents -could not have controlled the choice of so many nurseries, nor would Mr. -Day accept a grown-up verdict without the children’s assent. “If they are -uninterested in the work”, he wrote in his preface, “the praises of a -hundred reviewers will not console me for my failure”. - -The truth is that persons who stand no higher than Mr. Barlow’s knee can -go through the book without seeing much of him. - -The simple story of “Little Jack”, no less characteristic of Day, -appeared in _The Children’s Miscellany_: (1787),[90] but may have been -written earlier. The moral is quite explicit; “that it is of little -consequence how a man comes into the world, provided he behaves well and -discharges his duty when he is in it”; but Jack’s life begins at the edge -of experience, when he is suckled by a goat; and later, his duty leads -him into many adventures which, although they appear true, happen in a -romantic setting of foreign countries. - -Thus theorists, without acknowledging romance, may use it for their -own purposes. Robinson Crusoe’s island lent enchantment to Emile’s -most practical employments, and Rousseau’s followers chose two wholly -romantic figures to point their arguments against society. The negro, -cut off from his own people, freed from his oppressors, is a striking -and pathetic mark in the midst of his white brothers. He now becomes a -type of the Natural Man, and a hero of children’s books.[91] The second -witness against social institutions is that first friend of children, -the shipwrecked sailor-man in his island, who still holds them by the -spell of circumstance, even while he repeats the strange jargon of -revolutionary doctrines. - -Mr. Day had transcribed, along with extracts from _The Fool of Quality_, -“some part of Robinson Crusoe”, without any serious additions; but Philip -Quarll the Hermit, one of Crusoe’s earliest successors, appeared in _The -Children’s Miscellany_ as a Rousseauist philosopher. - -The original chap-book of 1727[92] has no suggestion of theory, but it -points out one vital difference between Philip Quarll and Crusoe. Quarll -actually comes to love his solitude and loses all desire to return to his -own country. - -To the theorist, this proved him a forerunner of Rousseau, and the -editor of 1787 could furnish him with the latest version of the creed. -He begins by reflecting (as Rousseau did with _Robinson Crusoe_) on the -edifying spectacle of shipwrecked men, “deprived in an instant of all -the advantage and support which are derived from mutual assistance ... -obliged to call forth all the latent resources of their own minds”; and -then remarks that the story “whether real or fictitious, is admirably -adapted to the illustration of the subject”. - -The poetical language of this hermit, so unlike Crusoe’s plain story, -suggests the influence of Saint Pierre, whose descriptions of scenery -were more elaborate but less vigorous than Rousseau’s. “Feathered -Choristers” entertain him “with melodious harmony;” Nature “puts on her -gay enamelled garb and out of her rich wardrobe supplies all vegetables -with new vesture.” - -In such phrases, the philosophic hermit exalts Solitude at the expense of -Society. - -There is much unconscious humour in the account of the hermit’s efforts -to overcome Nature, for although he has some of Crusoe’s practical -ability, he trusts rather to theory. Depressed at the persistent hatred -of a tribe of monkeys, for whom he has dug roots, he meditates on its -cause, and deciding that he must have forfeited their respect “by hiding -the beauty of his fabric under a gaudy disguise”, he discards the -irrational garments which distinguish men from monkeys, and presents in -his own person Rousseau’s Natural Man. - -A friendly monkey, “Beau Fidèle”, plays the part of Friday, and the -“surprising tractability and good nature” of this beast, contrasted with -the ingratitude of a shipwrecked sailor, strengthen the general argument. - -This is how the Philosopher, after fifteen years in his island, -apostrophises a ship that suddenly appears: - -“Unlucky invention! That thou shouldst ever come into men’s thoughts! The -Ark which gave the first notion of a floating habitation, was ordered -for the preservation of man, but its fatal copies daily expose him to -destruction”; and when the sailors fail to take him off, “despite a -sudden impulse to return”, he reflects upon his good fortune in having -escaped the world, and counts his own situation happier than theirs. -There is, of course, no Footprint in the Sand; yet the tale has romantic -features. A child might skip most of the descriptions, but he would -remember the white-bearded hermit and his monkey-servant in their hut -built of growing trees. Crusoe had no such leaf-tapestry on his walls; -and there is a map of Philip Quarll’s island which is a formulary of -romantic truth; for in it may be seen (at A) the place where the Hermit -was cast away, and at B, the place where Mr. Dorrington (who discovered -him) landed; at E, the Hermit’s Lodge, and at K, the lake between the -Rock and the Island. - -The new _Philip Quarll_ with all its absurdities was better reading for -Children than _The New Robinson Crusoe_ (Campe’s _Robinson der Jüngere_, -translated into English from the French in 1788).[93] Crusoe’s ship -never carried a heavier cargo than Campe’s tiresome family, who break -up the story with their dull colloquies; but the book is a fresh proof -that these philosophers had to call in the old masters to enforce their -lessons, and could discover no more attractive theme than the old one of -voyages and islands. - -The English _Conversations of Emily_ appeared in the same year as _The -Children’s Miscellany_. Four years later, Mary Wollstonecraft, full of -theories for the better education of girls, assumed the mantle of Madame -d’Epinay, or rather placed it on the shoulders of a Representative whom -no touch of human weakness could redeem from the hard grip of Reason: -Mrs. Mason, a monstrous creation of her own.[94] It would be impossible -to paint Mrs. Mason’s portrait. Nothing softer than granite could suggest -her outline. Compared with her, Emily’s Mother is all kindness and -indulgence. Her two charges, Mary and Caroline, are mere wax tablets -whereon she records her impressions of virtue. Their very faults are -placed upon them like labels, for Mrs. Mason to remove. Emily, though she -was her mother’s “friend”, was a real child, pleased and amused by formal -Nature lessons and unimaginative stories, since nothing better might be -had; playing with dolls, “jumping, running about and making a noise”. - -Mary, in the _Original Stories_, has to prove that she can “regulate her -appetites”, before Mrs. Mason says: “I called her my friend, and she -deserved the name, _for she was no longer a child_.” Mary and Caroline -have no mother; Mary Wollstonecraft had no confidence in parents. She -called in Mrs. Mason, a sort of moral physician, to make good the -defects of a casual up-bringing. Mrs. Mason, true to the _tradition -d’Epinay_, “never suffered them to be out of her sight”. She exhibited -every excellence that she exhorted them to attain; and that none of -her perfections should escape their notice, she discoursed upon these -at intervals. Her success is inevitable and complete. She conducts her -pupils through carefully selected experiences; she conducts the reader -through the book. She never hesitates or doubts; she never betrays -surprise. - -The Tales were written “to illustrate the Moral”: it is thus that Mrs. -Mason answers “the Ænigma of Creation”. She sees everything, understands -everything, explains everything. - -“‘I declare I cannot go to sleep’, said Mary, ‘I am _afraid of Mrs. -Mason’s eyes_’.” - -Mrs. Mason conforms and makes everybody else conform to her moral -formulæ: “Do you know the meaning of the word Goodness?” she asks. “I -see you are unwilling to answer. I will tell you. It is, first, to avoid -hurting anything; and then to continue to give as much pleasure as you -can.” - -Three chapters are given to “the treatment of animals”. The children are -allowed to read Mrs. Trimmer’s _Fabulous Histories_,[95] and to read it -“over again” to a little friend, if they can make her understand that -_birds never talk_. - -In the _Original Stories_, pleasure is administered like medicine. -Benevolence is a chief part of Mrs. Mason’s Theory; she is resolutely, -almost sternly benevolent. Joy is never admitted without a dispensation -from Reason. When the children have acted “like rational creatures”, Mrs. -Mason allows them two lines of joy: - -“Look, what a fine morning it is. Insects, birds, and animals, are all -enjoying this sweet day.” - -Blake snatched the words eagerly for his frontispiece. His -“illustrations” are a touchstone for Mary Wollstonecraft’s imagination. -_He could not draw Mrs. Mason._ In her place he introduces a central -figure of his own, meditative, sweet, and firm; spiritual, even -decorative, as Mrs. Mason never was. Yet he, like the rest, was dominated -by the monstrous original; his Masonic Symbol appears in every picture. -The children are his own; he dresses them to order, but makes haloes of -their little round straw hats. - -This author has an effective manner of disposing landscape to correspond -with her sombre or determinedly joyful moods. Blake does not attempt the -moonlight scene that moves Mrs. Mason to discourse upon her gloomy past, -and present resignation. “I am weaned from the world, but not disgusted,” -she observes. Such a state of mind would be unintelligible to Blake. But -he manages to convey something of the formal desolation of the ruined -Mansion-house, to which Mrs. Mason brings the children “to tell them the -history of the last inhabitants”. They cling about her, and one looks -back in a vain hope of escape, for “when they spoke, the sound seemed to -return again, as if unable to penetrate the thick stagnated air. The sun -could not dart its purifying rays through the thick gloom, and the fallen -leaves contributed to choke up the way and render the air more noxious”. -A heavy atmosphere is characteristic of the book; it suggests the German -_Elements of Morality_, which Mary Wollstonecraft translated two years -later. The promise of romance in the settings of Mrs. Mason’s stories is -never fulfilled. - -Blake was oppressed by her realistic solution of the mystery of the -unseen harper. He followed the “pleasing sound” in his own way, and -discovered the player for himself: not Mrs. Mason’s explicit and -tangible old man, but a spirit harping under a starry sky. - -Neither Thomas Day nor Mary Wollstonecraft could have written a -“Lilliputian” book; and even the author of the _Juvenile Tatler_ and -_Fairy Spectator_, whose titles suggest the old traditions, turns back -only to copy the types of Marmontel, the moral fairy tales of Madame le -Prince de Beaumont. - -_The Juvenile Tatler_,[96] by Mrs. Teachwell (Lady Fenn) is a collection -of moral dialogues and dramas: “The Foolish Mother”, “The Prudent -Daughter”, “The Innocent Romp”, and others suggested by Marmontel. But -the characters are wholly English. The Innocent Romp is a feminine -counterpart of the Bad Boy. - -The other persons of this drama (real people too) are Mr. Briskly, -a Widower, whom Marmontel would have called “The Foolish Father”; -Mrs. Freeman, his sister, “The Wise Aunt”; Miss Prudence Freeman, her -daughter, “The Good Cousin”. - -Lady Fenn’s humour is English, like her characters: she invents amusing -pranks for her heroine, and is original in admitting a girl to the -masculine pastime of mischief. - -A very natural dialogue between the Foolish Father and the Wise Aunt -prepares the reader for the entrance of the Romp. Her latest offence -has lost her an eligible suitor. Chasing the housemaid with a rotten -apple, she has just thrown it full in the face of Lord Prim, alighting -from his coach to pay his compliments to her, on her return from school. -Thus announced, she enters, fresh from an excursion into a neighbour’s -garden by way of the wall. Questioned about the visible traces of this -adventure, she confesses that she fell from the top of the wall, and -adds that she would like to fall twenty times if she could be sure she -was not seen, and _to make her cousin Prudence fall too_. “La! Cousin,” -she cries, with seductive enjoyment, “’tis delightful! Just like flying.” -(A cautious foot-note explains: “This was written before the invention of -Air Balloons.”) - -When the author has a doubt about the moral influence of her heroine, she -inserts a corrective foot-note. - -The Romp, it is disclosed by her Aunt, not content with dressing the cat -in baby-linen to play at a mock-christening, disguised herself as an old -woman, and carried it to Mr. Starchbland, the Curate. Upon this there -are three separate comments: The Foolish Father’s _“A profane trick”_; -The Wise Aunt’s “She thought no further than the surprise it would be to -the person who should lift up the mantle and possibly”——Oh, excellent -Wise Aunt!—“_possibly_, the roguery of getting the parson scratched.” -And, last, the foot-note, to avert parental criticism: “_Let it not be -supposed that Miss B would suffer the Sacred Rite to begin_”. - -The author’s sympathies are with the Aunt (she was an aunt herself). So -the Wise Aunt carries off her niece to undergo a moderate process of -conversion. The Foolish Father, who “dotes” upon his daughter “when she -is neatly dressed and tolerably sedate”, is obviously drawn from life. - -_The Fairy Spectator_,[97] “By Mrs. Teachwell and Her Family”, is Mrs. -Argus transformed into the Benevolent Educational Fairy of Madame de -Beaumont. Here is a characteristic bit of dialogue: - - _Mrs. Teachwell_: You know that stories of Fairies are all - fabulous? - - _Miss Sprightly_: Oh, yes! Madam. - - _Mrs. Teachwell_: Do you wish for such a Fairy Guardian? - - _Miss Sprightly_: Very much, Madam. - - _Mrs. Teachwell_: Why, my dear? - - _Miss Sprightly_: _Because she would teach me to be good._ - -A world where all fairies are “fabulous” is, of course, a world without -dreams. When Miss Sprightly weeps on rising, because she cannot banish -the thought of “the most pleasing dream which she ever had in her -life”, the inexorable Mrs. Teachwell meets the situation with a simple -formula: “Idle girl, make haste!” The Fabulous Beings whom she admits on -sufferance are not more fairylike than “the smallest wax doll.” - -Two lines from _The Fairy Spectator_ betray the Rousseauist’s attitude to -Fairyland: - -“I will write you a Dialogue in which the Fairy shall converse, and _I -will give you a Moral for your Dream_.” - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -DEVICES OF THE MORALIST - - Family authorship—Limitations of the little novel—the English - setting in early woodcuts: Thomas and John Bewick—the first - school-story: Sarah Fielding’s _Governess_—Stories of - country and domestic life: _The Village School_ and _Jemima - Placid_—Other school-stories—Nature and Truth in _The Juvenile - Spectator_—Adventures of animals—Mrs. Trimmer’s _Fabulous - Histories_—_The Life and Perambulation of a Mouse_—_Keeper’s - Travels_—_The Kitten of Sentiment_—Adventures of things: _The - Silver Threepence_ and the _Pincushion_. - - -The great writers for children were neither Lilliputian nor Rousseauist. -They emerged from a good company of aunts and mothers who, with a -sprinkling of fathers, were driven into anonymous authorship by the -demands of their own families: minor moralists, without any special gifts -of art or imagination, who managed to draw live pictures from their own -little world, and hit upon simple devices for holding attention and -exciting interest. - -They were mostly innocent of Theory, but an intimate acquaintance with -the Child of Nature taught them in one way or another to avoid the -unpardonable sin of dulness. - -Little novels, following their grown-up prototypes with unequal steps, -had their own limitations of setting and character. A nursery or a -schoolroom is always a nursery or a schoolroom, and varies only according -to particular houses and inhabitants. The few ways of escape (by a -window, a chimney or a keyhole) into fairyland, were blocked in most -eighteenth century houses, and the persons of moral tales, however -lifelike, were apt, from contact with a narrow circle, to assume familiar -characters. - -Adventures of the milder sort might happen on the road to school, but -the only changes of scene were from parlour to schoolroom, or from town -to country. Any effort to exceed these by travels abroad landed the -unsophisticated author in a hopeless confusion of unknown tongues and -half-remembered directions. - -And yet there was something in these English settings to compensate a -child for the loss of fairyland, if not to set his feet in the track -of it. Authors chiefly concerned with character were apt to give the -briefest indication of a background; but before 1780, there were woodcuts -that implied more than the words of the story. - -Thomas Bewick had cut his first blocks for the York and Newcastle -chap-books, and although he soon passed on from these to a wider study of -Nature, they were enough to seal the fate of the old slovenly pictures in -children’s books. - -As a boy, Bewick had filled the margins of his school-books and covered -the hearthstones of his mother’s cottage with drawings of the men and -beasts that he knew about his native village[98]; and these he reproduced -later in the cuts for chap-books and fables. - -He could never draw fairies. The “Pigmy Sprite” in Gay’s _Fables_[99] is -not half so fairy-like as the little spinning-wheels and brooms of the -corner-pieces; but his drawings of trees and meadows, rocks and pools, -show the “fairy ground” of his own happy childhood. - -It was thus that he gave a new meaning to the country setting which was -now a recognised feature of moral tales. A writer might demand no more of -Nature than that she should provide the Industrious Boy with fruit in -season; but Bewick caught her among the corn ricks or at the corner of a -lane, and she herself took up the parable. - -The younger brother, John, who began by adapting some of Bewick’s -drawings, is better known as an illustrator of children’s books. Between -1790 and 1820, there are few cuts that do not show some trace of his -influence, and many of those in the smaller chap-books,—_The Adventures -of a Pincushion_, for example, and _The Life and Adventures of a -Fly_,[100]—have been attributed to him. - -In a sense, John was more imaginative than his brother, quicker to -appreciate subtleties of character and expression. There is hardly less -truth of detail in the Lime-walks and rose-gardens of _The Looking Glass -for the Mind_ than in Thomas Bewick’s village scenes; but the little -figures are more graceful and courtly, the backgrounds more delicate. - -John Bewick’s illustrations to _The New Robinson Crusoe_ gave shape to -Rousseau’s vague ideal; but his pictures of English children in their -natural surroundings were a literal return to Nature. And although they -were in complete accord with the changed attitude of the story-writers, -they proved (to the confusion of Theorists) that the new Philosophy had -made little impression on the familiar moods of Nature and childhood. - -The School-setting, however cramped, was a source of wider interest than -the alternative parlour or nursery. It varied, according to the fortunes -of the persons concerned, from the Village School (commonly built on the -_Two-Shoes_ foundation, but without its Lilliputian features) to the -Academy for young Ladies or Gentlemen: an exclusive community which had -received its traditions from Sarah Fielding’s notable little book _The -Governess_; or, _The Little Female Academy_[101] published some fourteen -years before Rousseau’s _Emile_. - -Writing in the first decade of Lilliputian books, the author of _David -Simple_ anticipated Rousseau with a gallery of children’s portraits, and -showed that the Child of Nature could survive pedantic forms as well as -theories. - -Madame le Prince de Beaumont chose the same framework for her _Misses’ -Magazine_;[102] Charles and Mary Lamb used it to connect the separate -stories of _Mrs. Leicester’s School_; Mrs. Sherwood seized upon the book -itself and revised it ruthlessly, and a host of anonymous writers copied -Miss Fielding’s method and envied her genius. - -Half periodical, half novel, _The Governess_ was a perfect medium -for “Instruction and Amusement”. It contains sermons, fables, -Oriental-Classic stories and a moralised romance in the style of the -_Cabinet des Fées_. - -Of the Governess herself, whose name of Mrs. Teachum became a popular -pseudonym for instructive writers, it must be confessed that she is a -Presence hardly less dominating than Mrs. Mason. To the mature reader, -who is uncomfortably conscious of having met her in real life, she is -more formidable than any lay-figure of a theorist. Her husband, described -as “a very sensible Man who took great Delight in improving his Wife,” -having completed his task, disappears from the story and leaves her to -pass on his improvements, to the “nine young Ladies commited to her -Care.” She is “about forty Years old, tall and genteel in her Person, -though somewhat inclined to Fat,” and her “lively and commanding Eye” -(more human, if less hypnotic than Mrs. Mason’s) “created an Awe in all -her little Scholars, except when she condescended to smile and talk -familiarly with them.” - -Theorists, working upon this Paragon, extracted the more human elements; -but the children escaped, like Hop o’ my Thumb out of the Ogre’s house. - -The long line of authentic portraits that extends from Miss Fielding to -Miss Edgeworth is of one family, and it is doubtful whether any amount of -“practical education” could have improved some of Mrs. Teachum’s pupils, -restricted as these were to “Reading, Writing, Working and all proper -Forms of Behaviour”. - -The naughty children in books, as in life, can take care of themselves, -but it needs a writer of unusual tact to make the good ones live. Miss -Fielding’s good children are more to her credit than the “Rogues” who -figure in some of her best scenes; but there is nothing in the book quite -so amusing as her “Account of a Fray begun and carried on for the Sake of -an Apple, in which are shown the sad Effects of Rage and Anger.” - -Mrs. Teachum, entering unexpectedly, produces a sudden calm in which the -losses on all sides can be counted: - -“Each of the Misses held in her right hand, fast clenched, some Marks -of Victory. One of them held a little Lock of Hair, torn from the Head -of Her Enemy, another grasped a Piece of a Cap which, in aiming at her -Rival’s Hair, had deceived her Hand and was all the Spoils she could -gain, a third clenched a Piece of an Apron, a fourth of a Frock. In -short, everyone unfortunately held in her Hand a Proof of having been -engaged in the Battle. And the Ground was spread with Rags and Tatters -torn from the Backs of the _little inveterate Combatants_”. - -Here is a satirical scene not unworthy of Fielding’s sister, yet not too -subtle for her audience. (The Ladies Caroline and Fanny, new to their -titles, are visiting Miss Jenny Peace.): - -“Lady Caroline, who was dressed in a pink Robe embroidered thick with -Gold and adorned with very fine Jewels and the finest Mechlin lace, -addressed most of her Discourse to her Sister, that she might have the -Pleasure every Minute, of uttering ‘Your Ladyship’, in order to show what -she herself expected. Miss Jenny, amused by their insolent Affectation, -addressed herself to Lady Caroline with so many Ladyships and Praises of -fine Clothes as she hoped would have made her ashamed”. - -Nobody who reads the book can suspect Miss Fielding of more than a -distant admiration for Mrs. Teachum. Her own sympathies are clearly with -the old dairywoman who, when the children were rebuked for a want of tact -in their remarks to her, replied: “O, let the dear Rogues alone, I like -their Prattle,” and taking Miss Polly (the youngest) by the hand, added: -“Come, my Dear, we will go into the Dairy and skim the Milk pans.” - -There is a kind of story-telling, touched with the same wise playfulness, -which is not beyond the talents of average aunts. Two such there were, -sisters-in-law, Dorothy and Mary Jane Kilner, whose stories, published -in Dutch flowered covers, were as popular after 1780 as the earlier -Newberys. There is some doubt about their respective pseudonyms, but -the family records ascribe the signature “M. P.” to Dorothy and “S. S.” -to her sister, which establishes Dorothy as the author of _The Village -School_.[103] - -Her stories grew naturally out of a happy and uneventful life spent in -the little Essex Village of Maryland Point, and her best critics were -the nephews and nieces for whom she wrote. But she was in the habit of -sending her books to “the Good Mrs. Trimmer” for criticism, and it seems -likely that she wrote _The Village School_ to help that lady in her work -of teaching poor children to read. - -“M. P.” (she borrowed the initials of her village) is in some sort a -nursery Crabbe. There is not an incident in her story outside a country -child’s experience: no Babes-in-the Wood opening, no clever animals, no -romance of improbable good fortune. This is the “clean pleasant village” -of every-day life. The schoolmistress, Mrs. Bell, believes in simple -virtues, but has no theories. Boys and girls learn to read, and girls to -spin, knit stockings and sew. They are grouped quite simply, as in some -old-fashioned print, and M. P., having borrowed Miss Fielding’s device -of labelling them with symbolic names, uses it to avoid the complexities -of character. Jacob Steadfast and Kitty Spruce are predestined to carry -off the prizes which Betsy Giddy, Master Crafty and Jack Sneak inevitably -lose; and a child is content with the main distinctions of Good and Bad. - -The story, slight as it is, reveals M. P. as an aunt who is not -indifferent to “Flowers picked out of the Hedges, Daisies and Butter -Flowers”; who can make garlands and enjoy a singing-game,—the right sort -of game for village schools: - - “What we have to do is this - _All bow, all courtesy and all kiss_; - And first we are our Heads to bow - As we, my Dear, must all do now; - Then courtesy down unto the Ground, - Then rise again and all jump round.” - -“You cannot think” she concludes, “how pretty it is when they mind to -sing and dance in the right time.” - -This was an aunt who, in her own century, deserved some such tribute as -Stevenson’s: - - “Chief of our Aunts—not only I - But all your dozen of nurslings cry— - What did other children do - And what were Childhood, wanting you?” - -_Jemima Placid_,[104] variously ascribed to Dorothy and Mary Jane, is -woven of the same simple stuff. George Frere, writing in 1816 to his -brother Bartle[105], bore witness to its practical effect on one nursery. -They evidently came to it in turn, at a particular age. “You”, he wrote, -“are more of a philosopher than I am and can bear these things better, -and yet I have read _Jemima Placid_ since you have, but you have made the -best use of it”. - -A Rousseauist might have overlooked the philosophy in this little -book,—the annals of a parsonage family, in which all the characters are -individuals and friends of the writer; for there is not an ounce of -theory in it. Jemima herself is neither a pedant nor an infant prodigy. -She is never expected to reason about her own development. Her philosophy -is of the older sort that comes of gentle discipline, and she is “placid” -not through pleasing no one but herself, but in spite of other people’s -unjust or exacting ways. It is doubtful whether she would have been very -different under the Eye of Mrs. Mason, but assuredly she would have been -less happy. No theoretic Child of Nature ever was so happy as Jemima with -her brothers. - -The scene of parting, when the little girl (six years old) goes to -London, is an introduction to these three: - -“I wish you were not going” says Charles, “for I put this box and drove -in these nails on purpose for you to hang up your doll’s clothes, and -now they will be no further use to us.” William bids her not cry, and -promises to write about the young rabbits. “And, Jemima,” adds Charles -more tactfully, “I wish I was going with you to London, for I should like -to see it, ’tis such a large place, a great deal bigger than any village -which we have seen; and they say the houses stand close together for a -great way and there are no fields or trees....” - -It is the same village, seen from a different standpoint, narrowed on the -one hand to the record of a particular house, on the other, varied by -journeys and visits to town. - -Old customs survive with the flowered covers of the book, and the next -few lines bring _Jemima Placid_ into touch with her predecessors. For -in London there is a great number of shops, and to be sure, among -other things, Jemima must bring back “Some little books which we can -understand, and which ... may be bought at Mr. Marshall’s _somewhere in -some churchyard_, but Jemima must inquire about it.” - -The little things that make up a child’s life happen with natural -inconsequence. What gives the book a hold is the author’s unaffected -truth and tenderness, the modest philosophy which hides under simple -speeches or incidents. - -Who but Jemima Placid, the unhappy guest of two spoilt London cousins, -could comfort herself under unjust reproof with “the rough drawing of a -little horse, which Charles had given her on the day of her departure and -which she had since carefully preserved.” - -It is no wonder that her brothers are loth to welcome the Londoners on -their return visit; but “S. S.” can make her own “Book of Courtesy”, and -she refreshes it with the comments of real boys. William answers his -father’s rebuke with disconcerting logic: “You always tell me that the -naughtiest thing I can do is to tell lies, and I am sure I am very sorry -they are come, for I like Jemima to ourselves: so pray, Sir, what would -you choose I should do?” - -There is not a trace of the “Juvenile Correspondent” in Charles’s letters -to Jemima; but the sentiment of humanitarians is mere vapouring compared -with this boy’s account of how they found the dog shot by a game-keeper -and buried him under the Laylock tree. - -“‘Poor Hector! I shall hate Ben Hunt as Long as I live for it!’ - -‘Fy Charles’ said my father. ‘_Hector is dead, Sir_,’ said I, and I did -not stay to hear any further.” - -Elizabeth Sandham, who wrote somewhat later “for the Children of former -Schoolfellows”, claimed a wider influence for the story of school life. -“A school”, she says, “may be styled the world in miniature. There the -passions which actuate the man may be seen on a smaller scale.” - -On this assumption, she ventured into the unknown microcosm of a boys’ -school,[106] where even Miss Edgeworth came to grief; but her book was a -model for some hundreds of school stories in which ambitious, studious or -mischievous boys play impossible parts. She was more at home in a later -study of schoolgirls[107]: careful sketches, brightened by satirical -remarks; but the moral is too obvious. Miss Sandham’s sense of humour was -too slight for effective relief. - -An admirable miscellany, which brings genuine adventure and comedy into -the school setting, is _The Academy; r, a Picture of Youth_,[108] -published in 1808 by a Scottish schoolmaster who, in his preface, claims -to have taught “all ranks, from the peer’s son to the children of the -lower orders.” His taste is hardly less catholic than his experience, -for he not only adds satirical and dramatic scenes to the old fables and -admonitions, but adapts Berquin to an English atmosphere, and is ready to -sympathise with the shepherd, the labourer, the old man and his horse. -The book is a medley of old manners and new sentiments, in which the -characters, although they stand for familiar types, earn some rights of -personality by individual acts and speeches. - -This author is indebted to Smollett for a trick of making his characters -talk in the language of their callings. Young Tradewell’s father consigns -him to the Rector’s care “per the bearer,” as if he were a bale of -merchandise; and a nautical father advises a son who has “gone a little -out of his course” to “sail clear of faults”, but if at any time he is -driven into them, to “be a brave boy and steer honourably off.” - -Satire in Children’s books is apt to miss its mark. Some parents who -bought this _Picture of Youth_ must have felt like the old gentleman -of the story, who was furious at a clever caricature of himself until -somebody assured him that it was intended for his neighbour. Restored -to good humour by similar means, they would doubtless enjoy these -burlesques: the foolish indulgent mother, the sporting squire who laughs -at his son’s escapades, the parents who teach their boy “to recite -passages with tragic effect from our best poets”. - -The Rector’s rational methods recall _Sandford and Merton_; but the book -is for older lads. The Bad Boy of _The Academy_ is more like a hero -of Picaresque romance, and the Good Boy (the son of a naval officer, -destined for the Service) is a new figure in moral tales; a pupil “highly -acceptable to the Rector” for his own sake; the more so, perhaps, for the -fresh memory of Trafalgar. - -English people have an inherent power of reconciling opposites, which -perhaps comes of their being a mixed race. The most revolutionary -writers were held back by some thread of ancient custom, and those who -clung to the older modes of thought were not without some broadening -influence. “Nature” and “Truth” were still the accepted ideals of -literature, although the meaning of both had changed; and _The Juvenile -Spectator_,[109] which applied Addison’s method of character-drawing to -the nursery, used it with a new understanding of childhood. - -Mrs. Arabella Argus,[110] its author, adds piquancy to her general scheme -by introducing herself as a Grandmother. Doubtless she was old enough to -remember Lilliputian traditions; but she was also too young to forget -the newer counsels of sanity and freedom. Like Addison, she begins by -describing herself and her aims, but so far is she from admiring the -model of the Baby Spectator, that she directs her brightest satire -against “little prodigies” and child-philosophers. - -She is “an old woman, but not an old witch nor yet a fairy”; and without -resorting to anything so irrational as magic, she is able to set forth -secret information upon “Nursery Anecdotes, Parlour Foibles, Garden -Mischief and Hyde Park Romps”. - -Now, a Newbery writer might have dealt with the first two of these items; -but he never could have countenanced such portents of revolution as -“Garden Mischief” and “Hyde Park Romps”. - -The letters which Mrs. Argus receives from children show nothing like the -decorum of the Goodwill Correspondence. - -Here is one from a typical Bad Boy (which however, Mrs. Argus contrasts -with another, “couched in terms of becoming timidity”, from a girl): - - “To Mrs. Argus, - - “A friend of Mamma’s says that you are very clever at finding - out the faults of children, pray tell me mine, for if you are - as cunning as she says you are, I need not mention them to you. - I am certain I know you; don’t you walk in the Park sometimes? - I am sure you do, though, and you have a very long nose; my - sister Charlotte and I hope you will answer this directly, for - we are in a great hurry to be satisfied about you. - - “Your’s - - CHARLES OSBORN.” - -Mrs. Argus gives sound and pleasantly pointed advice in her replies, -though she loses more than one laugh to modern readers in her care for -propriety. - -“Will you be so good” she writes in one postscript “as to tell your -brother that the word _Thump_ which occurred in his letter appears to me -an expression unworthy of a well-educated child.” - -Yet she surprises a pugnacious grandson with the novel argument that so -few things are worth fighting about; and shows a genuine sympathy with -boyish pranks. - -Her remarks upon fairy tales are a juvenile version of Addison on the -“Lady’s Library”. She knows exactly what sort of writing pleases some -children; how “the eager eyes of a little story-loving dame glisten with -delight” at a promising opening, and the lover of fairy tales “wishes, -just to gratify her curiosity, that there were really such creatures as -fairies”. Yet she is so far persuaded that “an early course of light -reading is very prejudicial to sound acquirement”, that she rejects any -story without the hall-mark of a “Moral”. - - * * * * * - -A favourite device for connecting the haphazard events of ordinary life -(and one that embellished the bare truth) was borrowed from current -satires. _The History of Pompey the Little; or, the Life and Adventures -of a Lap-Dog_[111] became a model for stories in which an animal, telling -the story of its life, acts as an observer and critic of human conduct. - -Humanitarians and lovers of nature, taking up this form, produced more -or less faithful studies of birds and animals; and critics who objected -to fables, or thought satire dangerous had nothing to say against this -mixture of Natural History and Morality. - -Doubtless the stricter guardians of youth looked askance at such a -defiance of Reason; but the “Creatures” had an immense influence in -the Nursery: their morals were vouched for by Æsop and all his tribe. -After all, it was only a new way of presenting the old lessons, and the -sternest parent could hardly reject so engaging a tutor as a Robin or a -Mouse. - -Miss Fielding’s _Governess_ had not a larger following of School Stories -than Mrs. Trimmer’s _Fabulous Histories_[112] produced in moral tales -of birds and beasts. This little book, better known by its later title, -_The History of the Robins_, was suggested by Mrs. Trimmer’s children, -which may account for its being her only imaginative work. The children, -taught during walks in the fields and gardens “to take particular notice -of _every object_ that presented itself to their view”, were able, by a -natural process of elimination, to develop a chief interest in animals, -and “used often to express a wish that their Birds, Cats, Dogs etc., -could talk, that they might hold conversations with them”. Their mother, -instead of rebuking them for so irrational a desire, adapted the idea of -talking birds to her own theories of morality and for once managed to see -things from a child’s point of view. - -Her own childhood had never been anything but middle-aged. At ten she -wrote like a grown-up person, and her youth was spent in the company -of people much older then herself. Dr. Johnson, meeting her as a girl -of fifteen at Reynolds’s, was so much struck by her behaviour that he -invited her to his house next day, and presented her with a copy of -_The Rambler_.[113] This may have had its effect upon a style developed -in formal “correspondence” under her father’s direction; at any rate, -her diction remained pompous and conventional. Mrs. Trimmer “composed” -works as she “indited” letters. In “composing” _Fabulous Histories_, -she “seemed to fancy herself conversing with her own children in her -accustomed manner”; but that was because she was accustomed to converse, -not talk. - -The children, secure in the possession of a “kind pussy Mamma”, never -noticed it; to them it was the most natural thing in the world that birds -should converse in the same way. - -In their family relations, the robins are passable understudies of the -excellent Mr. and Mrs. Trimmer and their children; but the introduction -of a human family as their patrons and protectors restores them to the -shape of birds. For the first time in the history of children’s books, -the real centre of interest is transferred from the conduct of children -to such matters as living in a nest and learning to fly. - -Here is a good example of Mrs. Trimmer’s style: - -“When Miss Harriet first appeared, the winged suppliants approached with -eager expectation of the daily handful which their kind benefactress made -it a custom to distribute”. - -On the human side, Mrs. Benson, a kind of domestic Mrs. Teachum, presides -over the morals of a son and daughter. Her interest in education is -almost equal to Mrs. Trimmer’s, who “wearied her friends by making it -so frequently the subject of conversation”; but benevolence softens her -utilitarian morality. When Master Frederick rushes to the window to feed -his birds and forgets to bid his Mamma good-morning, she admonishes him -thus: - -“Remember, my dear, that you depend as much on your Papa and me for -everything you want, as these little birds do on you; nay, more so, for -they could find food in other places; but children can do nothing towards -their own support; they should therefore be dutiful and respectful to -those whose tenderness and care they constantly experience.” - -The Robin family is more than half human. Nestlings, distinguished by -the expressive names of Robin, Dicky, Flapsy and Pecksy, exhibit all -the faults of children. But there is a world of difference between Mrs. -Trimmer’s treatment and that of the fabulist. She has learned to look at -a nest of birds from a child’s point of view; what is infinitely more -novel and surprising, she actually shifts her ground and considers the -Benson household _from the standpoint of a bird_. It is here that so many -of her imitators lost the trail; and thus it is that their books were -soon forgotten, while hers was read with delight for a century. - -The adventure of the nestlings and the gardener has something of the -fascination of _Gulliver_. This is Robin’s description of the “Monster” -who visited them in their mother’s absence: - -“.... Suddenly we heard a noise against the wall, and presently a great -round red face appeared before the nest, with a pair of enormous staring -eyes, a very large _beak_, and below that a wide mouth with _two rows of -bones_ that looked as if they could grind us all to pieces in an instant. -About the top of this round face, and down the sides, hung something -black, but _not like feathers_”. - -The children dragged Mrs. Trimmer from her didactic throne: they even -made her talk their language. Her own style is reserved for the parent -birds, and in discussing important matters, the young ones imitate them. - -“This great increase of family”, says the Robin to his mate, “renders -it prudent to make use of every means for supplying our necessities. -I myself must take a larger circuit.” The Mother bird thus addresses -her penitent son: “I have listened to your lamentations, and since you -seem convinced of your error, I will not add to your sufferings by my -reproaches.” - -All this can be endured for the sake of so many delightful incidents. For -a child can climb up the ivy and creep under the wing of the mother bird. -He can join the nestlings in their first singing-lesson, follow them -in their first flight, and best of all, he can look at the great world -beyond the nest with their wondering eyes: - -“_The orchard itself appeared to them a world._ For some time each -remained silent, gazing around, first at one thing, then at another; at -length Flapsy cried out: ‘What a charming place the world is! I had no -conception that it was half so big!’” - -_The Life and Perambulation of a Mouse_[114] was Dorothy Kilner’s -contribution to the literature of talking beasts. The author is -discovered in a frontispiece, seated at a little round table, in a -mob-cap and kerchief. Her quill has just reached the end of the second -line. Erect in a box of wafers, the Mouse, with extended paw, is -dictating the story of his life. - -This “chief of aunts,” snow-bound in a country house with many “young -folk,” takes up her pen at their request, to attempt her autobiography. - -“I took up my pen, it is true”, she writes, “but not one word toward my -appointed task could I proceed.... - -‘Then write mine, which may be more diverting’, said a little squeaking -voice.” - -Few “Introductions” were so promising, and the story (apart from -inevitable lessons) keeps its promise. - -Four mice, Nimble (the narrator) and his brothers Longtail, Softdown -and Brighteyes, correspond to Mrs. Trimmer’s nestlings; over whom, to a -child’s mind, they have one advantage: they are _outlaws_, repeating in -miniature the adventures of Robin Hood. - -To be sure, they lack the outlaw’s chief virtues, for they fly at the -approach of an enemy, and rob rich and poor alike. And although such -creatures could always be excused in the words of Dr. Watts: - - “_For ’tis their Nature too_,” - -a problem remains to puzzle the wit of a little philosopher: how it -happens that creatures so keenly alive to human errors are blind to the -iniquity of eating a poor woman’s cake, a present from her foster-son, or -the solitary candle that lights a poor man to bed. For indeed, these mice -are unsparing critics of cowardly, cruel and overbearing children; they -have a full repertory of moral and cautionary tales; they preach sermons -on human courage and honour. - -The child of action puts aside all questioning, jumps nimbly into a -mouse’s skin and makes a fifth on these marauding expeditions. He -scuttles along behind the wainscot, buries himself in the most delicious -of plum cakes, outwits the footman, narrowly escapes the trap and thrills -at his first sight of the cat. - -In a mischievous mood, he can hide in a lady’s shoe, or wake the -children and hear them wonder what it was. There are Eastern adventures -to be had among “spacious and elegant apartments”, where he can choose -from “a carpet of various colours” a flower that will hide him, and -crouch motionless at a passing footstep; and when there is a price upon -his head, or the house catches fire, there are still more thrilling -adventures of escape. - -Should a critic remark that these things do not make up one quarter of -the book, a child may tell him that he does not mind sermons and, for -that matter, can preach them himself. - - * * * * * - -In 1798, one of the most realistic animal stories appeared: _Keeper’s -Travels in Search of his Master_,[115] the adventures of a dog. Its -author, Mr. Kendall, wrote other books, mostly about birds;[116] but -_Keeper’s Travels_ was the only serious rival to _Fabulous Histories_. - -If any parent had scruples about talking beasts, here was a book that -could be put into a child’s hand with perfect safety. No eighteenth -century writer could help making an animal reason as if he were human; -but this is a real dog, wagging and whimpering his way through the book, -and if he does not speak, the story is not a whit less interesting for -that. - -From the time that he loses sight of his master on a market-day by -being “so attentive to half a dozen fowls that were in a basket”, his -adventures are entirely natural and probable. - -Keeper is never too human for belief: he does nothing that any dog might -not do; yet he makes a good hero,—sticking to his quest in spite of pain -and hunger, refusing comforts and saving the lives of children. Mr. -Kendall sums up his hero’s virtues in a quotation from Cowper, for those -who are “not too proud to stoop to quadruped instructors”. He was not -the only lover of animals to quote a humanitarian poet. The author of -_The Juvenile Spectator_ in her quaint _Adventures of a Donkey_,[117] has -these lines from Coleridge below the frontispiece: - - “Poor little foal of an oppressed race! - I love the languid patience of thy face: - And oft with gentle hand I give thee bread, - And clap thy ragged coat and pat thy head.” - -The Autobiography of a Cat was a more delicate task, a psychologist could -not explain the workings of its mind, although a careful observer might -record its more intelligible movements; but since every cat is a critic -of human character, there was nothing in the way of sermon or satire that -it could not achieve. - -Elizabeth Sandham’s _Adventures of Poor Puss_[118] is a very literal -story, setting off the philosophy of “two four-footed moralisers” on -a sunny wall; but the anonymous author of _Felissa; or, the Life and -Opinions of a Kitten of Sentiment_[119] produced a masterpiece in this -kind. - -Felissa is a Kitten of Satire as well as of Sentiment. This Author -adopted the form of _Pompey the Little_ in order to ridicule cant and -affectation in general, and Rousseau’s doctrine in particular; yet the -chief aim of the book (as the title-page shows) is to turn a child’s -thoughts from the hackneyed problems of juvenile conduct: - - “We’ll have our Mottoes and our Chapters too, - And brave the Thunders of the dread Review: - _Misses no more o’er Misses’ Woes shall wail,_ - _But list attentive to a Kitten’s Tale_.” - -The heroine’s pedigree goes back to Perrault; she actually claims -descent from “that noble, excellent and exceeding wise Cat ... who owed -his honours to the liberality and gratitude of the celebrated nobleman -the Lord Marquis of Carabas”; and indeed she resembles her ancestor as -much in “Genius and Discretion” as she excels him in Morals. She is one -that might have sat on Dr. Johnson’s knee; her remarks upon Rousseau -would have delighted him. Describing the Countess of Dashley, her little -mistress’s mother, she says that this lady “had been advised by a French -gentleman, one Mr. Rousseau, to suffer her children to remain foolish -till seven or eight years of age, when, he said, they would grow wise of -their own accord”, a plan “so easy and delightful” that she immediately -adopted it. - -Felissa’s satire has the prettiest effect of innocence. One moment she is -all kittenish mischief, the next, lost in wonder at the lady of fashion -who spares half a moment on the way to her carriage to peep in at her -little girl. - -“For my part,” declares the Kitten, “my eyes were so dazzled by her -dress and her diamonds, and so alarmed by some feathers that grew out of -her head, in a manner which I had never witnessed before, but in my old -master’s cockatoo at the Castle (and she never wore hers so high), that -it was some minutes before I could recover myself.” - -The episode of a mock-christening, which recalls the _Juvenile Tatler_, -serves to change the scene. Felissa, provoked to scratch, is sent down -in disgrace to a country Rectory, where she enjoys a quiet interval; but -before long, the Bad Nephew gets the better of the Good Midshipman, and -the kitten runs away. - -She now seeks a refuge in the house of “the most charitable woman -living”, where, taking up her old part of unconscious critic, she -discovers that charity may be a mere cloak for display; and coming thence -to another house, ventures into the library of a Man of Sentiment whose -portrait would have pleased Rousseau’s enemies. - -“I crept behind a huge folio to recover my fright and, as usual, set -about rendering my person neat and attractive, in expectation of soon -becoming visible. My new master, it was evident, could never have been -instructed on this subject; for as I peeped at him from behind my folio, -I thought that he was the dirtiest and most disagreeable man I had ever -seen in my life; and wished from my heart, that my nice clean father and -mother had had the education of him. He was short and thick, and by no -means pretty; of an ill complexion, and his face very far from clean; -_all his skins_, likewise, were of a bad colour, _both his shirt skin and -his outer-skin_, which seemed much out of repair....” - -She is irresistible, this Felissa: reassured to find the sentimentalist -writing an _Ode to Mercy_; listening “with her ears pricked up, _as if -she had been watching for a mouse_,” while he reads it to his daughter; -puzzled by the extraordinary fact that “the more she appeared distressed, -the more pleased her father seemed to be.” It is even more unaccountable -that a young lady of so much sensibility should turn a starved kitten out -of doors. “But kittens are easily puzzled”, and Felissa runs into fresh -adventures on her way to a happy ending. - -Her fortune is almost too modest for a descendant of Puss in Boots: no -more than the blessings of an Establishment and many friends; but the -chief of these is the daughter of an officer “who lost his invaluable -life in the memorable battle which deprived our country of the gallant -and lamented Nelson.” - -She, of course, marries the promoted Midshipman, and the Kitten, having -attained a certain seniority, and finding little scope for her sly wit, -devotes herself to the instruction and amusement of little _Felissae_. If -a story could end better, let the Wyse Chylde show how. - - * * * * * - -Adventures of things, a variation of the same idea, were mostly derived -from Charles Johnstone’s novel, _Chrysal; or, the Adventures of a -Guinea_.[120] - -If small coins might be supposed to talk as well as great ones (and -moralists saw no reason against it), a silver Threepence,[121] the -equivalent of a guinea in juvenile commerce, could relate transactions at -the Village Shop or at the corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard which, if less -thrilling than the Guinea’s, were more creditable to those concerned. - -Other subjects of these stories had a greater fascination for unworldly -youth. These were things that a child would play with or carry about: a -Doll, a Pegtop or a Pincushion, which, from their intimate association -with the family, were in a position to discuss its affairs. - -“S. S.” designed her _Adventures of a Pincushion_[122] “chiefly for the -use of young ladies,” little thinking that old ones would turn back with -delight to these records of domestic life in their great-grandmothers’ -time. - -It seems that the proper place for a pincushion (that essentially -feminine possession) was the pocket; but there were occasions, making -for adventure, when it was put into a workbag by mistake, or “lent to -Miss Meekly to fasten her Bib”, and then it was sure to be carried off in -another pocket to another house. - -One effect of the book, unforeseen by its gentle author, was doubtless -to increase the number of lost pincushions; for never, until it was -published, had little Misses suspected what secret critics and inveterate -gossips they carried about with them, disguised in harmless taffetas. - -Rarely indeed is this watchful companion at a loss for information, but -once (when S. S. decides to skip a scene) it remarks: - -“The ladies now retired to dinner, but I am ignorant of what passed -there, as I was left upon a piece of embroidery.” - -As for the woodcuts, they may well be John Bewick’s; they follow each -turn of the author’s quiet humour. Any little Miss could tell at a glance -that Martha was personating the Music Master and Charlotte teaching the -rest to dance. These pictures show everything but the colours, and for -that matter, nobody shrank from painting the Green Parlour, when the -pincushion declared that “the furniture was all of that colour”. Bewick -Collectors have never understood the fatal attraction of “plain” cuts. - -“S. S.”, justifying her simple narrative in a preface (and thinking, -perhaps, of _Chrysal_), admits that “the pointed satire of ridicule might -have added zest to her story”, but thinks it unfit for children. - -“To exhibit their superiors in a ridiculous view is not the proper method -to engage the youthful mind to respect. To represent their equals as -objects of contemptuous mirth is by no means favourable to the interest -of good nature. And to treat the characters of their inferiors with -levity, the author thought, was inconsistent with the sacred rights of -humanity.” - -The criticism is a thought too serious. Ridicule is not always a bad -method of dealing with children’s faults; “S. S.” herself could use it -on occasion. Had she forgotten the Wagstaffs’ party in _Jemima Placid_, -or the delightful mischief of the dressing of Sally Flaunt, in which the -Pincushion played a chief part? - -It is really a question of treatment; a wooden sword is sharp enough for -the nursery. If children are simply tickled by incongruities or miss the -point altogether, it is because the satirist has an eye on the grown-up -part of his audience. But, as “S. S.” points out, there is a danger that -incidents will be dragged in for satirical ends “without any cause to -produce them”; and, true to her own simple canon of art, she decides -“to make them arise naturally from the subject”, though it increase the -difficulties of her task. - -The Preface shows a concern for form which is rare in these modest -writers; and the method justifies itself. - -It is extraordinary that so much food for profit and enjoyment could be -stored in the shelves of old-fashioned houses. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -SOME GREAT WRITERS OF LITTLE BOOKS - - The fallacy of Disguise—Qualities of the “great” writers—Mrs. - Barbauld’s literary lessons: _Hymns in Prose_—_Evenings - at Home_—A new vein of romance—Charles Lamb’s attack - on the Schoolroom: Science and Poetry—The _Tales from - Shakespeare_—“Lilliputian” attitude of the Lambs—_The - Adventures of Ulysses_—_Mrs. Leicester’s School_—The Taylors - of Ongar: Imagination and spiritual life—Method of work—_The - Contributions of Q. Q._—“The Life of a Looking Glass”—Mrs. - Sherwood: the struggle between imagination and dogma—_The - Infant’s Progress_—_The History of the Fairchild Family_. - - -Disguise is of little advantage to a writer, least of all to a writer of -children’s books. For although he has many invisible cloaks to choose -from, Sharp-Eyes and Fine-Ear are hot upon his track. They recognise the -pedant under his “Mask of Amusement”, they judge the Moralist by the -standard of his own Bad Boy, and are no more impressed by the Perfect -Parent or Tutor than birds by a scarecrow, when once they have found out -that it is not alive. - -A writer may be just as sincere in acknowledging the reality of wonders -as in finding matter of interest in everyday things, if he express his -own point of view; but the maker of puppets or bogeys has given up his -personality and disguised his voice. He may be forgiven if he can reveal -himself at odd moments by individual gestures, as the whimsical editor of -a Lilliputian “Gift” would sometimes peep out in his preface; no single -lapse will be remembered against him: the “Children’s Friend” atoned for -one little Grandison by many lifelike portraits. - -But the great writers were those that lived most fully in their -stories. It was no more essential that they should write nothing else -but children’s books than that a mother should never go outside her -nursery; for as every man (unless he be a pedant or a monster) has -something of the child in him, so every child likes to enter into the -talk and business of men. There never was a good child’s book that a -grown-up person could not enjoy; and the habit of “talking-down” to -children, whether in books or in life, is more fatal to understanding and -friendship than the abstract reasoning of the Lilliputians. When Johnson -praised Dr. Watts for his condescension in writing children’s verses, -he did him an injustice, for no man could have taken a little task more -seriously. As to Mrs. Barbauld,[123] had she deserved half the abuse of -her critics, she never would have found favour in so many nurseries. - -De Quincey, who was evidently well-disposed towards the “Queen of all -the Blue-stockings” (in spite of her misguided preference for Sinbad) -says that she “occupied the place from about 1780 to 1805 which from 1805 -to 1835 was occupied by Miss Edgeworth.” At any rate she was a pioneer -in the art of writing for children, and Miss Edgeworth had a genuine -admiration for her work. - -But although there was a certain likeness in the aims and ideas of these -two, each had her own qualities, which were the outcome of essential -differences in character. - -Mrs. Barbauld had grown up among the boys of her father’s school, and in -her youth was as active and mischievous as a boy. There is a story told -of how she escaped an importunate suitor by climbing an apple-tree in the -garden and dropping over the wall into a lane. Miss Edgeworth, in the -same situation, would have walked out by the gate. - -It is true that none of Mrs. Barbauld’s stories show this spirit of -mischief: she was playful only in light verse or talk or letters; but -she made her personality felt in a romantic attitude to life and Nature, -which, although it did not much affect her choice of subjects, made her -style unusually free and moving. - -She had no children of her own, but adopted a nephew, “little Charles”, -for whom she wrote most of her stories; and at Palgrave, where she and -her husband had a school, she was the mother, tutor and playfellow of the -boys. - -The tutor, indeed, comes out in all her stories; the playfellow and the -mother are not always there. Yet she was dominated neither by facts -nor theories. A deep sense of spiritual truth underlay her teaching, -and her feeling for the poetry of Nature was the nearest approach to a -Renaissance of Wonder in children’s books. - -It may be doubted whether the famous _Hymns in Prose_[124] ever appealed -to children as it did to their parents. Mrs. Barbauld entirely disagreed -with Rousseau’s principle that there should be no religious teaching in -early life, and that a young child cannot appreciate natural beauties; -but she also rejected Paley’s crude idea of the Creator as a sort of -Divine Mechanic,[125] which some writers preferred to the neutral deism -of Rousseau. - -She held that children’s thoughts should be led from the beauty of the -flower to the wonder of creation. - -“A child”, she says, “to feel the full force of the idea of God, ought -never to remember when he had no such idea.” It must come early, with no -insistence upon dogma, in association with “all that a child sees, all -that he hears, all _that affects his mind with wonder or delight_.” - -“Wonder” was a word unknown to educational theorists, who believed that -everything could be discovered or explained. It is her use of those -words “wonder” and “delight” which sets Mrs. Barbauld apart from other -writers of little books, for it shows something like the spirit of -romantic poetry. - -The revealing power of the poet was never hers. She feels, but cannot -show a child as many wonders as he could find for himself in the nearest -hedgerow. The _Hymns_ are a kind of compromise between “Emblems” and -pictures of Nature. There are no far-fetched analogies: the parable of -the Chrysalis anticipates Mrs. Gatty;[126] and the language, though -rhythmic, is free from the conventional phrases which spoil some of Mrs. -Barbauld’s “prose-poetry.” - -Any mother might use the same images to give her child a first idea of -the love of God: - -“As the mother moveth about the house with her fingers on her lips, and -stilleth every little noise that her infant be not disturbed; as she -draweth the curtains around its bed and shutteth out the light from its -tender eyes; so God draweth the curtains of darkness around us, so He -maketh all things to be hushed and still that His large family may sleep -in peace.” - -But it was the Tutor in Mrs. Barbauld that made her choose prose; for -although she was a facile verse-writer, she was better acquainted with -Latin hexameters than with ballads, and doubted whether children should -be allowed to read verse “before they could judge of its merit”. - -Her best work is certainly in _Evenings at Home_[127], the popular -miscellany which she and her brother, Dr. Aikin, brought out in parts -between 1792 and 1796. - -“Sneyd is delighted with the four volumes of _Evenings at Home_”, -wrote Miss Edgeworth in 1796, “and has pitched upon the best -stories—‘Perseverance against Fortune,’ ‘The Price of a Victory’, -‘Capriole’”. - -It would take an Edgeworth boy to amuse himself with “The Price of a -Victory”, a logical exposition which robs soldiering of its romance; -or with “Capriole”, the tale of a little girl and her pet goat; but -“Perseverance against Fortune” fills a whole “Evening” with adventures -that most boys would read. The hero is sold as a slave, pressed into the -Navy and suffers many other hardships before he succeeds as a farmer. Yet -he is a mere type of the persevering man. The story amounts to little -more than a clear statement of what happened, with pictures of what was -there. It was the matter of these tales that chiefly interested Miss -Edgeworth. She approved of arguments against the cruelties of war, she -wept with the little girl over her lost pet, she heartily admired the -good farmer for his patient industry and liked to picture his fields, -fenced off from the “wild common”, his “orchards of fine young fruit -trees”, his hives and his garden. - -Sneyd Edgeworth had had a “practical education” and kept the family -traditions. Another boy, perhaps, would have chosen “Travellers’ -Wonders,” though the traveller confessed that he never met with -Lilliputians, nor saw the black loadstone mountains nor the valley -of diamonds; or, if these “voyages” were too tame, there were “The -Transmigrations of Indur”, adventures of a man, an antelope, a dormouse, -a whale,—centred in one person by the mystery of transmigration. - -Mrs. Barbauld wrote without apology of “the time when Fairies and Genii -possessed the powers which they have now lost”. Nobody reading “Indur” -would suspect her of a design to teach Natural History; but she never -forgot her profession and there are more lessons than stories in her -books. - -The average boy would submit to a talk about Earth and Sun, or Metals, -or the manufacture of Paper, rather than read “Order and Disorder, a -_Fairy Tale_”, and doubtless, in those days, boys were less impatient of -Instruction; but a lesson never can be a story. A hundred stories could -be written on Stevenson’s text: - - “The world is so full of a number of things. - I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings”; - -but the authors of _Evenings at Home_ chose instead the encyclopædic -ideal of “Eyes and no Eyes”, and produced a series of object lessons. -What was worse, Mrs. Barbauld, in her anxiety to be clear, made the fatal -mistake of “talking down”. - -Charles Lamb, writing to Coleridge in 1802, bitterly resents her -popularity: “Goody Two Shoes” he says, “is almost out of print. Mrs. -Barbauld’s stuff has banished all the old classics of the nursery, and -the shopman at Newbery’s hardly deigned to reach them off an old exploded -corner of the shelf when Mary asked for them. Mrs. Barbauld’s and Mrs. -Trimmer’s nonsense lay in piles about. Knowledge, insignificant and vapid -as Mrs. Barbauld’s books convey, it seems must come to a child in the -shape of knowledge; and his empty noddle must be turned with conceit -of his own powers when he has learnt that a horse is an animal, and -Billy is better than a horse, and such like, instead of _that beautiful -interest in wild tales_, which made the child a man, while all the time -he suspected himself to be no bigger than a child. Science has succeeded -to poetry no less in the little walks of children than with men. Is there -no possibility of averting this sore evil? Think what you would have -been now, if instead of being fed with tales and old wives’ fables in -childhood, you had been crammed with Geography and Natural History!” - -Lamb is so clear upon the main issue that he cannot be just to the -“instructive” children’s book. He loved the tales of his own childhood, -with their “flowery and gilt” and all their delightful oddities. - -For that, and because he understood the gentle humour of the -“Lilliputians”, he forgot whole pages of “instruction” in _Goody Two -Shoes_, and placed it on a level with the “wild tales” of romance and -adventure. - -Had Mary and he read _Fabulous Histories_ together, or “The -Transmigrations of Indur”, he might have allowed some “old exploded -corner of a shelf” to the schoolroom authors; at any rate he would not -have written: - -“Hang them! I mean the cursed Barbauld crew, those blights and blasts of -all that is human in man and child!” - -Science had succeeded to poetry. “The little walks of children” ran -through Botanical Gardens; but there is no doubt at all that children, -those amphibious breathers of romance and realism, enjoyed it. - -Lamb’s quarrel with the Schoolroom was something of a paradox. He -took the side of the Romantics against the Scientists; and yet wrote -children’s books at the suggestion of the arch-theorist Godwin, who, -as his publisher, naturally had some influence upon his choice. It was -doubtless through Godwin that, instead of following the traditions he -admired, he began by “adapting” greater works, and went on to write about -children from a grown-up point of view. - -The greater number of the _Tales from Shakespear_[128] are Mary’s; but -she and Charles lived and wrote in such accord, that there is no marked -difference in the style. His, of course, are freer and more graceful. - -“I have done Othello and Macbeth,” he writes to Manning (May 10th, 1806), -“and mean to do all the tragedies. I think it will be popular among the -little people, besides money. It’s to bring in sixty guineas.” - -Now it is one thing to turn a child loose in an old library,—he will -forage for himself and will seldom choose any but wholesome fare. It is -quite another to provide him with such stories as “Measure for Measure”, -“Othello” and “Cymbeline”; to simplify the philosophy of _Hamlet_ and -weaken the grim magnificence of _Lear_. - -The raw material of the plays would not attract many children, and those -who were ready for Lamb’s _Tales_ might have gone to Shakespeare himself. - -It is clear, then, that the Lambs were Lilliputian in their attitude to -children. Yet they were wise in their generation; for in 1805 (when they -began to write the _Tales_) a boy of twelve was playing Romeo, Hamlet and -Macbeth to crowded houses at Covent Garden and Drury Lane.[129] - -The “little people” of the day were incredibly mature. To know them, in -the delicate studies of Charles and Mary Lamb, is to find the limits of -Rousseau’s influence. For in spite of the pioneer work of Mr. Day, and -the activities of the whole “Barbauld crew”, these were Lilliputians, the -children of Lilliputians. Lamb’s _Tales_ must have been infinitely more -diverting than most of the books they read; and if some, more childlike -than the rest, flinched at the tragedies, they could turn to the magician -Prospero, the fairies of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, or the trial -between the Merchant and the Jew. - -After all, the Lambs understood the vital qualities of the stuff they -used. Who would not choose these tales rather than “The Price of a -Victory”? They are not lessons, but literature, and that is why children -are still reading them. - -Lamb’s next venture was surer. - -“Did you ever read my Adventures of Ulysses,[130] founded on Chapman’s -old translation of it?” he asks in a letter to Barton, “for children or -men. Chapman is divine, and my abridgment has not quite emptied him of -his divinity.” - -A prose version of Homer, if he had gone straight to the Greek, would -have been still better; there was no good reason for turning Chapman into -prose, although Lamb could do it gently. - -But Mrs. Barbauld’s “nonsense” fades into insignificance beside the -matter of this book, and her remarks about “wonder and delight” have not -half the meaning of Lamb’s phrase “_for children or men_.” - -These were “adventures” that had been told in the childhood of the Greek -people. Lamb knew they were a natural food for children, trusted his -instinct and defied his publisher. - -In the matter of catering for children, Godwin was constrained on the one -side by his theories, on the other by the parents who bought the books. - -Not every parent professed his hard and cold philosophy, but they were -mostly concerned for morals, and if any lacked interest in the more -serious problems of education, they were the more likely to be caught -by some prevailing pose of “Sensibility”. It did not follow, if they -allowed their children to read “Othello”, that they would approve of -the primitive survivals in Homer; nor did these in the least agree with -Godwin’s exalted theories of the uncivilised mind. He would have had Lamb -soften his account of the Cyclops devouring his victims, and the putting -out of the monster’s eye, which Lamb called “lively images of shocking -things”. This is the point where Art and Theory must part company. - -“If you want a book which is not occasionally to shock”, wrote Lamb, “you -should not have thought of a tale which was so full of anthropophagi and -wonders. I cannot alter these things without enervating the book, and I -will not alter them if the penalty should be that you and all the London -Booksellers should refuse it.” - -Lamb had good reason to trust his sister’s judgment where children were -concerned. Their partnership in the making of little books was one-sided, -and in a letter to Barton, Charles confessed that he wrote only three -of the stories in _Mrs. Leicester’s School_:[131] “I wrote only the -Witch Aunt, the First Going to Church and the final story about a little -Indian girl in a ship”. But there are many subtle touches in the rest -which suggest his hand, and if one may hazard a guess at their manner -of working, Mary wrote little that they did not first discuss together, -and revised much with his help. The framework of the book is all that -connects it with Miss Fielding’s _Governess_; there is nothing of her -bright objective treatment. - -This, indeed, is not a child’s book at all, but a book of child-thought -and experience, full of insight and tenderness, revealing everywhere the -pathos of childhood. - -Charles and Mary lived their childish days over again in these stories. -They forgot that as children they had not seen things in the same light. -They forgot (those days had been short for them) that children, however -precocious, are not concerned with their own thought-process, but -with life and movement and adventure. And so their stories are really -essays about children: essays that let the grown-up reader into some of -the little people’s secrets. If it were possible for children to see -themselves with the eyes of men and women, then _Mrs. Leicester’s School_ -might be to them what the _Essays of Elia_ are to their parents. As it -is, no child could appreciate the irony of innocence which runs through -the book like a refrain. - -A suggestion of Wordsworth, in the story of “Elizabeth Villiers”, can -hardly be accidental. The little girl has learnt to read from her -mother’s epitaph, and her sailor uncle, just home from sea, finds her in -the churchyard rehearsing her lesson. - -“‘Who has taught you to spell so prettily, my little maid?’ ... ‘Mamma,’ -I replied; for I had an idea that the words on the tombstone were somehow -a part of mamma, and that she had taught me.” The uncle, who knows -nothing of his sister’s death, asks for her and turns in the direction of -the house. “You do not know the way, I will show you,” says the child, -and she leads him to the grave. - -There is a similar pathos, not less beyond the insight of most children, -in Elinor Forester’s account of her father’s wedding-day: - -“When I was dressed in my new frock, I wished poor Mamma was alive to see -how fine I was on Papa’s wedding-day, and I ran to my favourite station -at her bedroom-door.” - -But there is another motif in the book which, although its chief appeal -is to grown-up sympathies, might satisfy a child’s love of contrast -and surprise: the strangeness of familiar things; the romance of the -unromantic. - -Emily Barton is a little Cinderella, carried off by her father (whom she -has forgotten) from the house of relations who have neglected her. A -postchaise takes the place of the pumpkin-coach, a new coat and bonnet do -humble duty for a ball-dress. - -Thus equipped, she jumps into the chaise “_as warm and lively as a little -bird_”. Mary Lamb has a store of such tender phrases. - -The home that most children take as a matter of course, is a palace of -delight to this little girl. Tea is a feast. - -“Whenever I happen to like my tea very much, I always think of the -delicious cup of tea Mamma gave us after our journey.” - -The father and mother, loved by other children without thought, are a -King and Queen of romance: - -“Mamma, to my fancy, looked very handsome. She was very nicely dressed, -quite like a fine lady. I held up my head and felt very proud that I had -such a papa and mamma.” - -A ride through the London streets becomes a royal progress. In her exile, -the child has had no toys: “the playthings were all the property of one -or other of my cousins”. Now she appreciates the joy of ownership. Not -toys alone, but little books are purchased, and by a mischievous turn, -Mr. Newbery’s old device is turned against his successors: “Shall we -order the coachman to the corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard, or shall we go -to the Juvenile Library in Skinner Street?” - -This is far removed from the dramatic realism of the Edgeworth School. It -is the difference between the facts and the poetry of everyday life. - -There is more poetry (but less that a child would take) in Charles Lamb’s -story of the little four-years-old girl in Lincolnshire and her “first -going to church”. - -The house is too far from a village for the family to attend church, -until they are able to set up “a sort of carriage”. But the child is -attracted by “the fine music” from the bells of St. Mary’s, which they -sometimes hear in the air. “I had somehow conceived that the noise which -I heard was occasioned by birds up in the air, or that it was made by the -angels, whom (so ignorant I was till that time) I had always considered -to be _a sort of bird_.” - -The bells calling Susan to church give the story a spiritualised -Whittington touch. The ride to church and the child’s first impressions -are wonderfully described. - -“I was wound up to the highest pitch of delight at having visibly -presented to me the spot from which had proceeded that unknown friendly -music: and when it began to peal, just as we approached the village, it -seemed to speak _Susan is come_, as plainly as it used to invite me _to -come_, when I heard it over the moor.” - -Here again, things that most children disregard, from thoughtless -familiarity, appear strange and delightful to the lonely child. “All was -new and surprising to me on that day; the long windows with little panes, -the pillars, the pews made of oak, the little hassocks for the people -to kneel on, the form of the pulpit with the sounding board over it, -gracefully carved in flower work.” - -Akin to this is the theme of changed fortune: privileges only recognised -when lost. It is the moral (never pointed in these tales) of “Charlotte -Wilmot” and “The Changeling”. The child of the ruined merchant describes -her first night in the house of his poor clerk. The moon, often watched -in happier days, is now a symbol of misfortune: - -“There was only one window in the room, a small casement, through which -the bright moon shone, and it seemed to me the most melancholy sight I -ever beheld.” - -Poetry, not fact, is again the chief element in the story of the “little -Indian girl in a ship”. Her gentle, imaginative sailor-nurse gives her -no Natural History or Geography. He turns her thoughts to “the dolphins -and porpoises that came before a storm, and all the colours which the -sea changed to”; she is never troubled about the genus of the one or -the causes of the other. If Lamb had set down this sailor’s tales, as -no doubt he would have told them to a child, he could have made a real -children’s book, of “the sea monsters that lay hid at the bottom, and -were seldom seen by man; and what a glorious sight it would be, if our -eyes could be sharpened to behold all the inhabitants of the sea at once -swimming in the great deeps, as plain as we see the gold and silver fish -in a bowl of glass”. - -In the same way a visit to the country is not made the subject of lessons -on rural occupations or botany. As a matter of fact, Grandmamma’s orchard -is a fairy place where pear-trees and cherry-trees blossom together, and -bluebells come out with daffodils. The profusion of these flowers and the -sound of their names might attract a child that yet would miss the best -touches: - -“Sarah was much wiser than me, and _she taught me which to prefer_.... I -was very careful to love best the flowers which Sarah praised most, yet -sometimes, I confess, I have even picked a daisy, though I knew it was -the very worst flower, because it reminded me of London and the Drapers’ -Garden!” - -Here Mary might have aimed a gentle shaft at the hated instructive -writers, who taught children “which to prefer”; but there is no double -intention in Sarah. - -Only one story, “The Changeling”, has really dramatic moments. There -is a miniature _Hamlet_ scene in this, a “little interlude” played by -children, which causes the wicked nurse to betray herself. A child -would enjoy it better than the _Tales from Shakespear_. But the little -girl who frightens herself into believing that her aunt is a witch is -best understood by readers of “Witches and Other Night-Fears”; little -Margaret, reading herself into Mahometism and a fever would be less -interesting to small folk than the book, _Mahometism Explained_, which -she found in the old library, “as entertaining as a fairy-tale”. The -humour is too subtle for children, they would enjoy the picture of Harlow -Fair better than that quaint account of the grave physician puzzled over -an extraordinary case, “he never having attended a little Mahometan -before”. - -And so it is with the pictures of child-life. The grown-up reader has -the best memory for Emily Barton (very young indeed) at her first play. -Emily herself remembered that it was _The Mourning Bride_; but she was so -far confused between this “very moving Tragedy” and “the most diverting -Pantomime” which followed it, that she made a strange blunder the next -day. - -“I told Papa that Almeria was married to Harlequin at last, but I assure -you I meant to say Columbine, for I knew very well that Almeria was -married to Alphonso; for she said she was in the first scene.” - -At the back of the grown-up mind, besides, there are pictures to help -in the reading. Charles and Mary, instead of Emily Barton, reading the -tomb-stones, looking up at the great iron figures of St. Dunstan’s -Church,[132] or talking over their first visit to Mackery End (too long -ago for Charles to remember); Mary at Blakesmoor with the old lady who -had “no other chronology to reckon by than in the recollection of what -carpet, what sofa cover, what set of chairs were in the frame at that -time”. Or John Lamb, the father, taking a walk to the Lincolnshire -village, “just to see how _goodness thrived_.”[133] - - * * * * * - -Ann and Jane Taylor cherished ideals clearer and much simpler than -the Lambs. They had no tragedy to darken their youth; the struggle -with poverty (very real at first) was lightened by the cheerful -co-operation of a whole family. They were all engaged upon the father’s -craft of engraving; they all (father, brothers, sisters, even the -mother) wrote.[134] They were “directed” (a phrase of their own) by -an unquestioning religious faith which simplified and solved all -the problems of life. The narrowing influence of the village was -counteracted by breadth of intellect and by individual genius. There -was, of course, nothing to supply the generous education of London life, -or the exquisite literary discernment of the Lambs; but Jane Taylor -showed, even in her books for children, a power of enjoyment and a sense -of humour that is sometimes associated with intensely serious beliefs. -She was untouched by popular philosophy, and adhered to the literary -traditions of the school of Pope; but the world of the spirit was more -real to her than earth itself; her work has rare qualities of spiritual -insight and imagination. - -This does not apply, of course, to the simple rhymes which were the -sisters’ first literary venture. Mary Lamb could make waistcoats while -she was “plotting new work to succeed the Tales”. The intricate process -of engraving demanded more attention. They were not free till eight -o’clock, and had household duties besides; but, as Ann says, “a flying -thought could be caught even in the midst of work, or a fancy ‘pinioned’ -to a piece of waste paper.” - -Some of the rhymes (there is more to be said of them) were written too -easily or too hastily to be of much account, but there are points in -favour of a method that makes writing a relaxation, and allows no time -for second thoughts. - -The _Original Poems_[135] have a spontaneity and freshness that take a -small child at once. The sisters never lost the secret of writing for -children, because they could always think with them. Ann, the eldest, -had mothered the family, and afterwards brought up a family of her own; -yet she wrote at _eighty_: “The feeling of being a grown woman, to say -nothing of an _old_ woman, does not come naturally to me”. - -Many writers (especially moralists) try to hold a child’s attention -beyond its power. Jane Taylor in this, as in other matters, understands -her audience. - -“I try to conjure up some child into my presence, address her suitably, -as well as I am able, and when I begin to flag, I say to her, ‘_There, -love, now you may go_.’” - -Jane was the genius of the family. “Dear Jane had no need to borrow, what -I could ill afford to lose,” said the gentle Ann, of some good thing -which had been attributed to her brilliant sister. - -The habit of “castle-building” caused Jane many heart-searchings. She was -as stern with herself as Bunyan; she magnified all her little failings -(or supposed failings) into sins. “I know I have sometimes lived so much -in a _castle_ as almost to forget that I lived in a _house_, and while I -have been carefully arranging aerial matters _there_, have left all my -solid business in disorder _here_.” - -It was absurd, of course, to accuse a Taylor of disorder; but the -distrust of imagination was characteristic. She valued imagination only -so far as it interpreted spiritual truth. The great difference between -Jane Taylor and the realists was that her reality had no connection with -materialism. To her, the life of the spirit was the greatest reality. A -thing was real or unreal according to its intrinsic worth. Her sharpest -satire was poured upon the material benevolence of philosophy, “_the -light of Nature-boasting man_”, or the poet who could - - “Pluck a wild Daisy, moralise on that - And drop a tear for an expiring gnat.” - -True benevolence, so her creed ran, - - “... rises energetic to perform - The hardest task, or face the rudest storm.” - -Duty and sacrifice are her watchwords. The search for happiness brings -only “The lessons taught at Disappointment’s knee.” Earth is wonderful, -but men misuse it, seeking worthless things in their madness; yet: - - “The soul—perhaps in silence of the night - Has flashes, transient intervals of light; - When things to come without a shade of doubt - In terrible reality stand out. - ... - These are the moments when the mind is sane.” - -_The Essays in Rhyme_[136] are for grown-up readers, but they state with -perfect clearness the ideals that inspired her work for children. - -Under the pseudonym of “Q. Q.”, Jane Taylor contributed for six years to -the _Youths’ Magazine_,[137] and her best pieces (afterwards collected) -were “for children or men.” - -“_The young are new to themselves; and all that surrounds them is novel._” - -“Q. Q.” gives them short moral tales, full of point and humour: really -“entertaining” moral tales, and brilliant little character-studies. They -read, and begin to know themselves. She introduces them to “Persons -of Consequence” (one, “little Betsy Bond, daughter of John Bond, the -journeyman Carpenter”). She sets forth a contrast: the old Philosopher, -so wise that he is humble, and the Young Lady, just leaving School, who -considers herself “not only perfectly accomplished but also thoroughly -well-informed”; or the two brothers, one of whom writes a clever essay on -self-denial, while the other practises it. Youth is left to judge between -them. - -The most arresting of these “Contributions”, “How it strikes a Stranger”, -inspired Browning’s poem “The Star of my God Rephan.” A stranger from -another planet, finding himself upon Earth, is filled with interest and -wonder at what he sees. He enters readily into the pleasures of the new -life, and remains thoughtlessly happy till he is faced with the unknown -fact of death. - -They refer him to the priests for an explanation. - -“How!” he replies, “then I cannot have understood you; do the priests -only die? Are not you to die also?” When he understands, he regards -death as a privilege and refuses to do anything “inconsistent with his -_real interests_.” The Adventure is described with a wonderful force of -imagination; but the lesson strikes upon youthful ears like the voice in -_Everyman_: - - “Everyman, stand still. Whither art thou going, - Thus gaily?” - -Some, not yet ripe for this encounter, would turn for comfort to the -bright and imaginative “Life of a Looking Glass,” and revive their more -childish interest in the “adventures of things”. - -The Glass, “being naturally of a reflecting cast,” would catch, but not -hold the restless attention of very little persons. It was for those past -the stage of actual belief in talking things, who came back to it with a -new perception of imaginative correspondences. - -The tranquil passage of the story (so perfectly adapted to the “speaker”) -is broken now and then by a flash of wit. There is nothing extraordinary -about the incidents: that the writer admits; but she never fails “to give -the charm of novelty to things of everyday”, and chooses her pictures not -so much for moral ends as because they would be likely to persist among -the “reflections” of a looking-glass. - -First, the large spider in the carver and gilder’s workshop “which, -after a vast deal of scampering about, began very deliberately to weave -a curious web” all over the face of the glass, affording it “great -amusement.” There is something in the responsive brightness of the -thing that gives immediate sanction to the idea of its being _amused_. -Then, the lively apprentice who gave it “a very significant look”, which -it took at the time for a compliment to itself. And then a succession -of images in quick movement reflected from a London Street. “The -good-looking people always seemed the best pleased with me”, it remarks, -with a sly gleam, “which I attributed to their superior discernment.” - -After this, the scene changes to one of almost lifeless calm; the “best -parlour of a country house, whose Master and Mistress see no company -except at Fair time and Christmas Day.” - -“Perhaps I should have experienced some dismay”, remarks the glass, “if I -could have known that I was destined to spent _fifty years_ in that spot.” - -The younger the reader, the more endless such an interval would seem; -yet if any had patience to follow the tale at its own pace, they might -enjoy the fashion of that parlour: the old chairs and tables, the Dutch -tiles with stories in them, that surrounded the grate, and the pattern -of the paper hangings “which consisted alternately of a parrot, a poppy -and a shepherdess—a parrot, a poppy and a shepherdess”. The repeated -phrase suggests the length of days. “The room being so little used, the -window-shutters were rarely opened; but there were three holes cut in -each, in the shape of a heart, through which, day after day and year -after year, I used to watch the long dim dusty sunbeams streaming across -the dark parlour.” - -Youth cannot wait for description, but these words translate themselves -into light and shade. - -Here is the mistress of that parlour, ready dressed for church on a -Sunday morning, trotting in upon her high-heeled shoes, unfolding a -leaf of the shutters and standing straight before the looking-glass. -She turns half round to the right and left to see if the corner of her -well-starched kerchief is pinned exactly in the middle. The glass has -turned portrait painter. “I think I can see her now”, it says, “in her -favourite dove-coloured lustring (which she wore every Sunday in every -Summer for seven years at the least) and her long full ruffles and worked -apron”. Then follows the master, who, though his visit was somewhat -shorter, never failed to come and settle his Sunday wig before the glass. - -Thus half a century goes by, with the imperceptible movement from youth -to age. The glass is reset in a gilt frame to suit the fashion of new -times; once more it reflects young faces and vibrates with the laughter -of youth. - -Jane Taylor could be didactic on principle, but she was a true artist and -knew that virtue is best recommended by its visible effects. - -The looking-glass, “incapable of misrepresentation,” cannot help -showing errors and vanities; but having acquired “considerable skill in -physiognomy”, discovers more than the mere outside. Its last study is -almost a “Character”: - -“There was, of course, in a few years, some little alteration, but -although the bloom of youth began to fade, there was nothing less of -sweetness, cheerfulness and contentment in her expression. She retained -the same placid smile, the same unclouded brow, the same mildness in her -eye (though it was somewhat less sparkling) as when it first beamed upon -me ten years before.” - -This is the Princess of the Moral Tale. She gives a last glance at the -looking-glass in her bridal dress, and leaves it to its memories. - -“Sometimes my dear mistress’s favourite cat will steal in as though in -quest of her; leap up upon the table and sweep her long tail across my -face; then, catching a glimpse of me, jump down again and run out as -though she was frightened.” - -There is no “moral”, only this epilogue in dumb-show to repeat the theme -of change. - -The humour of the looking-glass has an undersense of pathos; but this -is not the pathos of _Mrs. Leicester’s School_. It would touch a child -directly, like a picture without words. - -Books had no more to do with Jane Taylor’s love of Nature than with her -understanding of her fellow creatures. She looked out of a diamond-paned -window upon quiet Essex fields and “a tract of sky”.[138] The sky, always -the most beautiful thing in a flat country, was to her more productive -than the soil of the realists. But she loved gardens too, and caught the -individuality of flowers. Ann’s _Wedding Among the Flowers_[139] is less -amusing than Jane’s “fable” of the envious weed that shoots up till it -overtops the fence, and then, provoked by the beauty of the flowers in -the next garden, twists the chief beauty of each into a defect: - - “Well, ’tis enough to make one chilly - To see that pale consumptive lily - Among these painted folks. - Miss Tulip, too, looks wondrous odd, - She’s gaping like a dying cod; - What a queer stick is Golden-Rod! - And how the violet pokes!” - -Flowers are _persons_ to Jane Taylor. She loves them as friends: “the -good, gay and well-dressed company which a little flower garden displays”. - -“Science has succeeded to poetry,” said Lamb. Jane Taylor did not think -them incompatible. Her “old retired gentleman” could look at his garden -from two points of view: - - “a part of the pleasure which now in my old age I derive from - my flowers arises, I am conscious, from the distant yet vivid - remembrance they recall of similar scenes and pleasures of my - childhood. My paternal garden seems still to me _like enchanted - ground_, and its flowers like the flowers of Paradise. I shall - never see the like again, vain as I am of my gardening! Those - were _poetry_, these are botany!”[140] - -Imaginative power in the Taylors illuminated their religious conceptions. -In Mrs. Sherwood,[141] it struggled against the formulæ of rigid -doctrine. From six to thirteen, she learned her lessons standing in -the stocks with an _iron collar_ round her neck. When it was taken off -(seldom, she says, till late in the evening), she would run for half a -mile through the woods, as if trying to overtake her lost playtime. It -says much for the quick recoveries of youth that she was a happy child. -Stanford Rectory, where she spent her “golden age”, was surrounded by -woods and hills that seem to have become a part of her before the iron -collar was imposed. She built huts and made garlands with her brother; -they acted fairy tales in the woods: tales of “dragons, enchanters and -queens”. She remembered her mother teaching them to read from “a book -where there was a picture of a white horse feeding by moonlight”, a print -of pure romance. She remembered the wonder-tales told on dark winter -evenings by “a person vastly pleasant to children” who came across the -park “in a great bushy wig, a shovel hat, and a cravat tied like King -William’s bib”. - -And yet, when she began to write books for children, after some years of -married life in India, she put on an iron collar of her own accord, to -set forth the dire consequences of Original Sin. When (perhaps late in a -chapter) she took it off, her imagination could conjure up no fairies; -but working upon the memories of her own childhood, it brought life into -the tale. - -Mrs. Sherwood wrote an extraordinary number of children’s books; many -were published by Houlston the Quaker as chap-books.[142] The sternest -and most uncompromising dogmatism cannot crush the life out of them, -nor weaken the vivid pictures they contain. Her first journey across -the hills to Lichfield, when she was a child of four, had made a deeper -impression on her mind than all her Indian travels. She had fresher -memories of the English hills than of “the Indian Caucasus hanging as -brilliant clouds on the horizon”. The quiet inland life that is the chief -matter of her autobiography[143] is reflected in most of her stories. She -is not concerned with any wider interests; great events pass unnoticed, -as they do in some nurseries; but whenever Mrs. Sherwood remembers her -Doctrines, she goes back to the Warnings and Examples of the seventeenth -century. There is a grim shadow on her nursery wall, and in the midst -of the most innocent employments, her little people shrink and cower. -This spectre stood over her when she tampered with a book which children -of all ages understand and enjoy. She accepted _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ -as a part of her creed; her knowledge of it accounts for the fine -simplicity of her style. Yet in her _Infant’s Progress from the Valley -of Destruction to Everlasting Glory_,[144] there is not a giant nor a -castle to atone for her bane on “toys” which the strictest philosopher -would pass as harmless and instructive. Her poor little pilgrim suffers -a martyrdom of denial in a juvenile Vanity Fair: - -“Then I saw that certain of these teachers of vanities came and spread -forth their toys before Humble Mind, to wit, pencils, and paints, maps -and drawings, _pagan poems_ and _fabulous histories_, musical instruments -of various kinds, with all the gaudy fripperies of modern learning.” - -Some of these things had been the delight of Mrs. Sherwood’s youth; but -in her passion for dogma, she forgot the white horse and the fairy tales, -and persuaded herself that an iron collar was the only protection against -vanity. - -Her adaptation of Sarah Fielding’s _Governess_[145] shows the same -Puritan intolerance. The book had been in her own nursery library, along -with _Margery Two-Shoes_, _Robinson Crusoe_ and “two sets of fairy -tales.” Yet she expurgated all but one of the “moral” fairy tales allowed -by Mrs. Teachum, and inserted in their place “such appropriate relations -as seemed more likely to conduce to juvenile edification.” - -It is likely (and for her children’s sake to be hoped) that Mrs. -Sherwood’s practice was kinder and more cheerful than her precepts. _The -Fairchild Family_,[146] the best known, and the best of her books, is -full of interest and reality; and in this, the setting is her home and -the persons are her own children. - -To enjoy it, a child must skip solid pages of doctrine, and would do well -besides to skip most of the stories read by the Fairchild Family out of -little gilt books which “the good-natured John” brought them from the -Fair. - -These were chap-books, but of a sort only less forbidding than those the -pedlar carried in Puritan days. John gave the largest to Lucy and the -other to Emily. “‘Here is two pennyworth, and there is three pennyworth,’ -said he. - -‘My book,’ said Emily, ‘is the History of the _Orphan Boy_![147], and -there are a great many pictures in it; the first is the picture of a -funeral.’ - -‘Let me see, let me see!’ said Henry, ‘_oh, how pretty!_’” - -Late editors flinch at the inhumanity of the punishments, and usually -omit the gibbet story which, at the outset, throws a horrible shadow -on the book. There has been a quarrel in the nursery; the children are -penitent, they have been forgiven; but Mr. Fairchild deems it necessary -to give them a concrete illustration of the fate of one who has failed -to control his passions. He takes them to “Blackwood” (so far off that -little Henry has to be carried) and shows them the body of a murderer -hanging from a gibbet. “_The face of the corpse was so shocking that the -children could not look upon it_”. - -It is to be supposed that children who survived this kind of treatment -could be happy, since there was little left to excite their terror. -Henry, when he steals a forbidden apple, is threatened with fire and -brimstone and locked up in a dark room. The very frightfulness of all -this would defeat its end, for if a child could live through it, and look -up the next morning at an unclouded sky, or take his part in the cheerful -concerns of men, the thing would come, in time, to have no meaning for -him. It is clear that this happened with the Fairchild Family. They act -and talk (save when they are made the mouthpieces of older persons) -like healthy and ordinary children. They even dare to be naughty in an -ordinary way. No sooner are Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild called away from -home, than original sin begins to assert itself. This chapter is “_On the -Constant Bent of Man’s Heart towards Sin_”. - -Emily and Lucy play in bed instead of getting up: “Emily made babies of -the pillows, and Lucy pulled off the sheets and tied them round her, in -imitation of Lady Noble’s long-trained gown.” There is no encouragement -for the dramatic games of children, any more than for dancing, in Mrs. -Sherwood’s books. - -Then Henry announces hot buttered toast for breakfast; they hurry down -“without praying, washing themselves, combing their hair, making their -bed, or doing any one thing they ought to have done.” - -After breakfast they take out their books, but they have eaten so much -that they “cannot learn with any pleasure”. A quarrel is checked by -Henry’s discovery of a little pig in the garden. The three at once give -chase. Another “juvenile” _Pilgrim’s Progress_, this: - -“Now, there was a place where a spring ran across the lane, over which -was a narrow bridge, for the use of people walking that way. Now the pig -did not stand to look for the bridge, but went splash, splash, through -the midst of the water; and after him went Henry, Lucy and Emily, though -they were up to their knees in mud and dirt.” Mrs. Sherwood had caught -the live clearness of Bunyan’s pictures. - -A neighbour (one of the unregenerate, whom the children have been -forbidden to visit) kindly dries their clothes; she also regales them -with cider, “and as they were never used to drink anything but water, it -made them quite tipsy for a little while.” - -The good-natured John, discovering their condition, calls them “naughty -rogues”. He gives them dinner and ties them to their chairs, but -afterwards relents and allows them to play in the barn, where he thinks -they can do no more mischief. Here they let down a swing which they are -only supposed to play with when Papa is present; Emily falls out of it -and narrowly escapes being killed. - -At this point Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild quite unexpectedly come home. The -children fall upon their knees and fade once more into unreality. - -Thus Mrs. Sherwood replaces the iron collar after her bursts of freedom. -It is hardly a disguise. It does not change her personality, it simply -keeps her rigid. - -Even Mrs. Fairchild had enjoyed some interludes; but that was when she -was little and naughty. She actually confessed to her Family that “a -little girl employed about the house” had tempted her on one occasion _to -climb a cherry-tree_. - -Afterwards her aunts talked to her whilst she cried very much. “Think -of the shame and disgrace”, said they, “of climbing trees in such low -company, after all the care and pains we have taken and the delicate -manner in which we have reared you!” - -But she also remembered and quoted the words of that “little girl -employed about the house”: - -“Oh, Miss, Miss! I can see from where I am all the town and both the -churches, and here is such plenty of cherries! Do come up!” - -This is a prose foretaste of _The Child’s Garden_. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -MISS EDGEWORTH’S TALES FOR CHILDREN - - Life at Edgeworthstown—Educational adventures—_Practical - Education_—First stories—_The Parent’s Assistant_—New - elements—“Waste Not, Want Not”: the Geometric - plot—“Little plays”—Settings of the tales—Practical - interests—Characters—“Little touches”—_Early Lessons_—“The - Purple Jar”—_Harry and Lucy_—“Nonsense in season”—_Moral - Tales_—Qualities of Miss Edgeworth’s tales—“_La triste - utilité_”—The Edgeworth fairy—Dr. Johnson as the fairies’ - champion—Miss Edgeworth and her predecessors—The magic of - science and life. - - -Maria Edgeworth was sixteen years old when her father brought her to his -Irish estate of Edgeworthstown.[148] Her childhood had been full of quiet -preoccupations, and it argues much for the impersonal methods of Mr. Day -that, although he had grounded her in Rousseau’s theory, she was in no -way dominated by it. - -At Edgeworthstown, her ideas were brought into wholesome touch with -reality. The life was almost adventurous after those quiet years in -Oxfordshire and London. Her father gave her a real share in managing the -estate and she was soon acquainted with many sides of Irish character; -but all her affections and interests were centred in the family, and in -this lay the secret of her power as a writer of children’s books. - -Mr. Edgeworth had brought up his eldest boy upon Rousseau’s exact plan, -a more unfortunate experiment than Mr. Day’s; for this child of Nature -would neither teach himself nor learn from others; but his brothers and -sisters gained more than he lost by it: the system was modified for -them, and Emile’s solitary employments found a place among the cheerful -occupations of a big family. - -The children were so happy and so busy that Mr. Edgeworth could say in a -letter to Dr. Darwin: - -“I do not think one tear per month is shed in this house, nor the voice -of reproof heard, nor the hand of restraint felt”. - -He encouraged Maria to record their educational adventures, and her own -translation of _Adèle et Théodore_[149] may have suggested the idea of a -book. The two volumes of _Practical Education_, published in 1798, with -the names of Richard Lovell and Maria Edgeworth on the title page, mark -the beginning of the long partnership which she called “the joy and pride -of my life”. - -What her books might have been without her father’s influence may be -conjectured from what they are; this is truer of the children’s books -than of the novels. She had no need of theory. Clear intelligence, warm -and ready sympathies, carried her straight to the centres of childish -thought. A little brother, Henry, had been her especial charge, and from -him she learned what might have escaped her in the general business of -the family. - -She scribbled her first stories on a slate, read them to the children -and altered them to suit their taste. Those they liked best were -printed in 1796 at Mr. Edgeworth’s suggestion,[150] and when the little -outside public called for more, fresh stories were produced on the same -co-operative plan and published in the six volumes of 1800. - -“The stories are printed and bound the same size as _Evenings at Home_,” -wrote Miss Edgeworth to her cousin (Feb. 27, 1796), “but I am afraid you -will dislike the title; my father had sent _The Parent’s Friend_, but Mr. -Johnson has degraded it into _The Parent’s Assistant_, which I dislike -particularly from association with an old book of Arithmetic called _The -Tutor’s Assistant_.” - -There is Geometry, if not Arithmetic, in the book. The pattern is -symmetrical: the tales are constructed to fit the morals; but the -Edgeworths recognised the chief faults of didactic books for children, -and made the first definite attempt to deal with them. - -“To prevent the precepts of morality from tiring the ear and the mind”, -says Mr. Edgeworth in the preface, “it was necessary to make the stories -in which they are introduced in some measure dramatic; to keep alive hope -and fear and curiosity by some degree of intricacy.” - -This is the best that can be done where the moral is so explicit; and -the device of intricacy serves to divert attention from a too exact -correspondence between cause and effect. - -In Miss Edgeworth’s clear and well-ordered world the results of choice -and action are inevitable; but her plots (she was the pioneer of plot in -children’s books) involve a puzzle, and in the solution there is always -an element of surprise. - -That Bristol merchant in “Waste Not, Want Not,”[151] who invited his two -nephews to stay with him, in order to decide which of them he should -adopt, bears more than a chance resemblance to Mr. Day. If the two boys -had been girls, the story might have been his own; but in literature, as -in life, Mr. Day was prone to digress; he never could have followed the -relentless order of events from the untying of the two parcels by Hal and -Benjamin (the Merton and Sandford of this drama) to its logical result. -There is a cumulative fatality about this which puts it beyond question. - -No sooner has the inconsequent Hal watched the careful untying of Ben’s -parcel, and cut the whipcord of his own “precipitately in sundry places” -than the uncle gives them each a top. - -“And now” (a child never could resist the interruption). “And now, _he -won’t have any string for his top_!” - -The improvident one, however, finds a way out by spinning it with his -hat-string (the consequence of this is deferred); and then, after -whipping the banisters aimlessly with the cut string, drops it upon -the stairs. Little Patty, his cousin, running downstairs with his -pocket-handkerchief (which he is in too desperate a hurry to fetch -himself), falls down a whole flight of stairs; and the assiduous Ben, -hunting for her lost shoe, finds it _sticking in a loop of whipcord_. - -For a time, the string theme is allowed to drop, but it comes up again as -a chief agent of the catastrophe. Hal, on his way to the Archery-meeting -stoops to pick up his ball and loses his hat. (“The string, as we may -recollect, our wasteful hero had used in spinning his top”.). Running -down the hill after it, he falls prostrate in his green and white uniform -into a treacherous bed of red mud, and becomes the laughing-stock of his -companions. - -Last and bitterest of all, he sees his prudent cousin replace a cracked -bow-string and win the contest by drawing from his pocket “an excellent -piece of whipcord”. Not a reader but echoes, with additions, the -unfortunate Hal’s exclamation: “_The everlasting whipcord, I declare!_” - -This single strand goes in and out with the shuttle-motion of a nursery -rhyme: - - _This is the string that Hal cut._ - _These are the Stairs_ - _That lay under the String_ - _That Hal cut._ - _This is the Child_ - _That fell over the Stairs—etc._ - -With it are interwoven character-incidents that echo the title-motto and -harp on the note of Rousseau and Henry Brooke: the choice of the two boys -between a warm great-coat and a green and white uniform, which culminates -with perfect logic in Ben’s loan of the despised coat to cover Hal’s -spoilt finery; and the minor choice between queen-cakes and keeping one’s -halfpence to give to a beggar. - -It is the strong point of Miss Edgeworth’s contrasts that her bad -children are never attractive, and her good ones hardly ever impossible. - -Hal is no villain; but there is no glamour about his naughtiness: he -is greedy and boastful as well as improvident; a child is not moved to -emulate him. The real villains are dishonest or cruel or insolent, never -simply thoughtless or self-willed. - -But the good children are a positive triumph. Only Miss Edgeworth could -make a boy live that untied knots to save string, chose an overcoat -instead of a gay uniform and had money to spare for good works. This Ben -is as natural as his pleasure-loving cousin. - -The moral, for all its insistence, never hides a picture: the house, the -Bristol streets and shops, the scene in the Cathedral, where they listen -to a robin that has lived there for so many years; and Ben and his uncle -admire the stained-glass windows, but Hal looks bored. These are drawn to -the life. - -“_Cannot one see a uniform and a Cathedral both in one morning?_” - -Every other boy in the Edgeworth family was a Ben, and would endorse this -catholicity of interest. - -It is odd that Miss Edgeworth’s “little plays”[152] should be among the -least dramatic of her works. They were, in fact, stories dramatised to -fit the family “_théâtre d’éducation_,” and the dramatist, intent upon -her lesson, trusted her little company to create their parts. The link -with Madame de Genlis is of the slightest, for although the Edgeworth -children were being educated more or less upon the model of St. Leu, -their plays and stories were not in the least like any that Madame de -Genlis had written. - -To Miss Edgeworth, truth was the first law of writing, and she must have -felt the want of sincerity that came between Madame de Genlis and her -books.[153] - -Her own stories are essentially dramatic; there is life in every word -of dialogue,—but the characters need no artificial light. A painted -background was a poor substitute for her usual settings, villages that -rang with the sounds of honest labour, fields and orchards full of -children: a realist’s Arcadia. - -The little town of Somerville (in “The White Pigeon”), which in a few -years had “assumed the neat and cheerful appearance of an English -village”, is in fact a picture of Edgeworthstown. It is only when the -writer allows her characters to stray outside the bounds of her own -knowledge that the scenery begins to shake. Her school stories would -hardly convince an outsider;[154] the Neapolitan setting of “The Little -Merchants” is ludicrously out of keeping with so moral a community. - -But all this is nothing to a child. His interest centres round the -objects that make pictures in the mind, the business he can imitate. - -Berquin understood the practical interests of children, but he had not -Miss Edgeworth’s keen eye for things that “draw”. The purple jar in the -chemists’ window, the coloured sugar-plums of the little merchants, the -green and white uniform. Berquin’s children were never so independent -as these. His orphans were adopted; Miss Edgeworth’s keep house by -themselves in a ruined castle, and ply their trades of knitting and -spinning and shoe-making with the rhythm of a singing game. The finding -of a treasure among the ruins is a freak of romance that holds the -imagination even while the coins are being weighed and marked. - -Goody Grope, the old treasure-seeker who demands her share of the -orphans’ luck, is the only Irish study, but other characters would -connect these stories, if they were not so frankly acknowledged, with the -author of _Castle Rackrent_ and _The Absentee_: Mrs. Pomfret, that lesser -Malaprop, with her “_Villaintropic Society_” and “_drugs and refugees_”; -Mrs. Theresa Tattle; Mademoiselle Panache, the milliner-governess, -betrayed by her mouthful of pins. - -Emma and Helen Temple,[155] drawn without reference to a System, and left -to develop each in her own way, would pass for sedate and early types of -“Sense and Sensibility”; it pleased Miss Edgeworth the better that she -could allow a measure of sense to Sensibility. - -She has many variants of these types: the wise sister and playful -brother; the well-informed brother with a thoughtless sister, the wise -or thoughtless one with a foolish or a prudential family. Not one of -them is quite like any other. Nobody could mistake Laura, Rosamond’s -good sister[156] for the equally sensible Sophy, sister to Frederick and -Marianne.[157] - -Rosamond, with her filigree basket, would have repeated the lesson of -Charlotte and the watch, but unlike Charlotte, she made the useless -thing as a birthday present for somebody else. The worst that can be -said of Miss Edgeworth’s young people is that they sometimes (from the -very reasonableness of their up-bringing) assume an attitude of “civil -contempt” towards ordinary folk. They understand too soon the dangers -that arise in education from a bad servant or a silly governess, and -are too fond of arguments and encyclopædias. These are annoying traits -in otherwise natural and pleasant persons, for although they are prigs -in matters of knowledge or conscience, they have a very sound sense of -values and can even be merry when it is not unreasonable to laugh. - -Sir Walter Scott said that Miss Edgeworth was “best in the little -touches.”[158] Children always find this out. They love the robin that -sings in the Cathedral, the child that shared her bread and milk with the -pig, the “little breathless girl” who ran back to thank Simple Susan for -the double cowslips and violets, crying, “_Kiss me quick, for I shall be -left behind_.” - -The smallest parts are played in character, in spite of the didactic -purpose and the clock-work plot. This story of “Simple Susan” is not -unlike a Kilner pastoral; but the colours are fresher, the lines more -definite. - -“When the little girl parts with her lamb” said Scott, “and the little -boy brings it back to her, there is nothing for it but just to put down -the book and cry.” - -But perhaps his great love of children made him read more pathos into the -story than is actually there. Few readers cry over these tales. They -reflect the temper of the Edgeworth family. - -_Early Lessons_[159] records the schooling of these children. Maria had -scarcely discovered “the warmth and pleasure of invention” when her -father recalled her to the Schoolroom. She set about straightening her -bright intricate patterns to make reading books for the little ones, much -as Dr. Primrose’s daughters cut up their trains into Sunday waistcoats -for Dick and Bill. - -To turn from the _Parent’s Assistant_ to _Early Lessons_ is to agree with -Byron that there ought to have been a Society for the Suppression of Mr. -Edgeworth. - -And yet there is something to be said for these chosen and deliberate -little scenes. Acquaintance prospers where there is no plot-interest -to engross attention. The “little boy whose name was Frank” steps as -naturally into the story as he would into a familiar room. He is so -obviously a real little boy that it is even possible to believe in his -virtues: - -“When his father or mother said to him, ‘Frank, shut the door,’ he ran -directly and shut the door. When they said to him ‘Frank, do not touch -that knife,’ he took his hands away from the knife, and did not touch it. -He was an obedient little boy.” - -There is something arresting in this. - -Frank’s doings and his sayings are a model of simplicity; but nobody -could say of him what Charles Lamb said of Mrs. Barbauld’s little boys. -As surely as any critic is disposed to laugh at Frank, he finds himself -watching with involuntary interest while Frank pulls the leg of the -table, and finds out what would have happened to the tea-cups if he had -not been such “an obedient little boy”. His adventures, moreover, are -not all among the tea-cups. He is interested in a carpenter and in -kites, and he has a more than usually good eye for a horse. What really -distresses the reader is that he is never allowed out of school; his -most casual experience contributes to his mental and moral advancement. -Chestnuts, glow-worms, the flame of a candle and other enchanting things -are impounded for object lessons. Frank’s father and mother are his -tutor and governess; the only poetry they mete out to him comes from Dr. -Darwin’s _Botanic Garden_[160], and is “correlated” to Natural History; -and after that it has to be explained. For when Dr. Darwin sings of a -moth’s “trunk”, little Frank understands by that “a sort of box”; when -his mother repeats: - - “Alight, ye beetles, from your airy rings”, - -he asks (not without reason) “What does that mean, mamma?” But the -explanation would have come without asking. The Governess is giving a -lesson, the tutor is at her elbow; and because you should never laugh in -lessons, it is all rather serious. - -But here, as in every school, are the children; the rest hardly counts. -Here, for example, when a child has made friends with Frank, is Rosamond, -who will make him forget all these lessons. - -Readers of _The Parent’s Assistant_ had met her before, with a filigree -basket. Here she is again, “about seven years old”, walking with her -mother in the London streets, a very figure of childhood. - -The mother disposes one by one of her bright interests: The toys (“_all_ -of them”), the roses in the milliner’s window, the “pretty baubles” in -the jeweller’s shop. And then: - -“‘Oh mother! oh!’ cried she, pulling her mother’s hand; ‘Look, look! -blue, green, red, yellow and purple! O mamma, what beautiful things! -Won’t you buy some of these?’” (It was a chemist’s shop, but Rosamond did -not know that.) - -Her mother answered, as before: - -“What use would they be of to me, Rosamond?” It is the purple jar that -takes the child’s fancy. Driven to invent a _use_ for it, she thinks she -could use it for a flower pot, but that was no part of her desire. - -The story of Rosamond and the Purple Jar was meant to celebrate the usual -triumph of the Perfect Parent; but every child knows it is Rosamond who -triumphs; and this is the point where the Perfect Parent makes her first -mistake. She does not warn Rosamond, she only _hints_: - -“Perhaps, if you were to see it nearer, if you were to examine it, you -might be disappointed”. - -Now, Frank had his chance. They took away the tea-cups before he let down -that table-leaf. But nobody helps Rosamond. The little reader follows, -in close sympathy, as she goes on unwillingly, keeping her head turned -“to look at the purple Vase till she could see it no longer”. And as she -goes, it transpires that her shoes “are quite worn out”. That it should -come to this, points to some pre-arrangement by the Perfect Parent. The -occasion presents a unique opportunity for choice: - -“Well, which would you rather have, that jar or a pair of shoes?” The -parental Economist cannot buy both; she makes Rosamond understand that -she will not have another pair of shoes that month. - -Thus the purple jar repeats the theme of the filigree basket and the -green and white uniform. - -What Rosamond was never told, and what she could not reasonably have -been expected to deduce, was that the beautiful purple colour was not -in the glass. A child cannot forgive injustice; all Rosamond’s friends -(and all children are her friends) cry out that it “wasn’t fair”. They -all say, “She wouldn’t have chosen the jar if she had _known_”; and -they are right. But the story goes on relentless. Rosamond, sweet and -unquestioning, survives the whole painful experience and hopes at the end -of it that she will be “wiser another time”; but the Perfect Parent has -lost all the prestige she ever had with children. She lost it before her -callous and unintelligent question, “Why should you cry, my dear?” But -that sealed her fate. - -“I _love_ Rosamond”, said a little twentieth-century girl, not long ago, -“but, oh, how I _hate_ that mother!” - -Miss Edgeworth drew none of her portraits from a single original; but she -often sat to herself for some part of them, and at least one likeness was -recognised by the family. Writing in her sixtieth year to her aunt, of -the “great progress” she is resolved to make, she adds: “‘_Rosamond at -sixty_,’ says Margaret.” - - * * * * * - -_Harry and Lucy_, begun by Mr. Edgeworth and continued at intervals with -Maria’s help, was finished by her in 1825[161]. The four volumes, she -says, complete the series of “Early Lessons”, in which Harry and Lucy had -already figured; but although her drawings of the two children add colour -to the book, it is really an oblation, on Mr. Edgeworth’s behalf, to the -Giant Instruction. - -At this stage, it is true, there is a laboratory as well as a museum in -the giant’s castle; he can illustrate the marvels of steam and suggest -experiments with electricity. Yet this is only a more practical Circle -of the Sciences. The children’s voices are trained to the question -and answer of a “Guide to Knowledge”; their lives are marked off in -lesson-periods. Even when a dull journey offers the means of escape, -these little captives hug their chains. They never travel without books, -and when there is nothing to observe from the carriage windows, they -find education in the forests of the Oroonoko, where the plague of flies -affords “an inexhaustible subject of conversation.” - -The “Grand Panjandrum” could never come better than into this juvenile -Cyclopædia.[162] - -Mr. Foote’s “droll nonsense” pleases Miss Edgeworth chiefly because it -was invented to test a man’s memory; yet she can tolerate nonsense, at -any rate when there is no danger of its being confused with sense. - -They are all there: “the Picninnies and the Joblillies and the Garyulies, -and the Grand Panjandrum himself with the little round button at top.” -Lucy laughs and enjoys it, Harry calls it “horrible nonsense”; but their -father’s opinion is final, and Miss Edgeworth agrees with him: - -“It is sweet to talk nonsense in season. Always sense would make Jack a -dull boy.” - - * * * * * - -The didactic purpose, which hampers the story-teller at every turn, -becomes more irksome as an audience passes from childhood into youth. -Fixed patches of light and shade appear unnatural; the critical eyes of -youth are open to devices that passed unnoticed in the nursery. - -Miss Edgeworth’s _Moral Tales_, “for young people of a more advanced -age”,[163] followed Marmontel into his own province; but Marmontel drew -his lessons from the world as he found it; Miss Edgeworth fits her world -to her father’s theories. - -Here again she has admirable portraits: the Quixotic Forester, a new and -convincing likeness of Thomas Day; Angelina, that mirror of “romantic -eccentricities”; Mademoiselle Panache, little changed since her first -appearance, but here balanced by a “good French Governess”. The -unconscious satire of Lady Catherine is twice barbed: - -“I don’t want to trouble you to alter his habits or to teach him -chemistry or _any of those things_.” - -Yet here, as in _Early Lessons_, the persons walk gingerly, after the -manner of Berquin’s little boy who kept the skirts of his coat under his -arms, “for fear of doing any damage to the flowers”. The paths of the -Edgeworth garden are purposely narrowed that their doings may “neither -dissipate the attention nor inflame the imagination.” - -Miss Edgeworth’s books fitted into her busy life as a natural occupation -for long evenings. She wrote in the common sitting-room with the family -about her, not one of them under any constraint, but talking freely, as -if she had been sewing instead of novel-writing. It was characteristic of -her that she could turn to children’s books in the midst of the Defender -troubles. An Irish rising claimed no more attention than the play and -laughter of the children. She could refer to it in a letter, and pass -on to the next domestic detail without wasting a moment in “useless -reflection”. That is precisely the mood of her stories. The _Moral -Tales_, addressed to an emotional age, do not merely ignore the common -forms of “Sensibility”; they take no account whatever of the stronger -affections and more vigorous manifestations of life: a thing scarcely -tolerable to generous youth. In the nursery books, this equanimity has -its uses. It enables her to deal with one thing at a time, to select from -a mass of details the particular things that a child would waste time in -choosing. Nothing worries or puzzles her; she sees the world in clear -and simple pictures, and reduces the inconsequent thoughts of children to -a relentless order. - -Her little figures stand out in firm outline and bright colour, and the -background is interesting chiefly as it gives occupation or the means of -life. - -Madame de Staël was thinking of the _Tales of Fashionable Life_, when she -said: - -“_Vraiment Miss Edgeworth est digne de l’enthousiasm; mais elle se -perd dans votre triste utilité_”[164]. But it is not less true of the -children’s books. - -Flowers in Miss Edgeworth’s garden (she is a true lover of flowers) are -beautiful symbols of human care and industry; but they never encroach -upon vegetables. - -Rosamond was a rebel. “Mustard-seed, compared with pinks, carnations, -sweet-peas or sweet-williams, did not quite suit Rosamond’s fancy.”[165] - -Miss Edgeworth had chosen those flowers for Rosamond, but the Perfect -Parent knew better. When the sweet thing planned a labyrinth of Crete -“to go zig-zag—zig-zag” through one of her borders, she was reasoned out -of it for the sake of some little green things that were going to be -mignonette, and when she and Godfrey were thinking of digging a pond, a -shocked voice cried: - -“What! in the midst of your fine bed of turnips?” - -Romance dies hard; but the odds were against Rosamond: - -“And now, Mamma, _lay out_ my garden for me, as Godfrey says, exactly to -your own taste; and I will alter it all to-morrow to please you.” This -would be Emily and her mother over again, if it were not so like Maria -and her father. - - * * * * * - -Dealing with a criticism by her cousin, Colonel Stuart, Miss Edgeworth -wrote: “I _know_ I feel how much _more is to be done, ought to be done_, -by suggestion than by delineation, by creative fancy than by facsimile -copying”; but she wisely stuck to her own method. It is where she touches -the magic circle that she is “spell-stopp’d.” When Laura reads the -fairy-tale to Rosamond (she is only allowed _one_), her passage into an -unreasonable world is marked by a change of diction. The Edgeworth fairy -is “inexpressibly elegant”; her flowing robe is “tinctured with all the -variety of colours that it is possible for nature or art to conceive”. -But there is nothing supernatural about her. She is merely a new specimen -for the Museum, to be “contemplated with attention”, like the others. The -result, recorded in a scientific note, proves her a creature of flesh and -blood: - -“Small though she was, I could distinguish every fold in her garment, -nay, even _every azure vein that wandered beneath her snowy skin_.” - -Dr. Johnson and Miss Edgeworth took opposite sides on this question of -the supernatural; and since experience proves that both were right, both -must have been wrong. - -Mr. Edgeworth attacked the Doctor’s belief that “babies do not want to -hear about babies”, and Maria proved it a fallacy; but neither disposed -of his claim for “somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little -minds.” - -Mr. Edgeworth’s questions are not arguments: “why should the mind be -filled with fantastic visions, instead of useful knowledge? Why should so -much valuable time be lost? Why should we vitiate their taste and spoil -their appetite, by suffering them to feed upon sweetmeats?”[166] - -Dr. Johnson could have answered him, and perhaps Mr. Edgeworth knew it, -for he adds: - -“_It is to be hoped that the magic of Dr. Johnson’s name will not have -power to restore the reign of fairies._” - -There was no great danger, so long as Miss Edgeworth upheld the republic -of common sense; but when at last she laid down her pen, all the spirits -whose existence she had denied rose up and denounced her ineffectual -successors. - -Thus she brings the first century of children’s books to a natural close. -She gathers up the loose ends of the old stories and weaves them into a -bright and symmetrical design. The pattern is not wholly original: it was -set by Marmontel, followed by Berquin, attempted by Madame de Genlis and -the English Rousseauists; but Miss Edgeworth brought it to perfection, -expressing traditional themes in terms of reason and benevolence. - -The dramatic realism which marks her stories was the keynote of English -ballads and folk-tales; she found a substitute for romance in the -wonders of science. Roger Bacon, that wizard of the chap-books, appears -as a forerunner of the Royal Society. Harry and Lucy know him as the -discoverer of gunpowder, the inventor of the camera obscura, the prophet -of flying-machines.[167] - -In Miss Edgeworth’s tales, science has not merely succeeded to poetry; it -has changed the enchanter’s instruments. The Balloon is the new Pegasus, -or the Flying Horse of the Arabian Tales; the Magician still cries “New -lamps for old;” but it is Davy’s lamp that he carries. - -Rosamond, when she cannot explore the India Cabinet, is encouraged -to look for wonderful things in her own house; which indeed was Miss -Edgeworth’s own practice. Her “Enchanted Castle” was the home of her -aunt, Mrs. Ruxton,[168] and Aboulcasem’s treasure was not more marvellous -to her than a friend’s “inexhaustible fund of kindness and generosity.” - -With the Lilliputians she had more in common than she would have -acknowledged. - -“When I was a child,” wrote Mr. Edgeworth in the third volume of -_Early Lessons_, “I had no resource but Mr. Newbery’s little books and -Mrs. Teachum.”[169] He is too conscious of the superiority of the new -children’s books to do justice to Mistress Two-Shoes; yet she, with her -little scholars and her weather-glass, was Miss Edgeworth’s Lilliputian -prototype. Simple Susan could have compared notes with little Two-Shoes -upon good and bad landlords, and in some of Miss Edgeworth’s stories -there are prudential maxims that recall _Giles Gingerbread_ and _Primrose -Prettyface_. - -Some of Rosamond’s features may be traced in the portraits by Miss -Fielding, the Kilners and Mary Lamb. The quaint miniature of Goody -Two-Shoes has the same grave intelligent look. If this little person, so -wholly unconscious of her charm, can be regarded as an English type, then -Emilie could not have been altogether French. - -Like Madame d’Epinay, Miss Edgeworth let Rousseau’s lifeless image of the -parent or tutor stand between her and her readers. They listened to the -talk of other children, but seldom heard her voice. “Little touches” in -the _Letters_[170] would have made them better acquainted, for here she -spoke freely, showing both tenderness and humour, making adventures of -common incidents,—a journey or a visit to friends. - -“I nearly disgraced myself”, she wrote, after a visit to Cambridge,[171] -“as the company were admiring the front of Emmanuel College, by looking -at a tall man stooping to kiss a little child.” - -This betrays her attitude to art and life. - -If she never understood the “fairy Way of Writing”, it was because -she had built a school upon the fairy circles of her village green. -Her children were so happy in and about the village that they never -discovered an enchanted wood. They planted trees instead of climbing -them; they knew all the roads to Market, but nobody showed them the way -to Fairyland. - -When at last the “reign of fairies” was restored, children burst into -an unknown world of adventure and poetry. Ever since that little boy of -Shenstone’s suffered for love of St. George, the fairies have fought shy -of schools. It remains to be seen whether they will hold their own with -modern pedagogues; but they are still in league with the poets, and the -understanding between them is this: that the child, once having tasted -fairy bread, can spend but half his time upon solid earth. The rest he -must have in the Land of Dreams. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN OF VERSES - - _The Spectator_ on Gardens—“Cones, Globes, and Pyramids”—Good - counsels in rhyme—Verse in the Schoolroom—Didactic rhymes—Dr. - Watts’s _Divine and Moral Songs_—_Puerilia; or, Amusements - for the Young; Gammer Gurton’s Garland_ and _Songs for the - Nursery_—The Sublime Truant—Rules and prescriptions—_Original - Poems for Infant Minds_—The old garden and the new—Jane - Taylor’s verses—_Poetry for Children_, by Charles and Mary - Lamb—_The Butterfly’s Ball_ and other festivals—Miss Turner’s - cautionary rhymes—“Edward, or Rambling Reasoned on”—The triumph - of nonsense and rhythm. - - -“I think there are as many Kinds of Gardening as of Poetry”, wrote the -Spectator. His own garden ran into the “beautiful Wildness of Nature”; he -valued it more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very -frankly gave them fruit for their songs.[172] - -Nature, regarded as a landscape gardener of more than ordinary skill, -was even allowed to work under authority in the domain of poetry; but -she neglected one corner of it, and there the trees were still clipped -after the old fashion into “Cones, Globes, and Pyramids.” This little -fenced-off portion was the eighteenth century Child’s Garden of Verses. -The only way out of it was by a narrow gate in the midst of a Yew hedge, -and of this only good nurses kept the key. - -In the lane outside, the pedlar hawked his wares; the old ballads could -still be heard, the seven lamps of enchantment burnt bright at nightfall. - -But inside the garden there were curious knots, with flowers of the older -sort and fragrant herbs. As time went on, some of the trees were allowed -to grow as they would; the open country could be seen through gaps in -the hedge, and the children began to make friends with travellers upon -the road. - -Good counsels had run into rhyme from the beginning, that they might -hang together among wandering thoughts. Thus might the _Whole Duty of a -Child_ be remembered.[173] It gave, in short couplets, without figure, -all the matter of later exemplary and cautionary verse; and since the -lines were spoken in the person of the counsellor, there was a certain -dramatic interest added; for he that repeated the lines assumed the part -of Monitor. - -This is one of the secrets of a child’s pleasure in didactic rhymes. -School, dull enough in itself, becomes a live thing the moment it passes -into the world of make-believe, and words of caution and authority are a -delight when spoken in character. - -Pedagogues and guardians of youth discovered in rhythm and rhyme a means -of teaching facts otherwise unrelated. Emblem writers, feeling the -weakness of their strained symbolism, clutched eagerly at an effectual -prop. Emblems without verses had some measure of attraction, for if no -natural correspondence seemed to exist between a hypocrite and a frog, -or between an egg and a Christian,[174] the things had an interest of -their own, and excited curiosity as to possible connections; but without -rhymes, it would have been impossible to pair them aright. - -Verse, brought as an accessory into school, twinkled a small mirror -of imagination. Figures lurked in the letters of the alphabet; rhymed -riddles were to be had for the piecing together of syllables. _A Little -Book for Little Children_ (1702)[175] had these elements of interest; -_The Child’s Week’s Work_[176] was further lightened by a wide -uncurtained schoolroom window, set so low that very small persons could -stand a-tiptoe, and get new lessons from the creatures of earth and air. -The very moderation of the writer invites acceptance: - - “Come, take this Book - Dear Child, and look - On it awhile and try - What you can find - To please your Mind; - _The Rest you may pass by_.” - -But most of it is too good to pass by; the moral is lost in little -phrases of real music, albeit the rhymer ties himself to words of one -syllable: - - “Birds in the Spring - Do chirp and sing - With clear, shrill and sweet Throats; - Some hop, some fly, - Some soar on high, - Each of them knows its Notes. - - “Hear you a Lark? - Tell me what Clerk - Can match her; he that beats - The next Thorn-Bush - May raise a Thrush - Would put down all our Wayts.” - -Other “clerks” were appointed henceforth to the business of instruction. -Rhymed sermons grew up in the midst of hymns of praise; these were marked -by a forcible and rousing emphasis. If the voice of the Pharisee be heard -no less distinctly than that of the Sluggard, in Dr. Watts’s Divine -and Moral Songs[177], it rises at times into something like a glow of -patriotism: - - “I would not change my Native Land - For rich Peru with all her Gold; - A nobler Prize lies in my Hand - Than East or Western Indies hold.” - -Beneath the severity which his doctrine inspired, the learned Doctor had -a genuine tenderness for children, a legacy not despised by the greatest -and most revolutionary of his successors, William Blake. His Cradle Hymn, -beginning: - - “Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber; - Holy Angels guard thy bed;” - -is remembered the better for Blake’s Cradle Song. In the old conventional -but rhythmic fashion, he too could sing of lambs and children. - -There is no answer to strictures on the more common errors of the -nursery; they are so obvious that admiration halts before the power of -rhythm that could give them life. Here and there comes a thought fresh -turned: - - “How proud we are, how fond to shew - Our Clothes, and call them rich and new! - When the poor Sheep and Silkworm wore - That very Clothing long before.” - -The old indiscriminate approval that gave Dr. Watts a place of honour on -the nursery shelf, started the echoes along two centuries. Critics could -neither silence the triumphant march of the verse nor dispute a ring of -sincerity that it has. - -Few poets of the old-fashioned Child’s Garden failed in loyalty to its -first planter; but editors made Lilliputian anthologies and filled -“Poetical Flower Baskets” from other sources. Early in the new century, -the author of _The Butterfly’s Ball_ fell by his frivolous choice from -the company of the elect: - - “The Butterfly, an idle thing, - Nor honey makes, nor yet can sing.”[178] - -He encouraged a spirit of revolt, and talking beasts of divers kinds -broke into the garden. - -Of the old order, John Marchant was welcome, despite his lack of -originality, for a trick of rhythm which he had learnt from Dr. Watts, -and apart from this, as a champion of children’s games. He had “Songs -for Little Misses”, “Songs for Little Masters”, and “Songs”, varying the -martial beat of Dr. Watts, on “Divine, Moral and Other Subjects”.[179] - -Children, he is persuaded, would be “delighted with the Humour of them -because _adapted to their own Way of thinking and to the Occurrences that -happen within their own little Sphere of Action_.” - -Stevenson could not give a more detailed picture of these “occurrences”; -it is in the region of childish thought that his predecessor drifts into -an uncharted sea. He knows nothing of the little mythologies of children; -there are no imaginary countries, no “Unseen Playmate”, no dreams. It -is the difference between the old garden and the new, which is of the -child’s own planting. - -There was a truant in the _Babees’ Book_[180] who sang: - - “I wolde my master were an hare - & all his bokis houndis were - & I myself a joly hontere.” - -In the years between this and _Puerilia_, no child was encouraged to -put his own thoughts into rhyme; but Marchant’s “Little Miss” is heard -“Talking to her Doll”, “Working at her Sampler”, “playing on her Spinet”, -even “learning to dance”. The “little Master” of 1751 whips his top, -flies his kite and goes a-birds’-nesting in verse, when he is released -from Arithmetic and the Languages. - -But the world of Make-believe is still unknown to grown-up travellers: a -mystery jealously hidden by the child from unsympathetic eyes. - -A doll, in the matter-of-fact view of Mr. Marchant, is a “mere painted -piece of wood”: - - “Legs thou hast, and tho’ they’re jointed, - Yet one Step thou canst not walk; - Head there is to thee appointed, - Yet thou canst not think or talk.” - -The rudest image could not be such a dead thing to a child. The author is -upon enchanted ground, and blind to all its wonders. - -He is safer following the needle in a child’s hand, tracing the “odd and -various” crochets upon a sampler, or drawing a moral from the building of -a “Pasty Pye”. - -To music, whether of kit or spinet, he can keep time. “Miss learning to -dance”, in her saque and hooped petticoat, is a bewitching figure, and -the musician, though his skill is not great, contrives not to put her out: - - “How pretty ’tis to dance! - To curtsey and advance - And wave about my Hands - To sound of Kit. - My Steps true Measure keep, - Thus lightly do I trip, - Along the Floor I sweep - With nimble Feet.” - -“Master”, watching a Puppet-show, plays Gulliver at the Court of -Lilliput, surveys the “pigmy Troop” and makes appropriate reflections. - -A boy’s kite carries this quaint versifier for a moment into the upper -air. Even there his fancy cannot support itself; he snatches a simile for -the sake of the rhyme, then takes a header to earth and fastens on his -moral: - - “He that soars a Pitch too high, - Riding on Ambition’s Wings: - Sudden in the Dirt may lie; - Pride its Shadow ever brings.” - -But the Kite actually rises, waving a “knotty Tail,” seeming now “a -little Cloud,” now “no bigger than a Spoon”; the birds play round her or -mistake her for a hawk, and the boy, were his string long enough, “_would -send her to the Moon_.” - -The rhymes of _Mother Goose’s Melody_ and _The Top Book of All_ were -wild flowers that sowed themselves in the midst of herbaceous borders. -Two garlands of folk-songs for children grew out of the same soil. The -date of _Gammer Gurton’s Garland_ is unknown.[181] A Bodleian copy in -flowered covers has some rhymes from _Mother Goose_; but the most daring -“Lulliputian” would not have chosen the fairy theme of impossible tasks: - - “Can you make me a cambrick shirt, - _Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme_: - Without any seam or needle work? - And you shall be a true lover of mine.” - -Here, also, is the singing-game of “London Bridge,” and “A very pretty -little Christmas Carol:” - - “God bless the Master of this house - The Misteress also - And all the little Children - That round the table go - And all your kin and kinsmen - That dwell both far and near: - I wish them a merry Christmas - And a happy New Year.” - -Ritson reprinted _Gammer Gurton_, with additions, in 1810; but in -the meantime an unknown editor had collected new “Songs for the -Nursery”,[182] and adapted them “to favourite national Melodies”. - -This is the biggest gap in the hedge. Here, at last, is the open -country,—the cuckoo’s song: - - “The Cuckoo’s a bonny bird; - She sings as she flies; - She brings us good tidings - And tells us no lies: - She sucks little birds’ eggs - To make her voice clear - And never cries Cuckoo! - Till Springtime of the year.”, - -the daffodil: - - “Daffy-Down-Dilly is new come to town - With a yellow petticoat and a green gown.”, - -and the song of the North Wind: - - “The north Wind doth blow - And we shall have snow - And what will poor Robin do then? - Poor thing! - - “He’ll sit in a barn - And keep himself warm - And hide his head under his wing, - Poor thing.” - -It is even more surprising to find, in this trim garden, a nursery lyric -that calls up the very spirit of child-thought: - - “How many miles is it to Babylon? - Three score miles and ten. - Can I get there by candle-light? - Yes, and back again.”[183] - -There are no other songs like these. _The Poetical Flower Basket_[184] -represents the Lilliputian tradition that prevailed between 1760 and -1789: rhymed fables, epigrams and inscriptions from poets who never wrote -for children, and the story of “Inkle and Yarico” in verse. - -Of Blake[185], it is difficult to speak in such a company. He was a -winged thing hovering over little formal beds of lavender, catching -for a moment an echo of children’s voices repeating the creed of “The -Little Black Boy,” dropping a tear for the Chimney-Sweeper, then flying -off unseen and unheard to sing his own songs of joy and love, too much -a child to suffer the interruptions of other children; scarcely to be -understood by those who were dreaming their own dreams under the noses -of the pedagogues. A Pied Piper who never offered his services to the -community; a sublime truant from every school. Of the realistic faith -that could map out a Geography of Heaven, he had no knowledge; yet Laws -and Moralities were the burden of some songs that had touched him. There -is a magic in the simplest form of verse that may quicken the beat of a -child’s heart, and endow little forgotten rules and prescriptions of the -nursery with unexpected significance. If Blake could have alighted in -the starlight outside a window and heard Ann Taylor putting one of her -children to bed, he might have come in and acknowledged the existence of -naughtiness, just for the pleasure of being forgiven. Some voices can -sweeten the longest homily, and the culprit waits patiently for the kiss -that must come when the sermon begins: - - “And has _my darling_ told a lie?”[186] - -There is a triumphant contradiction in so tender a severity; a very -rainbow of promise: - - “Do you think I can love you so naughty as this,[187] - Or kiss you all wetted with tears?” - -“Idle Mary” can pass it all on to her doll. Later on, when she looks down -from the height of the first speaker, she understands how forgiveness and -hope came with a sudden rush at the end: - - “Oh, Mary, this will never do! - This work is sadly done, my dear, - And then so little of it too! - You have not taken pains, I fear. - - “Oh no, your work has been forgotten. - Indeed you’ve hardly thought of that; - I saw you roll your ball of cotton - About the floor to please the cat. - - ... - - “The little girl who will not sew - Should neither be allowed to play; - _But then I hope, my love, that you_ - _Will take more pains another day_.”[188] - -The authors of the _Original Poems_[189] wore the laurels of Dr. -Watts “with a difference.” They remembered all his tunes, they played -variations on most of his themes, but they added songs of their own. In -these, Walter Scott caught a note of poetry, and wrote to thank “the -Associate Minstrels”. Miss Edgeworth, who cared less for rhythm, praised -them for other excellences. The songs were a means of gentle intercourse -between these writers and “that interesting little race, the race of -children” for whom they had “so hearty an affection”. - -The child of the new garden can join hands, “through the windows of this -book”, with the child of the old. Ann and Jane and Adelaide were the -great aunts-in-literature of Louis Stevenson. A hundred years before -him they sang of stars and sun, of day and night and play in gardens. -The contrast is the greater because not one or two, but all their poems -turned upon “the whole Duty of Children”. Instead of following a child -“up the mountain sides of dreams”, they were intent on pointing out to -him a world of greater Reality. - -The dream world lies all about Stevenson’s “Garden”, there is no hedge to -separate it from ordinary roads and rivers; they all lead to Fairyland. -Yet this most practical dreamer could speak in the very accents and call -up the _silhouettes_ of his gentle predecessors at any moment. - -It is impossible to read of “The friendly cow all red and white”,[190] -without thinking of Jane Taylor’s - - “Thank you, pretty cow that made - Pleasant milk to soak my bread.”[191] - -The child in her garden looked up and wondered at one star; that other -child in the hundred-years-distant garden, escaped at bedtime to watch -“thousands and millions of stars”. - -Who would recognise the theme of Stevenson’s “Wind” symphony, under the -old title of “The Child’s Monitor”?[192] Yet the first two lines proclaim -it: - - “The wind blows down the largest tree - _And yet the wind I cannot see_—” - -The wind that brings mystery into the new Garden was an emblem of human -thought in the old. Stevenson’s myth is a real product of the child mind: - - “O you that are so strong and cold, - O blower, are you young or old? - Are you a beast of field and tree, - Or just a stronger child than me?” - -There could be no such heathen explanation for Adelaide O’Keefe. The -Wind took shape as an allegory in her day: it changed into the Voice of -Conscience, it became an ever-watchful angel: - - “Thus, _something_ very near must be, - Although invisible to me; - Whate’er I do, it sees me still, - O then, Good Spirit, guide my will!” - -In another place the four elements are considered in a modestly -scientific light.[193] They balance a juvenile version of _The Seasons_. -Nature is regarded from the old didactic point of view. Spring, when “the -Creatures begin their employ” invites to industry; the Idle who in Summer -“love best in the shade to recline” are admonished by the active joys of -haymaking; the innocent hare is remembered in the hunting season, and in -Winter, Charity sits by a glowing hearth and comforts itself with the -sophistries of Dr. Watts for the unequal distribution of faggots. - -These are but echoes; there are many touches that give the personal -records of keen and watchful eyes: - - “I saw a leaf come tilting down, - From a bare wither’d bough; - The leaf was dead, the branch was brown, - No fruit was left it now: - - “But much the rattling tempest blew, - The naked boughs among: - And here and there came whistling through - A leaf that loosely hung. - - ... - - “I saw an old man totter slow, - Wrinkled, and weak, and grey. - He’d hardly strength enough to go - Ever so short a way.”[194] - -The leaf and the old man had been seen and remembered, the one for the -sake of the other. There were times when Ann, in her gentle way, came -very near the heart of things. The three could not have sung so well -together if they had not practised different parts. Jane, comparing her -own verses with the rest, modestly explained: “I allow my pieces to rank -as the _leaves_ which are, you know, always reckoned a necessary and even -pleasing part of the bouquet.” - -The comparison is hardly just, or if so, they are bright leaves, more -striking, though fewer than the flowers. - -There is a crisp touch about her simplest work. The verses are better -turned than Adelaide’s or Ann’s. She is content to take her subjects from -the common stock of moral tales[195], to arrange her nursery pictures in -twos and fours; but in spite of convention, her “Morning” is a Reveillé: - - “O come, for the bee has flown out of his bed, - To begin his day’s labours anew; - The spider is weaving her delicate thread, - Which brilliantly glitters with dew. - - ... - - “Awake, little sleeper, and do not despise - Of insects instruction to ask, - From your pillow with good resolution arise, - And cheerfully go to your task.” - -“Evening”, the companion picture, is no more original; in due order -all the properties of Morpheus move before tired eyes; sheep, and the -parting linnet and the owl, the setting sun, the friendly moon that -peeps through the curtain. Children know them all, and for that reason, -the cradle-movement of the verse is the more soothing. Conventional -portraits, “The Shepherd Boy” and “The Gleaner” stand out in clear -simplicity, one on each side of the nursery mantel-piece, as “Evening” -and “Morning” go over the bed. But when all the pictures are arranged, -some of the figures walk out of them and begin to dance upon the floor. - -“The Creatures” are never mere moral messengers. Jane has the same eye -for character in beasts as in flowers or children. “The Toad’s Journal” -in _Q. Q._ is a better example of this than any of her nursery pieces. -This “venerable reptile”, supposed to have been found alive in the ruins -of an Egyptian temple, records the events of his _first thousand years_: - - “Crawled forth from some rubbish and wink’d with one eye; - Half opened the other, but could not tell why; - Stretched out my left leg, as it felt rather queer, - Then drew all together and slept for a year. - Awaken’d, felt chilly—crept under a stone; - Was vastly contented with living alone. - One toe became wedged in the stone like a peg, - Could not get it away—had the cramp in my leg: - Began half to wish for a neighbour at hand - To loosen the stone which was fast in the sand; - Pull’d harder—then dozed as I found it no use;— - Awoke the next summer, and lo! it was loose.” - ... - -The next sleep (“for a century or more”) gives time to dream; the -dreamer, awakened, - - “Grew pensive—discovered that life is a load; - _Began to be weary of being a toad_:” - -It is a daring moralist who laughs at her own moral: - - “To find a moral _when there’s none_ - Is hard indeed—_yet must be done_:” - -The moral, just because “_there’s none_,” presses the unspoken analogy: - - “Age after age afforded him - To wink an eye or move a limb, - To doze and dream;—and then to think - Of noting this with pen and ink; - Or hieroglyphic shapes to draw, - More likely with his hideous claw; - Such length of days might be bestowed - On something better than a toad! - Had his existence been eternal, - What better could have filled his journal?” - -To go back to the Nursery (the Original Poets were scarcely more than -children when they wrote), Jane’s talking beasts quickened the old stuff -of fables by a new sense of likeness and incongruity. The spider and his -wife (Jane loved spiders) are as real to a child as any married couple -of his acquaintance. He follows their fortunes with personal concern; he -would forego a feast to dine with them: - - “One day when their cupboard was empty and dry - His wife, (Mrs. Hairy-leg Spinner,) - Said to him, ‘Dear, go to the cobweb, and try - If you can’t find the leg or the wing of a fly, - As a bit of a relish for dinner’”. - -The Cow and the Ass, meeting where the child may see them on any summer -day, reconcile nonsense and natural history. The small actor can take -both parts, and laughs the more at his own drollery. - - “‘Take a seat,’ cried the cow, gently waving her hand. - ‘By no means, dear Madam,’ said he, ‘while you stand.’ - Then stooping to drink, with a complaisant bow, - ‘Ma’am, your health,’ said the ass:—‘Thank you, Sir,’ said the cow.” - -Thus laughter crept into the garden under the eye of Caution and Example, -and, for his coaxing ways, was allowed to stay as a probationer. - - * * * * * - -Charles and Mary Lamb wrote their _Poetry for Children_[196] as a -task. It was probably suggested by Mrs. Godwin, anxious to rival the -publishers of _Original Poems_. In a letter to Coleridge (June, 1809), -Lamb says: “Our little poems are but humble, but they have no name. You -must read them, remembering they were task-work; and perhaps you will -admire the number of subjects, all of children, picked out by an old -Batchelor and an old Maid. Many parents would not have found so many.” - -The Lambs could do nothing together without enjoying it; they could not -speak in a child’s voice, and had almost forgotten the way to Babylon, -but there are fewer subtleties of child-thought here than in _Mrs. -Leicester’s School_. The verses are full of practical interests. The -humour of the writers brought tenderness and delight to the “task”, and -children, who are quick to catch the note of sympathy, would feel this -without understanding it. - -Lamb had already tried his hand at children’s rhymes. In 1805 he had -written _The King and Queen of Hearts_[197], a careless and farcical -impromptu which he sent by carrier to “Mr. Johnny Wordsworth”, begging -his “acceptance and opinion”. - -It is not easy to decide his exact share in _Poetry for Children_. The -pieces reprinted in 1818[198] are not children’s poems. One of them, “To -a River in which a Child was drowned”, was suggested by the translation -of a Spanish ballad in Percy’s _Reliques_. “Love, Death and Reputation” -was recognised by Swinburne as a translation from Webster’s _Duchess of -Malfi_. - -Lamb seems to have amused himself now and then by casting fragments of -mature flavour into this jar of nursery simples. - -Of children, but assuredly not for them is the beautiful “Parental -Recollections” which suggests understanding as well as love: - - “A child’s a plaything for an hour; - Its pretty tricks we try - For that or for a longer space; - Then tire and lay it by. - - “But I knew one that to itself - All Seasons could controul, - That would have mock’d the sense of pain - Out of a grieved soul. - - “Thou, straggler into loving arms - Young climber up of knees, - When I forget thy thousand ways - Then life and all shall cease.” - -Charles Lamb knew the Child that Wordsworth reverenced: the child of -imagination - - “... _that to itself_ - _All seasons could controul_”. - -The verses he would have repeated in that child’s company were nonsense -rhymes or metrical “wild tales”; not without a song or two from -Shakespeare (after the wise example of Mother Goose); for he never could -keep the things he loved best out of talk or writing. - -_Poetry for Children_ was written to fit parental ideals, just as stories -were sometimes invented to accompany stock illustrations; yet Lamb’s gay -humour played pranks here and there, as in the gratulatory ode, “Going -into Breeches”: - - “Joy to Philip, he this day - Has his long coats cast away - And (the childish season gone) - Puts the manly breeches on. - Officer on gay parade, - Red-coat in his first cockade, - Bridegroom in his wedding trim, - Birthday beau surpassing him, - Never did with conscious gait - Strut about in half the state, - Or the pride (yet free from sin) - Of my little Manikin: - Never was there pride or bliss, - Half so rational as his. - Sashes, frocks, to those that need ’em— - Philip’s limbs have got their freedom— - He can run, or he can ride, - And do twenty things beside, - Which his petticoats forbade: - Is he not a happy lad?” - -And is not this a mischievous poet, that dares sympathise thus openly -with nursery vanities? A dangerous man, with a tendency to romantic, -unlawful sentiment. He places the revolutionary effusion between two -tender and wholly innocent little poems of Mary’s.[199] It should have -been pilloried instead in a column facing “George and the Chimney -Sweeper”, by Adelaide O’Keefe:[200] - - “His petticoats now George cast off, - For he was four years old; - His trousers were nankeen so fine, - His buttons bright as gold,— - ‘May I,’ said little George, ‘go out - My pretty clothes to show? - May I, papa? May I, mamma? ’ - _The answer was_—‘_No, no!_’” - -Here, retribution is foreshadowed in the first stanza, if a second glance -be given at the title. - -In another mood. Lamb could sit patient under his reverend predecessor, -or give new life to an old text: - - “In your garb and outward clothing - A reserved plainness use; - By their neatness more distinguish’d - Than the brightness of their hues. - - “All the colours in the rainbow - Serve to spread the peacock’s train; - Half the lustre of their feathers - Would turn twenty coxcombs vain. - - “Yet the swan that swims in rivers, - Pleases the judicious sight; - Who, of brighter colours heedless, - Trusts alone to simple white. - - “Yet all other hues, compared - With his whiteness, show amiss; - And the peacock’s coat of colours - Like a fool’s coat looks by his.” - -Lamb’s instincts were all against the timid doctrine of cautionary tales. -A sermon is a thing that may be borne, even enjoyed, at the appointed -hour; but there is no escape from regulations which cramp and restrict -every natural movement. Philip is not encouraged to eschew games and -concentrate on “little books”; he is not warned on promotion that all -the things he wants to do are dangerous; he may play Baste the Bear, -Leap-frog, Foot-ball and Cricket, he may run in the snow, he may even - - “_Climb a tree, or scale a wall,_ - _Without any fear to fall._” - -If a branch will not bear his weight, - - “If he get a hurt or bruise, - To complain he must refuse, - Though the anguish and the smart - Go unto his little heart.” - -It was at this point that some of the trees in the Child’s Garden put -forth new shoots and began to grow into their natural shapes. - -But there was no revolt against wholesome discipline; traditional virtues -were still honoured in verse, cleanliness as well as courage: - - “Come, my little Robert near— - Fie! what filthy hands are here— - Who that ere could understand - The rare structure of a hand, - With its branching fingers fine, - Work itself of hands divine, - - ... - - “Who this hand would choose to cover - With a crust of dirt all over, - Till it look’d in hue and shape - Like the fore-foot of an Ape?” - -The romance of antiquity induces reverence for Age: - - “My father’s grandfather lives still, - His age is fourscore years and ten; - He looks a monument of time, - The agedest of aged men.” - -These were town-bred poets; Nature figures only in side-glances. “The -Ride” gives the town child’s delight in fields, but two children are the -real subject of the picture. The Rainbow, regarded from a honeysuckle -bower, is sweet after a tempest, but it is a messenger of earth: each -precious tint is dear to Mary Lamb, “which flowers, which fields, which -_ladies wear_.” The robe of Iris is unwoven to find the colours of -gardens, of living things, and of the human face. The magic bridge is -dissolved with “half of its perfect arch” yet visible. - -“The Boy and the Skylark” is the most revolutionary of these pieces. -Bees and lambs, ants and silkworms, had been noted for the docility with -which they entered into the business of human improvement. This sky-lark -asserts the independence of his race. He scorns the limitations of human -imagination which conceives of “the feathered race” as serving the little -ends of man. Richard, hearing the lark’s song, confesses his sin, under -the impression that the “little bird” will betray him, as indeed Dr. -Watts and all Lilliput would have had him believe. - -This, says the bird, is folly “fit to move a sky-lark’s mirth.” - - “Dull fool! to think we sons of air - On man’s low actions waste a care, - His virtues, or his vices; - Or soaring on the summer gales, - That we should stoop to carry tales - Of him or his devices! - - “Our songs are all of the delights - We find in our wild airy flights, - And heavenly exaltation; - The earth you mortals have at heart - Is all too gross to have a part - In sky-lark’s conversation.” - -Mrs. Trimmer would have been inexpressibly shocked at this bird’s -attitude; Ann Taylor would have been grieved that he was not more -friendly; Jane might have seen his point of view. But this lark is a -literal poet; there is no attempt here to interpret a real ecstasy of -song. The poem is but an argument that hits a popular fallacy. This is -still the voice of the town and of common sense. The Spectator might have -said as much for the birds that sang in his cherry trees. - -There is only one fairy in _Poetry for Children_; fairies, like dreams, -were outside the pale of the Garden. This one is a spirit of the age, -but springs from the brain of a child. Little Ann was a friend of Mary -Lamb’s, and knew what the poet “prettily” wrote about Titania; but -because she had not been admitted to fairy Society, it was entirely -natural that she should project into fairyland the most diminutive -creature of her acquaintance (an Edgeworthian method of setting -imagination to work upon experience) and describe the “fabulous being” to -her friend: - - “‘You’ll confess, I believe, I’ve not done it amiss.’ - ‘Pardon me,’ said Matilda, ‘I find in all this - Fine description you’ve only your young sister Mary - Been taking a copy of here for a fairy.’” - -There is a thrill of adventure in the true tale of a child that took -an adder for a “_fine grey bird_”, and shared with it, in perfect -fearlessness, his breakfast of bread and milk; children laugh over the -odd choice of the little Creole who saw a crowd of dancing chimney -sweepers on a May morning, thought they were his fellow countrymen, and -became ambitious for a sooty coat. These stories could have been told as -well in prose; but the charming fancy called “The Desert” is a feast of -the nursery muse: - - “With the apples and the plums - Little Carolina comes, - At the time of the dessert she - Comes and drops her last new curt’sy; - Graceful curt’sy, practis’d o’er - In the nursery before. - What shall we compare her to? - The dessert itself will do. - Like preserves she’s kept with care, - Like blanch’d almonds she is fair, - Soft as down on peach her hair, - And so soft, so smooth is each - Pretty cheek as that same peach, - ... - Whiter drapery she does wear - Than the frost on cake; and sweeter - Than the cake itself, and neater, - Though bedeck’d with emblems fine, - Is our little Caroline.” - -Studies of children, in the warm and tender colouring of personal -reminiscence, are the chief matter of the book; children do not -appreciate the love and insight that makes it poetry; they will not stand -still to trace, in these portraits of brothers and sisters, a likeness -to the gentle authors. Grown-up persons, acquainted with the family -history, understand the little girl’s patience over her broken doll and -her studied kindness to “dear little craving selfish John”. - -There is a bending-down in many of the poems that only grown-up persons -understand; the writers stoop to conquer childish reserve, not at all in -the disconcerting manner of Wordsworth, though they sometimes adopt his -way of recording the result: - - “Lately an Equipage I overtook, - And help’d to lift it o’er a narrow brook. - No horse it had except one boy, who drew - His sister out in it the fields to view. - O happy town-bred girl, in fine chaise going - For the first time to see the green grass growing. - This was the end and purport of the ride - I learn’d, as walking slowly by their side - I heard their conversation....” - -The “task” is forgotten in the pleasure or pathos of such incidents: - - “In a stage coach, where late I chanc’d to be, - A little quiet girl my notice caught; - I saw she look’d at nothing by the way, - Her mind seem’d busy on some childish thought. - - “I with an old man’s courtesy address’d - The child, and call’d her pretty dark-eyed maid - And bid her turn those pretty eyes and see - The wide-extended prospect. ‘Sir,’ she said, - - “‘I cannot see the prospect, I am blind.’ - Never did tongue of child utter a sound - So mournful, as her words fell on my ear. - ...” - -Mary Lamb’s poem “The Two Boys”, quoted by Lamb in “Detached Thoughts on -Books and Reading”, records an incident of Martin Burney’s youth:[201] - - “I saw a boy with eager eye - Open a book upon a stall, - And read, as he’d devour it all, - Which, when the stall-man did espy, - Soon to the boy I heard him call - ‘You, sir, you never buy a book. - Therefore in one you shall not look.’ - The boy pass’d slowly on, and with a sigh - He wish’d he never had been taught to read, - Then of the old churl’s books he should have had no need.” - -This is an unexpected link with Stevenson; the proprietor of the shop -“which was dark and smelt of Bibles” (that quaint store-house of -romance)[202] is a reincarnation of this bookstall man; he repeats the -old growl in prose: - -“I do not believe, child, that you are an intending purchaser at all!” - -To compare these verses with Stevenson’s is to discover an essential -difference. The Lambs had the same delight in memories, but they looked -back with tenderness to a childhood which they had been forced to leave -behind. Stevenson was a boy to the end. The Child in his Garden is heard -singing his own deeds. These gentle Olympians looked down at - - “Horatio, of ideal courage vain,” - -saw him now as Achilles, brandishing his sword, now Hector in a field of -slaughtered Greeks, or the Black Prince, driving the enemy before him; -but lest vain imagination should grow bold upon encouragement, he must -strike his milk-white hand against a nail, and seal the moral with his -blood: - - “Achilles weeps, Great Hector hangs his head, - And the Black Prince goes whimpering to bed.” - -The “Mimic Harlequin” who transforms a whole drawing-room full of -furniture into matter of imagination is brought back to reality by his -practical mother: - - “You’ve put the cat among my work, and torn - A fine lac’d cap that I but once have worn.” - -Yet in another rhyme, the monitress relents, and indulging the idle -fancies of Robert, allows him, though late for breakfast, - - “To sit and watch the vent’rous fly - Where the sugar’s piled high, - Clambering o’er the lumps so white, - _Rocky cliffs of sweet delight_”. - -There is not enough of this to make a book of children’s poetry. Romance -knocked timidly at the gate and tendered a moral as the price of -admission; but it would be a dull child that could not find him somewhere -in this corner of the garden. - -The two small volumes had a short life; some of the pieces were reprinted -in collections, but the book failed to hold its own against Mr. Roscoe’s -bright fancy, _The Butterfly’s Ball_[203], written for the birthday of -his little boy Robert, and set to music by order of their Majesties for -Princess Mary. - -Children responded with one accord to the invitation of the first couplet: - - “Come take up your Hats, and away let us haste - To the Butterfly’s Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast.” - -Here was an entertainment which made no demands on attention or -understanding, which had no “moral”; it was all pure enjoyment. The -rhymes were as simple as any in _Mother Goose’s Melody_; the pictures, -early efforts of Mulready’s[204], presented the various creatures in -glorious independence, no more constrained by laws of proportion than -the inhabitants of a willow-pattern landscape. They come, a gay and -irresponsible procession, with a hint of fairy-land for all their reality: - - “A Mushroom their table, and on it was laid - A Water-Dock leaf, which a Table-Cloth made.” - -There is “the sly little Dormouse” and “his blind Brother the Mole”; the -Frog (found still in the same attitude by Alice in Wonderland) and the -Squirrel, who watches the feast from a tree. The rest are mostly winged: - - “... the Gnat and the Dragon-fly too, - With all their Relations, Green, Orange, and Blue.” - -The Harlequin Spider performs feats on the tight line, a giant Bee hovers -over an absurdly inadequate hive, a snail bigger than either offers to -dance a Minuet; and at nightfall the Watchman Glow-worm is ready with his -light. - -The feast is soon done, but for a third reading it can be got by heart. - -“A Sequel”, _The Peacock “At Home”_,[205] appeared in the same year, -with a frank and humorous acknowledgment of its predecessor’s success. A -pleasing mystery about its authorship was solved some years later in the -preface of “_The Peacock and Parrot on their Tour to discover the Author -of ‘The Peacock At Home’_.” - - “A path strewed with flowers they early pursued, - And in fancy, their long-sought Incognita viewed. - Till, all their cares over, in _Dorset_ they found her, - And, plucking a wreath of green bay-leaves, they crowned her.” - -Mrs. Dorset, thus discovered, was a sister of Charlotte Smith, the writer -of _Minor Morals_ and _Rural Walks_. - -All the birds left out of the Butterfly’s Ball, including foreigners, -such as the Taylor Bird and Flamingo, were guests of the Peacock. They -offered a variety of absurd analogies. - -_The Lion’s Masquerade_, rhymed in the same quaint humour, was a sort of -Æsop in Ranelagh: - - “The guests now came thronging in numbers untold, - The furious, the gentle, the young and the old, - In dominos some, but in characters most, - And now a brave warrior, and then a fair toast. - _The Baboon_ as a _Counsellor_: Alderman Glutton: - A Lamb, Miss _in her teens_, with her aunt, an old mutton. - It was easy to see, as this couple past by, - The Wolf, very cunningly, cast a sheep’s eye.” - -A guest of unusual interest is the “_Great Hog in Armour_” who stalks, in -Mulready’s illustration, like the ghost in Hamlet, under a full moon; -and there is a Bear in the “character” of Caliban, - - “... loaded with wood, - His bones full of aches, from Prospero’s rod.” - -Those were great naval days; the English sailor is represented by a -Mastiff: - - “Britannia receiv’d him with mark’d condescension - And paid him all night, most distinguish’d attention.” - -Bewick’s beasts and birds forsook their natural haunts and danced in -the most carefully preserved parterres. They came in their thousands, -of all sizes and nationalities. “W. B.” followed Mrs. Dorset with _The -Elephant’s Ball_, and the Season was extended till all “the Children of -Earth and the Tenants of Air” were exhausted. Children ran out of the -Lambs’ quiet parlour into a garden of perpetual Feasts. What could come -better after the Butterfly’s Ball than a Wedding Among the Flowers? - -But there was still an old-fashioned lady, one Miss Elizabeth Turner, -who held aloof, wielding the rod of Dr. Watts. With the perversity of -their race, the Lilliputians fell into step as they approached her, and -listened to her warnings with a fearful joy. She told them, in simple -numbers, how Miss Sophia would not wait for the garden gate to be opened, -and demonstrated by her fall, that “little girls should never climb”; -she expected them to believe that every little boy with a craving for -adventure must share the fate of one who - - “Once was pretty Jack - And had a kind Papa; - But, silly child! he ran to play - Too far from home, a long, long way, - And did not ask Mama. - So he was lost, and now must creep - Up chimneys, crying, Sweep! Sweep! Sweep!” - -Poor Jane and little Tom excited a thrill as “cautionary” Babes in the -Wood. They succumbed to the fatal fascination of scarlet berries: - - “Alas! had Tommy understood - That fruit in lanes is seldom good, - He might have walked with little Jane - Again along the shady lane.” - -Small listeners decided privately that Peter was an indifferent sportsman -to turn the red-hot poker against himself; they would prove at the first -opportunity that he bungled the thing. But when other children cried, it -amused them to agree with Miss Turner that - - “A rod is the very best thing to apply - When children are crying and cannot tell why!” - -The names of her two little books[206] have no obvious connection with -the verses. She explains _The Daisy_ in a _Cowslip_ rhyme: - - “Like the flow’ret it spreads, unambitious of fame, - Nor intrudes upon critical gaze.” - -But names are pictures to a child: daisies and cowslips should have -a place in his garden. In open defiance of the calendar, these were -succeeded by _The Snowdrop_ and _The Crocus_. Mary Elliott suffered -herself to be turned by the Muse from Precept and Example; she added _The -Rose_[207] to this serial garland. Little feet went willingly after her, -for she led the way through a village, and visited many friends. At the -window of the village shop they loitered together, forgetting all the -penalties of pleasure-seeking in a glory of gingerbread, candy, little -gilt books and many sorts of toys: - - “How many bright eyes have I seen - Examine each article o’er, - Still looking, while pausing between - The window and latch of the door. - - “For well the young customers know - The Dame does not like to be teased, - And when indecision they show, - Cries ‘children can never be pleased!’ - - “Such grumbling, however, is borne - While thus she displays such nice fare, - And her threshold, uneven and worn - Proves how many footsteps go there!” - -The Giant Instruction sent a few spies into the garden, disguised as -poets. Wise children saw through the deception at once; others, lured -into encyclopædic mazes, yawned while the guide recited “Edward, or -Rambling reasoned on”,[208] and described the delights of town for the -benefit of those who hankered after foreign travel: - - “The pictures in the Louvre - Display their bright perfections, - But we should first manœuvre - To see some home collections. - - ... - - “The Royal Institution - Gives knowledge, taste and skill, - And change without confusion - Attends its lectures still. - - “Some folks have wished to be - Whole years in the Museum: - So much there is to see, - No fear it should _ennui ’em_.” - -The unconscious humorist rambles thus through a dozen stanzas. But the -last lines are drowned by the voice of the Pedlar at the door. He is -singing new rhymes to old tunes: _Whimsical Incidents_, _Cinderella -in Verse_, _Mother Hubbard_, _Dame Trot_ and _Goody Flitch_.[209] The -Lady of Ninety who wrote _Dame Wiggins of Lee_[210] must have heard him -singing in her youth. - -Nonsense rhymers, whipped out of the Court of Stupidity, found a refuge -in the purlieus of the child’s garden; nobody recognised them as -descendants of the citizens of Cockayne, or suspected that they would -one day be honoured as predecessors of Edward Lear. Yet who shall gauge -their influence on the character of Englishmen, or decide how far the -eccentricities of certain theorists depended on the exclusion of nonsense -from the nursery? - -The History of the _Sixteen Wonderful Old Women_[211] came too late for -Mr. Day: - - “There was an Old Woman from France - Who taught grown-up Children to dance, - But they were so stiff, - She sent them home in a miff, - This sprightly Old Woman from France.” - -While Mr. Edgeworth was “explaining” poetry to children, and later, when -Young Reviewers were being taught to “dissect poems”,[212] the Pedlar was -still singing for truant minds. If he knew nothing of poetry, at least he -knew enough to let it alone; and his songs were good to dance to, which -every child knows is an excellent thing in songs. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] _The Tatler_, No. 95. - -[2] See Appendix A. I. Note on these and other romances. - -[3] _The History of Thomas Hickathrift_, 1750 (?). See below. Chapter II -and Appendix A. II. - -[4] See Appendix A. I. Note on _Dr. Faustus_. - -[5] See Appendix A. I. Note on Nonsense Books. - -[6] For details of this and of other tracts, see Appendix A. I. - -[7] First edition, 1678. - -[8] See Introduction to _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ (Methuen) by Prof. C. H. -Firth. - -[9] Richard Graves, in the _Spiritual Quixote_ (1772), likens the -adventures of Christian to those of Jack the Giant Killer and John -Hickathrift. - -[10] Published 1719. Abridged 12 mo. in the same year. See Note on -_Philip Quarll_, Appendix A. I. - -[11] First edition, 1726. - -[12] _Spectator_, Nos. 70, 74 and 85. See Appendix A. I. - -[13] See further Appendix A. I. - -[14] See Appendix A. I. - -[15] See note on sea songs and ballads—Appendix A. I. - -[16] First printed by W. Copland. - -[17] First printed by Wynkyn de Worde. - -[18] _Illustrations of Northern Antiquities_, by Weber, Jamieson and -Scott. - -[19] Printed from the earliest extant copies, and edited by G. L. Gomme. -(_Chap-books and Folk-lore Tracts_, First Series, 1885). - -[20] See Coleridge’s _Biographia Literaria_, Vol. II., Ch. XVIII. (1870 -ed.). - -[21] A Douce chap-book of _Tom Thumb_ (verse) is “corrected after an old -copy, printed for F. Coles”. This has a note on an earlier edition (1621). - -[22] (_a_) “The Wandering Young Gentlewoman, or Catskin (complete)”. W. -Armstrong, Liverpool, n.d. (early 19th c.) (_b_) “Catskin’s Garland, or -the Wandering Young Gentlewoman”, in five parts (verse). Printed and sold -by T. Cheney, Banbury, n.d. - -[23] For a full account of ballads and prose chap-books, see the -introduction to “The History of Sir Richard Whittington”, edited by H. -B. Wheatley (Chap-books and Folk-lore Tracts, 1885). See Appendix A for -references in the _Tatler_, _Spectator_, etc. - -[24] _Histoires ou Contes du Tems passé, avec des Moralités. A Paris, -chez Claude Barbin. Avec Privilège de sa Majesté, 1697._ Title on -frontispiece: _Contes de ma mère Loye_. Another edition: _Histoires -ou Contes du Temps passé, avec des Moralités. Par le fils de Monsieur -Perrault de l’Academie François. Suivant la copie à Paris. A Amsterdam, -chez Jacques Desbordes, 1708._ For a full account of Charles Perrault and -the _Contes_, see Mr. Andrew Lang’s introduction to his edition, 1888. - -[25] The original English translation is advertised in the _Flying Post_, -or _Weekly Medley_ for June 7, 1729, “printed for J. Pope at Sir Isaac -Newton’s Head, the corner of Suffolk Street, Charing Cross—just published -(very entertaining and instructive for children, with cuts to every -tale). Done into English from the French by Mr. Samber.” - -[26] (_a_) _Tales of the Fairys._ Translated from the French. For T. -Cockerill, 1699. 12s. (_b_) The collected Works of Madame D’Aulnoy, -published by John Nicolson, at the King’s Arms, and at the Cross Keys and -Bible in Cornhill, 1707. - -[27] Translated into English _c._ 1770. 3rd edition 1776. - -[28] See below, Chap. VI. - -[29] The _Arabian Nights’ Entertainments_. Translated into French from -the Arabian MSS. by M. Galland of the Royal Academy, and now done into -English. For A. Bell, 1708, 12mo. (8 vols.). See Appendix A. II. - -[30] See Wordsworth’s “Prelude”, Book V. - -[31] _The History of Sinbad_ was published as a nursery chap-book by E. -Newbery (between 1779 and 1801) at 6d. - -[32] See De Quincey’s _Autobiographic Sketches_, Vol. I, Ch. III. “Infant -Literature,” pp. 121-125. - -[33] See _Spectator_, 535. - -[34] _Rambler_, 65. - -[35] _Anecdotes of Johnson_ (1786) by Mrs. Thrale (aft. Piozzi). - -[36] _The Oriental Moralist, or the Beauties of the Arabian Nights’ -Entertainments_: “Translated from the original, accompanied with suitable -reflections, adapted to each story”. London, E. Newbery, c. 1796. - -[37] _The Travels of Tom Thumb over England and Wales_, “containing -Descriptions of whatever is most remarkable in the several Counties, -interspersed with many pleasant Adventures that happened to him -personally during the Course of his Journey. Written by Himself.” London, -1746. Price 1s. 6d. bound. - -[38] _Robin Goodfellow_, “A Fairy Tale written by a Fairy, for the -amusement of all the pretty little Faies and Fairies in Great Britain and -Ireland”. Printed for F. Newbery, 1770. - -[39] See Appendix A. II. - -[40] Mr. Charles Welsh in _A Bookseller of the Last Century_, gives a -full account of John Newbery and his work. There is a complete list of -the Newbery Books in the Appendix. - -[41] By J. Wright. Second edition, 1738. - -[42] The “Advertisement” is quoted in Appendix A. III. - -[43] Advertised in the _Penny London Post_, January 18, 1745. - -[44] Adv., April 9th, 1761. See Appendix A. III. - -[45] From Francis Newbery’s Autobiography. - -[46] Advertised in the _General Evening Post_, March 4, 1751, Price 3d. -Additions in Appendix A. III. - -[47] An “Entertainment” later performed with Garrick’s “Fairy Tale from -Shakespeare” (1777). See p. 82, Note 2. - -[48] See note in Appendix A. III. - -[49] See Appendix A. III.—Novels abridged or adapted for children. - -[50] See Appendix A. III. - -[51] Title-page, etc. in Appendix A. III. - -[52] First edition, April, 1765. Others in Appendix A. III. - -[53] For details of the _Valentine’s_ and _Twelfth Day Gifts_, see -Appendix A. III. - -[54] _Spectator_, 117, July 14, 1711; and Goldsmith, “On Deceit and -Falsehood”, The Bee, No. 8, Nov. 24, 1759. - -[55] See below. Chap. VII. - -[56] _The Bee._ Nov. 10, 1759—“On Education.” - -[57] See Note in Appendix A. III. - -[58] Examples in Appendix A. III. - -[59] Some account of them, and of the later “Lilliputian” books is given -in Appendix A. III. - -[60] Mentioned in Carnan’s list of 1787. For details see Appendix A. III. - -[61] _Juvenile Trials_ “for robbing orchards, telling fibs and other -heinous offences—Embellished with Cuts. By Master Tommy Lyttleton, -Secretary to the Court”. T. Carnan, 1781. Another edition—Lond. for T. -Carnan, 1786. - -[62] See below, Chapter VI. - -[63] _The Juvenile Biographer_, “containing the lives of little Masters -and Misses, both good and naughty. Price three-pence”. E. Newbery’s list, -1789. The first edition must have been earlier, since a New England -edition was published in 1787. See Appendix A. III. - -[64] Vincent Voiture (1598-1648). See _Some Thoughts Concerning -Education_, § 189. Pope also praised Voiture. - -[65] Printed for T. Carnan in St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1786. - -[66] This advice suggests a sly hit at the conversation-parties of the -bluestockings, some of whom became writers of children’s books. - -[67] _Juvenile Correspondence; or letters suited to Children from four -to above ten Years of Age._ In three Sets. 2nd edition, London, John -Marshall, n.d. (_c._ 1777). For details of another collection by Lucy -Aikin (1816), see Appendix A. III. - -[68] The letters of real children were even more mature. See Appendix A. -III. - -[69] Called here “_A Midsummer Night’s Dream_”. This must have been -Garrick’s _Fairy Tale in Two Acts, taken from Shakespeare_, played at the -Haymarket in 1777. “The young Princes and Princesses” mentioned as having -been at the play, were the children of George III, then between the ages -of three and fourteen. - -[70] See below—Chapters V and VI. - -[71] See further—Appendix A. III. - -[72] For nursery-books printed by Catnach and Pitts, see Appendix A. III. - -[73] _The History of a Banbury Cake_, “An entertaining Book for -Children”. Banbury, printed and sold by J. G. Rusher, Bridge Street, 1d., -n.d. - -[74] Rousseau’s _Emile_ was published in 1762. Translated into English, -1763. - -[75] Contributed to _Le Mercure_ (c. 1758). Translated into English “by a -Lady” (Miss Roberts), 1763. Translated by Mrs. Pilkington and illustrated -by Bewick, 1799. - -[76] _L’Ami des Enfans._ Published monthly “_avec approbation et -privilège du roi_”, January, 1782-December, 1783. First English -translation (24 vols.) by M. A. Meilan, 1783. See Appendix A. IV. Note on -Armand Berquin. - -[77] _The Looking Glass for the Mind; or, Intellectual Mirror_; “being an -elegant collection of the Most Delightful little Stories, and Interesting -Tales: chiefly translated from that much admired Work, L’Ami des Enfans. -With seventy-four Cuts, designed and engraved on Wood, by J. Bewick.” -First published 1787. E. Newbery’s list, 1789. Reprinted in 1885, with an -introduction by Charles Welsh. - -[78] _Les Conversations d’Emilie_, crowned by the French Academy in 1783. -Translated into English. London, John Marshall, 1787. - -[79] _Adèle et Théodore (3 tomes)_, Paris, 1782. Translated (3 vols.), -London, 1783. - -[80] _Les Veillées du Château._ 1784. Translated by T. Holcroft, Dublin, -1785. See Appendix A. IV, for an account of Mrs. Pilkington’s _Tales of -the Cottage_, 1799. - -[81] See Mr. Austin Dobson’s account of Madame de Genlis in _Four -Frenchwomen_. London, 1890. - -[82] _Le Théâtre d’Education_, published, 1779. Translated (4 vols.) 2nd -edition, London, 1781. See Appendix A. IV, Educational Dramas. - -[83] Translated into English as _The History of Little Grandison_. “By -M. Berquin, Author of _The Children’s Friend_.” London, printed for John -Stockdale, 1791. (Price one shilling.) Frontispiece by John Bewick. - -[84] _Le Petit La Bruyère; ou, Caractères et Moeurs des Enfans de ce -Siècle. Nouvelle édition, Paris, 1801._ Translated as _La Bruyère the -Less_, Dublin, 1801. - -[85] See Appendix A. V. - -[86] _The History of Sandford and Merton_, “A work intended for the use -of children”. London. For L. Stockdale, 1783-6-9 (3 vols.). The book was -reprinted all through the nineteenth century. - -[87] The first volumes were published in 1766, the fifth not till 1770, -when an abridged chap-book version also appeared. Charles Kingsley edited -a reprint in 1872. - -[88] See below, Chapter VIII. - -[89] This story had appeared in _The Twelfth Day Gift_, and was very -popular in pre-revolutionary days. - -[90] _The Children’s Miscellany_. London, printed for John Stockdale, -1787. It included “The Gentleman and the Basket Maker”. “Little Jack”, -printed separately, became a favourite chap-book. - -[91] See Appendix A. V. - -[92] _The Hermit; or, the Unparalled (sic) sufferings and surprising -adventures of Mr. Philip Quarll, an Englishman, who was lately discovered -by Mr. D—— upon an uninhabited island in the South Sea_, etc. London, -1727. For other editions see Appendix A. V. - -[93] _The New Robinson Crusoe_, 4 vols. London, 1788. - -[94] _Original Stories from Real Life_, “with Conversations calculated -to Regulate the Affections and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness”. By -Mary Wollstonecraft. London. Printed for J. Johnson, 1791 (Illustrated -by William Blake). Reprinted, Oxford, 1906, with five of Blake’s -illustrations. Intro. Mr. E. V. Lucas. - -[95] See below—Chapter VI. - -[96] Dated (1783) by a reference to “the invention of Air Balloons”, -quoted below. Earliest edition seen: _The Juvenile Tatler_, “by a -Society of Young Ladies under the Tuition of Mrs. Teachwell.” London, J. -Marshall. 1789. - -[97] _The Fairy Spectator; or, The Invisible Monitor._ By Mrs. Teachwell -and her Family (Eleanor, Lady Fenn). London. J. Marshall. 1789. - -[98] See the _Memoir of Thomas Bewick_ (1862). See also Mr. Austin -Dobson’s account in _Thomas Bewick and His Pupils_ (1884) - -[99] _Fables, by the late Mr. Gay._ In one Volume complete. Newcastle, T. -Saint, etc., 1779. - -[100] See below—Appendix A. VI. - -[101] _The Governess; or the Little Female Academy_, “calculated for the -entertainment and Instruction of Young Ladies in their Education. By the -Author of _David Simple_.” London, printed for A. Millar, over against -Catharine Street in the Strand. The Third Edition, Revised and Corrected, -1751. - -A second edition had been printed in 1749. Miss Fielding’s novel, _David -Simple_, had appeared in 1744. - -[102] _Le Magasin des Enfans, par Madame le Prince de Beaumont._ 2nd ed. -1757. Translated into English in 1767 as _The Young Misses’ Magazine_. -See Appendix A. VI. - -[103] _The Village School_, “interspersed with entertaining stories.” By -M. P. 2 vols. Price 1/-. From a list of “New Books for the Instruction -and Amusement of Children”. London, J. Marshall _c._ 1788. (At the back -of a copy of _Primrose Prettyface_, inscribed “Thomas Preston,” with date -March 22nd, 1788). See Appendix A. VI. - -[104] _Jemima Placid; or, the Advantage of Good-Nature_, etc. By S. S. -Price 6d. Marshall’s List, _c._ 1788. - -[105] See _John Hookham Frere and his Friends_, by Gabrielle Festing. -Nisbet, 1899. Jemima Placid is ascribed in a foot-note to “_Miss Dorothy_ -Kilner.” - -[106] _The Boys’ School; or, Traits of Character in Early Life._ A Moral -Tale by Miss Sandham. London, printed for John Souter at the School -Library, 73 St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1800. See Appendix A. VI. - -[107] _The Schoolfellows, a Moral Tale._ By the author of _The Twin -Sisters_, etc. 1818. - -[108] _The Academy; or, a Picture of Youth._ London, G. Harris, and -Darton and Harvey. Edinburgh, W. Bury, 1808. - -[109] _The Juvenile Spectator_, “Being observations on the Tempers -Manners and Foibles of Various Young Persons. Interspersed with such -lively matter as it is presumed will amuse as well as instruct.” By -Arabella Argus. London, W. & T. Darton, 1810. - -[110] For other books by Mrs. Argus, see Appendix A. VI. - -[111] A satire on well-known persons of the day, by F. Coventry, 1751. - -[112] _Fabulous Histories_, “Designed for the Instruction of Children, -Respecting their Treatment of Animals”. By Mrs. Trimmer. London, Printed -for J. Johnson, etc., J. Harris and others. 1786. Eighth edition -(dedicated to “H.R.H. Princess Sophia”, then a child of nine), 1807. - -[113] See _Some Account of the Life and Writings of Mrs. T._ Further -details in Appendix A. VI. - -[114] _The Life and Perambulation of a Mouse._ By M. P. 2 vols. Price -1/-. _c._ 1788. - -[115] _Keeper’s Travels in Search of his Master._ By Edward Augustus -Kendall. London, E. Newbery, 1798. - -[116] See Appendix A. VI. - -[117] _The Adventures of a Donkey._ By Arabella Argus, Author of _The -Juvenile Spectator_. London, W. Darton, 1815. - -[118] London. J. Harris, 1809. See Appendix A. VI. - -[119] _Felissa; or, the Life and Opinions of a Kitten of Sentiment._ J. -Harris, 1811. Reprinted, Methuen, 1903. - -[120] _Chrysal; or, the Adventures of a Guinea._ By Charles Johnstone -(1760). - -[121] _The Adventures of a Silver Threepence_, “containing much Amusement -and many Characters with which young Gentlemen and Ladies ought to be -acquainted”. Adorned with cuts. Burslem, J. Tregortha, n.d. (Dutch -flowered bds.) For other “adventures” of things, see Appendix A. VI. - -[122] _The Adventures of a Pincushion_, “Designed chiefly for the Use of -Young Ladies”. By S. S. Price 6d., Marshall’s list, _c._ 1788. - -[123] Anna Laetitia Aikin (afterwards Mrs. B.). See the Memoir by -A. L. Le Breton, 1874. Her sister Lucy was the author of _Juvenile -Correspondence_ and other children’s books. - -[124] _Hymns in Prose for Children_, 1781. This was preceded by Mrs. B.’s -_Lessons for Children_, a first reading-book. (1780). - -[125] _Harry Beaufoy; or, The Pupil of Nature_, by Maria Hack (1821), was -written to illustrate Paley’s doctrine. - -[126] Mrs. G., the mother of Mrs. Ewing, published her _Parables from -Nature_ between 1855 and 1871. - -[127] Published in six volumes (1792-1796) and frequently reprinted -during the nineteenth century. - -[128] Written 1805-1806. Published by M. J. Godwin, at the Juvenile -Library, Skinner Street, 1807. 2nd Edition, 1809. - -[129] William Betty, “the celebrated Young Roscius”, appeared in Belfast, -Dublin and London, between 1803 and 1805. A “Biographical Sketch” of him, -by G. D. Harley, appeared in 1804. - -[130] Published by M. J. Godwin, at the Juvenile Library, Skinner Street, -1808. Mentioned in the European Magazine for November, 1808. See Appendix -A. VII. - -[131] _Mrs. Leicester’s School; or, the History of Several Young Ladies, -Related by Themselves._ - -Written 1808. Published 1809. 2nd edition, 1809. Mentioned in the -_Critical Review_ for December, 1808. See Appendix A. VII. - -[132] See the note in “Emily Barton”, Vol. III of the _Works of Charles -and Mary Lamb_, edited by Mr. E. V. Lucas. - -[133] See Appendix A. VII. - -[134] See _The Family Pen_, edited by Isaac Taylor, Jun., 1867. See -further, Appendix A. VII. - -[135] See below, Chapter IX. - -[136] Published June, 1816. - -[137] From Feb., 1816, to the end of 1822. Collected as “_The -Contributions of Q. Q. to a Periodical Work_”, with some pieces not -before published. By the late Jane Taylor. 2 vols. London. B. J. -Holdsworth, St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1824. - -[138] From a letter of J. T.’s, describing her room. - -[139] _The Wedding Among the Flowers_ (verse) by Ann Taylor, 1808. - -[140] See “Spring Flowers”, No. XXX of _The Contributions of Q. Q._ - -[141] Martha Mary Butt (afterwards Mrs. Sherwood), 1755-1851. See _The -Life and Times of Mrs. Sherwood_, edited by F. J. Harvey Darton. London, -1910. - -[142] See Appendix A. VII. - -[143] Reprinted by Mr. Darton in his _Life and Times of Mrs. S._ - -[144] _The Infant’s Progress from the Valley of Destruction to -Everlasting Glory._ By Mrs. Sherwood, author of _Little Henry and his -Bearer_, etc., etc. Houlston, 1821. Composed in India, 1814. - -[145] _The Governess; or, the Little Female Academy._ “By Mrs. Sherwood.” -See Appendix. A. VII. - -[146] _The History of the Fairchild Family; or, the Child’s Manual._ -“Being a Collection of Stories calculated to show the Importance and -Effects of a Religious Education”. By Mrs. Sherwood. London. Printed for -J. Hatchard and sold by F. Houlston & Son, Wellington, 1818. - -[147] _The Orphan Boy; or, a Journey to Bath._ By Mary Elliott. See -Appendix A. VII. - -[148] See Helen Zimmern’s _Maria Edgeworth_, 1883. - -[149] Never published, as Holcroft’s translation appeared before it was -ready (1785). - -[150] _The Parent’s Assistant; or, Stories for Children._ By “M. E.” -London, Joseph Johnson, St. Paul’s Churchyard. 3 vols. 12 mo. published -in 2 parts. Announced in the _Monthly Review_ for Sept., 1796. See -Appendix A. VIII. - -[151] “Waste Not, Want Not; or, Two Strings to Your Bow.” P. A. Vol. III. - -[152] “Old Poz” (P. A. Vol. II) was the only play published early. -Others, written between 1808 and 1814, appeared in _Little Plays for -Young People_; “Warranted Harmless”. By Maria Edgeworth. London, Baldwin -& Cradock. 1827. See Appendix A. VIII. - -[153] A letter from Maria Edgeworth to Mary Sneyd (March 19, 1803) -describing her visit to Madame de Genlis, suggests a want of sympathy -between them. See Appendix A. VIII. - -[154] See Appendix A. VIII. - -[155] The two sisters, contrasted with the frivolous Lady Augusta in -“Mademoiselle Panache”. - -[156] The first tale of Rosamond: “The Birth-day Present”. (P. A. Vol. I.) - -[157] See “The Mimic”. (P. A. Vol. II.) - -[158] A remark of Scott’s to Mrs. Davy, quoted in Lockhart’s _Life_. - -[159] First edition (2 Vols.) 1801. A continuation in 2 volumes was -published in 1815. See Appendix A. VIII. - -[160] _The Botanic Garden; a Poem, in Two Parts._ Part I containing -The Economy of Vegetation. Part II, The Loves of the Plants. With -Philosophical Notes. 1789. - -Quoted in Appendix A. VIII. - -[161] Begun by Mr. Edgeworth and Mrs. Honora Edgeworth, to follow Mrs. -Barbauld’s _Lessons for Children_. The first part was printed for use in -the family. - -[162] _Harry and Lucy_, Vol. II. “Young Travellers.” A piece of pure -nonsense composed by Samuel Foote, comic actor and playwright. (_c._ -1720-1777). See Appendix A. VIII. - -[163] First edition, 1801. - -[164] Madame de Staël made this criticism to M. Dumont. - -[165] _Early Lessons_, Vol. II. - -[166] See Mr. Edgeworth’s preface to _The Parent’s Assistant_. - -[167] _Harry and Lucy_, Vol. III (4th ed. 1846). - -[168] Writing from Black Castle, Mrs. Ruxton’s house, in 1803, Miss E. -calls it “this enchanted castle”. - -[169] See Mr. Edgeworth’s “Address to Mothers”, _Early Lessons_ (Vol. -III). a list of books which he mentions is given in Appendix A. VIII. - -[170] See _The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth_, edited by A. J. C. -Hare. - -[171] In a letter to C. Sneyd Edgeworth, May 1, 1813. - -[172] _Spectator_, No. 477. Sat. Sep. 6. 1712. - -[173] MS. Bodl. 832. There is a reprint in the _Babees’ Book_ (E.E.T.S.) - -[174] See Bunyan’s _Book for Boys and Girls; or, Country Rhimes for -Children_, 1686. See Appendix A. IX. - -[175] See Appendix A. IX. - -[176] By William Ronksley, 1712. See Appendix A. IX. - -[177] _Divine Songs for Children_, by the Rev. Isaac Watts, D.D., 1715. -_Divine and Moral Songs for Children_, 10th ed., 1729. - -[178] “The Butterfly”, by Adelaide O’Keefe. See below. _Original Poems_ -by the Taylors and A. O’K. - -[179] _Puerilia; or, Amusements for the Young._ “Consisting of a -Collection of Songs adapted to the Fancies and Capacities of those of -tender Years, and taken from their usual Diversions and Employments: also -on Subjects of a more elevated Nature. Divided into three Parts, viz.: -I. Songs for little Misses. II. Songs for little Masters. III. Songs on -Divine, Moral and other Subjects, etc.” By John Marchant, Gent. - -London, Printed for P. Stevens and sold by the Booksellers in Town and -Country. 1751. - -[180] Preserved in a Balliol MS. Quoted by Mrs. E. M. Field in _The Child -and His Book_. - -[181] _Gammer Gurton’s Garland; or, The Nursery Parnassus._ “A choice -Collection of pretty Songs and Verses for the Amusement of all little -Children.” - -Stockton. Christopher and Jennett, n.d. - -[182] _Songs for the Nursery_, “collected from the Works of the most -renowned Poets and adapted to favourite national Melodies.” London, -printed for Tabart & Co. at the Juvenile and School Library, 157, New -Bond Street, 1805 (price sixpence). - -[183] See Appendix A. IX. for a reference by R. L. Stevenson. - -[184] _The Poetical Flower-Basket; or, The Lilliputian Flight to -Parnassus._ price 4d., in Dutch flowered bds. n.d. (_c._ 1780). - -[185] Blake’s _Songs of Innocence_ appeared in 1789. - -[186] “To a Little Girl That Has Told a Lie”, by Ann Taylor. (Original -Poems, Vol. I. See below.) - -[187] From the same: “For a Naughty Little Girl.” - -[188] “Idle Mary”. See _Rhymes for the Nursery_. By the authors of -_Original Poems_. London, Darton & Harvey. 1806. - -[189] _Original Poems for Infant Minds._ By Several Young Persons. -London, printed for Darton & Harvey. 1804. (7th edition). The authors -were Ann and Jane Taylor and their friend Adelaide O’Keefe. - -[190] “The Cow”, in _A Child’s Garden of Verses_, by R. L. Stevenson. -1885. - -[191] “The Cow”, by Jane Taylor: the first piece in _Rhymes for the -Nursery_. - -[192] By Adelaide O’Keefe. Compare “The Wind” by R. L. S. - -[193] Poems on “Fire”, “Air”, “Earth” and “Water”, by Ann Taylor. -_Original Poems._ Vol. II. - -[194] “The Yellow Leaf”, by Ann Taylor. - -[195] See Appendix A. IX. - -[196] _Poetry for Children_, “Entirely Original. By the Author of Mrs. -Leicester’s School. In 2 Vols. 18 mo., ornamented with two beautiful -Frontispieces. Price 1s. 6d. each, half-bound and lettered.” Published by -Mrs. Godwin in 1809. - -See Appendix A. IX. - -[197] Printed for Thomas Hodgkins. London, 1805. - -[198] See Appendix A. IX. - -[199] “The Lame Brother” and “Nursing”. - -[200] _Original Poems_, Vol I. - -[201] See Appendix A. IX. - -[202] “A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured,” by R. L. S. _Memories and -Portraits._ Paper XIII. - -[203] _The Butterfly’s Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast_, by Mr. Roscoe. -Illustrated with Elegant Engravings. London, Printed for J. Harris, -Successor to E. Newbery, at the Original Juvenile Library, the Corner -of St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1807. Facsimile reprint, with introduction by -Charles Welsh, Griffith and Farran, successors to Harris, 1883. - -[204] Mulready, whose history was told in _The Looking-Glass_ (See below, -Appendix A. VIII), was supposed to have drawn these illustrations in his -childhood. - -[205] For this and other sequels to _The Butterfly’s Ball_, see Appendix -A. IX. - -[206] _The Daisy; or, Cautionary Stories in Verse_, 1807. - -_The Cowslip; or, More Cautionary Stories in Verse_, 1811. - -For additions, reprints and imitations, see Appendix A. IX. - -[207] _The Rose_, Containing Original Poems for Young People. By their -friend Mary Elliott. - -[208] From _Mamma’s Verses; or, Lines for Little Londoners_, said to have -been suggested by _Original Poems_. Brentford, P. Norbury, n.d. - -[209] See Appendix A. IX. - -[210] See Appendix A. IX. - -[211] See Appendix A. IX. - -[212] See Appendix A. IX. - - - - -APPENDIX A. - - -I. - -[Sidenote: p. 14. 1.] - -_List of chap-book romances and tales in order of reference._ - -(1) Bevis of Southampton.—First English edition, Wynkyn de Worde (a -fragment, n.d.) - - Chap-book: _Sir Bevis of Southampton_, London, n.d. - -(2) Guy of Warwick.—First English edition, W. Copland (1548-68). - - Chap-book: _Guy, Earl of Warwick_, n.d. (_c._ 1750). - -(3) The Seven Champions of Christendom.—By Richard Johnson (1596). - - Chap-book: London, n.d. (_c._ 1750). - -(4) Don Bellianis of Greece.—Earliest edition, 1598. Black Letter. - - Chap-book: The History of Don Bellianis of Greece, London, n.d. - (_c._ 1780). - -(5) The Famous History of Montelyon. By Emanuel Forde (1633). - - Chap-book: The History of Montellion, London, n.d. - -(6) Parismus, the Renowned Prince of Bohemia.—1598. Black Letter. - - Chap-book: London, n.d. (_c._ 1760). - -(7) The History of Fortunatus.—Stationers’ Register (1615). - - Chap-book: London, n.d. (eighteenth century). - -(8) Valentine and Orson.—French edition, 1489. Two editions by W. Copland. - -(9) Friar Bacon.—Greene’s play, mentioned in Henslowe’s Diary under the -years 1591-2 was based on an earlier tract. Eighteenth century chap-book: -London, n.d. - -(10) The Historyes of Troye.—Caxton, 1477. Folio Black Letter. - - Chap-book: _Hector, Prince of Troy_, London, n.d. - -(11) Patient Grissel.—Chap-book: The History of the Marquis of Salus and -Patient Grissel, London, n.d. (_c._ 1750). - -(12) The King and the Cobbler.—Chap-book: London, n.d. (King Henry VIII). - -(13) The Valiant London Prentice.—“Written for the Encouragement of -Youth” by John Shurley. For J. Back, B.L. - - Chap-book: “Printed for the Hon. Company of Walking - Stationers”, London, n.d. (after 1780). - -(14) _Tom Long the Carrier_ (with woodcut of Tudor pedlar), London, n.d. - -(15) “The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus”, a mediæval tale in Caxton’s _Golden -Legende_. - -(16) _The History of Laurence Lazy_, London, n.d. (eighteenth century). - -(17) _Joseph and his Brethren._—Chap-book: London, n.d. - -(18) The Glastonbury Thorn (Joseph of Arimathea).—Wynkyn de Worde, n.d. - - Chap-book: The History of Joseph of Arimathea, n.d. (_c._ 1740). - -(19) _The Wandering Jew_, etc. - - Chap-book (dialogue), London, n.d. - -[Sidenote: p. 20. 1.] - -Another chap-book of this sort is The History of Dr. John Faustus -(Aldermary Churchyard, n.d.). - -“A Ballad of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, the Great Congerer”, -was entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1588; and Marlowe produced his -play in 1589. - -[Sidenote: p. 22. 1.] - -The humour of “topsy-turveydom” dates back to the fourteenth century -_Land of Cockayne_, and survives to-day in nursery-rhymes and “drolls”. -“The Wise Men of Gotham” was still popular in the eighteenth century. -This famous nonsense-book was written by Andrew Boorde, and a Bodleian -copy is dated 1630. - -[Sidenote: 2.] - -(a) _Memoirs of the late John Kippen_, “to which is added an Elegy on -Peter Duthie, who was for upwards of eighty years a Flying Stationer”. - -(b) Mr. R. H. Cunningham, in a note prefixed to his _Amusing Prose -Chap-books_ (1889) gives an account of a book-pedlar, Dougal Graham, who -hawked books among Prince Charlie’s soldiers in the ’45, and afterwards -became an author and printer of chap-books. - -[Sidenote: p. 25. 1.] - -_The Adventures of Philip Quarll_, by Edward Dorrington (1727) was -probably inspired by _Robinson Crusoe_. It was afterwards used to -illustrate revolutionary theory. See Chapter V. - -[Sidenote: p. 26. 1.] - -(a)“Chevy Chase”, praised by Sir Philip Sidney for its “trumpet note”, -was included in Dryden’s Miscellanies, 1702, in the Collection of 1723 -and in Percy’s Reliques, 1765. - -(b) The ballad of “The Two Children in the Wood” was printed in 1597 as -“The Norfolk Gentleman, his Will and Testament”, etc. There is a prose -chap-book of 1700, “to which is annex’d the Old Song upon the same”. - -The ballad is included in the collection of 1723. - -[Sidenote: p. 27. 1.] - -“The Noble Acts of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; with -the Valiant Atchievements of Sir Launcelot du Lake. To the Tune of, -_Flying Fame_”. - -The first stanza (of which Falstaff quotes the first line in Henry IV, -Part 2) runs thus: - - “When Arthur first in Court began, - And was approved King, - By Force of Arms great Victories won, - And conquest home did bring”. - -The episode is from Malory. - -Other ballads based on romances in the Collection of 1723 are: “St. -George and the Dragon”, “The Seven Champions of Christendom”, “The London -Prentice” and “Patient Grissel”. - -The Percy Folio includes “King Arthur and the King of Cornwall”, “Sir -Lancelott of Dulake”, “The Marriage of Sir Gawaine”, “Merline”, and “King -Arthur’s Death”. - -[Sidenote: p. 30. 1.] - -(a) Legendary ballads in the Collection of 1723 include: “Fair Rosamond”, -“King Henry (II) and the Miller of Mansfield”, “Sir Andrew Barton’s -Death”, “King Leir and his Three Daughters”, “Coventry made free by -Godiva”, “The Murther of the Two Princes in the Tower”, “King John and -the Abbot of Canterbury”. - -Many others deal with historical themes, such as “The Banishment of the -Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk”, or with famous battles. “King Henry -Fifth’s Conquest of France” probably belongs to the reign of George I. - -(b) “The Blind Beggar’s Daughter” was adapted from a favourite -Elizabethan ballad, “Young Monford Riding to the Wars”. - -There is a prose chap-book, printed by T. Norris, London, 1715. - -[Sidenote: p. 31. 1.] - -Other sea-ballads in Child’s collection are:—“The Sweet Trinity” -(or, “The Golden Vanity”).—Pepys, 1682-5; “Captain Ward and the -Rainbow”,—Roxburghe and Aldermary copies; “The Mermaid” (or, “The -Seamen’s Distress”).—Garland of 1765, etc.; “Sir Patrick Spens”.—Percy’s -_Reliques_, 1765, Herd’s _Scottish Songs_, 1769, and Scott’s -_Minstrelsy_, 1803. - - -II. - -[Sidenote: p. 40. 1.] - -There is a list of great men given in _The Tatler_ (No. 67), Sept. 13, -1709; and in No. 78, one Lemuel Ledger writes to put Mr. Bickerstaff in -mind of “Alderman Whittington, who began the World with a Cat and died -with three hundred and fifty thousand Pounds sterling”. - -_The Spectator_ (No. 5) March 6, 1711, says that “there was once a Design -of casting into an Opera the Story of Whittington and his Cat, but that -Mr. Rich abandoned the Idea for Fear of being overrun by Mice which the -Cat could not kill.” - -Suspicion seems to have been cast on the cat in the second half of the -century, and it is interesting to find Goldsmith (“On Education”, 1759) -advocating instead of romances “the old story of Whittington, _were his -cat left out_” as “more serviceable to the tender mind than either Tom -Jones, Joseph Andrews, or a hundred others, where frugality is the only -good quality the hero is not possessed of”. - -Mr. Wheatley in his _Chap-books and Folk-lore Tracts_, notes that in 1771 -the Rev. Samuel Pegge brought the subject of Whittington and his Cat -before the Society of Antiquaries, “but he could make nothing at all of -the Cat”. - -[Sidenote: p. 48. 1.] - -Other early editions of the Arabian Tales: 1712 and 1724. - -The translation of the _Arabian Nights_ was followed by English versions -of Pétis de la Croix. - -_The Persian Tales, or the Thousand and One Days_ appeared in 1714, and -was followed in the same year by _The Persian and Turkish Tales Compleat_. - -The pseudo-translations of Gueullette were translated into English in -1725, as _The Chinese Tales, or the Wonderful Adventures of the Mandarin -Fum-Hoam_. - -[Sidenote: p. 56. 1.] - -Moralised ballad-stories:— - -(a) Robin Hood, J. Harris, London, n.d. (_c._ 1807). - -(b) _The Tragical History of the Children in the Wood_, “containing a -true Account of their unhappy Fate, with the History of their Parents and -their unnatural Uncle. Interspersed with Morals for the Instruction of -Children. To which is added the favourite Song of the Babes in the Wood. -Embellished with Cuts.” London, n.d. - -(c) _The Children in the Wood_ (_Restored by Honestus_). J. G. Rusher, -Banbury, ½d. (_c._ 1810). - - -III. - -[Sidenote: p. 60. 3.] - -“According to Act of Parliament (neatly bound and gilt) a little Pretty -Pocket Book, intended for the Instruction and Amusement of little Master -Tommy and pretty Miss Polly, with an agreeable Letter to read from Jack -the Giant-Killer, and also a Ball and Pincushion, the Use of which will -infallibly make Tommy a good Boy and Polly a good Girl”, etc. - -[Sidenote: p. 62. 1.] - -_The Philosophy of Tops and Balls_ is explained as “The Newtonian -System of Philosophy adapted to the Capacities of Young Gentlemen and -Ladies, and made entertaining by Objects with which they are intimately -acquainted”. - -[Sidenote: 3.] - -_The Lilliputian Magazine; or, the Young Gentleman and Lady’s Golden -Library._ - -From the preface:—“the Authors concerned in this little Book have planned -out a Method of Education very different from what has hitherto been -offered to the Public: and more agreeable and better adapted to the -tender Capacities of Children”. - -[Sidenote: p. 64. 1.] - -In Mr. John Newbery’s list for 1762, _A Pretty Book of Pictures for -little Masters and Misses_ has the alternative title of “Tommy Trip’s -History of Beasts and Birds, with a familiar Description of each in Verse -and Prose”. - -To this was added “The History of little Tom Trip himself, his Dog -Jowler, and of Woglog the Great Giant”. - -This was the earliest edition known to Mr. Welsh; but an edition of 1752 -was afterwards discovered and noted in _The Times Literary Supplement_, -Dec. 18, 1919, under “Notes on Sales”. This seems to be the first edition -of _Tommy Trip’s History_; but an earlier account of him is given in -_The Lilliputian Magazine_, first advertised in 1751. Goldsmith came to -London after his travels on the Continent, in 1756, so that he could not -have written _Tommy Trip_, although the rhyme of “Three Children”, as Mr. -Welsh observed, is remarkably like the “Elegy on a Mad Dog”. - -[Sidenote: 2.] - -_Note on Novels and Plays abridged or adapted for children_:— - -Among these were _Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded_, with a prefatory address -“To the Parents, Guardians and Governesses of Great Britain and Ireland”. -(E. Newbury’s list, 1789); and _Tom Jones, the Foundling_ (the story of -his childhood only), published about 1814 by Pitts of Seven Dials, with a -foreword to the “little Friends” for whom it was designed. - -Plays were also fashioned into children’s books. Garrick’s Masque from -Dryden’s _King Arthur_ (1770) produced a “Lilliputian” romance closely -modelled on Dryden: _The Eventful History of King Arthur; or, the British -Worthy_. London, printed for H. Roberts & W. Nicholl. Price 6d., in Dutch -paper boards. (A.S. Kensington copy is dated 1782.) - -Early in the 19th century, the story of _Cymbeline_ was published as _The -Entertaining History of Palidore and Fidele_, in flowered covers, for -the “amusement and instruction of youth”. - -[Sidenote: p. 65. 1.] - -(a) _Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book_. Vol. II. “Sold by M. Cooper, -according to Act of Parliament”. - -The frontispiece shows a boy playing a flute and two girls seated with -a book of songs. At the foot of each page is a musical direction: -“Recitatio”, “Toccato”, “Vere Subito”, etc. At the end are two cuts, one -a portrait of the writer “Nurse Lovechild”, the other advertising _The -Child’s Plaything_, with the date 1744, and the following rhyme:— - - “The Child’s Plaything - I recommend for cheating - Children into Learning - Without any Beating.” - -(b) The author of _The Little Master’s Miscellany_ (1743) condemns the -popular song-books, and instead of these, provides children with moral -dialogues, “On Lying”, “On Fishing”, “On Death”, “On Detraction”, “On the -Tulip”, etc. - -(c) John Marchant in his _Puerilia; or, Amusements for the Young_ (1753) -offers a better substitute for the “Ribaldry” which he complains that -children are “instructed to con and get by Heart” as soon as they can -read,—“to trill it with their little Voices in every Company where they -are introduced”. - -See above.—Chapter IX. - -[Sidenote: 2.] - -_Mother Goose’s Melody; or, Sonnets for the Cradle_, in Two Parts. “Part -I.—The most celebrated Songs and Lullabies of the old British Nurses, -calculated to amuse the Children and excite them to sleep; Part II.—Those -of that sweet Songster and Muse of Art and Humours, Master William -Shakespeare. Adorned with Cuts and illustrated with Notes and Maxims, -historical, philosophical and critical.” - -The addition, in Part II, of Shakespeare’s songs makes a fitting sequel -for older children. - -A facsimile of the New England edition of 1785 was printed in 1892, with -the following description:— - -“The original Mother Goose’s Melody, as issued by John Newbery of -London, _circa_ 1760; Isaiah Thomas of Worcester, Mass., _circa_ 1785, -and Munro and Francis of Boston, _circa_ 1825. Reproduced in facsimile -from the first Worcester edition, with introduction and notes by William -H. Whitmore. To which are added the Fairy Tales of Mother Goose, first -collected by Perrault in 1696, reprinted from the original translation -into English by R. Samber in 1729. Boston and London,—Griffith, Farran & -Co., 1892.” - -(b) Another early book of rhymes is _The Top Book of all for little -Masters and Misses_, “Containing the choicest Stories, prettiest Poems -and most diverting Riddles, all wrote by Nurse Lovechild, Mother Goose, -Jacky Nory, Tommy Thumb and other eminent Authors ... also enriched with -curious and lovely Pictures, done by the top Hands, and is sold only at -R. Baldwin’s and S. Crowder’s, Booksellers in Pater Noster Row, London, -and at Benjamin Collins’s in Salisbury for 2d. (Date, on woodcut of a -shilling, 1760).” - -(c) A later Miscellany, _Mirth without Mischief_ _c._ 1790, has similar -rhymes. - -[Sidenote: p. 67. 1.] - -A third edition of _Goody Two-Shoes_ appeared in 1766, in Dutch -flowered boards, “printed for J. Newbery at the Bible and Sun in St. -Paul’s Churchyard. Price 6d.” This was reproduced in facsimile with an -introduction by Charles Welsh, by Griffith and Farran, successors to -Newbery and Harris, in 1881. - -Later editions: 1770.—T. Carnan & F. Newbery, Jun.; 1783.—T. Carnan; -1786—Isaiah Thomas, Worcester, Mass. (First Worcester ed.); 1793.—Darton -& Harvey, Gracechurch St.; 1796 (with MS. note by Mr. J. Winter Jones), -32 mo. - -Penny chap-book edition (_c._ 1815).—J. Pitts, Seven Dials: “The Toy and -Marble Warehouse”. Many “modernised” editions were printed during the -19th century; the last recorded, in 1884; and G.T.S. was included in -Charlotte Yonge’s _Storehouse of Stories_ (1870). - -[Sidenote: p. 68. 1.] - -(a) From Carnan’s list, 1787.—“The Valentine’s Gift; or, the whole -History of Valentine’s Day, containing the Way to preserve Truth, Honour -and Integrity unshaken. Very necessary in a trading Nation. Price -sixpence, bound.” - -A later edition (Kendrew, Glasgow, _c._ 1814) in the S. Kensington -collection, has significant additions:— - -“The Valentine Gift; or, a Plan to enable children _of all Denominations_ -to behave with Honour, Integrity and Humanity. To which is added some -Account of old Zigzag, and of the Horn which he used to understand the -Language of Birds, Beasts, Fishes and Insects. The Lord who made thee -made the Creatures also; thou shalt be merciful and kind unto them, for -they are thy fellow Tenants of the Globe.—Zoroaster.” - -(b) _The Twelfth Day Gift_ (advertised April 18, 1767). The title-page of -the 1783 edition is as follows:— - -“The Twelfth Day Gift; or, the Grand Exhibition, containing a curious -Collection of Pieces in Prose and Verse (many of them Originals) which -were delivered to a numerous and polite Audience on the important -Subjects of Religion, Morality, History, Philosophy, Polity, Prudence and -Economy, at the most noble the Marquis of Setstar’s by a Society of young -Gentlemen and Ladies, and registered at their request by their old Friend -Mr. Newbery. With which are intermixed some occasional Reflections and a -Narrative containing the Characters and Behaviour of the several Persons -concerned. - - Example draws where Precept fails - And Sermons are less read than Tales. - -London: Printed for T. Carnan, Successor to Mr. J. Newbery in St. Paul’s -Church Yard. Price one shilling.” - -In an enveloping cautionary story, there is some account of a gigantic -Twelfth Day Cake; but the book consists chiefly of “Pieces”, which -include the story of “Inkle and Yarico”, taken by Addison from Ligon’s -_Account of Barbados (Spectator_, No. 11), “versified by a Lady”, -Addison’s hymns; Pope’s Universal Prayer; “The Progress of Life”, an -Eastern story from the _Rambler_; Parnell’s “Hermit”; the character of -Antiope from Fénélon’s _Telemachus_, translated in 1742, and the King’s -speech to Westmoreland (Henry V. iv. 3), a sign of the revived interest -in Shakespeare. - -This is almost a perfect specimen of the Lilliputian Miscellany. - -[Sidenote: p. 76. 1.] - -From Nichols’s _Literary Anecdotes_ (1812-16):—“It is not perhaps -generally known that to Mr. Griffith Jones, and a brother of his, Mr. -Giles Jones, in conjunction with Mr. John Newbery, the public are -indebted for the origin of those numerous and popular little books for -the amusement and instruction of children which have been ever since -received with universal approbation. The Lilliputian histories of Goody -Two-Shoes, Giles Ginger-bread, Tommy Trip, etc., etc., are remarkable -proofs of the benevolent minds of the projectors of this plan of -instruction, and respectable instances of the accommodation of superior -talents to the feeble intellects of infantine felicity.” - -[Sidenote: 2.] - -Examples of grammatical faults in _Goody Two-Shoes_:— - -Ch. vi.—“She was in Hopes he _would have went_ to the Clerk.” - -Ch. viii.—“Therefore she laid very still.” - -Part II. Ch. iii.—“Does not the Horse and the Ass carry you and your -Burthens; don’t the Ox plough your Ground?” - -John Newbery’s private memoranda show mistakes of the same kind. - -[Sidenote: 3.] - -(a) John Newbery died in 1767, when the business was divided into two -branches, one under his son Francis, in partnership with T. Carnan, the -other under Francis Newbery the nephew, whose widow Elizabeth succeeded -him in 1780. T. Carnan afterwards set up on his own account. - -(b) In the curious “appendix” to _Goody Two-Shoes_, there is “an Anecdote -respecting Tom Two-Shoes, communicated by a Gentleman who is now -writing the History of his Life”. This is the chief incident in _Tommy -Two-Shoes_, published at the close of the century by Wilson and Spence of -York. - -Imitations only mark the distinction of the Newbery books. Many were -published by John Marshall (_c._ 1780). These include _The Orphan; or, -the Entertaining History of Little Goody Goosecap_; and _The Renowned -History of Primrose Prettyface_, “who, by her Sweetness of Temper and -Love of Learning, was raised from being the Daughter of a poor Cottager, -to great Riches and the Dignity of Lady of the Manor.... London, printed -in the Year when all little Boys and Girls should be good”, etc. - -One copy is inscribed “Thos. Preston, March 22nd, 1788”. If this be the -date of purchase, the book may be earlier; but it may be the date of the -child’s birth. - -[Sidenote: 4.] - -“The Lilliputian Masquerade: recommended to the Perusal of those Sons -and Daughters of Folly, the Frequenters of the Pantheon, Almack’s and -Cornelly’s. Embellished with Cuts, for the Instruction and Amusement of -the rising Generation. Price of a Subscription Ticket, not Two Guineas, -but Two Pence”.—Carnan’s List for 1787. - -The Masquerade was “occasioned by the Conclusion of Peace between those -potent Nations the Lilliputians and Tommy-thumbians”, after a quarrel -“concerning an Affair of no less Importance than whether, when a Cat -wagged her Tail, it was a Sign of fair or foul Weather”; and the Peace -had been made by “an old Lady _whose Name was Reason_”. - -A later edition in Dutch paper covers (probably after 1800) published by -P. Norbury at Brentford, has no reference to the Pantheon, etc., but is -recommended by the couplet: - - “Behind a Mask you’ll something find - To please and to improve the mind.” - -[Sidenote: p. 78. 2.] - -First Worcester edition: _The Juvenile Biographer_, “containing the -Lives of little Masters and Misses. Including a Variety of Good and Bad -Characters. By a little Biographer.... Worcester, Mass. Printed by Isaiah -Thomas and sold at his Book Store. Sold also by E. Battelle, Boston, -1787.” - -[Sidenote: p. 81. 1.] - -_Juvenile Correspondence_; “or, Letters designed as Examples of -Epistolary Style, for Children of both Sexes”. By Lucy Aikin. 2nd -Edition. London, for Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, Paternoster Row, and R. -Hunter, St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1816. - -Miss Aikin’s aim was to supply children with “juvenile equivalents of -Gray, Cowper and Lady Mary Wortley Montague”; but the influence of Mrs. -Barbauld adds natural touches not found in “Lilliputian” books. - -[Sidenote: p. 82. 1.] - -_A Father’s Memoirs of his Child_, by Benjamin Heath Malkin (1806), -contains letters written by a child from his third to his seventh year -(1798-1802). - -The little boy, Thomas Williams Malkin, born in October, 1795, died -when he was seven. His father, beginning the _Memoirs_, says: “It is not -intended to run a parallel of his infancy with that of Addison in his -assumed character of Spectator, who ‘threw away his rattle before he was -two months old, and would not make use of his coral until they had taken -away the bells from it’”; but the disclaimer proves that he was conscious -of the parallel. - -On his own showing, he had made the child into a “little Philosopher” who -never had so much as a rattle to throw away, whose first toy was a box -of letters. The boy’s letters show a pathetic struggle between natural -simplicity and the artificial system on which he was being trained. Some -are more precocious and pedantic than any in _Juvenile Correspondence_. - -The tendency of parents to encourage stilted “epistolary patterns” was -shown earlier in the childish letters of Mrs. Trimmer (See _The Life and -Writings of Mrs. T._) - -[Sidenote: p. 83. 2.] - -Canning deals with the Newbery books much as Addison does with the -ballads, though Canning’s classical parallels are not serious. He -begins by recommending to novel-readers, instead of “the studies which -usually engross their attention”, the “instructive and entertaining -Histories of Mr. Thomas Thumb, Mr. John Hickathrift and sundry other -celebrated Worthies; a true and faithful account of whose adventures and -atchievements may be had by the Curious and the Public in general, price -two-pence gilt, at Mr. Newbery’s, St. Paul’s Churchyard, and at some -other Gentleman’s whose name I do not now recollect, the _Bouncing B., -Shoe-Lane_”. (This refers to John Marshall’s sign of the “Great A and -Bouncing B”.) - -He identifies “Tom Thumb” with Perrault’s “Little Thumb”, and draws -a parallel between that hero and Ulysses; and between the Ogre and -Polyphemus, comparing the incidents in a mock-heroic vein. There is no -trace of the “Lilliputian” Hickathrift which he mentions. - -[Sidenote: p. 84. 1.] - -“Jemmy” Catnach, and “Johnny” Pitts of the “Toy and Marble Warehouse”, -were rival printers of ballads and chap-books in Seven Dials. - -Catnach’s nursery books include rhymed versions of Perrault’s Tales, -_The Butterfly’s Ball_, _The Tragical Death of an Apple Pie_ (a very old -alphabet rhyme) and various “gifts”. (See Charles Hindley’s _History of -the Catnach Press_, 1886.) - -Pitts printed a penny edition of _Goody Two-Shoes_ (_c._ 1815). His -farthing books include _Simple Simon_ and other nursery rhymes. - -John Evans, another Seven Dials printer, also published a farthing series -including _Dick Whittington_, _Cock Robin_ and _Mother Hubbard_. (See -Edwin Pearson’s _Banbury Chap-books_, etc., 1890.) - - -IV - -[Sidenote: p. 91. 1.] - -Armand Berquin was born in France in 1749. He refused an appointment -as tutor to the son of Louis XVI. Towards the end of his life he was -denounced as a Girondist, and driven into exile. He died in 1791. - -Mr. Charles Welsh gives a most interesting account of him in his -introduction to the reprint of _The Looking-Glass for the Mind_, -published by Griffith, Farran, Okeden and Welsh, 1885. - -[Sidenote: p. 100. 1.] - -Mrs. Pilkington, writing “on the Plan of that celebrated work _Les -Veillées du Château_, by Madame de Genlis”, produced _Tales of the -Cottage; or Stories Novel and Amusing for Young Persons_, printed for -Vernor & Hood in the Poultry, and sold by E. Newbery, 1799. - -She was the wife of a naval doctor, and became governess to a family -of orphans, for whom she wrote. Other books published for her by E. -Newbery include _Biography for Boys_, 1808; _Biography for Girls_, 1809; -_Marvellous Adventures; or the Vicissitudes of a Cat_, and a translation -(abridged) of Marmontel’s _Contes Moraux_. - -[Sidenote: p. 102. 1.] - -_Le Théâtre d’Education_ was followed, in England, by Hannah More’s -_Sacred Dramas_ (1782). - -Moral plays by the German Rousseauists, Engel and Weisse, were translated -in _The Juvenile Dramatist_ (1801), and _Dramas for Children_, imitated -from the French of L. F. Jauffret, by the Editor of Tabart’s _Popular -Stories_, was printed for M. J. Godwin, at the Juvenile Library, Skinner -Street, in 1809. The table of contents includes “The Curious Girl;” “The -Dangers of Gossipping”; “The Fib Found Out”; “The Little Coxcomb”. - -These educational dramas are no more dramatic than the average moral -tale. They may be regarded as a result of Rousseau’s realism, an effort -on the part of educators to use the dramatic instincts of children to -impress the lesson. - - -V - -[Sidenote: p. 106. 1.] - -Thomas Day (1748-1789) was educated at the Charter House and Corpus -Christi College, Oxford. He was an intimate friend of Richard Lovell -Edgeworth, although he had paid his addresses in turn to Honora and -Elizabeth Sneyd, afterwards the second and third Mrs. Edgeworth. - -Day was a member of Dr. Darwin’s literary circle at Lichfield, and was -the author of verses and political pamphlets. The third edition of his -poem “The Dying Negro” was dedicated to Jean Jacques Rousseau. - -[Sidenote: p. 113. 2.] - -_The History of Prince Lee Boo_ (1789) is an early example of this -interest in coloured races. Children’s books of the early nineteenth -century include many stories of the Slave Trade and adventures of -Negroes. Some of the most popular were _The Adventures of Congo_ (1823); -Mary Ann Hedge’s _Samboe; or, the African Boy_ (1823); _Radama; or, the -Enlightened African_ (1824). - -[Sidenote: p. 114. 1.] - -Third edition, 1759; new version in _The Children’s Miscellany_, 1787; -Children’s chap-book in Dutch flowered boards, _c._ 1789: _The English -Hermit; or, The Adventures of Philip Quarll_, “who was lately discovered -by Mr. Dorrington, a Bristol Merchant, upon an uninhabited Island, where -he has lived above fifty years, without any human assistance, still -continues to reside and will not come away. Adorned with cuts and a Map -of the Island”. London, John Marshall. Price Six Pence bound and gilt. -(Inscribed “Margaret H. Haskoll, (Au. 14th, 1789).”) Other editions: -1795, 1807, 1816. - -The 1807 edition, repeated in Newcastle, York and Banbury chap-books, has -cuts attributed to Bewick. - - -VI - -[Sidenote: p. 124. 1.] - -_The Life and Adventures of a Fly_, “supposed to have been written by -himself”. Price Sixpence. (E. Newbery’s list, 1789.) - -Another edition, with cuts by John Bewick, was printed in 1790 (_Bewick -Collector_). - -[Sidenote: p. 125. 2.] - -_The Young Misses’ Magazine_ was reviewed in the _Critical Review_, Aug., -1757. It consists of “Dialogues of a wise Governess with her Pupils”, and -was almost certainly inspired by Miss Fielding’s _Governess_. The studies -of Madame de Beaumont’s pupils, under the names of _Ladi Sensée_, _Ladi -Spirituelle_, _Ladi Tempête_, etc., although they represent types, are -made from life. - -Madame de Beaumont also wrote “_Moral Tales_”, designed to counteract -supposed dangers in Richardson’s novels. “The whole,” she says, “is -drawn from the pure source of Nature, which never fails to move the -heart.” - -[Sidenote: p. 127. 1.] - -Other books by “M. P.” include: - -_Anecdotes of a Boarding School_, _Anecdotes of a Little Family_, and -_Letters from a Mother to her Children_. - -See below:—“Adventures” of things, by “S. S.” - -[Sidenote: p. 131. 1.] - -Other stories by Elizabeth Sandham are: - -_The Happy Family at Eason House_, 1822; _The History of Elizabeth -Woodville_, 1822; _The Orphan_, n.d. and _The Twin Sisters_, n.d. - -[Sidenote: p. 133. 2.] - -Other books by Arabella Argus: - -_The Adventures of a Donkey_ (1815); _Further Adventures of a Donkey_ -(1821); _Ostentation and Liberality_ (1821). - -[Sidenote: p. 136. 1.] - -(a) On the occasion of a literary dispute at Reynolds’s house, Mrs. -Trimmer, then Miss Kirby, fifteen years old, produced from her pocket a -copy of _Paradise Lost_. Johnson marked his appreciation of the incident -as recorded above. - -(b) From 1802 to 1804, Mrs. Trimmer edited _The Guardian of Education_ -(published monthly) which exercised a kind of censorship over children’s -books. A reference by Mrs. T. to Perrault’s _Tales_, which she had read -as a child, called forth the criticism of a correspondent who denounced -“Cinderella” in particular as encouraging envy, jealousy, vanity and -other evil passions in children. Mrs. Trimmer’s principles forced her to -agree with this stern moralist. - -[Sidenote: p. 140. 2.] - -Bird stories by Mr. Kendall include: - -_The Crested Wren._ E. Newbery, 1799; _The Swallow_. E. Newbery, 1800; -_The Sparrow and The Canary Bird_ are also mentioned in _The Stories of -Senex; or, Little Histories of Little People_, by the same author. - -[Sidenote: p. 141. 2.] - -Elizabeth Sandham also wrote: - -_The Adventures of a Bullfinch._ J. Harris, 1809. - -and _The Perambulations of a Bee and a Butterfly_, 1812. - -[Sidenote: p. 144. 2.] - -Other “adventures” of things: - -_The Adventures of a Silver Penny._ Price 6d. E. Newbery. (Advertised -in the London Chronicle, Dec. 21-29, 1787, “just published”); _The -Adventures of a Doll_, by Mary Mister, 1816; _Memoirs of a Peg Top_, by -S. S. Author of _The Adventures of a Pincushion_. Marshall’s list, _c._ -1788. - - -VII - -[Sidenote: p. 155. 1.] - -In the preface to _The Adventures of Ulysses_, Lamb says: “This work -is designed as a supplement to the Adventures of Telemachus”; and in a -letter to Manning (1808) he says it is “intended as an introduction to -the reading of Telemachus”. - -Fénélon’s _Télémaque_ (1699) which, like his _Fables_ and _Dialogues -des Morts_, was written for his pupil, the grandson of Louis XIV, was -translated into English in 1742. It is a kind of sequel to the fourth -book of the _Odyssey_, describing the further adventures of Telemachus in -search of his father. Fénélon turned his “adventures” into a moral tale, -and Lamb, in his preface, also lays stress on the moral of his book. - -[Sidenote: p. 156. 1.] - -At the back of the third edition of _Mrs. Leicester’s School_ is a -list of “new books for children”, published by M. J. Godwin, at the -Juvenile Library, Skinner Street. Many of these are school texts, some by -Godwin, writing under his pseudonym of “Edward Baldwin”. Others include -the _Tales from Shakespear_; the _Adventures of Ulysses_; _Poetry for -Children_; _Stories of Old Daniel_; _Dramas for Children_, from the -French of L. F. Jauffret; Mrs. Fenwick’s _Lessons for Children_ (a sequel -to Mrs. Barbauld’s); and Lamb’s _Prince Dorus_. - -_Stories of Old Daniel_, which has been attributed to Lamb, has the -alternative title “_or Tales of Wonder and Delight_”. It contains -“Narratives of Foreign Countries and Manners”, and was “designed as an -Introduction to the study of Voyages, Travels and History in General”: a -sufficient proof that Lamb had nothing to do with it. - -[Sidenote: p. 161. 2.] - -The passage in “Susan Yates” runs thus: - -“Sometimes indeed, on a fine dry Sunday, my father would rise early, and -take a walk to the village, just to see how _goodness thrived_, as he -used to say, but he would generally return tired, and the worse for his -walk.” - -Mr. Lucas points out that Charles Lamb’s father came from Lincolnshire, -and that the saying was probably his. - -[Sidenote: 3.] - -Isaac Taylor, the father, was the author of several moral and instructive -tales for youth. - -Jefferys Taylor, the brother of Jane and Ann, wrote _Æsop in Rhyme_ -(1820); _Harry’s Holiday_ (1822); and other books for children. - -[Sidenote: p. 170. 1.] - -(a) Some of Mrs. Sherwood’s most popular books were: _Little Henry and -his Bearer_ (her first book) _c._ 1815; _The History of Henry Milner_ (4 -parts) 1822-1836; _The Little Woodman and his Dog Cæsar_ (1819). - -Many of the chap-books were written for stock illustrations. - -(b) Mrs. Cameron, Mrs. Sherwood’s sister, was also a prolific writer of -children’s chap-books; but these are undistinguished in style and matter. -(See B. M. collections under title: “Cameron’s Tales”.) - -[Sidenote: p. 171. 1.] - -The introduction to Mrs. Sherwood’s version of _The Governess_ states -that “the little volume was published before the middle of the last -century, and is said to have been written by a sister of the celebrated -Fielding”. - -[Sidenote: p. 172. 1.] - -Mary Elliott (afterwards Mrs. Belson), a Quaker, wrote many other tales -for children. Among these are: _Precept and Example_ (_c._ 1812); _The -Modern Goody Two Shoes_ (_c._ 1818); _The Adventures of Thomas Two -Shoes_: “being a sequel to the Modern G. T. S.” (_c._ 1818); _The Rambles -of a Butterfly_ (1819); _Confidential Memoirs, or the Adventures of a -Parrot, a Greyhound, a Cat and a Monkey_ (1821). - -Priscilla Wakefield, another Quaker, was the author of _Mental -Improvement_, _The Juvenile Travellers_ and other instructive books. - - -VIII - -[Sidenote: p. 176. 2.] - -The Stories in _The Parent’s Assistant_ (1845) are:— - -Vol. I. Lazy Laurence; Tarlton; The False Key; The Birth-day Present; -Simple Susan. - -Vol. II. The Bracelets; The Little Merchants; Old Poz; The Mimic; -Mademoiselle Panache. - -Vol. III. The Basket Woman; The White Pigeon; The Orphans; Waste Not, -Want Not; Forgive and Forget; The Barring Out; or, Party Spirit; Eton -Montem. - -A modern edition, with an introduction by Anne Thackeray Ritchie, was -published by Macmillan in 1903; and a selection, _Tales from Maria -Edgeworth_, with an introduction by Mr. Austin Dobson (Wells, Gardner, -Darton & Co.), appeared in the same year. - -[Sidenote: p. 180. 1.] - -_Little Plays_ (1827) contains “The Grinding Organ” (written May, 1808); -“Dumb Andy” (written in 1814) and “The Dame School Holiday”. - -“Old Poz” and “Eton Montem” in _The Parent’s Assistant_, are also in -dialogue form. - -[Sidenote: 2.] - -From the letter to Mrs. Ruxton (March 19, 1803), describing a visit to -Madame de Genlis in Paris: - -(a) “... She looked like the full-length picture of my -great-great-grandmother Edgeworth you may have seen in the garret, -very thin and melancholy, but her face not so handsome as my -great-grandmother’s; dark eyes, long sallow cheeks, compressed thin lips, -two or three black ringlets on a high forehead, a cap that Mrs. Grier -might wear,—altogether an appearance of fallen fortunes, worn-out health, -and excessive, but guarded irritability.” - -(b) From the same letter: - -“... Forgive me, my dear Aunt Mary, you begged me to see her with -favourable eyes, and I went to see her after seeing her ‘Rosière de -Salency’” (a play in the _Théâtre d’Education_) “with the most favourable -disposition, but I could not like her.” - -At this time it would seem that the old countess was soured by neglect -and disappointment. - -[Sidenote: 3.] - -The school stories in the _P. A._ are: “The Bracelets” (an early story -of a girls’ school); “The Barring Out” and “Eton Montem”, both theoretic -studies of schoolboys. - -[Sidenote: p. 183. 1.] - -The four volumes of _E. L._ contain the following stories: - -Vol. I. The Little Dog Trusty; The Cherry Orchard; Frank. - -Vol. II. Rosamond; Harry and Lucy. - -Vol. III. The Continuation of Frank and part of the Continuation of -Rosamond. - -Vol. IV. The Continuation of Rosamond and of Harry and Lucy. - -These were followed by _Rosamond: a Sequel to Rosamond in “Early -Lessons”_. 2 vols., 1821; and _Frank: a Sequel to Frank in “Early -Lessons”_. 3 vols, 1822. - -[Sidenote: p. 184. 1.] - -Dr. Darwin attempted to deal poetically with matter of Science; but his -couplets show all the worst features of eighteenth century verse. The -passage quoted in _Frank_ (E. L., Vol. I.) runs thus:— - - “Stay thy soft murmuring waters, gentle rill; - Hush, whispering winds; ye rustling leaves, be still; - Rest, silver butterflies, your quivering wings; - Alight, ye beetles, from your airy rings; - Ye painted moths, your gold-eyed plumage furl, - Bow your wide horns, your spiral trunks uncurl; - Glitter, ye glow-worms, on your mossy beds; - Descend, ye spiders, on your lengthen’d threads; - Slide here, ye horned snails with varnish’d shells; - Ye bee nymphs, listen in your waxen cells.” - -[Sidenote: p. 187. 1.] - -The lines, repeated to test Harry’s power of attention, are these:— - - “So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf, to make - an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear coming - up the street, pops its head into the shop. ‘What! No soap?’ - So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and - there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the - Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little - round button at top; and they all fell to playing the game of - catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of - their boots.” - -“The Great Panjandrum Himself” was later “pictured” as a schoolmaster in -cap and gown, by Randolph Caldecott. - -[Sidenote: p. 192. 1.] - -Children’s books recommended by Mr. Edgeworth in his “Address to Mothers” -(E. L. Vol. III):— - -“Fabulous Histories”; “Evenings at Home”; Berquin’s “Children’s Friend”; -“Sandford and Merton”; “Little Jack”; “The Children’s Miscellany”; “Bob -the Terrier”; “Dick the Pony”; “The Book of Trades”; “The Looking-glass, -or History of a Young Artist”; “Robinson Crusoe”; “The Travels of -Rolando”; “Mrs. Wakefield on Instinct”; _parts_ of White’s Natural -History of Selborne; and _parts_ of Smellie’s Philosophy of Natural -History. - -_The Dog of Knowledge; or Memoirs of Bob the Spotted Terrier_ (1801) and -_Dick the Pony_ were by the same author. - -_The Book of Trades_ is a modern equivalent of _Dives Pragmaticus_ (see -above—Introd:) - -_The Looking-glass_, etc., by “Theo Marcliffe”, is the story of the early -life of Mulready the painter, written by Godwin under this pseudonym. - - -IX - -[Sidenote: p. 195. 2.] - -A revised and abridged edition of Bunyan’s “Rhimes” appeared in 1701, -under the title: _A Book for Boys and Girls; or, Temporal Things -Spiritualised_. - -A ninth edition was published in 1724 under the new title _Divine -Emblems; or, Temporal Things Spiritualised_. - -[Sidenote: 3.] - -_A Little Book for Little Children_, “wherein are set down in a plain -and pleasant Way, Directions for Spelling and other remarkable Matters. -Adorned with Cuts. By T. W.” (Thomas White). - -London, printed for G. O. and sold at the King in Little Britain. - -[Sidenote: p. 196. 1.] - -_The Child’s Week’s Work_; “or, A Little Book so nicely suited to the -Genius and Capacity of a little Child, both for Matter and Method, that -it will infallibly allure and lead him into a Way of Reading, with all -the Ease and Expedition that can be desired.” By William Ronksley. -London, printed for G. Conyers and J. Richardson in Little Britain, 1712. - -[Sidenote: p. 201. 2.] - -R. L. Stevenson quotes this rhyme in the lines “To Minnie” (_A Child’s -Garden of Verses_, pp. 130-1): - - “Our phantom voices haunt the air - As we were still at play; - And I can hear them call and say: - ‘_How far is it to Babylon?_’ - - “Ah far enough, my dear, - Far, far enough from here— - Yet you have farther gone! - ‘_Can I get there by candlelight?_’ - - “So goes the old refrain. - I do not know—perchance you might— - But only children hear it right, - Ah, never to return again! - - “The eternal dawn, beyond a doubt, - Shall break on hill and plain, - And put all stars and candles out, - Ere we be young again.” - -[Sidenote: p. 206. 2.] - -Few of the themes are original. Two by Adelaide O’Keefe, “The Boys and -the Apple Tree” and “The Vine”, are verse readings of stories in _The -Looking Glass for the Mind_. So also is “The Two Gardens” by Ann Taylor. - -[Sidenote: p. 208. 1.] - -_Poetry for Children_ was praised in the _Monthly Review_ for Jan., 1811, -but soon went out of print. The original edition was lost sight of until -1877, when it was sent from Australia “a courteous and most welcome -gift from the Hon. William Sandover” to Mr. R. H. Shepherd. (See the -Introduction to Mr. Shepherd’s reprint.—Chatto & Windus, 1878.) - -In the meantime, twenty-two of the pieces had been preserved in a _First -Book of Poetry_ printed by W. F. Mylius, a master at Christ’s Hospital, -“For the Use of Schools. Intended as Reading Lessons for the Younger -Classes.” This was mentioned in the _Monthly Review_ for April, 1811. - -[Sidenote: p. 209. 2.] - -The following poems were reprinted in the 1818 edition of Lamb’s Works:— - -“To a River in which a Child was Drowned”; “The Three Friends”; “Queen -Oriana’s Dream”. - -[Sidenote: p. 216. 1.] - -Lamb says that Martin Burney read _Clarissa_ in snatches at a book-stall, -until discouraged by the stall-keeper. He adds: “A quaint poetess of -our day has moralised upon this subject in two very touching but homely -stanzas”. - -[Sidenote: p. 219. 1.] - -(a) _The Peacock “At Home.”_ “A Sequel to the Butterfly’s Ball. Written -by a Lady and illustrated with elegant engravings”. Harris, successor to -E. Newbery, 1807. - -(b) _The Lion’s Masquerade._ “A Sequel to the Peacock ‘At Home’. Written -by a Lady.” London, J. Harris, etc., 1807. - -(c) _The Elephant’s Ball and Grand Fête-Champêtre_: Intended as a -Companion to those much admired Pieces, The Butterfly’s Ball and The -Peacock “At Home”. By W. B. London, J. Harris, etc., 1807. - -Facsimile reprints by Charles Welsh, 1883. - -[Sidenote: p. 221. 1.] - -(a) _The Daisy_, “Adapted to the Ideas of Children from four to eight -years old”—was illustrated with 30 copperplate engravings. - -(b) _The Cowslip_ was announced as “By the Author of that much admired -little work entitled The Daisy”. Both were published by Harris, and -reprinted with introductions by Charles Welsh in 1885. - -(c) Imitations were:— - -_The Snowdrop; or, Poetry for Henry and Emily’s Library._ By a Lady. -Harris, 1823 (3rd edition); and _The Crocus; or, Useful Hints for -Children_, “being Original Poems on Popular and Familiar Subjects”. -London, R. Harrild, 1816. - -[Sidenote: p. 223. 1.] - -_The Journey of Goody Flitch and her Cow_, a variant of _Old Mother -Hubbard_, 1817. - -[Sidenote: 2.] - -_Dame Wiggins of Lee and Her Seven Wonderful Cats_, “A Humorous Tale. -Written Principally by a Lady of Ninety. Embellished with sixteen -coloured Engravings. Price one shilling”. London, Dean & Munday, 1823. - -The rhyme was reprinted by Ruskin, who admired its strong rhythm. - -[Sidenote: 3.] - -_The History of Sixteen Wonderful Old Women_, “Illustrated by as many -Engravings, exhibiting their principal Eccentricities and Amusements”. -London, Harris & Son, 1821. - -[Sidenote: 4.] - -_Readings on Poetry._ By Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth -(London, 1816), followed the plan used with the Edgeworth children. No -word or phrase is allowed to pass without explanation. - -This may have inspired the author of _The Young Reviewers; or, the Poems -Dissected_. London, William Darton, 1821. - - - - -APPENDIX B - -_Chronological List of Children’s Books from 1700 to 1825_ - - -The List shows only books studied in the foregoing chapters. It includes -no undated chap-books. - -[Sidenote: A.D. 1700.] - - Anon. The History of the Two Children in the Wood. - -[Sidenote: 1701.] - - Bunyan, John. A Book for Boys and Girls; or, Temporal Things - Spiritualised. - -[Sidenote: 1702.] - - White, Thomas. A Little Book for Little Children (12th edn.). - -[Sidenote: 1708.] - - Chap-books mentioned in _The Weekly Comedy_ (Jan. 22): Jack and - the Gyants, Tom Thumb, etc. - -[Sidenote: 1709.] - - Romances given in Steele’s paper (Tatler, Nov. 15-17): Don - Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, The Seven Champions, etc. - -[Sidenote: 1712.] - - Anon. The Child’s Week’s Work. - -[Sidenote: 1715.] - - Watts, Isaac. Divine Songs for Children. - -[Sidenote: 1727.] - - Anon. The Hermit; or, Philip Quarll. - -[Sidenote: 1738.] - - Wright, J. Spiritual Songs for Children. (2nd edn.) - -[Sidenote: 1743.] - - Anon. The Little Master’s Miscellany. - -[Sidenote: 1744.] - - Anon. A Little Pretty Pocket Book. - - Anon. Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book. 2 vols. - -[Sidenote: 1745-66.] - - Anon. The Circle of the Sciences. - -[Sidenote: 1746.] - - Anon. The Travels of Tom Thumb. - -[Sidenote: 1749.] - - Fielding, Sarah. The Governess; or, The Little Female Academy - (2nd edn.). - -[Sidenote: 1751.] - - Anon. The Lilliputian Magazine. - - Marchant, John. Puerilia; or, Amusements for the Young. - -[Sidenote: 1752.] - - Anon. A Pretty Book of Pictures for Little Masters and Misses; - or, Tommy Trip’s History of Beasts and Birds. - -[Sidenote: 1760.] - - Anon. The Top Book of All for Little Masters and Misses. - -[Sidenote: 1760-65.] - - Anon. Mother Goose’s Melody; or, Sonnets for the Cradle. - -[Sidenote: 1761.] - - The Philosophy of Tops and Balls. (Adv. Apr. 9.) - -[Sidenote: 1765.] - - Anon. The Renowned History of Giles Gingerbread: a Little Boy - who lived upon Learning. - - Anon. The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes. - -[Sidenote: 1767.] - - Anon. The Twelfth Day Gift: or, the Grand Exhibition. - -[Sidenote: 1768.] - - Anon. Tom Thumb’s Folio. - -[Sidenote: 1770.] - - Anon. The Letters between Master Tommy and Miss Nancy Goodwill. - - Anon. Robin Goodfellow; “A Fairy Tale written by A Fairy”. - -[Sidenote: 1777.] - - Anon. The History of the Enchanted Castle; or, The Prettiest - Book for Children. - -[Sidenote: _c._ 1777.] - - Anon. Juvenile Correspondence; or, Letters suited to Children - from four to above ten years of age. - -[Sidenote: 1780.] - - Anon. The Poetical Flower Basket. - - Anon. The Governess; or, Evening Amusements at a Boarding - School. - - Barbauld, Anna Laetitia. Easy Lessons. Hymns in Prose for - Children. - -[Sidenote: _c._ 1780.] - - Cooper, W. D. The Oriental Moralist. - -[Sidenote: 1781.] - - Anon. Juvenile Trials. - -[Sidenote: 1782.] - - Anon. The History of King Arthur (from Dryden). - - Anon. Oriental Tales: The Ruby Heart and The Enchanted Mirror. - - More, Hannah. Sacred Dramas. - -[Sidenote: 1783.] - - Day, Thomas. The History of Sandford and Merton, Vol. I. - -[Sidenote: _c._ 1783.] - - Fenn, Eleanor (Lady Fenn). The Juvenile Tatler. - -[Sidenote: 1786.] - - Day, Thomas. Sandford and Merton, Vol. II. - - Trimmer, Sarah. Fabulous Histories. - -[Sidenote: 1787.] - - Anon. The Adventures of a Silver Penny. - - Anon. The Juvenile Biographer (New England edn.). - - Anon. The Lilliputian Masquerade. - - Day, Thomas. The Children’s Miscellany. - -[Sidenote: _c._ 1787.] - - Anon. The Adventures of a Silver Threepence. - -[Sidenote: 1788.] - - Kilner, Dorothy (“M. P.”). The Life and Perambulation of a - Mouse. - - The Village School. - - Kilner, Mary Jane (“S. S.”). The Adventures of a Pincushion. - - Jemima Placid; or, The Advantage of Good-Nature. - - Memoirs of a Peg Top. - -[Sidenote: _c._ 1788.] - - Anon. The Renowned History of Primrose Prettyface. - -[Sidenote: 1789.] - - Anon. The Adventures of Philip Quarll (adapted). - - Anon. The History of Prince Lee Boo. - - Anon. The Life and Adventures of a Fly. - - Cooper, W. D. Blossoms of Morality. - - Day, Thomas. Sandford and Merton. Vol. III. - - Fenn, Eleanor (Lady F.). The Fairy Spectator. - -[Sidenote: _c._ 1789.] - - Tom Thumb’s Exhibition. - -[Sidenote: 1790.] - - Anon. Mirth without Mischief. - - Kilner, Dorothy (?). Anecdotes of a Boarding School. - -[Sidenote: 1791.] - - Wollstonecraft, Mary. Original Stories from Real Life. - -[Sidenote: 1792-96.] - - Aikin, A. L. and J. (Mrs. Barbauld and Dr. Aikin). Evenings at - Home. 6 vols. - -[Sidenote: 1794-5.] - - Wakefield, Priscilla. Mental Improvement. 2 vols. - -[Sidenote: 1796-1800.] - - Edgeworth, Maria. The Parents’ Assistant; or, Stories for - Children. - -[Sidenote: 1798.] - - Kendall, Edward Augustus. Keeper’s Travels in Search of his - Master. - -[Sidenote: 1799.] - - Kendall, E. A. The Crested Wren. - - Pilkington, Mrs. M. S. Biography for Girls. Tales of the - Cottage. - -[Sidenote: 1800.] - - Kendall, E. A. The Stories of Senex; or, Little Histories of - Little People. - - The Swallow. - - Pilkington, M. S. The Asiatic Princess. - - Porter, Jane. The Two Princes of Persia. - - Sandham, Elizabeth. The Boys’ School. - -[Sidenote: 1801.] - - Anon. The Dog of Knowledge; or, Memoirs of Bob, the Spotted - Terrier. - - Edgeworth, Maria. Early Lessons. 2 vols. Moral Tales. - - Wakefield, Priscilla. The Juvenile Travellers. - -[Sidenote: 1802.] - - Pilkington, M. S. Marvellous Adventures; or, the Vicissitudes - of a Cat. - -[Sidenote: 1804.] - - Taylor, Ann and Jane; and O’Keefe, Adelaide. Original Poems for - Infant Minds. - -[Sidenote: 1805.] - - Anon. Songs for the Nursery. - - Lamb, Charles. The King and Queen of Hearts. - -[Sidenote: 1806.] - - Taylor, A. & J.; and O’Keefe, A. Rhymes for the Nursery. - -[Sidenote: 1807.] - - Anon. The Children in the Wood (moralised). - - Anon. Robin Hood (moralised). - - B., W. The Elephant’s Ball. - - Dorset, Mrs. C. A. The Lion’s Masquerade. The Peacock “At Home”. - - Lamb, Charles and Mary. Tales from Shakespear. - - Roscoe, William. The Butterfly’s Ball and the Grasshopper’s - Feast. - - Turner, Elizabeth. The Daisy; or, Cautionary Stories in Verse. - -[Sidenote: 1808.] - - Anon. The Academy; or, a Picture of Youth. - - Anon. Stories of Old Daniel. - - Lamb, Charles. The Adventures of Ulysses. - - Pilkington, M. S. Biography for Boys. - - Taylor, Ann. The Wedding among the Flowers. - -[Sidenote: 1809.] - - Lamb, Charles and Mary. Mrs. Leicester’s School. Poetry for - Children. - - Pilkington, M. S. Biography for Girls. - - Sandham, Elizabeth. The Adventures of a Bullfinch. - - The Adventures of Poor Puss. - -[Sidenote: 1810.] - - Argus, Arabella. The Juvenile Spectator. - - Ritson (ed.). Gammer Gurton’s Garland. - -[Sidenote: 1811.] - - Anon. Felissa; or, The Life and Opinions of a Kitten of - Sentiment. - - Lamb, Charles. Prince Dorus. - - Turner, Elizabeth. The Cowslip; or, More Cautionary Stories in - Verse. - -[Sidenote: 1812.] - - Elliott, Mary (formerly Belson). Precept and Example. - - Sandham, Elizabeth. The Perambulations of a Bee and a Butterfly. - -[Sidenote: 1815.] - - Argus, Arabella. The Adventures of a Donkey. - - Edgeworth, Maria. Early Lessons. Vols. III and IV. - -[Sidenote: _c._ 1815.] - - Sherwood, M. M. Little Henry and his Bearer. - -[Sidenote: 1816.] - - Aikin, Lucy. Juvenile Correspondence. - - Anon. The Peacock and Parrot on their Tour to discover the - Author of The Peacock “At Home”. - - Edgeworth, Richard Lovell and Maria. Readings on Poetry. - - Elliott, Mary. The Orphan Boy; or, A Journey to Bath. - - Mister, Mary. The Adventures of a Doll. - -[Sidenote: 1818.] - - Elliott, Mary. The Modern Goody Two Shoes. The Adventures of - Thomas Two Shoes. - - Sandham, Elizabeth. The School-fellows. - - Sherwood, Martha Mary. The History of the Fairchild Family. - - Taylor, Jefferys. Harry’s Holiday. - -[Sidenote: 1819.] - - Elliott, Mary. The Rambles of a Butterfly. - - Sherwood, M. M. The Little Woodman and His Dog Cæsar. - -[Sidenote: 1820.] - - Sherwood, M. M. (ed.). The Governess. - -[Sidenote: 1820.] - - Taylor, Jefferys. Æsop in Rhyme. - -[Sidenote: 1821.] - - Anon. The Sixteen Wonderful Old Women. - - Anon. The Young Reviewers; or, The Poems Dissected. - - Argus, Arabella. Further Adventures of a Donkey. - - Ostentation and Liberality. - - Edgeworth, Maria. Rosamond, A Sequel to Rosamond in Early - Lessons. - - Elliott, Mary. Confidential Memoirs; or, the Adventures of a - Parrot, a Greyhound, a Cat and a Monkey. - - Hack, Maria. Harry Beaufoy; or, The Pupil of Nature. - - Sherwood, M. M. The Infant’s Progress. - -[Sidenote: 1822.] - - Edgeworth, Maria. Frank. A sequel to Frank, in Early Lessons. - - Sandham, Elizabeth. The Happy Family at Eason House. The - History of Elizabeth Woodville. - -[Sidenote: 1823.] - - Anon. The Adventures of Congo. - - Anon. The Court of Oberon; or, The Temple of the Fairies. - - Hedge, Mary Ann. Samboe; or, the African Boy. - - Lady of Ninety, A. Dame Wiggins of Lee and her Seven Wonderful - Cats. - -[Sidenote: 1824.] - - Hedge, Mary Ann. Radama; or, the Enlightened African. - - Taylor, Jane. The Contributions of Q. Q. 2 vols. - - Taylor, Jefferys. The Little Historians. - -[Sidenote: 1825.] - - Edgeworth, Maria. Harry and Lucy “concluded; being the last - part of Early Lessons”. 4 vols. - - -_Foreign Books and Translations_ - -[Sidenote: 1707.] - - D’Aulnoy, Madame la Comtesse. Collected Works. - -[Sidenote: 1708.] - - The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments; Translated from the French - of M. Galland. - -[Sidenote: 1708.] - - Perrault, Charles. Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé, avec - des Moralités. “Par le fils de Monsieur Perrault de l’Academie - François”. 1st edn. 1697. - -[Sidenote: 1722.] - - Æsop. Fables. Croxall’s edition. - -[Sidenote: 1729.] - - Perrault, Charles. First English translation by R. Samber. - -[Sidenote: 1742.] - - Fénélon, François de Salignac de la Mothe. Adventures of - Telemachus. 2 vols. 1st French edn. 1699. - -[Sidenote: 1757.] - - Beaumont, Jeanne Marie Le Prince de. Le Magazin des Enfans. 2nd - edn. 2 vols. Translated as the Young Misses’ Magazine. (Adv. - Critical Review, Aug.) - -[Sidenote: 1763.] - - Marmontel, Jean François. Moral Tales. Translated by Miss R. - Roberts. - -[Sidenote: 1775.] - - Beaumont, J. M. Le P. de. Moral Tales. Trans. Anon. 2 vols. - -[Sidenote: 1779.] - - Genlis, Madame la Comtesse de. Le Théâtre d’Education. - -[Sidenote: 1782.] - - Genlis, Madame de. Adèle et Théodore. - -[Sidenote: 1782-3.] - - Berquin, Armand. L’Ami des Enfans. - -[Sidenote: 1783.] - - Berquin, Armand. The Children’s Friend. Translated by M. A. - Meilan. 24 vols. - - Epinay, Madame d’. Les Conversations d’Emilie. - - Genlis, Madame de. Adelaide and Théodore. Trans. Anon. 3 vols. - -[Sidenote: 1784.] - - Genlis, Madame de. Les Veillées du Château. - -[Sidenote: 1786.] - - Marmontel, J. F. Contes Moraux collected. - -[Sidenote: 1787.] - - Berquin, Armand. The Looking-Glass for the Mind. (Selections - from L’Ami des Enfans. ed. Cooper.) - - Epinay, Madame d’. Conversations of Emily. Trans. Anon. - -[Sidenote: 1788.] - - Campe, J. H. Robinson der Jüngere. Trans. as The New Robinson - Crusoe. - -[Sidenote: 1791.] - - Berquin, Armand. The History of Little Grandison. Trans. Anon. - -[Sidenote: 1792.] - - Salzmann, C. G. Elements of Morality. Trans. from the German. - -[Sidenote: 1801.] - - Engel, J. and Weisse, F. The Juvenile Dramatist. (Educational - plays, trans. Anon.) - - Genlis, Madame de. Le Petit La Bruyère translated as La Bruyère - the Less. - -[Sidenote: 1809.] - - Jauffret, L. F. Dramas for Children. “Imitated from the French - of L. F. J. By the Editor of Tabart’s Popular Stories”. - -[Sidenote: 1823.] - - Grimm, J. L. C. and W. C. Popular Stories. - -Other children’s books of the 18th and 19th centuries are given in Mr. F. -J. Harvey Darton’s bibliography: Cambs. Hist. of Eng. Lit. Vol. XI, Chap. -XVI. - -There is also a useful list of Essays, Magazine Articles, etc. - - _Printed in Great Britain by Jarrold Sons, Ltd., Norwich._ - - - - -A SELECTION FROM MESSRS. METHUEN’S PUBLICATIONS - -This Catalogue contains only a selection of the more important books -published by Messrs. Methuen. A complete catalogue of their publications -may be obtained on application. - - -=Armstrong (W. W.).= THE ART OF CRICKET. _Second Edition._ _Cr. 8vo. 6s. -net._ - -=Bain (F. W.)=— - -A DIGIT OF THE MOON: A Hindoo Love Story. THE DESCENT OF THE SUN: A Cycle -of Birth. A HEIFER OF THE DAWN. IN THE GREAT GOD’S HAIR. A DRAUGHT OF -THE BLUE. AN ESSENCE OF THE DUSK. AN INCARNATION OF THE SNOW. A MINE OF -FAULTS. THE ASHES OF A GOD. BUBBLES OF THE FOAM. A SYRUP OF THE BEES. THE -LIVERY OF EVE. THE SUBSTANCE OF A DREAM. _All Fcap. 8vo. 5s. net._ AN -ECHO OF THE SPHERES. _Wide Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._ - -=Baker (C. H. 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