/43 7 
 
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 UNIVERSITY 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 Z1037 .F45 1891 
 
 Child and his book : some account of the 
 
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 GAVLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN USA. 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029552761 
 
From "The schools of Vbmue," 1619.— Page 106. 
 
Zbe Cbilb ano HMs Boofe. 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT 
 
 THE HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF CHILDREN'S 
 LITERATURE IN ENGLAND. 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. E. M. FIELD, £—** %*»&u 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ETHNE," " BE YD A," "MIXED PICKLES," ETC. 
 
 LONDON \ 
 WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO. 
 
 2, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C. 
 AND 44, VICTORIA STREET, S. W. 
 

 f< 
 
 <f, 
 
 V/ 
 
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 Aa-?£3..Tk 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 The subject of this volume is one which, from its nature, 
 presents many difficulties as regards material. It is 
 the fate of children's books to be destroyed by children 
 themselves ; to be put aside as insignificant in public 
 and private colleptions ; to be omitted from catalogues and 
 bibliographies ; to be bound up, sometimes, in heterogene- 
 ous batches of half-a-dozen in one cover, without regard 
 to unity of authorship or similarity of contents ; to be 
 preserved — if at all — either by a mere happy chance, or 
 for the sake of illustrations they may happen to contain ; 
 and finally, in these modern days, to be hunted out for 
 deportation to America. 
 
 I therefore offer the following pages somewhat in the 
 character of mdmoires pour servir, not pretending to ex- 
 haustiveness, but, I trust, accurate so far as they go. 
 I should gratefully welcome the correction of any in- 
 accuracy, or any further information which would amend 
 the shortcomings of this work ; and my sincere thanks 
 are due for the valuable help which I have received, not 
 
prefatory Mote, 
 
 only at the British Museum, Bodleian, and South Ken- 
 sington Libraries, but also from Dr. F. J. Furnivall, Mr. 
 W. Oarew Hazlitt, Mr. Sydney Whiteford, and others, 
 who have assisted me by the loan of rare books, or from 
 the resources of their special knowledge. 
 
 L. F. E. 
 
 Inqatestone, Essex, 
 
 February I, 189 1. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY I 
 
 n. BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST lO 
 
 III. BOOKS FROM THE CONQUEST TO CAXTON, I066-I485 . 36 
 
 IV. THE CHILD IN ENGLAND, I066-1640 . . . -75 
 V. MANNERS MAKYTH MAN 93 
 
 VI. A. B. C 112 
 
 VII. EDUCATIONAL REFORM, I5IO-1649 . ... 136 
 
 VIII. SOME EARLY PRINTED BOOKS 1 72 
 
 IX. "THE FEAR OF THE LORD AND OF THE BROOMSTICK" . 1 86 
 X. SOME CHAPBOOKS, AND THE PROGRESS OF THE SPELLING- 
 BOOK 215 
 
 XI. SOME NURSERY CLASSICS 230 
 
 XII. "TO POINT A MORAL AND ADORN A TALE" . . . 243 
 
 XIII. FROM 1740 TO ABOUT l8lO 273 
 
 XIV. SOME ILLUSTRATORS OF CHILDREN'S BOOKS . . . 293 
 
 XV. MODERN DEVELOPMENTS 316 
 
THE CHILD AND HIS BOOK. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 Introductory. 
 
 " If we are to consider that the condition of the human mind at any 
 particular juncture is worth studying, it is certainly of importance to hear 
 on what food its infancy is fed."— Bubton, The Book-Hunter. 
 
 T would seem, says a modern writer, that as 
 the world grows older it takes more and 
 more interest in . things that are young. 
 It is certainly true that the warm interest 
 of to-day in child-life is a purely modern development. 
 The ancient Greek, in the fulness of his creative power, 
 seldom cared to represent childhood, whether with chisel, 
 brush, or pen. Nor was the child anything more to 
 the Roman than a future citizen or mother of citizens. 
 Later, among nations still semi-barbarous, and constantly 
 struggling with others in that desperate contest which 
 ends in the survival of the fittest, the child was still of 
 little account. He was but the embryo of a man, useless 
 in his weakness, a mere cumbrance during his helpless 
 years. But now the old world turns to occupy itself 
 with childhood. Often the old people who have done 
 
Jntro&uctorg. 
 
 with the stress and strain of life, and who are resting in 
 the quiet evening of old age, seem to find children the 
 most congenial of comrades. And among many signs 
 of the deep interest in child-life and all that concerns it, 
 not the least significant symptom in our own country 
 has been the growth of the children's literature during 
 the past century. 
 
 So great has this growth been, so enormous the ever- 
 increasing flood of books poured forth for their benefit, 
 that the elders of our own generation at times watch 
 it with something like dismay. The father who looks 
 at his children's embarras de richesse of dainty volumes, 
 bound, illustrated, decorated with more taste and skill 
 than many a classic of his own youth, sees also how 
 lightly these are turned over, glanced at, put aside on 
 shelves already full. He remembers how he, as a child, 
 owned but some two or three dingy little volumes, and 
 remembers also how dearly he loved these few treasures. 
 They were to him book-friends, and their influence on 
 his life was a powerful one. They were read and re-read 
 till the ideas they contained had sunk into the very 
 depths of his consciousness, till the author's thoughts 
 and views had become his own, and each of the char- 
 acters a personal friend. Some of these little volumes 
 lie neglected on the bookstalls at this moment, or are 
 crossing the Atlantic to meet the eager demand of the 
 American collector. Take one up ; its pages are brown, 
 not with age merely, but with much fingering. It has 
 slept under its owner's pillow at night, and travelled on 
 many an expedition in his pocket ; his. name is on the 
 title-page, with careful record of giver and date, and 
 perhaps below it the name of his son is heedlessly 
 scrawled. There is one place where the book will always 
 open of itself. That is where the exciting passage came, 
 to which the first possessor turned so often. It began 
 
Jntrobuctors. 
 
 on the left-hand page, six lines from the top ; he re- 
 members, as he thinks of it now, the very look of the 
 print, and the hard word to which for so many years 
 he gave a wrong meaning. 
 
 Probably this poverty had its compensations in that 
 it bred in the young people of that day a certain devo- 
 tion of spirit and concentration of mind which would 
 help to form the character. We must indeed admit 
 that in the profuse variety of the most recent develop- 
 ment of children's literature there is loss to be discovered 
 as well as gain. The old rapture, the intensity of the 
 child's feeling about a book as a rare treasure, the keen 
 appetite with which the little reader made every word 
 of it his own, these have disappeared, and in their place 
 our children gain from variety a wider range of ideas 
 and a broader culture, quickening thought, as well as 
 an aesthetic training rich in pleasure and profit. It 
 is for us, remembering the moral discipline of our own 
 poverty, to show them how to use their new riches well. 
 
 The scope of the present work, however, is not coter- 
 minous with this century of children's literature. It 
 is in one sense wider, as embracing the progress and 
 development of such literature from its earliest com- 
 mencement; in another sense narrower, as excluding 
 that very large amount of literature which belongs to 
 the years following 1826. 
 
 This is not an entirely arbitrary limit,, although at 
 that date there was no distinct break in the ever- 
 increasing stream of publications. It is chosen because 
 about that time the appearance of The Child's Guide to 
 Knowledge marked a new departure and awakened a 
 new interest in this sphere of work, and because the 
 subsequent period, the modern era, as we may call it, 
 is at once too full and too familiar for profitable dis- 
 cussion. Our inquiry ranges, therefore, over a long 
 
Jntro&uctors. 
 
 period of time, which may be roughly marked off into 
 four great eras. In the first, from Saxon times to the 
 invention of printing, the monks were the only teachers, 
 and almost the only writers, the monasteries being almost 
 the only refuges of learning. In those semi-barbarous 
 times, when books and book materials had an enormous 
 commercial value, it was of course impossible that mere 
 pleasure-books for children could be produced at all. 
 Hence the earliest juvenile literature was invariably 
 instructive, and this continued to be its character 
 throughout the subsequent era, the vigorous period of 
 the classical revival, when for a time the reaction 
 towards Latin and Greek learning was so strong 
 as almost to exclude all else. The next change came 
 in with the Puritans, who set afloat a new literature 
 of their own, to supersede and banish all that already 
 existed. Now came into fashion the Emblem, the 
 controversial Dialogue, and the stories of the preco- 
 ciously pious child who died young. Then, when the 
 full force of the Puritan spirit had spent itself, a new 
 phase appeared. The hot zeal died down into the dull 
 embers of Morality. The great class of the English 
 country gentlemen had arisen, with its large households 
 living in sober and solid prosperity, worthy and well- 
 meaning, but somewhat commonplace people. 
 
 Living on their own estates, giving time and thought 
 to the care of their children, the papa and mamma of 
 the period were ready to welcome books helpful to their 
 education. With the demand came then the supply. 
 The shrewd perception of Newbery, Saint of Newcastle, 
 and their successors, from about 1770, started the stream 
 of little books which has swelled into the great flood 
 of to-day. In spite of the never-failing moral, there 
 was now a distinct intention to amuse the little people, 
 an inclination which has grown more and more, until 
 
Jntro&uctorg. 
 
 the very newest phase of opinion seems to be that 
 instruction, if admitted into a story-book at all, must 
 be scrupulously veiled and cloaked. 
 
 , It is worth while to notice that the close of each of 
 these eras and the beginning of the next coincides with 
 some great crisis in our national history. The first ends 
 with the death of feudalism and the establishment of 
 a strong monarchy under the Tudors ; the second with 
 the fall of the Stuarts ; the third with the internal paci- 
 fication of the country after the final collapse of Jaco- 
 bite rebellion and the rising of the middle classes, still 
 obscured, but already grasping for power, during the 
 oligarchic period of the third and fourth Georges, until, 
 with the establishment of those classes in power and the 
 passing of the Reform Act, a new thirst for knowledge 
 was felt and began to be supplied. The history of 
 children's literature is shaped in its broader outlines by 
 the history of the English people. 
 
 No less inevitably its course is parallel, and some- 
 times interwoven, with that of children's education. If 
 the present volume appears at times to trespass on the 
 domain of the larger subject, it is because even in the 
 later periods only a partial distinction is possible, and 
 in the earlier periods none at all. And the lesson-books 
 provided by each generation for the training of its young 
 successor are interesting as exponents of the prevalent 
 modes of thought and intellectual tendencies of the time, 
 however dull and dry in themselves. 
 
 In dealing with nursery rhymes and stories we meet 
 with some difficulties. These, whether orally handed 
 down or committed to paper, have always and in all 
 countries existed, and by a natural law held the first 
 place in the affections of the young. They belong rather 
 ' to the department of folk-ldre than to any history of 
 books, and come within our province only when they 
 
5ntro5uctorg. 
 
 take shape as printed volumes. They cannot, therefore, 
 receive here the exhaustive treatment which they deserve, 
 and which indeed they have already received. The 
 same must be said of children's poetry, interesting in 
 spite of — perhaps even because of— its strange scantiness, 
 even since Wordsworth. 
 
 Our inquiry, therefore, confines itself to tracing the 
 conscious labours of successive English generations to 
 provide their children with books — efforts tentative and 
 fitful, and the work of individuals only in the earlier 
 centuries, but growing gradually into the dignity of a 
 profession. Within these limits there is more material 
 for notice and discussion than is perhaps generally sup- 
 posed, although much has perished, and though, in spite 
 of careful research, the present writer cannot hope to 
 have reached nearly all that actually remains. 
 
 No apology is probably needed for the admission to 
 this category of many books not originally designed for 
 children. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was a religious 
 allegory, Swift's Gulliver's Travels a political satire, 
 Defoe's Robinson Crusoe was a novel with a purpose, 
 setting forth the author's views on various social and 
 theological questions ; Roscoe's Butterfly's Ball was origi- 
 nally a social skit. But all these belong to children's 
 literature by right of adoption, and some amongst them owe 
 their survival to the juvenile instinct which fastened upon 
 them in a period when healthy food for infancy was scarce. 
 
 And to the children's praises some of their authors 
 owe a celebrity never gained for them by the more 
 serious works on which they looked to ground their fame. 
 We remember the brothers Grimm rather by their fairy 
 tales than by their great work of dictionary-making. 
 We hardly know that Perrault was a great mathemati- 
 cian, but Bluebeard we do know. Indeed, the student of 
 children's literature cannot fail to be struck by the fact 
 
•Jntrofcuctors. 
 
 that the work which has taken the most permanent hold 
 has mostly originated in some powerful mind, whether it 
 be the mind of a nation or that of some distinguished 
 man. The pure soul of a child acts as a test for true 
 gold. Even when the quantity becomes bewildering, the 
 same rule holds good. To quote only an example or two, 
 do not The Crofton Boys, Alice in Wonderland, The Rose 
 and the Ring detach themselves from the general mass ? 
 
 From the consideration of the books themselves we 
 naturally turn to ask about their authors, what manner 
 of men they were, and what were their circumstances. 
 It is of course impossible within the limits of a volume 
 to give any exhaustive accounts of each one among so 
 large a number of writers, but some slight knowledge 
 of an author's personality seems to be almost necessary, 
 since the man has made the book, and circumstances 
 have tended to make the man what he is. In apology 
 for other digressions, it must be pleaded that they are 
 hard to avoid in dealing with a subject of this kind. 
 Byways of interest seem to branch off at every step from 
 the main path, and it seems pardonable, if not desirable, 
 at least to point these out in passing. The compilation 
 of this book has indeed been in some sort an exploration 
 of unmapped country, where the traveller makes his way 
 through tangled growths and over bewildering plains to 
 find now and again a ready-made path where others have 
 been before him, where for some distance he may journey 
 with ease, till the road again disappears. As he goes, he 
 will mark the trees and leave a little track which others 
 who follow may, if they please, expand into a broad high- 
 way. The present volume aims at making some such 
 connected track through a subject of which parts have 
 been effectively treated by more capable hands, while 
 other parts have scarcely been touched upon. 
 
 Having reviewed the past, we cannot fail to glance 
 
s Jntro&uctors. 
 
 towards the future. We live in an age of rapid change, 
 when present conditions of life slip away from us with 
 almost bewildering speed. Education especially ia ad- 
 vancing with rapid strides. The tendency of the age 
 has been towards the extreme of materialism and utili- 
 tarianism. It is a phase of which Charles Lamb saw 
 the beginning, and of which he wrote to Coleridge in 
 words worth recalling in our own day : — 
 
 " Knowledge must now 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 of 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." 
 
 It is certainly true that for many years our school 
 reading-books have been over-full of instruction, our 
 children's stories too much of baby novelettes. Children 
 live less in their own fairy world ; " Heaven lies about 
 them in their infancy" less than formerly; they more 
 quickly grow up and dispel the glamour of those happy 
 mists of childhood which in the morning of youth veil 
 for a time the hard realities of life. Many of our recent 
 stories for children also have not been stories for chil- 
 dren, but stories about children, careful dissections of 
 character, deeply interesting to the grown people, often 
 touchingly and beautifully detailed, but eminently unsuit- 
 able for the children's own reading, and, as experience 
 proves, not interesting to them. And this perhaps is 
 
Jntrotmctory. 
 
 well ; for the study of these skilful analyses of character 
 would seem calculated to make the child-reader sadly- 
 self-conscious ; reading them must have much the same 
 effect as listening to the conversations about them which 
 foolish grown people sometimes carry on in the children's 
 presence, under the impression that they will take no 
 notice of what is said. 
 
 It has been well observed that " Children do not 
 desire, and ought not to be furnished with, purely 
 realistic portraits of themselves : the boy's heart craves 
 a hero ; " — and the Johnny or Frank of the realistic 
 story-book, the little boy like himself, is not in this 
 sense a hero. It is no doubt little to be expected that 
 in an age like ours some such phase could be avoided. 
 Yet at the present moment there seem to be some signs 
 of a coming change, which may be read in the barometer 
 of the booksellers' catalogues. The welcome accorded to 
 some recent republications of the old stories has been 
 very cordial, and a series of fairy-tale reading-books 
 has even been issued for use in our elementary schools. 
 These are surely good signs. Let education be of what- 
 ever sort we please, it must at least be well that the 
 children should be children — while they can. 
 
 Thus while we consider the children's books of various 
 eras, and the immense development of this literature in 
 late years, the sense of responsibility in their production 
 deepens. Vox audita perit, litera scripta manet, wrote 
 Caxton, deeply impressed with the seriousness of his own 
 work. The child's soul is yet a white paper, said good 
 Bishop Earle, but by degrees it is so scribbled over with 
 observations of the world as to become at length a mere 
 blurred note-book. It were better, said a higher autho- 
 rity than either of these, that a man were drowned with a 
 millstone about his neck, than that his work in the world 
 should tend to lead astray even one of these little ones. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Before the Norman (Conquest. 
 
 " Premierement fist Karlemaigne paindre dans son palais gramaire, qui 
 mere est de tous les arz." — Jubinal, Ruteh&uf. 
 
 EGINNING at the very beginning, we find 
 that when history first takes account of the 
 isle of Britain, it was a wooded, marshy, 
 thinly-peopled country, where the child who 
 ran wild in fen or forest saw no written symbols but 
 those which were traced on the bodies of himself and 
 his companions in blue woad. Sermons in stones, books 
 in the running brooks he might find if he could, but his 
 education would be to hunt and to shoot, and to defend 
 himself against his brother when necessary. 
 The Druid. His first teacher was probably the Druid. These 
 priests, it is said, formulated their laws and theology in 
 a kind of rude metre or rhythm, at such a length that 
 sometimes their scholars spent thirty years in the study, 
 learning' their lessons by heart, and reciting or chanting 
 them. But the Druid's day passed, and after him came 
 the Christian priest. 
 The Bard. All the Celtic princes employed a regular staff of bards, 
 and took them on their journeys, fighting forays, hunting 
 or colonising expeditions. The bard was poet, musician, 
 
Before tbe IRorman Conquest. n 
 
 historian, war-correspondent in one, and the profession 
 was the refuge of the lad whose taste for continual 
 fighting was less keen than that of his brothers, the 
 gentler child, who, under other circumstances, would have 
 developed into the literary man. 1 With the Monk came 
 the monastery, with the monastery came the school, and 
 to the gentler spirit a new home was open, a new and 
 noble vocation offered. 
 
 Doubtless the education which the mediaeval monk The Monk. 
 could offer was but limited. Ignorant as he was him- 
 self, religious prejudice still further narrowed his idea of 
 culture for the young. His narrow piety was troubled 
 by the doubt expressed by St. Basil, whether the works 
 of heathen philosophers and poets could be fit training 
 for Christian youth. Yet the Fathers were not always 
 distinguished for purity of style, and so the good monk 
 found himself upon the horns of a dilemma. However, 
 what he could do he did ; and the sixth century saw 
 schools established in Britain, and the first fruits of 
 learning in the appearance of a native author, the monk 
 Gildas, surnamed the Wise. 
 
 Schools required schoolbooks. Before long the more The Cum- 
 
 i culum. 
 
 ardent educationists, finding the need of books specially 
 adapted for teaching, began to write such books them- 
 selves. Meantime such volumes as the convent pos- 
 sessed must serve the purpose. The study of the verna- 
 cular, before King Alfred's day at least, was not thought 
 of, but in theory the monastic course was sufficiently 
 wide, consisting of trivium and quadrivium, the former 
 made up of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, the latter of 
 music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. 
 
 In practice this noble scheme of study often dwindled Grammar, 
 to a little Latin grammar, learnt generally from small 
 
 1 Henry's History, vol. i. p. 355, edit, of 1774. 
 
Before tbe ftlorman Conquest. 
 
 and meagre text-books compiled from the works of tbe 
 great grammarians Donatus and Priscian. On tbese all 
 grammars till tbe days of Whytington and Lily were 
 founded, and donate or donet was a name in common use 
 for a grammar text-book. Thus in Piers Plowman — 
 
 " Than dorowe me among draperes my donet for to learne." 
 
 " Grammar," however, was often used to mean Latin 
 studies generally; and as learned study, especially when 
 associated with science or mechanics, had a certain sus- 
 picion of magic about it, as in the case of Dunstan or 
 Eoger Bacon, magical power came by and by to be called 
 Grammarye. Grammar is the science of words, and by 
 the word God made the world, explains the thirteenth- 
 century Image du Monde. 
 Boethius, One book admirably met the monkish teachers' re- 
 2470-524. quirements. A fragment at least of the Consolations of 
 Philosophy of Boethius would most probably be found 
 even in the most meagre convent library, a volume highly 
 prized, valuable to point the preacher's discourse, most 
 valuable as a text-book for the young scholars. 
 
 Boethius, last of the classical writers, fell a victim to 
 the displeasure of the Visigoth Theodoric in 524 A.D. 
 While in prison he wrote the work in which the monks 
 found a pure Latin style in happy combination with a 
 philosophy sufficiently akin to the spirit of Christianity. 
 Kesignation to the dispensations of a Providence, a Divine 
 power working through good and evil in the world, was 
 taught by the suffering philosopher. But the monks, 
 who delighted to quote from his work, were now and 
 then conscious that, after all, they were appealing to 
 the dicta of a heathen philosopher. A heathen, yet so 
 Christian in spirit, might it not be, they argued in self- 
 
Before tbe morman Conquest. 13 
 
 defence, that Boethius was in truth under the influence 
 of Christian teaching ? Might it not be that he was in 
 truth a Christian ? Nay, what more probable than that 
 the victim of a heathen monarch's persecution was indeed 
 a Christian confessor and martyr ? Such were the steps 
 by which the heathen philosopher was at last elevated to 
 the position of a Christian saint ; for in the eighth century 
 Boethius was actually canonised, and October 23rd fixed 
 as his festival. A scrap at least of his book was generally 
 to be found in the monastic library ; a version was promptly 
 made as soon as a new language appeared, Northern 
 French, High German, Provencal ; and as Caxton printed 
 it in English before 1479, we may infer that the old 
 philosopher's popularity still continued. 
 
 Certainly it showed some zeal in the cause of educa- Value of 
 tion that a child's lesson-book was made at all before the 
 invention of printing, while parchment was so costly that 
 it was worth while to erase or coat over a whole manu- 
 script that another might be written in its stead, when 
 houses and lands were given in exchange for a single 
 volume, and numerous masses sung for the souls of pious 
 donors of even one book. 
 
 Naturally these priceless treasures were not often 
 trusted in the hands of the little scholars, some of whom 
 began their education at a very early age — perhaps, like 
 the Venerable Bede, at seven. For the very first lessons, 
 the teacher would probably write down letters and words 
 for the children to copy on their tabula? or slates, or 
 pick out the easier words from any available book, or 
 more probably, as was the custom in later days, use 
 the familiar Paternoster, Ave, and Creed as reading- 
 lessons. 
 
 From illuminated pictures in old manuscripts we can The 
 
 e . 1 t. i Monastery 
 
 gain a very fair idea of the scene m a monastery school, school. 
 
14 
 
 Before tbe Morman Conquest. 
 
 The teacher sits facing his class with a large book open 
 upon a lectern before him ; the children, long-haired and 
 loose-robed, are collected before him, generally sitting, 
 but sometimes kneeling. That this latter attitude was 
 
 THE MONASTERY SCHOOL. 
 
 From Royal MS. 17 E iii., Brit. Mus. 
 
 not uncommon appears from the two woodcuts in the 
 Parvus et Magnus Chato, 1 printed for the third time by 
 Caxton about 1471, in both of which the pupils are 
 kneeling, one boy in the first cut wearing a fool's cap. 
 
 1 Blades' Caxton, p. 222, 8vo edit, 1877. 
 
Before tbe Borman Conquest. 15 
 
 It may be remarked in passing, that while the school- 
 master in the illustrations to printed books is almost 
 invariably represented as teaching rod in hand, the monk 
 of the earlier manuscript is not so depicted, except on 
 what appear to be special occasions, as in a volume of 
 school text-books in the British Museum, 1 where the 
 instrument of correction is the ladle-shaped ferula, 
 applied to the palm of the hand. A carving on a 
 Miserere at Sherborne represents a nun inflicting most 
 energetic corporal punishment upon a refractory pupil, 
 whose face expresses the liveliest objection, while that of 
 the lady is perfectly calm and dispassionate. 
 
 Girls were allowed to share their brothers' opportuni- Girls, 
 ties. Mixed schools were often taught by nuns. The 
 anchoresses for whom the Anglo-Saxon Ancren Mwle 
 was written were indeed specially desired not to under- 
 take this work, because their Order required special 
 isolation and devotion, but the handmaiden or lay sister 
 who might be employed to wait upon an anchoress might 
 instruct a little girl for whom learning among boys was 
 not considered desirable ; provision being apparently thus 
 made for exceptional cases. 
 
 That the girls profited by their opportunities is evident 
 from the proficiency of many ladies in writing fluent 
 Latin letters and Latin verses also. The lady- abbesses 
 who were thought worthy to sit in Parliament were well- 
 educated women, and the young lady-pupils of the Abbess 
 Eadburga, who wrote letters and sent Latin hexameters 
 to their teacher's friend Boniface, showed themselves 
 worthy of the education they received. 
 
 Bishop Percy says that much time was spent in 
 learning to recite and chant Psalms, adding that some 
 
 1 MS. Bibl. Burn. , 275 ; consisting of Priscian, Cicero, Boethius, Euclid, 
 and Ptolemy. 
 
1 6 JSefore tbe IRorman Conquest. 
 
 of the boys who had diligently studied music afterwards 
 became professional minstrels. 
 Music. A knowledge of music was indeed for many centuries 
 
 a most important acquirement, especially for princes and 
 nobles. Thus in the very old ballad of King Horn, King 
 Aylmar gives orders for the education of his foundling : — 
 
 " Stiwarde, tak nu here 
 Mi fundlyng for to lere 
 Of thine mestere, 
 And tech him to harpe 
 With his nayles scharpe." 
 
 Guido Aretino's scale, it must be remembered, was not 
 introduced till the eleventh century, so that the simplest 
 music may well have been a difficult study. The same 
 may be said of arithmetic before the introduction of 
 Arabic numerals, which are said to have been brought 
 to England by Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II. 
 But to the monks generally numbers were much more 
 interesting in their mystical significance than as calcu- 
 lating factors. 
 School of In 668 Theodore of Tarsus was sent by the Pope to 
 bury™" n U tae See at Canterbury, where he at once founded his 
 great and long-famous school, and endowed it with a 
 "noble library" of some half-dozen volumes, including 
 " a splendid Homer " on paper, a rare and most valuable 
 possession. 
 Aidhelm, About the same time, either here or in the school of 
 Abbot Adrian, it is uncertain which, the author of the 
 first book which we can trace as specially intended for 
 young people was learning his early lessons. 
 
 Few details of the life of Aidhelm have come down to 
 us. He may be called the father of Anglo-Latin poetry, 
 and his book Be Laude Virginitatis was very popular up 
 to the time of the Conquest. He was successively monk 
 
Before tbe IRormaii Conquest. ii 
 
 and abbot of Malmesbury, and King Alfred, who greatly- 
 admired his works, has preserved an anecdote which is 
 interesting as characteristic of Aldhelm's age, and also 
 as showing his ardent desire for the instruction of his 
 countrymen. The people who flocked to the church 
 of Malmesbury for mass were apt to leave without 
 waiting for the sermon, and Aldhelm, perceiving this, 
 stationed himself on the bridge which they must 
 cross, in the character of a gleeman, and attracted 
 the people to stay and listen to his songs, with which he 
 presently managed to mingle something of instruction. 
 '*' Whereas," says William of Malmesbury, " if he had 
 proceeded with severity and excommunication, he would 
 have made no impression whatever upon them." And 
 doubtless this same desire to feed the minds of the 
 untaught with food convenient for them induced Aldhelm 
 to compose a book for the monastery school. A graphic 
 picture of the school-life of the period and of the diffi- 
 culties which he sought to smooth is presented in a letter 
 written by Aldhelm himself to Hedcla, Bishop of Win- 
 chester. We can understand his desire to make metres 
 especially more easily grappled with when we read this 
 account of the study. 
 
 After regretting that he cannot come to spend Christ- 
 mas, Aldhelm continues : — 
 
 " The truth is, that there is a necessity for spending 
 a great deal of time in this seat of learning, especially 
 for one who is inflamed' with the love of reading, and is 
 earnestly desirous, as I am, of being intimately acquainted 
 with all the secrets of the Eoman jurisprudence. Be- 
 sides, there is another study in which I am engaged, 
 which is still more tedious and perplexing — to make 
 myself master of all the rules of a hundred different 
 kinds of verses, and of all the musical modulations of 
 words and syllables. This study is rendered more diffi- 
 
1 8 dBefore tbe IRonnan Conquest. 
 
 cult and almost inextricable by the great scarcity of able 
 teachers. But it would far exceed the bounds of a 
 familiar letter to explain this matter fully, and lay open 
 all the secrets of that art of metre, concerning letters, 
 syllables, poetic feet and figures, verses, tones, time, &c. 
 Add to this the doctrine of the seven divisions of poetry 
 with all their variations, and what number of feet every 
 different kind of verse must consist of. The perfect 
 knowledge of all this, and several other things of the like 
 kind, cannot, I imagine, be acquired in a short space of 
 time. But what shall I say of arithmetic, whose long 
 and intricate calculations are sufficient to overwhelm the 
 mind and throw it into despair ? " (Multiplication, we 
 may observe, may well have been "vexation" when only 
 Boman figures were in use. There was an elaborate 
 system of counting on the fingers, which Bede details at 
 length ; and algorism, or counting by beads and counters, 
 long remained quite a science.) " For my own part," 
 continues Aldhelm, " all the labour of my former studies, 
 by which I made myself a complete master of several 
 sciences, was trifling in comparison of what this cost me, 
 so that I may say with St. Jerome upon a similar occa- 
 sion — before I entered upon that study I thought my- 
 self a master, but then I found I was but a learner. 
 However, by the blessing of God and assiduous reading,. 
 I have at 'length overcome the greatest difficulties, and 
 found out the method of calculating suppositions which 
 are called the parts of a number. I believe it will be 
 better to say nothing at all of astronomy, the zodiac, and 
 its twelve signs revolving in the heavens, whieh require a 
 long illustration, rather than to disgrace that noble art 
 by too short and imperfect an account, especially as there 
 are some parts of it, as astrology and the perplexing 
 calculation of horoscopes, which require the hand of a 
 master to do them justice." 
 
3Befoi*e tbe IRorman Conquest. i 9 
 
 Aldhelm's own book was entitled Be Septenario, de 
 Metris, JSnigmatibus, ac Pedum Regulis} It begins by a 
 discourse on the mystical significances and virtues of the 
 number seven, especially as used in Scripture. Then 
 comes a treatise on Latin prosody in a dialogue between 
 pupil and teacher. The Conversations, which seemed a 
 new idea when introduced into the children's books of 
 the early years of our century, especially in such works 
 as " Mrs. Markham," are in truth the oldest of old educa- 
 tional ideas in England. To adapt any subject to the 
 comprehension of the young people, it seemed advisable 
 to put it either in the form of a conversation or else 
 into verse. We shall scarcely find any books written for 
 children before the sixteenth century that are not in one 
 or other of these forms. 2 The conversations are generally 
 between Discipulus and Magister; sometimes, as in .ZElfric's 
 Colloquy, the child was to take the part of a labourer or 
 artisan ; sometimes two well-known people or imaginary 
 characters were to argue, as Alcuin and Pepin, son of 
 Charlemagne. 
 
 Following this, eome a collection of riddles and puzzles 
 in Latin hexameters, which the pupil is asked to solve. 
 Eor such puzzles our forefathers had a great affection, 
 and they were no doubt regarded, like the arithmetical 
 questions, of which we shall presently have more to say, 
 as sharpening to youthful wits. As a specimen of Ald- 
 
 1 Wright, Biographia Britannioa Literaria Ang.-Sax. ; Morley, Eng. 
 Writers, vol. ii. 
 
 2 "It is singular enough," says W. Wright, "that most of the ways of 
 giving a popular form to elementary instruction which have been put in 
 practice in our own days had been already tried in the latter times of the 
 Anglo-Saxons. We thus find the origin of our modern catechisms amongst 
 the forms of education then in use. Not only were many of the elementary 
 treatises on grammar written in the shape of question and answer, with the 
 object of making these easier to learn and to understand, as well as of 
 encouraging the practice of Latin conversation, but also the first books in 
 the other sciences. " — Bi<?g. Brit. Ang.-Sax. 
 
Before tbe IRorman Conquest. 
 
 helm's riddles we may take this, Be Penna Scriptoria, as 
 rendered by Henry Morley : l — 
 
 "Me, dead-white, long ago the shining pelican brought forth, 
 "Who with an open throat from the pit's depth sup up the waters. 
 Through the white plains I march, without any crook in the foot- 
 path, 
 And on the bright way I leave my cerulean footprints, 
 Darkening lustrous fields with the blackness of twisting and 
 
 turning. 
 Nor does it yet suffice that the plains are traversed by one track, 
 But to a thousand paths is rather the byway extended, 
 Which them who do not stray has led to the summits of heaven.'' 
 
 Discipulus and Magister then resume their dialogue, 
 and discourse of Latin metres, their feet, and the rules 
 that govern them. They then discourse of metrical feet, i 
 trochee, trilrach, molossus, anapaest, and finally end with , 
 a section on prosody generally. 
 
 The riddles of Aldhelm were not original. There was 
 an old Latin tract already in circulation, Symposii J 
 JEnigmata, and a number are to be found in the Exeter | 
 Book, including one which tells the sufferings of John 
 Barleycorn in a way that differs little from the more 
 modern ballad. Scriptural puzzles were particularly 
 liked. 
 
 Among the poems in the Exeter Book which may 
 belong to this period is one in which a father is repre- 
 sented as instructing his child. The counsels are those 
 which belong to all time, as an extract will show. The 
 book itself was presented to the Cathedral of Exeter by 
 Leofric in 1046, and consists of popular songs in the 
 vernacular, such as Aldhelm may have sung to the people!! 
 of Malmesbury. Here are some of the counsels. 
 
 1 Eng. Writers, voL ii. 
 
Before tbe iRorman Conquest. 21 
 
 " Thus a 'wise father, 
 his dear son instructed, 
 a man wise in mind, 
 a parent old in excellencies, 
 in words sagacious, 
 so that lie was much revered. 
 Do ever what is virtuous 
 God to thee will ever he 
 in every good a patron and support. 
 Be thou to thy parents 
 ever dutiful, 
 fair in word, 
 and in thy soul let 
 thy teachers 
 in thy mind he dear, 
 who thee most diligently 
 confirm in good." 
 
 The good son, we learn, will not be ready to condone 
 evil, will not choose bad friends, nor deceive a good 
 friend. He will not drink ; he will guard his tongue ; he 
 will study to distinguish between evil and good, and will 
 be diligent to learn all available lore. 
 
 " there are not many now 
 who the writings of old times will hold," 
 
 observes the father. Therefore in these evil days, 
 
 "let thy mind observe 
 the Scriptures of old times, 
 and the Lord's decrees, 
 ■which here in the country everywhere, 
 men suffer 
 to decline more 
 than for themselves is right." 
 
 Self-control is important, and should be learnt in 
 
 youth. 
 
 " Let not anger thee 
 Ever overpower ; 
 
before tbe IRomran Conquest. 
 
 Be not thou too prone to blame 
 Nor too double-tongued." 1 
 
 About a century after Aldhelm's death, we come to a 
 more famous student and teacher. At the age of seven, 
 the Venerable Bede 2 began his training in the monastery 
 of St. Peter at Wearmouth. At ten years old he re- 
 moved with others to the new foundation of St. Paul at 
 Jarrow, where for fifty-two years he laboured incessantly 
 at learning and teaching, refusing to be made abbot 
 because " household care brings with it distraction of 
 mind, which hinders the pursuit of learning." The 
 schools at Jarrow eventually contained 600 scholars, 
 and for them Bede wrote in clear and simple Latin 
 digests of all his own knowledge gained from books, 
 arranging facts and thoughts as might be most' helpful 
 to learners. No fewer than forty-five books were produced 
 by him, of which a great number were commentaries on 
 the Scriptures. One volume contained thirty questions 
 on the Bpok of Kings, intended evidently for teaching. 
 Another he himself described as a " Book of the Art of 
 Poetry, and to it I have added another little Book of 
 Tropes and Figures ; that is, of the figures and manners 
 of speaking in which the Holy Scriptures are written." 
 
 All Bede's works are pervaded by the mystical 
 monkish spirit, that sought to find in all things, whether 
 history or facts of nature or arithmetical numbers, alle- 
 gorical interpretations. Thus his commentary on Samuel 
 declares that Elkanah, husband of two wives, was sym- 
 bolical of Christ as Lord both of the Synagogue and of 
 the Church; the name Hannah signifying grace, and 
 therefore denoting the Church, and that of Peninnah, 
 meaning conversion, typifying the Synagogue. His 
 
 1 Rendered by Eenj. Thorpe. 
 
 2 Giles, Mem. Bede and Eocles. Hist. ; Wright, Biog. Brit. ; Morley, 
 Eng. Writers. 
 
Before tbe IRonnan Conquest. 23 
 
 book of Tropes explained the use of allegory in Scripture, 
 classifying tlie examples under seventeen forms of figure 
 of speech and thirteen forms of trope. 
 
 His Booh of Orthography digested in Alphabetical Order 
 is a collection of Latin words, a sort of explaining dic- 
 tionary, smoothing difficulties of spelling or meaning, 
 thus : 
 
 " Arbok omne lignum dicitur, Arbusta non nisi fiuetifera, 
 Abscondittjs, non absconsus." 
 
 The tract De Natura Serum embodied all that was 
 known in Bede's day of natural science, natural history, 
 botany, and astronomy. It was one of his earliest works, 
 and in the tenth century an abridged Anglo-Saxon 
 translation was made, both destined to be for centuries 
 the standard authorities, and the foundation of later 
 works. Naturally this book also is pervaded by the 
 mystical spirit. Naturally also the wildest fables are 
 contained in it and in its successors; griffins, sala- 
 manders, and mermaids being described with precisely 
 the same serious -simplicity as cows and sheep. 
 
 Thunder and lightning were naturally subject to won- 
 derful interpretations. 
 
 " Lightning," says Bede, " is produced by the rubbing 
 together of clouds, after the manner of flints struck 
 together, the thunder occurring at the same time ; but 
 sound reaches the ears more slowly than light the eyes. 
 For of all things the collision creates fire. Some say 
 that while air draws water in vapour from the depths, it 
 draws also fire heat-wise, and by their contact the horrid 
 crash of thunder is produced ; and if the fire conquer, it 
 will be injurious to fruits ; if water, beneficial ; but that 
 the fire of lightning has so much the more penetrative 
 power, from being made of subtler elements than that 
 which is in use by us." 
 
24 before tbe IRovman Conquest. 
 
 Bede considered the earth to be the centre of the uni- 
 verse, the firmament to be bounded by fire, beyond 
 which lay the celestial regions peopled by angels, who 
 could at will assume the appearance of human beings. 
 That the waters above the firmament were there placed 
 to mitigate the heat of the fire and the stars, that the fixed 
 stars move round with the firmament, and that sparks 
 from them are sometimes blown away and become falling 
 stars. Astronomy in his eyes had two uses — one to dis- 
 play the power of God, and one to fix the Church calendar, 
 the second of these being the use most dwelt upon. 
 
 There was at the time much conflict between the 
 British and the Roman Churches as to the time of 
 celebrating Easter. Bede wrote two treatises to support 
 the English view, and then a catechism to impress his 
 belief upon his boys. The world, according to his views, 
 must have been created at the vernal equinox, because 
 the moon was full, that is, it was one of " two great 
 lights." It must have been spring, too, for the earth 
 brought forth grass; and equinox, because light was 
 equally divided from darkness. Such and such like were 
 these weighty arguments. To Bede are also attributed 
 various school text-books of grammar from Donatus, of 
 rhetoric, music, &c. 
 
 Among these works is to be found a collection of ques- 
 tions and problems in arithmetic, which is again attributed 
 to Alcuin. Probably these puzzles were popularly cir- 
 culated, and were at one time or another written down. 
 The very same questions certainly have continued popu- 
 lar, and are found in one arithmetic book after another 
 even to the present day. A manuscript copy in the 
 British Museum dates from the tenth or eleventh cen- 
 tury at latest. In some copies the problems are specially 
 described as made ad acuendos juvenes. The first ques- 
 tion in the British Museum copy is this : — 
 
Before tbe IRorman Conquest 25 
 
 " The swallow once invited the snail to dinner ; he 
 lived just one league from the spot, and . the snail 
 travelled at the rate of only one inch a day ; how long 
 would it be before he dined ? " 
 
 Here is another, " An old man met a child. ' Good 
 cbiy, my son,' says he ; ' may you live as long as you have 
 lived, and as much more, and thrice as much as all this, 
 and if God give you one year in addition to the others, you 
 will be just a century old.' What was the lad's age ? " 
 
 All the works of Bede were calculated to instruct 
 and edify his countrymen, and more especially the 
 young people for whom he laboured so ardently. Indeed, 
 through all the literature that has come down to us from 
 the centuries before the Conquest, the same strong and 
 simple purpose of edification and instruction seems 'to 
 run. The ppwer of earnest endeavour characteristic of 
 the race, the serious view of life and its responsibilities, 
 are never more plainly shown than in the written books, 
 even in the songs of the nation. To the students who 
 crowded the foundation at Jarrow in Bede's later years, 
 the example of their master's life must have been worth 
 many books. " Our father and master Bede, whom God 
 loved," writes Cuthbert in the touching letter wherein 
 he tells of the master's last days and of his labours, 
 continued even in the very death-agony. Whatever 
 remained of the day when lessons were finished, the 
 dying teacher spent in praising God, grudging even a 
 small part of the night to sleep. The translation of St. 
 John's Gospel into the popular tongue still remained 
 unfinished, and on the Tuesday before Ascension, a.d. 73 5, 
 Bede bade the pupils who wrote at his dictation go on 
 quickly, for that His Maker was about to take him away. 
 Having passed a sleepless night in prayer and thanks- 
 giving, he continued to work next day, as Cuthbert thus 
 relates : — 
 
before tbe Borinan Conquest. 
 
 " There was one of us with him, who said, ' Dear 
 master, there is still one chapter wanting ; do you think 
 it troublesome to be asked any more questions ? ' He 
 answered, ' It is no trouble ; take your pen and write fast,' 
 which he did. He said, ' It is time for me to return to 
 Him who formed me out of nothing ; I have lived long, 
 my merciful Judge well foresaw my life for me ; the time 
 of my dissolution draws nigh, for I desire to die and to 
 be with Christ.' Having said much more, li8 passed the 
 day joyfully until the evening ; and the boy above men- 
 tioned said, ' Bear master, there is yet one sentence not 
 written.' He answered, ' Write quickly.' Soon after the 
 boy said, ' The sentence is now written ; it is ended.' 
 He replied, ' It is well ; you have said the truth ; it is 
 ended. Eeceive my head into your hands, for it is a 
 great satisfaction to me to sit facing my holy place 
 where I was wont to pray, that I may also sitting call 
 upon my Father.' And thus on the pavement of his little 
 cell, singing, ' Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, 
 and to the Holy Ghost,' he breathed his last, and so 
 departed to the Heavenly Kingdom." 
 Egbert, Thus died the saintly Bede, and before his death his 
 
 ? 678-766. exam pi e was being followed by Archbishop Egbert of 
 York, who was raised to the See in 732. Bede, speaking 
 of his own times, had called them happy and enlightened 
 in comparison of those which preceded them, for that none 
 wanted teachers who were willing to be instructed. 
 
 At York, Egbert collected what was really a magnifi- 
 cent library for the times. It contained the works of 
 many of the Fathers, those of Aldhelm and Bede, the 
 travels of Orosius, Boethius, Pliny, Aristotle, Cicero, a 
 number of Latin poets, such as Juvencus and Lactantius, 
 and the then most popular classical writers, namely, 
 Virgil, Statius, and Lucan, also the grammar works of 
 Donatus, Priscian, and others. 
 
Before tbe iRorman Conquest 27 
 
 Among Egbert's scholars was Alcuin, who afterwards, ?Alouin, 
 when settled at Charlemagne's court, entreated that 735 " 8 ° 4 ' 
 monarch to send some of his young French pupils to 
 York that they might there transcribe, and so "trans- 
 plant the flowers of Britain into France." Alcuin, " the 
 humble Levite," as he loved to call himself, spent all 
 his life in furthering the cause of education. Although 
 Charlemagne, who had invited him to his court because 
 he felt that knowledge was power, heaped wealth and state 
 upon Alcuin, he never was led away from his great aim. 
 He founded monasteries and schools, but spent his own 
 time in teaching Charlemagne's sons, inviting also the 
 king's sister and daughters to join the students. The 
 trivium and quadrivium system, leading up to theology 
 as the highest study, formed his method of work, and he 
 wrote a variety of school-books for young people. 
 
 One is a treatise on orthography, dealing with diffi- 
 culties requiring explanation. Other works of Alcuin's 
 were a "Dialogue on Grammar," maintained by a Saxon, 
 a Frank, and their teacher, and two " Dialogues ' : between 
 himself and Charlemagne, one on Rhetoric and the Virtues, 
 one on Dialectics. 
 
 The dialogue between Pepin and Alcuin has already 
 been mentioned. The answers are often wild, sometimes 
 ingenious enough. To the question, " What are herbs ? " 
 the answer is, " The friends of the physicians and the 
 praise of cooks.'' Grass is defined as the garment of the 
 earth ; man as the painter of the earth ; a ship as a 
 wandering horse, a hostel wherever you will, a traveller 
 that leaves no footsteps, a neighbour of the sand. 
 
 Alcuin carried the learning of Britain into France, 
 but Alfred and Athelstan brought foreign scholars into 
 England, not without need, as it would seem. 
 
 Alfred the Great complains that in his youth he could 
 
23 before tbe Iflorman Conquest. 
 
 not find a tutor till lie had reached twelve years of age. 
 The numerous incursions of the Danes had brought about 
 a very different state of things from the " happy and 
 enlightened " days of Bede. 
 
 Having by his successful warfare against the invaders 
 restored peace to England, Alfred proceeded to promote 
 the interests of learning in England. The decline of 
 Latin study was greatly lamented by him. But it must 
 be owned that his own diligence as a translator did not 
 greatly tend to promote this study. The first book given 
 to his people in their own tongue by the diligent king 
 was the much-prized Consolations of Philosophy. But 
 the spring of original thought in the royal author's 
 mind would not suffer him to be content with mere 
 translating ; it overflowed continually into expansions of 
 the original thought. 
 
 Thus, for instance, he enlarges three lines of his author 
 on a subject personally very interesting to himself into 
 the following: — 
 
 " The mind then answered and said: O Reason, indeed 
 thou knowest that covetousness and the greatness of this 
 earthly power never well pleased me, nor did I very much 
 yearn after this earthly authority. But nevertheless I 
 was desirous of materials for the work which I was com- 
 manded to perform ; that was that I might honourably 
 and fitly guide and exercise the power which was com- 
 mitted to me. Moreover, thou knowest that mo man can 
 show any skill, or exercise or control any power without 
 tools and materials. There are of every craft the mate- 
 rials without which man cannot exercise the craft. These, 
 then, are a king's material and his tools to reign with ; 
 that he have his land well peopled ; he must have bead- 
 men, and soldiers, and workmen. Thou knowest that 
 without these tools no king can show his craft. This is 
 also his material, that he must have, beside the tools 
 
Before tbe iflorman Conquest. 29 
 
 provision for the three classes. This is then their pro- 
 vision, — land to inhabit, and gifts and weapons, and meat 
 and ale, and clothes, and whatsoever is necessary for the 
 three classes. He cannot without these preserve the 
 tools, nor without the tools accomplish any of those 
 things which he is commanded to perform. Therefore 
 I was desirous of materials wherewith to exercise the 
 power, that my talents and fame should not be forgotten 
 and hidden. For every craft and every power soon be- 
 comes old, and is passed over in silence if it be without 
 wisdom, and no man can accomplish any craft without 
 wisdom. Because whatsoever is done through folly no 
 one can ever reckon for craft. This is now especially to 
 be said, that I wished to live honourably while I lived, 
 and after my life to leave to the men who were after me 
 my memory in good works." 1 
 
 The Universal History of Orosius, a very favourite 
 text-book in the monastery schools for the teaching of 
 history, was also translated by Alfred, who desired to add 
 to this also the latest discoveries of travellers. Accord- 
 ingly the narratives of Othere, the Northern voyager, and 
 of Wulfstan were incorporated in the book. 
 
 According to Alfred's preface to his Cicra Pastoralis, 
 there were few men south of the Humber who could 
 understand their ritual or read a Latin letter. South of 
 the Thames, when he came to the throne, he knew not 
 one such. 
 
 Alfred's translations prove what he himself says, that 
 in his day few could read Latin, but many could read 
 English. 
 
 The history of the life of Alfric or ^Elfric, "the 
 
 grammarian," is wrapped in much obscurity. He appears 
 
 to have been a youth of good family, and received the 
 
 beginning of his education from a secular priest, whose 
 
 1 Edited by Rev. S. Fox, "Whole Works of King Alfred." 
 
zo 
 
 Before tbe ftlorman Conquest. 
 
 ignorance and evil life disgusted him with the secular 
 clergy. Transferred then to Ethelwold's monastery- 
 school at Abington, when his master was made Bishop 
 of Winchester, iElfric accompanied him thither, and 
 taught in a school which his efforts made famous. From 
 the fragments of Priscian and the work of Mlius Donatus, 
 the Lindley-Murray of medieval schools, iElfric compiled 
 a grammar in First-English for the boys of Winchester. 
 For their use he presently compiled another work, which 
 now-a-days is interesting, not only to the student of 
 education, but to any reader who cares for a series of 
 vivid pictures of everyday life in the England of the 
 period. 
 
 His " Colloquy," l a book of simple questions and answers 
 on subjects of everyday life, is intended to serve as an easy 
 reading-book for the boys, and to promote the speaking 
 of Latin, which was considered so desirable and impor- 
 tant. Another proof of the kindliness of the old monkish 
 tutors is given by the pleasantness and simplicity of 
 these lessons, in marked contrast to the dull and untempt- 
 ing Latin exercise of later days. Doubtless this speaking 
 of Latin, which for the next four centuries was required 
 of the English schoolboy, even during his play-hours, 
 tended to that barbarising of the language which roused 
 the wrath of the Tudor educationists, corrupt and familiar 
 constructions being allowed to creep in, and names being 
 given to objects of recent invention. 
 
 The conversations are between the master and the 
 pupils, who beg to be taught. The Anglo-Saxon gloss 
 interlined was rather for the guidance of the teacher than 
 for that of the pupils, who in their young days seldom 
 handled their lesson-books themselves. 
 
 ISTo doubt the teacher's knowledge was generally very 
 
 1 See Welclter's edition of Wright's Library of National Antiquities, vol. 
 L, Vocabularies, and Brit. Mus., Cotton, Tiberias A. iii. fol. 58. 
 
Before the iRorman Conquest. 31 
 
 imperfect. ^Blfric himselt' makes many blunders. Thus 
 the dialogue begins — • 
 
 we oildra biddath the eala lareow thset thu tseoe us sprecan 
 
 D. Nos pueri rogamus te, magister, ufc doceas nos loqui 
 
 [rihte] fortham nngelserede we sydon and gewsemmod ice we sprecatli. 
 
 Latialiter recte, quia idiote sumus et corrupte loquimur. 
 
 hwaet wille ge sprecan. 
 M. Quid vultis loqui? 
 
 hwsefc rece we hwset we sprecan butan hit riht sprsec sy andbehefe 
 D. Quid curamua quid loquamur nisi recta locutio sit, et utilia 
 
 nses idel otlie fracod. 
 
 lion auilis, aut turpis ? 
 
 wille (ge beon) beswungen on leornunge. 
 M. Vultis flagellari in discendo 1 
 
 leof re ya us beon beswungen for lare tbsenne hit ne ounnan 
 D. Carina est nobis flagellari pro dectrina, quam nescire , 
 
 ac we witan the bilewitne wesan and nellan onbelseden swincgla us 
 sed scimus te mansuetum esse et nolle inferre plagas nobis, 
 
 buton thu bi to-genydd fram- us. 
 nisi cogaris a nobis. 
 
 The use of the rod in fetching sleepers from bed for 
 nocturns is also mentioned. 
 
 The boys proceed to personate various characters, 
 with whom the master converses, thus recording many 
 interesting details of everyday life. For instanoe, a 
 question as to a boy's daily diet produces the statement 
 that he is too young to eat meat, and lives on eggs and 
 fish, cheese and butter, cabbages, beans, &c, and drinks 
 ale if he can get it, otherwise water. 
 
 Great pity is expressed for the hard lot of the serf, 
 the mere yearthling, attached to the soil and changing 
 owners with it. His is a weary lot, endless labour and 
 endless poverty. From such a fate education was pro- 
 bably the one door of escape, leading into the Church, 
 
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Before tbe IRorman Conquest. 33 
 
 to the foot of the ladder by which a clever lad might 
 climb to very great eminence. 
 
 Here is a part of the conversation with the oxherd : — 
 
 eala oxanhyrde hwset wyrsfc thu 
 M. bubulce, quid operaris tu? 
 
 eala hlaf ord min micel ic gedeorfe thaenne se yrthlinge unscenth 
 D. domine mi, multum laboro. Quando arator disjungit 
 
 tlia osan ic lasde hig to loese and ealle niht ic stande ofer hig 
 
 boves, ego duco eos ad pascua, et tota nocte sto super eos 
 
 waciende for theofan and eft on seme mergen ic betece hig 
 
 vigilando propter fures et iterum primo mane adsigno eos 
 tham yrthlincge wel gefylde and gewseterode. 
 aratori bene pastos et adaquatos. 
 
 The cook takes a more cheerful view of his duties. 
 But for him, he says, men must eat their meat and vege- 
 tables raw. " Why not dress them themselves ? " sug- 
 gests the questioner ; to which the cook retorts that in 
 that case all would be brought down to the position of 
 serving-men. 
 
 It will be seen from these extracts that this earliest 
 of reading-books for English children was a simple and 
 pleasant little cbmposition, in which cheerful dialogues on 
 everyday subjects were used as vehicles for instruction. 
 
 ifilfric's "Vocabulary" is the oldest Latin-English 
 dictionary extant. It is not an alphabetical dictionary, 
 but consists of lists of words in the two languages, names 
 of bbjects in nature, of clothing, arms, ships, colours, 
 farming gear, and the like. 
 
 iElfric Bata, a pupil of the author, who died about the 
 middle of the eleventh century, made an enlarged version 
 of the Colloquy, and either he or some other scribe added 
 a gjtoss between the lines. 
 
 These glosses were now beginning to be very frequently Glosses. 
 mafle. A reader coming across hard words would often 
 put in a translation for his own future benefit or that of 
 
 c 
 
34 Before tbe IRorman Conquest 
 
 others, and presently various diligent workers in the 
 Scriptorium began to collect these together for future 
 reference, and so arose the first dictionaries in England. 
 The glossary often grew into a vocabulary, for the scribe, 
 having classified his words, would add others, so as to 
 make a more or less complete list of farming gear,^ of 
 parts of the body, plants, animals, and the like. ^Elfric's 
 glossary 1 was generally added to his grammar already 
 mentioned, which was a compilation from the standard 
 Priscian, and a copy of it exists in the Bodleian which 
 was made by Junius from a MS. once belonging to 
 Rubens. 
 
 It begins thus : — 
 
 " De Instruments Agricolarum. 
 Uomer, nel uomis, scear, 
 Aratrum, sulh. 2 
 Aratio, eriung. 
 Buris, sulhbeam. 
 Stercoratio, dingiung." 
 
 Vocabularies of this kind, of increasing copiousness, con- 
 tinued to be made through the following centuries, but 
 with a break from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. 
 Of these we shall have more to say presently. The earlier 
 part of the ninth century has been fitly termed the Age 
 of Glosses, followed by the Age of Translations, under 
 Alfred. The treatise Be Laude Virginitatis of Aldhelm 
 was a frequent subject for glosses, being full of Greek 
 phrases, and intended primarily for the nuns of Barking, 
 who were not so familiar with Greek as with Latin. 
 One anonymous work of the tenth century deserves 
 
 i Lib. Nat. Antiq., ed. Wuelcker. ' See also MS. Cotton Cleopatra A iii. 
 Brit. Mus. for a collection of glosses. A glossary at Corp. Christ. Coll. 
 Camb., marked Liber Sancti Augustini Cant., made perhaps for the boys 
 of Theodore's foundation. 
 
 2 A plough is still called a sull in some parts of the West of England. 
 
3Before tbe IRorman Conquest. 35 
 
 mention, a treatise upon astronomical phenomena, which Treatise 
 are simply explained for the young and unlearned. nomy.'° 
 Numerous copies exist, showing that the work was popu- 
 lar in its day. The accuracy of scientific knowledge is 
 on much the same level with that displayed by Bede. 
 The earth, of course, is the centre of the universe, and 
 sun and moon turn round it, the sun making a greater 
 circle than the moon, as if one man went round a whole 
 town, while his fellow only went round one house. The 
 earth itself is like a pine-nut, and the sun " glides about 
 it by God's ordinance." But the author is careful to 
 confute sundry popular errors, as that of certain unlearned 
 priests, who declared that leap year had been produced 
 by Joshua when he made the sun stand still. 1 
 
 To the tenth century belongs also a map preserved in A Map. 
 the British Museum, which is noteworthy as being less 
 incorrect and having fewer fabulous countries than some 
 made later. The Anglo-Saxons were a sufficiently sea- 
 faring people to have some little knowledge of the coasts 
 of other countries. They habitually went to Eome by sea, 
 and the voyages of Arculf, of Othere, and Wulfstan had 
 increased their knowledge. 
 
 On the whole, therefore, it may be said that in these 
 days, when books were scarce and costly, a great deal was 
 done for the young and ignorant, all drawbacks considered. 
 But great and radical changes were close at hand, coming, 
 not gradually with the growth of the nation, but with a 
 sharp and sudden shock. The Norman Conquest closed 
 for ever one chapter of English history, and the earnest 
 spirits of the time could but console themselves as our 
 Laureate makes his Arthur do when the tide of war swept 
 away the civilisation that he had established : — 
 
 " The old order changeth, yielding place to the new, 
 And God fulfils Himself in many ways." 
 
 1 Biog. Brit. Ang. -Sax. 
 
OHAPTEE III. 
 Books from tlje Conquest to Caston, 1066-1^.85. 
 
 " First mark wherefore scholes were ereote, 
 And what the founders did intend, 
 And then do thou thy study direote 
 For to attaine unto that end. 
 Doubtless this was al their meaning, 
 To have their countrie furnished 
 With all poyntes of honest lernynge 
 Whereof the public weal had nede. 
 
 Se thou do not thy mynde so set 
 On any kynde of exercise 
 That it be either stay or let 
 To thy studye in ani wise." 
 
 — R. Cbowlbt, The Last Trumpet, 1550. 
 
 jjROM the Conquest to the reign of Edward 
 III., French was the spoken language of the 
 upper classes in England. English, varying 
 in vocabulary and inflection in different parts 
 of the country, was the speech of the Saxon lower orders. 
 Until about 1270 letters were written in Latin, and 
 the more educated people took pleasure in conversing 
 in that tongue. Thus Anselm, towards the close of the 
 eleventh century, writing to his nephew, bids him always 
 speak Latin except in cases of absolute necessity. 
 
 In 1328 a statute of Oriel College enjoins that the 
 students shall converse, if not in Latin, at least in French. 
 With very rare exceptions, English was not thought 
 
 36 
 
JBoofts from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 37 
 
 worthy of being written till the middle of the fourteenth 
 century. In 1350, according to Trevisa, John Cornwall, 
 a schoolmaster, began to make his boys render Latin 
 into English. And very soon after this a number of 
 works in English appeared. Mandeville's Travels, 1356, 
 Wicliff's Bible, 1383, Trevisa's edition of Higden's 
 " Polychronicon," 1385, and Chaucer's " Astrolabe," 1392, 
 besides Langland's " Piers Plowman," gave this Middle- 
 English stage of the language something of a literature. 
 
 Education was still almost entirely in the hands of 
 the clergy. There were, as before, the monastery-schools, 
 there were also certain choir-schools attached to the 
 cathedrals. Some grammar-schools began to arise, at- 
 tached at first to the Universities, and in the later part 
 of this epoch the foundation of Winchester in 1373 and 
 of Eton in 1442 foreshadowed the new systems. 
 
 About 1 1 00 a vast increase in the number of religious 
 houses gave an impulse to literary studies ; that is to 
 say, a limited knowledge was more widely diffused. For 
 though on the one hand it was due to the monks that 
 any education was carried on, on the other hand the 
 narrowness of their ideas of culture brought down that 
 education to a very low standard. The classics, being 
 dangerous, were given to the young students only in 
 the form of dreary compendiums, in which, of course, all 
 beauty of style and expression was lost; and higher 
 education was represented by the endless grinding of 
 chaff in disputations founded on the works of Aquinas 
 and the schoolmen, on such questions as whether the 
 clothes of our Lord after the resurrection were real or 
 only apparent — disputations which sometimes became so 
 violent as to end in blows, 1 and were so absurd that 
 Nicholas de Ultricuria, a professor at the Paris Univer- 
 sity, could gravely argue that stealing might sometimes 
 1 A. Wood, quot. Henry. 
 
38 3B00&S from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 
 
 Rhymed 
 Treatises. 
 
 be well-pleasing to God, as in the case of a young 
 gentleman who should steal £ i oo to pay for his educa- 
 tion rather than go untaught. The education of younger 
 boys consisted chiefly of a little Latin, contained in very 
 bad grammars, so difficult and so ill taught, that, failing 
 utterly to penetrate the head, it had to be, in Southey's 
 graphic language, " whipt in at the tail." During all 
 this time of course books were very scarce, and the 
 scarcity did not disappear immediately after the intro- 
 duction of printing. Before I 500 only 14 1 books were 
 printed in England. We must therefore consider those 
 circulated in MS. as in the hands of only a favoured 
 few among the young people. 
 
 Short rhymed treatises, much in vogue on the Con- 
 tinent, began early in the fifteenth century to appear in 
 England. These were quickly copied and easily learnt 
 by heart, and so handed on. Indeed, the great vehicle 
 of simplification was versification, and every sort of in- 
 struction was given in this way, even prayers being put 
 into rhyme. The climax of this method may be said 
 to have been reached by the versified Latin grammar 
 of Alexander de Villa Dei, which attempts a complete 
 system of instruction in Leonine verse. A few leading 
 points might be collected into a short poem, thus : — 
 
 " My lefe chyld, I kownsel ye 
 To furme thi vj tens, thou awyse ye ; 
 And have mynd of thi clensoune, 
 Both of nowne and of pronowne, 
 And ilk case in plurele 
 How thai sal end awyse the wele, 
 And thi participyls forget thou nowth, 
 And thi comparysons be yn thi thowth, 
 Thynke of the revele of the relatyf, 
 And then schalle thou the hettyr thryfe ; 
 Lat never interest downe falle, 
 Nor penitet with hys felows alle ; 
 
JSoofts from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 39 
 
 And how this Englis sohalle cum in 
 
 Wyt tanto and quanto in a Latyn, 
 
 And how this Englis sohalle be chawngede, 
 
 Wyt verbis newtyrs gwen thai are hawede, 
 
 And how a verbe sohalle be furmede. 
 
 Take good hede that thou be not stunnede ; 
 
 The ablatyf case thou hafe in mynd, 
 
 That he be saved in hys kynd, 
 
 Take gode hede qwat he wylle do, 
 
 And how a nowne substantyf 
 
 Wylle corde with a verbe and a relatyf. 
 
 Posculo, posco, peto, 
 
 And if thou wylle be a grammarion, 
 
 Owne thi fingers to construccyon, 
 
 The infenytyfe mode alle thorowth 
 
 Wyt his suppyns es mykylle wroth ; 
 
 And thynk of propur nownnys 
 
 Both of kastels and of townnys, 
 
 And when oportet cums in plas, 
 
 Thou knowest miserere has no gras." 1 
 
 Of this little composition only one copy is known to 
 exist. The little tracts of good advice are more plentiful, 
 and all have a strong family likeness. Their counsels are 
 invariably most excellent, and vary but a little. Some 
 are devoted almost entirely to morals, others concern 
 themselves rather with manners and deportment in social 
 life, and these are by far the most interesting to the 
 modern reader, as affording glimpses of everyday life, of 
 meals, social visits, the school and home life of children, 
 with its duties and its devotions. 
 
 Of the little tracts on demeanour we shall speak Books of 
 presently. Those on morals were generally addressed to 
 young people, but occasionally also to their elders, as one 
 of " Good Advice to a Gouernour," and a very similar series 
 of " Counsels for Noblemen," another little prose tract 
 
 1 MS. Sloan, 1210, fol. 123, &c, 15th cent. Beprinted by Halliwell, 
 Reliquiae Antique. 
 
40 Boofes from tbc Conquest to Cajton. 
 
 also, which delightfully mingles religious principle and 
 worldly wisdom. 1 
 
 "Do good," counsels this author, "whiles you have 
 power thereunto, and never do hurte though you maie, 
 for the teares of the offended and the compleintes of the 
 greued maie one daie have place in the sight of God to 
 move him to chastise you, and he also occason to make 
 the prince to hate you." 2 
 
 The Harl. MS. 2252 addresses itself more definitely 
 to the children, and bids them, among other good counsels, 
 
 " Refrayne thi tongue, 
 For this learnetb. children when they be yonge.'' 
 
 The young folks are to say their prayers regularly, to 
 choose good companions, to be always ready to hear both 
 sides in an argument, and specially to love learning — 
 
 " For of all Tresure Connynge ys flowur." 
 
 " The Good Wyfe wold a Pylgremage " 3 gives good 
 counsel to the young daughter who is to be left alone 
 at home. Demureness, both in outward manners and 
 domestic life, is chiefly insisted upon ; maidens should not 
 run about like St. Anthony's pigs, nor walk giddily, lifting 
 their skirts too high. They should beware of had-y-wyst, 
 the too late regret. Each verse of the mother's counsel 
 ends with a burthen of proverbial wisdom : — 
 
 "With an and an I 
 My tale thou attende ; 
 Seldom mossyth the stone 
 That is oft torned and wende." 
 
 1 Harl. MS., 787, Brit. Mus. 
 
 2 Lansdowne MS., 98. See also Queen Elizabeth's Academy, E. E 
 Text Soc. 
 
 3 Printed by the E. E. Text Soc, Queen Elizabeth's Academy, &c. 
 
Boofts from tbe Conquest to Gaston. 41 
 
 " Henry Scogan," addressing a moral ballad x to the 
 Dukes of 01arence } Bedford, and Glocester, warns them 
 
 " That tyme loste in youthhed jolity 
 Grevith a wight bodily and ghostly." 
 
 Lydgate's poem (or the poem ascribed to Lydgate), 
 " How the Good Wijf taught hir Doughtir," 2 and its 
 companion, " How the Good Man taught his Son," a boy 
 of fifteen winters, date from 1430—40. 
 
 The wise woman is to love God and the church ; from 
 the latter rain is not to keep her away, and she is not to 
 chatter there. She is not to despise any man's worschip 
 and offer of marriage, but to consult her friends. She is 
 to be fair of speech, and to laugh softly ; in walking, not 
 to go too fast or to braundische with her head, and cast 
 her shoulders, not to be of many words, to swear not leefe, 
 nor be ofte drunke ! Hints for the guidance of a house- 
 hold follow, plain and practical enough. Each verse 
 ends with a proverb or epigram, and is to dwell in the 
 pupil's memory, as 
 
 " For though, thou borowe fast, 
 It must hoome agen at laste, 
 Mi leue child." 
 
 The wise man is to be diligent, not tale-wijs. He will 
 do well not to desire office, and should flee tavern and 
 dice, and late evenings and suppers ; should seek a wife 
 meeJce, curteis, and wijs, and be kind to her ; if she is 
 poor, no matter. He should call her no vilonus name, 
 but neither will he over-readily believe and act on her 
 complaints of others. He will not love change, nor boast 
 much, nor over-value riches, remembering that he may 
 die and another man have his wealth and his wife. He 
 
 1 TJrry's Chaucer. 
 
 2 Printed by the E t E. Text Soc, Babees' Book. 
 
Books from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 
 
 will heed this wholesome instruction also, which, as usual, 
 ends with a pious wish — 
 
 " And ihesu bringe us to his blis 
 That for vs bare the croune of thorn. Amen." 
 
 The following specimen, 1 containing the Whole Duty of 
 a Child in 1 02 lines, is one of the shortest of these com- 
 positions, and sufficiently characteristic. It insists, how- 
 ever, more than usual upon the use and value of the rod 
 to young people. It is signed Symon? 
 
 " All manner (of) children, ye listen and lear(n) 
 A lesson of wisdom that is -writ here ; 
 My child, I rede thee be wise and take heed of this rhyme ! 
 Old men in proverb said by old time, 
 A child were better to be unborn 
 Than be untaught and so be lorn. 
 The child that hath his will alway 
 Shall thrive late, I thee will say ; 
 And therefore every good man's child 
 That is too wanton and too wild, 
 Learn well this lesson for certain, 
 That thou may be the better man. 
 Child, I warne thee in all wise 
 That thou tell truth and make no lies. 
 Child, be not froward, be not proud, 
 But hold up thy head and speak aloud. 
 And when any man speaketh to thee, 
 Do off thy hood and bow thy knee. 
 And wash thy hand(e)s and thy face, 
 And be courteous in every place. 
 And where thou comest, with good cheer, 
 In hall or bower, bid ' God be here ! ' 
 
 1 MS. Bodl., 832, leaf 174. The uncouth spelling of the original must 
 serve as apology for this modernised version. A reprint with notes by 
 Dr. Furnivall will be found in the "Babees' Book," E. E. Text Soo. 
 
 2 ? Possibly Symon Simeon, contemporary and friend of William of 
 Worcester. • 
 
Boofes from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 43 
 
 Look thou cast to no man's dog, 
 
 With staff nor stone at horse nor hog ; 
 
 Look that thou not scorn nor jape 
 
 Neither with man, maiden, nor ape. 
 
 Let no man of thee make plaint, 
 
 Swear thou not by God, neither by saint ; 
 
 Look thou be courteous, standing at meat, 
 
 And that men giveth thee, thou take and eat ; 
 
 And look that thou neither cry nor crave, 
 
 And say, ' That and that would I have ; ' 
 
 But stand thou still before the board, 
 
 And look thou speak no loud word. 
 
 And, child, worship thy father and thy mother, 
 
 And look that thou grieve neither one nor (the) other ; 
 
 But ever among thou shalt kneel adown, 
 
 And ask their blessing and their -benison. 
 
 And, child, keep thy clothes fair and clean, 
 
 And let no foul filth on them be seen. 
 
 Child, climb thou not over house nor wall, 
 
 For no fruit, birds, nor ball. 
 
 And, child, cast no stones over men's house, 
 
 Nor cast no stones at no glass windows ; 
 
 Nor make no crying, japes, nor plays 
 
 In holy church on holy days. 
 
 And, child, I warne thee of another thing, 
 
 Keep thee from many words and jangeliug ; 
 
 And, child, when thou go'st to play, 
 
 Look thou come home by light of day. 
 
 And, child, I warn thee of another matter, 
 
 Look thou keep thee well from fire and water ; 
 
 And be ware and wise how that thou look 
 
 Over any brink, well, or brook ; 
 
 And when thou standest at any schate (sic), 
 
 Be ware and wise that thou catch no stake, 
 
 For many a child without dread (drede) 
 
 Is dead or diseased through evil heed. 
 
 Child, keep thy book, cap, and gloves, 
 
 And all thing that thee behoves ; 
 
 And, but thou do, thou shalt fare the worse, 
 
 And thereto be beat on the bare erse. 
 
44 3Boofts from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 
 
 Child, be thou liar neither no thief ; 
 
 Be thou no meeker for mischief. 
 
 Child, make thou no mowes nor knacks, 
 
 Before no men, nor behind their backs ; 
 
 But be of fair semelaunt and countenance, 
 
 For by fair manners men may thee advance. 
 
 Child, when thou goest in any street, 
 
 If thou any good man or woman meet, 
 
 Avale thy hood to him or to her, 
 
 And bid, ' God speed, dame or sir ! ' 
 
 And be they small or great, 
 
 This lesson that thou not forget, — 
 
 For it is seemly to every man's child, — ■ 
 
 And, namely, to clerks to be meek and mild. 
 
 And, child, rise betimes and go to school, 
 
 And fare not as a wanton fool, 
 
 And learn as fast as thou may and can, 
 
 For our bishop is an old man ; 
 
 And therefore thou must learn fast 
 
 If thou wouldst be bishop when he is past. 
 
 Child, I bid thee on my blessing, 
 
 That thou forget not -this for no thing ; 
 
 But thou look, hold it well on thy mind, 
 
 For the best thou shalt it find ; 
 
 For as the wise man saith and proveth, 
 
 A leve child, lore he behoveth. 
 
 And as men say that be lear(n)ed, 
 
 He hateth the child that spareth the yerde (rod) ; 
 
 And, as the wise man saith in his book 
 
 Of proverbs and wisdoms, — who will look, — 
 
 ' As a sharp spur maketh a horse to run 
 
 Under a man that should war win, 
 
 Bight so a yerde may make a child 
 
 To learn his lesson and to be mild.' 
 
 So, children, here may ye all hear and see, 
 
 How all children chastised should be ; 
 
 And therefore, children, look that ye do well 
 
 And no hard beating shall ye befall ; 
 
 Thus may ye all be right good men. 
 
 God grant you grace so to preserve you. Amen ! 
 
 Sriios. 
 
3Boofts from tbc Conquest to Gaston. 45 
 
 A graphic commentary on this excellent advice is 
 afforded by Lydgate in his " Testament," 1 in which he 
 describes the follies of his yeerys greene, up to fifteen, 
 in the middle of the fourteenth century. Master John, 
 from his own account, was no better than he should be. 
 He 
 
 " Ran into garydns / applys ther I stal 
 To gadre frutys / sparid hegg nor wal, 
 To plukke grapys in other men's vynes 
 Was moor reedy than for to seyn matynes." 
 
 Moreover, he came to school late, jangled and japed, 
 made game of his betters, played practical jokes, got up 
 late and went reluctantly to bed, forgot to wash his hands 
 before meals, and, worst of all, was always ready to say, 
 " Don't care." Evidently, however different the times, a 
 boy is a boy " for a' that ! " 
 
 " The Liber Consolacionis et Consilii, or Instructions to 
 his Son," by Idle Peter of Kent, Esq., or Peter Idywerte, 
 or Sir Peter Idle, as the author is variously called, has 
 something to say about criticisms of our neighbours' 
 faults. 
 
 " Thouglie thy feelowe in defaute be founde, 
 Make thereof no laughing sporte ne iape, 
 For ofte times it doth rebound 
 Uppon hym that list to crie and gape. 
 Use not to scorne and mocke as an ape, 
 For he that list suche folies for to use 
 Alle honest felowshippe hym woll refuse." 2 
 
 These booklets of good counsel were already familiar 
 on the Continent. In the tenth century Tommasino di 
 Circlaria, an Italian by birth but a German by adoption, 
 
 1 Harl. MS., 2255. He was ordained deacon 13S9. Printed by Percy 
 Soc, 1840. Selected from Minor Poems of Lydgate. 
 
 2 Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 8151, f. 200. See Queen Elizabeth's Academy, 
 with Essays by Dr. Oswald and W. M. Kosetti. E. E. Text Soc. 
 
46 3Boofts from tbe Conquest to Caiton. 
 
 translated the Sententice of Dionysus Cato 1 into German. 
 In the same language the Knight of Winsbeke and his 
 wife (Die Winsbekin) addressed counsels to sons and 
 daughters respectively in the thirteenth century. An 
 early Spanish MS. at Madrid contains counsels of a 
 mother to her daughter. Some of these books were after- 
 wards enlarged by the addition of hints on good manners, 
 and so belong to the category of books of demeanour. 
 In fact, the two categories can hardly be absolutely dis- 
 tinguished. Thus Palmieri (L)i Vita Civile, 1 4 30) treats 
 of duty, and introduces a few suggestions on deportment. 
 "LeMena- Two very interesting books of advice on a more ex- 
 Paris." tended scale came from Prance. 2 Le Mdnagier de Paris in 
 1393 counsels a wife of fifteen on every head of her duty. 
 The author appears to have been an elderly well-to-do 
 citizen, and the tenderness of his care for the training of 
 the girl-wife who would live to make a home for another 
 man is very touching. From higher morals he descends 
 to such homely matters as the abolition of fleas and 
 cooking of sardines, treating of all alike with a happy 
 mixture of kindliness and common sense. As a picture 
 of the life of his time the Menagier's work is nowadays 
 "The most interesting. But the second of these French books 
 Ivmght of a pp ears to jj ave b ecome more p opu i ar j n England, being 
 Tower." translated and printed by Caxton, who only expended 
 costly print and paper on valued and valuable works. 
 The French MS. of 137 1 8 is entitled Le Zivre que fist le 
 Chevalier de la Tour (at fuller length Geoffroi de la Tour 
 Landry) pour enseignement de ses Filles. 
 
 The author was a French knight of very ancient family, 
 the ruins of whose castle may still be seen in the Depart- 
 
 1 See p. 95. • 
 
 2 Printed under the title Le Minagier de Paris, TraiU de Morale et 
 d'Ecanomie Domestique, composi vers 1393 par au Bourgeois Parisien 
 
 3 Brit. Mus. 
 
asoofts from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 47 
 
 ment Maine-et-Loire. The dates of his birth and death 
 are not known, but he was present at the siege of 
 Aiguillon in 1346. A former composition seems to have 
 been undertaken for the sake of his two sons, as also an 
 Euangely, but these are not known to exist. In order to 
 obtain suitable materials for his work, the good knight 
 caused two priests to read to him the Bible, the Gesta 
 Eomanorum, and numerous chronicles of various countries, 
 from which he culled the examples by which his moral 
 exhortations are supported. His original intention was 
 to write in metre, but the undertaking was apparently 
 too great, and only a portion of the French introduction 
 remains in verse, though printed as prose. 1 
 
 That the stories are in many instances far more broad, 
 and even coarse, than the taste of our age would approve, 
 goes without saying. The young maidens with whom the 
 knight is represented in illuminated copies as conversing 
 were used to plain speaking. 
 
 The English edition 2 is commonly known by the some- 
 what misleading title "The Knyght of the Tour." At 
 full length it runs : " The Booke of the Enseynments 
 and Teachynge that the Knyght of the Toure made to his 
 Doughters. And speaketh of many faire ensamples." 
 
 " Emong al other," says. Caxton in his preface, " this 
 book is a special doctryne and techyng by which al yong 
 gentylwymen specially may lerne to bihave themself 
 vertuously." It is translated " by the request and desire 
 of a noble lady Which hath brought forth many noble 
 and fayr doughters which ben vertuously nourissed and 
 lerned," and with confidence recommended to the parents 
 of England. 
 
 " Then forasmuch as this book is necessary to every 
 gentlewoman of what estate she be, I advise every gentle- 
 
 1 Blades, Biography and Typography of Caxton. 
 
 2 Brit. Mus., &c. 
 
48 Boofts from tbe Conquest to Gaston. 
 
 man and woman having such children, desiring them to 
 be virtuously brought up, to get and have this book." 
 
 Caxton's graceful and gracious appeal to his critics 
 suggests a day when the Edinburgh Review was yet un- 
 dreamt of, and Keats might have lived to a good old 
 age. For he prays those finding " any defaute, of their 
 charite to correcte and amende it, and so doyng they 
 shall deserve thanke and mercye of God, to whom I 
 shalle pray for them." 
 
 The duties of maidens are categorically set forth, 
 beginning with the highest, and are illustrated by suit- 
 able historical examples, the stories being often extremely 
 quaint. 
 
 The first duty is prayer. Maidens should adore and 
 worship our Lord, and say his service. " As soon as one 
 wakes one should pray, and still more one should praise. 
 For it is a greater thing to thanke and bless our Lord 
 God than to require and demand him." 
 
 The advantages of intercessory prayer are exemplified 
 by a story of two daughters of the Emperor of Constan- 
 tinople, one of whom was guarded in great peril by the 
 dead for whom she had prayed, who stood about her in 
 their shrouds. The benefits of fasting are clearly proved 
 by the history of the Crusader who, though actually 
 beheaded in fight, lived to confess and be shriven, this 
 special grace being granted in consequence of his regular 
 abstinence from flesh on Wednesdays. Courtesy, as we 
 should expect, is made a prominent virtue for maidens. 
 
 " It overcometh all them that be felouns prowde," and 
 its advantages are evident even from the effect of kindness 
 on animals. A " sperhauk ramage" should be called 
 courteously, and then he will come freely from the tree 
 to his owner's fist. We find that the young ladies needed 
 some little training in demeanour as well as their brothers. 
 They need to learn not to turn their heads like cranes 
 
Boofcs from tbe Conquest to Caston. 49 
 
 but to look straight before them like the hare. And 
 courtesy may also be profitable to a maiden ; witness the 
 King of Denmark's three daughters, from whom a lord 
 went to choose a wife for the King of England's son, and 
 observed them during the banquet. The eldest had no 
 manners, but stared about her as she sat, and the second 
 talked before she had time to understand what was being 
 said 'to her ; but the third, though less lovely than her 
 sisters, mayntayned her maners more sure and sadly, and 
 was made Queen of England. A daughter of the King 
 of Aragon, moreover, came to similar grief, and lost her 
 match with the King of Spain's son, by being overproud 
 and muttering between her teeth when spoken to. The 
 teachings of the book are mostly sensible and practical 
 enough, and show us an honourable and untrammelled 
 position held by maidens in that day. Gadding and 
 manoeuvring to attract men are reprobated, and heedless- 
 ness of tongue, with overmuch chattering and railing, 
 the latter exemplified by the story of a wise knight, 
 who, being much railed upon by a lady, at last set a 
 wisp of straw in his place and bid her rail at that. 
 
 The Knight's advice on new fashions is worth quoting, 
 with its suggestion of days when dress might change 
 once in a century. 
 
 "Fayre doughters, I praye you that ye ben not the 
 fyrst for to take on you newe array ne guises " — it is 
 better to be last — " and in especialle the newe gyses of 
 wymmen of a strange countre." For decorum in this 
 matter, he adds, the women of Prance have ever been 
 deservedly praised. 
 
 ■ But it is curious to find a section devoted to the sin- 
 fulness of not wearing fine clothes on hyghe festes and 
 holy days, like a certain lady who had good gounes and 
 ryche, but she wolde not were them on Sondays ne on festful 
 days, but if she supposed to fynde there noble men of estate. 
 
so Boofes from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 
 
 On the Feast of Our Lady her damoyzell prays her to 
 wear a good gown for love of our Lady and the Sunday. 
 But the lady refuses, declaring herself willing to take any 
 consequences, whereupon she is smitten by a hot wind 
 and loses health and beauty. Examples of good and bad 
 women point their own moral. The " nine follies " of 
 Eve trace the steps of her fall, beginning with the foolish- 
 ness of going into bad company, and associating with a 
 serpent. 
 The Eo- With the romances, which furnished a not inconsider- 
 
 able library of story-books, we can hardly claim to be 
 concerned. No doubt many a child listened and enjoyed, 
 but the " Romaunt of the Rose " and all the rest were the 
 recreation of knights and ladies, and were studied by the 
 squires who desired to make themselves welcome in the 
 ladies' " bowers " by story and song. There were, how- 
 Popular ever, a number of popular stories in circulation, the delight 
 of the common people generally, and especially suited to 
 the children's taste. Some of these were very early 
 printed, and afterwards constantly brought out afresh, 
 chiefly in the tract, " ballett," or chapbook form, but also 
 as bound and illustrated volumes. 
 
 An interesting collection of these exists in the Pepy- 
 sian Library at Cambridge, 1 four quarto volumes in black 
 letter, entitled " Vulgaria," and consisting of " the most 
 noted pieces of chivalry and wit, pastime and devotion, in 
 vogue with the English populace. Among the contents are 
 " Bevis of Southampton," " Adam Bell," " Portunatus," 
 "Bellianis and Elores of Greece," "Patient Grisel," 
 " Eeynard the Fox," " The Seven Wise Masters," " Guy 
 of Warwick," "Fryer Bacon," "Robin Hood," "King 
 Arthur," " William of Cloudesley," " Canwood the Cook," 
 " The Seven Champions," " Dr. Faustus," " Clim of the 
 Clough," and others less familiar to us. 
 
 1 Hartshorne, Book Rarities, 
 
Boofts from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 51 
 
 There is much to interest us nowadays in these old 
 stories. As in all popular stories, the morality is ex- 
 cellent, and poetical justice holds unquestioned sway. 
 Many of the ideas and beliefs of the time incidentally 
 appear. One of the most popular was the quaint story 
 of Bevis of Hampton or Southampton, 1 which belongs 
 to Crusading days, and is attributed to Walter of 
 Exeter. 
 
 Bevis is the son of a noble knight, whose wife in her Bevis of 
 heart preferred another suitor. After marriage she per- Ham P ton - 
 suades this man to kill her husband, and then marries 
 him ; and as the child Bevis objects violently, she sends 
 him off to keep sheep with an uncle. Bevis, hearing the 
 wedding-bells ring, comes storming back, knocks down 
 the castle porter, nearly kills his stepfather, and threatens 
 to kill his mother. Finally, he goes off Crusading, and 
 takes the fancy of the Sultan, who, following the penchant 
 of the characters for breaking out into rhyme, announces 
 
 " Whiles that thou art but a swain 
 Thou shalt be my chamberlain." 
 
 The Saracens worship hideous idols, Apoline and 
 Mahound. After various doughty deeds, Bevis returns 
 to Europe and seeks a bishop, leading with him his 
 bride Josyan, the Sultan's daughter, and a captive giant 
 Ascapart, whom he introduces as "my page," "and 
 Josyan and he would fain be christened." " The lubber 
 is too big to be carried to the font," says the bishop. 
 Accordingly a font is specially made, but in the midst 
 of the service the giant declares himself afraid of drown- 
 ing, and so leaps over the font and gets him gone. 
 Bevis finally returns home, and carries out true poetical 
 
 i For several of these stories, see two volumes, "Gammer Gurton's 
 Pleasant Stories and Ballads," and " Gammer Gurton's Famous Histories," 
 published 1845, by Thorns, under the pseudonym of Ambrose Merton. 
 
52 SSoofts from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 
 
 justice by putting his stepfather in boiling pitch and 
 brimstone, whereupon his mother flings herself from the 
 castle battlements and is killed. 
 
 Friar The stories of Friar Bacon are curious, as showing the 
 
 peculiar reputation the learned monk earned for him- 
 self by his dabblings in occult sciences. Thus the 
 Friar can cause music to sound by waving his hand. 
 With his friend Friar Bungay, Bacon makes a brazen 
 head. Having made this head, the monks cannot by all 
 their arts make it speak. So they go into the wood and 
 raise the devil, whom they compel to instruct them. A 
 condition of their success is that they must listen for the 
 first words of the head, and this they duly do, till, worn 
 out by fatigue, they leave Miles, a servant, to watch 
 and wake them at the first word. The head by and bye 
 suddenly observes, " Time is" which seems to Miles a 
 far too unimportant remark to report to his master. 
 After an interval the head again speaks, " Time was." 
 Miles will not rouse his master to hear such poor stuff, 
 and finally the head utters a third saying, " Time is. 
 past," and falls down, breaking with a great noise, and 
 shattering the monks' hopes also. 
 
 Bacon discomfits a rival enchanter, and causes a spirit 
 (Hercules) of his own raising to carry him back to Ger- 
 many. Finally, he becomes a reformed character, burns 
 his books, immures himself in a cell in the church wall, 
 and digs his own grave with his nails. 
 
 The Blind Simon de Montfort was also a popular hero. The 
 ballad o f The Blind Beggar represents him as living in 
 disguise and supporting himself on alms at Eomford in 
 Essex. His fair daughter Isabella has many admirers 
 among the young men of the place, and finally the 
 favoured suitor is accepted by the Blind Beggar on 
 condition that he will lay down gold piece for gold piece 
 with him. The challenge is readily accepted, but the 
 
 Beggar. 
 
Boofes from tbe Conquest to Gaston. 53 
 
 beggar proves far the wealthier of the two, and finally 
 rises up and proclaims his real name and condition. 
 
 Less historical, but we may imagine not less popular 
 with young readers, would be the ballad of Fair Isabella, 
 the lovely and high-born maiden who is sent by a cruel 
 stepmother with a message to Master Cook to kill the 
 white doe and make of it a pie for dinner. The cook, 
 however, understands a hidden meaning, and seizes the 
 young lady, when the little scullion boy interposes to 
 save her. 
 
 " ' Oh, then,' cried out the scullion-boy, 
 As loud as loud might be,' 
 ' Oh, save her life, good Master Cook, 
 And make your pies of me ! ' " 
 
 The appeal however is made in vain, and the pie duly 
 prepared. 
 
 The children would enjoy the tableau when the lord 
 inquires" for his daughter at dinner and the lady suggests 
 that she has gone to a nunnery and he had better forget 
 her. But the scullion-boy interposes with the awful reve- 
 lation — 
 
 " If now you will your daughter see, 
 My lord, cut up that pie ! " 
 
 And the due administration of justice, the burning of the 
 wicked wife — 
 
 " Likewise he judged the master cook 
 In boiling lead to stand, 
 And made the simple scullion-boy 
 The heir of all his land ! " » 
 
 1 Goldsmith represents the family of the Vicar of Wakefield as enjoying 
 some of these old stories. " The tale went round, he (Mr. Burchell) sang 
 us old songs, and gave the children the story of the Buck of Beaverland, 
 with the Adventures of Patient Criisel, the Adventures of Catskin, and 
 then Fair Rosamond's Bower." 
 
54 3Boofes from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 
 
 KingAr- Histories of King Arthur, and of the mad pranks of 
 
 Eobin Goodfellow and other doings of the fairies, were of 
 course popular, as also ballads of Eobin Hood, and of 
 Fair Rosamond's death and Queen Eleanor's confession to 
 her husband, and the equally sinful Earl Marshal, dis- 
 guised as monks. 
 
 The spirit of the old Crusading days is again faithfully 
 preserved in the story of Guy of Warwick, perhaps the 
 most popular of all these stories. 
 
 Guy of Guy, living " in the blessed time when Athelstane 
 
 wore the crown of the English nation," falls in love witli 
 the fair Felice. Soon he falls ill, and the doctor offers to 
 bleed him ; but Guy declares that there is a flower which 
 would heal him might he but touch it, but that Galen 
 knows it not. Its name sounds like Phoelix. The doctor 
 knows nothing of such an herb and so departs. Guy, there- 
 fore, goes to Felice, who is walking in the garden, and 
 introduces himself as a poor steward's son, but her true 
 lover. Felice snubs him on account of his mean estate, 
 but Cupid presently shoots an arrow at her and causes her 
 to relent. Guy goes off in search of adventures whereby 
 he may become worthy of Felice. To meet such a foe as 
 Hercules is his ambition. He fights among the worthies 
 of the world for the Emperor of Almaine's daughter, Blan- 
 chardine, and wins but leaves her. Returning, Felice 
 sends him off to earn new laurels; he slays a terrible 
 dun cow, delivers a lion from a dragon, whom he calls an 
 ugly Cerberus, and the lion runs after him like a dog till 
 hunger moves it to go in search of prey. Guy next slays 
 a boar and a dragon. All his achievements are told very 
 briefly and with little circumstance to set them off, though 
 we may suppose that narrators by the winter fireside 
 would add to the story and embellish it. 
 
 Though married now to Felice, he soon leaves her to 
 go Crusading (in the days of Athelstan !), and slays a 
 
Boofes from tbe Conquest to Canton. 55 
 
 giant, called Armarant. Finding a skull as he journeys, 
 Guy meditates piously upon it and its former estate, 
 perhaps as belonging to a lady varnished with much 
 beauty. While Guy is away, Felice spends her time 
 in doing good works at home. Guy, grown old, finally 
 returns, to find Athelstan shut up in Winchester, besieged 
 by the Danes. He rescues the king, and now the story 
 takes a quaint turn. Instead of going home and living 
 " happy ever afterwards," the champion turns hermit, and 
 only goes now and then to his own castle to receive an 
 alms from Felice. At last, when dying, he sends her a 
 gold ring. Felice comes, and he dies in her arms ; she 
 herself dies shortly afterwards. 
 
 Such a conclusion to the story of the knight is plainly 
 in keeping with the mediaeval religious ideal. But the 
 story itself, or at least the germ of it, is extremely old. 
 According to Mr. Pegge's "Letter' to Bishop Lyttelton," 1 
 read before the Society of . Antiquaries, May 7th, 1767, 
 part of the story is told in 1 2 10 by Giraldus Cambrensis, 
 and he, according to a statement of John Hardyng, took 
 his information from Colman Sapiens, or from Colman, 
 a monk of Worcester, who died 1113. So that the 
 origin of the story is lost in the mists of antiquity ; it 
 was at all events sung by minstrels and told to children 
 at a very early period. Possibly in the " blessed days " 
 of Athelstan the germ may have existed. When Mr. 
 Pegge wrote, a broken but still upright statue of the 
 champion was to be seen in a carpenter's shop near the 
 town of Warwick, which formerly had been Guyscliff 
 Chapel. 
 
 Tom Hickathrift, the strong man, and his friend the Tom^ 
 Tinker, continued for centuries to be very favourite heroes thrift. 
 of nursery-tales, and they survived to the eighteenth 
 century to rouse the indignation of the didactic school. 
 1 Bodleian, Douce Coll. 
 
manorum. 
 
 56 Boofes from tbe Conquest to Canton. 
 
 Tlie graceful euphemism in which death is mentioned to 
 the children in this story is worth noting. "It had 
 pleased God to call Tom's father aside." 
 •GestaRo- One great story-book was current in those days. This 
 was the compilation by the monks of stories with a moral 
 appended to each, which reminds us at a first glance of 
 the eighteenth- century moral tale. The resemblance, 
 however, only accentuates the difference ; the eighteenth- 
 century moral inculcated abstract virtue; that of the 
 monk is wholly religious, so that the usual beginning 
 of the moral is, "Dear friends, this Emperor is God 
 Almighty," or "Dear friends, the King is Christ, the 
 Maiden is the Soul of Man." 
 
 The Puritans forbade to their children all ballads and 
 nursery-stories. The monks had more of the wisdom of 
 the serpent. Even as when among pagan nations they 
 adopted pagan symbols and firmly-rooted customs, sanc- 
 tifying these and turning them to their own uses, so to a 
 nation of children they told stories, and turned them to 
 point their own teaching. Hence the very curious com- 
 pilation, the Gesta Bomanorum. 
 
 "Perhaps," says Sir P. Madden, "there is no work 
 among those composed before the invention of printing of 
 which the popularity has been so great and the history 
 so obscure." The book was printed by Wynkyn de 
 Worde, so that no time was lost in giving it to the 
 world, and the only copy known of this edition is at St. 
 John's College, Cambridge. 
 
 In the Gesta are found an early form of the Guy of 
 Warwick romance, that of the caskets in the " Merchant 
 of Venice," and also of the Jew's bond ; also a sort of ver- 
 sion of " King Lear " as a tale of an Emperor Theodosius, 
 and the story of the Hermit, which, as retold by Parnell, 
 was extremely popular a century ago. Boccaccio also 
 borrowed from it for his " Decameron." 
 
3Boofcs from tbe Conquest to Cagton. 57 
 
 The earliest manuscript of it extant is of 1326 ; the 
 majority of MSS. were in Latin, but three in English 
 were studied by Oesterley for his edition in 1877, besides 
 twenty-four in German. Various guesses have been made 
 as to the author. The stories differ in different MSS., 
 and are very miscellaneous. Some appear to have come, 
 as much monkish literature did come, from the East, and 
 the moral attached to one story is almost word for word 
 the same as one of the additions to the ancient Oriental 
 Fables of Bidpai, made in Persia about a.d. 510, with 
 merely one characteristic addition. 
 
 The story is of a man who, in escaping from a wild 
 beast, falls into a pit. Here he rests on the branch of a 
 tree with his feet on the heads of four serpents, and is so 
 absorbed in gazing at some honey that he allows two rats 
 to gnaw away his branch, so that he finally drops into the 
 open mouth of a dragon. 
 
 To the Oriental explanation of the pit as the world, the 
 serpents the " four humours of the human body," and the 
 rats as day and night eating away the life of man till 
 death devours him, the monks merely added a ladder of 
 penance, whereby man might be saved. 
 
 The enormous popularity of the compilation is shown 
 by the fact that between 1600 and 1703 no fewer than 
 fifteen editions appeared. After this date the morals 
 would have required rewriting to suit the prevailing taste. 
 The personified vices and virtues of whom it was becom- 
 ing the fashion to discourse would have replaced the 
 sacred persons whose names were so freely used. The 
 tone of thought is indeed graphically indicated by the 
 title of one of the late editions : " The Toung Man's 
 Guide to a Vertuous Life " (being an abridgment of the 
 Gesta Bomanorum), 8 vo, London, 1689. 1 
 
 Among the more familiar stories is that of Atalanta, 
 1 Bodleian, Douce Coll. 
 
58 Boofts from tbe Conquest to Canton. 
 
 who here appears as Aglas, daughter of Pompey, Em- 
 peror of Rome, and is delayed in her race by a gar- 
 land, a silken girdle, and a purse containing a ball of 
 three colours. 
 
 The following is one of the shortest of the stories, and 
 a sufficiently characteristic example : — 
 
 The Argument. 
 
 God so loved sinful man that he sent his only-be- 
 gotten Son to redeem him out of the Captivity of the 
 world, to rest with him in the joys of heaven. 
 
 In Borne there dwelt sometimes a noble Emperor 
 named Dioclesian, who loved exceedingly the Vertue of 
 Charity, wherefore he desired greatly to know what Fowl 
 loved her young best, to the intent that he might thereby 
 grow to more perfect Charity. It fortuned upon a day 
 that the Emperor rode to a Forrest to take his Disport, 
 whereas he found the nest of a great Bird (called in 
 Latin Struchio Galemi, in English an Ostridge), with her 
 young, the which young Bird the Emperor took with 
 him, and closed her in a Vessel of Glass, the Dam of this 
 little Bird followed unto the Emperor's Palace, and flew 
 into the Hall where her young One was. But when she 
 saw her young One, and could not come to her nor get 
 her out, she returned again to the Forrest and abode 
 there three Days, and at the last she came again to the 
 Palace," bearing in her mouth a Worm called Thumare, 
 and when she came where her young One was, she let the 
 Worm fall upon the Glass, by virtue of which Worm the 
 Glass brake, and the young One flew forth with her Dam. 
 When the Emperor saw this he praised much the Dam 
 of the Bird, which laboured so diligently to deliver her 
 young Que. 
 
Boofes from tbe Conquest to Gaston. 59 
 
 The Moral. 
 
 Dear Friends this Emperor is the Father of Heaven, 
 which greatly loveth them that live in perfect love and 
 charity. This little Bird taken from the Forrest and 
 closed in the Glass was Adam our forefather, which was 
 exiled out of Paradise and put into the Glass, that is 
 Hell. This hearing, the Dam of the Bird, that is the 
 Son of God, he descended from Heaven unto the Forrest 
 of the World and lived there Three Days, bearing with 
 him a Worm, that is Manhood, according to the Psalmist, 
 I am a Worm and no Man. This was slain among the 
 Jews, of whose Blood the Vessel external was broken, and 
 tho Bird went out, that is Adam went forth with his 
 Dam, the Son of God, and flew to Heaven. 
 
 There were other works in the monkish literature 
 which similarly blended amusement and instruction. 
 Bobert Hollnot, a Dominican, who died in 1 309, pro- 
 duced forty-seven Moralities, including several stories 
 from the Gesta. There were also such books as the Alle- 
 gories of Petrus Comestor, and Fables of Odo de Ceriton. 
 
 Not only did the monks use the popular stories of the 
 people as instruments of teaching ; they went farther, 
 and in their desire to supply the children and the ignorant 
 with suitable and attractive Scripture-lessons, they inter- 
 mixed with the Scripture narratives the wildest and most 
 absurd stories, in such a way that to extricate the true 
 must have been as difficult as it is to us moderns to dis- 
 sever in our own minds what we have learnt of the story 
 of Paradise from Milton and what from Scripture. 
 
 For instance, a MS. of about 1250, "editing" the Bible 
 story of Genesis and Exodus 1 for children and the ignorant, 
 
 1 Printed by the Early Eng. Text Soc, ed. Morris. 
 
60 JSoofts from tbe Conquest to (Tajton. 
 
 explains that Lamech was punished for his introduction 
 of bigamy by becoming Cain's murderer, and that, his 
 eyesight having failed, he took the outlaw for a deer, and 
 that the young man slain to Ms hurt, as well as the man 
 already mentioned in his Lament, is to be explained by the 
 fact that he killed the servant who accompanied him for 
 being in part the cause of his mistake. 
 
 Moses, introduced as a child into Pharaoh's presence, 
 throws down and breaks the royal crown, for which the 
 " Bishop of Heliopolis " falls upon and almost kills him. 
 The king interposes to see if the act was caused by 
 childish ignorance and mischief or by deliberate purpose. 
 He gives the child two hot coals, which Moses promptly 
 puts in his mouth and burns his tongue, never again 
 speaking plainly. The illustrations to these manuscripts 
 would still further impress the wild fables on childish 
 imaginations. The Speculum Humance Salvationis 1 drew 
 parallels between the Old and New Testament events, in 
 Latin verse copiously illustrated. Jonah stepping from 
 the terribly-toothed mouth of his whale, and holding by 
 the trees as he reaches land, corresponds with a picture 
 and description of the Eesurrection. The Histories of 
 the Cross mixed equally wild fables with the story of the 
 Gospels. 2 Sometimes the symbols of the Passion were 
 painted on the manuscript and accompanied by stories of 
 the making of each item, accompanied by short metrical 
 prayers, thus — 
 
 " The nayles throow fet and handus to, 
 They helpe me out of sinne and wo, 
 That i have in my life do, 
 With handus handult, with fet igo." 3 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. 
 
 2 See a volume of Legends of the Holy Rood, ed. Morris E E Text 
 Soc. 
 
 3 Royal MS. 17 and 27, British Museum, reprinted in Legends of Holy 
 Rood. 
 
:83oofts from tbe Conquest to Gaston. 61 
 
 The Holy Eood itself had acquired a traditional history Legends f 
 of its own, which was told by the various writers with Ko 6 o& oIy 
 merely superficial variations. One of the fullest versions 
 is described by Dibdin * as a small quarto of thirty-three 
 leaves, with coloured prints, which was printed abroad 
 (Veldemer, Culemberg, 1483), and gives the story in 
 Dutch or Flemish verse. 
 
 It begins with the death of Adam and his burial by 
 Seth, when, according to the translation made by Dibdin's 
 friend, W. Wade, in sufficiently rude verse, to represent 
 the quality of the original — 
 
 " Here Seth hia father lays in grave, 
 And those three seeds the angel gave ; 
 Under his tongue he has them laid, 
 According as the angel said." 
 
 These three seeds become three twigs. Moses, going 
 forth with the Israelites, carries them away. The geo- 
 graphy and history are a little confused ; the waters of 
 Mara are found under Mount Syon, Moses cuts down the 
 three trees, and sweetens the waters. He then takes out 
 the trees and plants them in the land of Moab, whence 
 David takes them and works great cures, healing leprosy, 
 turning black men white, and the like. When planted 
 in David's court, these three trees become one. David 
 surrounds this with thirty rings of amethyst, but Solomon 
 cuts it down for use in the Temple building. In what- 
 ever place the workmen attempt to use it, however, the 
 tree refuses to fit. While it lies in the Temple court a 
 maiden sits down upon it, and her gown is burnt. One 
 Sybilla prophesies the tree's future destiny, and is tor- 
 tured to death by the Jews. 
 
 Solomon makes the tree into a bridge, and is remon- 
 
 1 Bibliotheca, vol. iii. Although not an English book, this is quoted 
 because the legend was familiar in England also. 
 
62 Boofts from tbe Conquest to Carton. 
 
 strated with by the Queen of Sheba, who in this one 
 matter appears to have doubted his wisdom. Solomon 
 decorates the wood with gold and silver, and sets it over 
 the Temple gates that honour may be done to it. Abyas, 
 the third successor of Solomon, however, despoils it of 
 the gold ; the Jews then bury the tree and make the 
 pool of Bethesda on the spot. "When the Christ is 
 brought to Pilate's house the tree stands up from the 
 pool by itself. After the crucifixion the Cross does 
 miracles of healing, and is consequently buried again by 
 the priests. The Empress Helena, being in search of 
 the Cross, puts one Judas in a pit, where he lies for 
 seven days, and then implores to be let out, and promises 
 help. Three crosses being found, the true Cross is dis- 
 covered by a dead man being raised to life at its touch. 
 Helena leaves half in Jerusalem and takes away the other 
 half. The Emperor Constantine gives public thanks. 
 
 Afterwards Cosdras the tyrant dishonours the Cross 
 and is slain by Heraclius, who establishes Christianity 
 and sets young Cosdras on the throne. Heraclius then 
 carries off the Cross to Jerusalem, entering the city 
 barefoot and bareheaded. The Cross continues to work 
 miracles and receive offerings. " God keep us from the 
 Devil. Amen,'' ends the pious author. A more inex- 
 tricable warp and woof of truth and fable can hardly be 
 imagined than these books, the " Line upon Line " of the 
 monks, more amusing than profitable to young people. 
 The Legenda Aurea began with Bible-stories of the same 
 kind, and went on with wild legends of saints, while the 
 miracle-plays helped to impress upon the imaginations of 
 the young and of the " lewed," or uneducated, the same 
 mingling of truth and myth. It was evident that the in- 
 fluence of such teachers must soon decline and pass away, 
 the inverted pyramid of their teachings being shaken 
 down by the first spring-breath of the new revival. 
 
Boofcs from tbe Conquest to Gaston. 6 3 
 
 In teaching natural history to their scholars, the monks The Bes- 
 made it entirely subservient to religion. A Bestiary of Physio* 
 the earlier half of the thirteenth century takes thirteen logus- 
 animals and finds spiritual lore in the habits of each, 
 including the serpent, spider, whale, and siren. The 
 culver-pigeon, for instance, "has no gall, we also should 
 be simple and soft ; she does not live on prey, we also 
 should not rob ; she leaves the worm and lives upon the 
 seed, we need the love of Christ ; she is as a mother to 
 other birds, so should we be to each other ; her song is 
 like a lament, let us lament, we have done wrong ; she 
 sees the hawk's coming mirrored in water, and we are 
 warned in sacred books against the seizure by the devil ; 
 she makes her nest in a hole of the rock, and our best 
 hope is in Christ's mercy." 1 The Bestiary poems were 
 numerous, but the qualities of various animals and the 
 proper interpretations became " as definitely settled as 
 the canons of the Church itself." Remains of this idea 
 are familiar to many modern readers in the works of 
 Francois de Sales, whose fabled properties of animals 
 are indeed little less wild than those of the old 
 monks. < 
 
 Goats,, he tells Philothea, are said to breathe by the ears, 
 and not by the nostrils ; so does the human heart aspire 
 by hearing the thoughts of others. The herb aproxis 
 takes fire when it beholds a flame ; so is the heart kindled 
 by love. The halycon makes a nest to float safely on the 
 stormiest sea ; so should the heart toss safely on the waves 
 of this troublesome world. 
 
 The zeal of the monks was at least better than their 
 knowledge. Cambridge had long since been burnt by the 
 Danes, but in 1 109 three monks from Croyland came 
 over, hired a barn, and began to teach. In a short time 
 
 1 H. Morley, Eng. Writers. See Reliquiae Antiqnaj, vol. i., for one 
 reprint. 
 
64 SBoofcs from tbe Conquest to Canton. 
 
 no building in the town could hold all their scholars. So 
 the brothers divided. Odo read grammar, " according to 
 the doctrine of Priscian and Remigius upon him," to the 
 younger boys in the morning. At one o'clock Brother 
 Terricus, "an acute sophist," read Aristotle, with Por- 
 phyry's and Averroes' comments, 1 to those who were 
 further advanced ; and at three Brother William read 
 lectures on Tully's Rhetoric and Quintilian's Institutions. 
 
 " From this little fountain," adds Blesentius, " which 
 hath swelled into a great river, we now behold the city 
 of God made glad, all England rendered fruitful by many 
 teachers and doctors issuing from Cambridge as from a 
 most holy Paradise." 2 
 
 Many of the most celebrated men of the time, however, 
 . studied abroad, especially at Paris. 3 Amongst these was 
 Alexander Neckham, foster-brother of Richard I., to 
 whom we owe a very interesting little lesson-book for 
 children. Neckham was born at St. Albans in 1 157, 
 became a churchman, and had charge of the famous 
 school at Dunstable, and by 1 1 80 was an eminent professor 
 at the University of Paris. He died in 1 2 1 7, leaving 
 many works. Amongst these is his treatise De Uten- 
 sililus, i an easy Latin reading-book for children. 
 
 Here again we obtain a vivid glimpse of the life of 
 the period, of its domestic manners and customs especially. 
 Strangely perhaps for a priest, Neckham begins with the 
 kitchen, describing its furniture, the implements and 
 their uses, articles of food, and the modes of cooking 
 them. 
 
 1 Against bad translations of, and worse commentaries on, Aristotle, 
 Friar Bacon was one of the first to lift up his protest. 
 
 2 Quot. Henry's History. 
 
 3 Oxford and Cambridge at this time were only considered introductory, 
 to the Universities of Trance. See Biog, Brit. Aug. -Norm., p. n. 
 
 4 Lib. Nat. Antiq. MS. Cotton Titus. D. xx., and MS. Harl. 1002 fol. 
 176 vo. 
 
Boors from tbe Conquest to Gaston. 65 
 
 As in iElfric's Colloquy, there is an interlinear gloss, 
 this time in French, explaining the harder words : — 
 
 quisine table cholet 
 
 In Coquiua sit mensula, super quam olus apte 
 
 mince lentils, peys greueus feve 
 
 minceatur, ut lenticulse pise et pultes et fabe 
 frises feves en coys sane coys mil 
 
 frise et fabe silique et fabe eselique, et milium 
 uniun potages trenchez. 
 
 cepe et hujusmodi legumina que resecare possint. 
 
 Our author next discourses of the owner of the house, 
 his dress and accoutrements, whether at home or when 
 riding abroad, and then introduces us to his chamber and 
 furniture, to the housemaid and her employments, the 
 poultry-yard, followed by a chapter on the cooking of 
 poultry and the characteristics of good wine. He next 
 describes the feudal castle, how to build, store, and defend 
 it, treats of war, arms, armour, and soldiers. Then of 
 the barn, the farmyard, and stable, and. the then important 
 domestic business of spinning and weaving. Thence he 
 turns to outdoor country matters, to the construction of 
 carts and waggons, the building of a house, the science 
 of farming, the construction and use of the plough, and 
 proceeds to navigation, the parts of a ship and its manage- 
 ment, then to the profession of a scribe and his requisites, 
 the work and tools of a goldsmith. The book ends with 
 a copious account of the plenishing of a priest and of his 
 church. 
 
 Neckham wrote also a De Naturis Berum, an edition 
 in verse, and one in prose, much enlarged. 
 
 John de Garlandia or Garlande, an Englishman, who De Gar- 
 was professor at Toulouse and also at Paris, composed a garlande, 
 Dictionarius, 1 which also remains to us in manuscript. ^^ 
 1 Lib. Nat. Antiq. 
 
66 Boofes from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 
 
 The dictionary of those days was rather what we should 
 nowadays term a phrase-book, and accordingly De Gar- 
 lande's work is much like that of Alexander Neckham. 
 
 After describing the parts of the human body and their 
 uses, the author proceeds to sketch the everyday life of 
 Paris as he saw it day by day moving through the streets. 
 He tells us of the trades, some long forgotten, as the 
 bowyer, or the hawker of leather ware, with shoes, &c, 
 hanging from his pole. Then he enters the house of a 
 citizen — apparently his own — and details his furniture 
 and the equipment of a scholar, and his own actual ward- 
 robe of the moment ; then carries us off to the house of a 
 priest and describes his clothing and church-furniture. 
 He then proceeds to tell of domestic animals and of the 
 wild ones in the royal forest, of plants, fruits, and ships, 
 and how a threatened shipwreck might bring to mind 
 various tortures of the martyrs ; of jongleurs also and 
 minstrels, of the dancing-girls who attended at feasts; 
 and lastly, of the anguish of hell and joys of heaven. 
 
 De Garlande interlines a scanty gloss and adds explana- 
 tory notes, thus — 
 
 pye-makers 
 
 Pastillarii quam plurimum lucrantur, vendendo clericis 
 pasteys chykyns helya 
 
 pastillos de carnibus porcinis et pullinis et de anguillis, 
 
 tarlatys flatten y stuffyd 
 cum pipere, exponendo tartas et flaones fartos caaeis 
 nessche 
 
 molibus et ovis saxiis et frequenter inmundis. 
 Fartos, est repletos a farcio, cis, si, fartum; Gallice farcir (farsir) 
 unde fartores dicuntur pastilarii (Gallice farsures). 
 
 De Garlande also composed a Verborwm Explwatio 
 et Synonyma. 
 
 As has already been said, the vocabularies which 
 
Boofes from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 6 7 
 
 answered the purpose of a dictionary continued to be 
 frequently made. Sometimes they attempt to lighten 
 the learner's task by grouping the lists of names into a 
 sort of metrical form, thus — 
 
 horse palfrey colte steede mare 
 Equus, caballus, pultus, dextrerius, equina 
 
 bole oxe cowe bulloke calfe hayfere 
 Taurus, bos, vacca, buculus, vitulusque, juvenca. 
 
 One very curious specimen x is accompanied by pen- 
 and-ink sketches in the margin of the MS., which are 
 interesting as showing the usual shape and fashion of 
 various familiar everyday things in those old times. 
 Yet another vocabulary, 2 which in the fifteenth century 
 appeared in printed form, though probably of earlier 
 date in MS., teaches French and English in the same 
 fashion. 
 
 " Here is a good boke to lerne to speke French. 
 Vecy ung bon lievre a apprendre parlez fraunchoys." 
 
 A Nominae, as the vocabularies were sometimes called, 
 belonging to Mr. Joseph Mayer of Liverpool, dating from 
 the fifteenth century, was rolled up in a vellum cover 
 and tied round for convenience in carrying. In the 
 same convenient form is a copy of the treatise of Walter 
 de Biblesworth preserved in the British Museum." 3 
 
 Of the author little is known except that he composed ^|^f de 
 a dialogue in verse on the subject of the Crusades, 4 and worth, 
 that he was a tutor to the Kentish heiress Dionysia aboJt f27o. 
 de Montchensi of Swanescombe, and wrote a little 
 French and English lesson-book at her request. This 
 he certainly made as easy and childish as possible, the 
 simplest events of a child's earliest years being described, 
 
 i Lib. Nat. Antiq. Reprint from Lord Londesborough's collection. 
 
 2 Described by Hazlitt, " Schools and Schoolmasters." 
 
 3 MSS. Sloane, 809, i Reliq. Antiq. 
 
68 jBoofcs from tbe Conquest to Gaston. 
 
 and the hard words explained by glosses between the 
 lines, thus : — 
 
 for to crepen 
 "Le enfaunt commence de chatouner 
 Avaunt ke sacke a pees aler. 
 
 L'enfaunt bavere de nature, 
 
 from slavere * 
 
 Pur sauver ses dras de baavure 
 
 norice 
 Vus diret a sa bercere 
 
 a brestclout 
 Festes Tenfaunt une bavere." 
 
 Even such matters as a bib were not beneath the 
 dignity of the simple reading-books which continued in 
 vogue from iElfric's days till the sixteenth century. 
 
 The directions for the child's toilet read quaintly in 
 old French — 
 
 " Vestet vos draps me chers enfauns, 
 Chaucey vos bras, soulers e gauns, 
 Metet le chaperoun, covery le chef, 
 Tachet vos botouns, et pus derechef 
 De une coreye vus ceynet." 
 
 Anseim, "We come now to a different sort of lesson-book. 
 
 Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury under William Eufus, 
 composed an Mucidarium, or book of general informa- 
 tion for young students. An incomplete copy of this 
 is extant in a MS. volume, 1 supposed by Douce to have 
 been written in England by some Norman monk about, 
 1 197, the contents being very miscellaneous. One of 
 the last questions in this fragment is on the mystery of. 
 the Incarnation, how de pecheresse naitre chose sans peche. , 
 The popularity of Anselm's Mucidarium must have been 
 very great, since a version appeared in Icelandic. 2 There 
 
 Bodl. Douce. 2 Brit. Mus. Sloane MSS., 4889. 
 
Boofts from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 6 9 
 
 were various works composed under the title Eluci- 
 
 darium, or " Lucydarye," at various times, generally in 
 
 the form of a catechism of the teacher by the child, 
 
 but occasionally, as in an Mucidarius Liber among the The Eluci- 
 
 MSS. in the British Museum, 1 in the form of a simple anum- 
 
 account of animals, metals, plants, and the like, after the 
 
 fashion of the books on the properties of things. 
 
 The " Child's Guide to Knowledge," which came to 
 teachers and pupils of the present century as a warmly 
 welcomed novelty, was in truth the old Elucidarium idea 
 revived and modernised, but differing in form, in so 
 far as the information is extracted , from the pupil, not 
 from the teacher. William Caxton, setting up his press 
 in England, began by printing such books as were most 
 in vogue or gave the most generally desired information. 
 Accordingly he early produced a small quarto Elucida- 
 rium, 2 with the quaintest illustrations of master and pupil 
 questioning and answering in various attitudes of the 
 stained-window order. 
 
 "This lytel treatise, intituled or named the Lucydarye, 
 is," says Caxton in his preface, " good and profytable for 
 euery well dysposed persone the whiche hath wyll and 
 affecyon to knowe of noblesse spyrytuall." 
 
 The majority of the questions and answers are upon 
 religion. 
 
 " Mayster, tell me, what thynge is God ? 
 " My chylde, he is a thynge spyrytualle in ye whiche 
 is all dygnyte and all perfeccyon, the whiche is knowynge 
 alle thynges, allmyghtye, and evermore durynge withoute 
 ende and withoute begynnynge of another, and also he 
 ne may be mesured ne comprehended of man. Though 
 
 1 Harl. 3231. 
 
 2 This particular Elucidarium was, says Herbert in a MS. note in the 
 British Museum copy, written originally in French, and translated by 
 Alex. Chertsey. Mr. Blades, however, classes this book with those 
 wrongly attributed to Caxton. 
 
7° Boofcs from tbe Conquest to CTajton. 
 
 for to see him his beautes ne may he noumbred nor his 
 dygne puyssaunce, nor maye be taken of any maner of 
 entendement, so moche is he puyssaunte and grete. And 
 also he is full of all bountye mercye and grace. 
 
 " Mayster, may he be no moo but one onely God ? 
 " My chylde, nay." 
 
 Most of the little book is occupied with similar ques- 
 tion and answer, in which the Catholic faith is detailed, 
 Finally, the pupil descends from the highest mysteries 
 to ask, "Mayster, wherfore loseth the moone sometime his 
 clerenesse ? " which is duly explained by an account of 
 the planet's eclipses. 
 
 Lightning and falling stars are next treated of. 
 Certain exhalations, rising from the earth, reach a cloud 
 which is cold and thick, and ultimately burst it, " with a 
 great bruyte," the noise of thunder. "The thunder," 
 proceeds the Mayster, " in breaking his exalations, lepeth 
 out fro ye cloude, the which ben enflamed, than the 
 exalacyon enflamed medleth hym and brenneth with the 
 colde, and whan the mater is well nere wasted, and so it 
 falleth here beneth al enflamed, and that is the lyght- 
 nynge, the whiche is more hote that a brennynge fyre, 
 for that fyre above is also more hote than this here alowe. 
 But when these exalations find no cloud they mount 
 to the thyrd region of the air, whiche is hote, for it 
 toucheth the region of the fyre, then they burn and look 
 like stars, and when almost burnt the mater falls." A 
 lucid and satisfying explanation this, at least ! 
 
 To a question as to the cause of the saltness of the 
 sea, the Master answers that it is in consequence of the 
 matter on which it is set, and also of the doings of the 
 moon. 
 
 The Mucidarium Magistri Alani belongs to the early 
 part of the thirteenth century. The disciple begins by 
 questions upon the mysteries of redemption, of the 
 
Boohs from tbe Conquest to Caston. 71 
 
 Incarnation, and the doctrines of the Church ; then comes 
 downwards through the creation, learning about the 
 griffin, " animal pennature et quadrupes," of the glance 
 of the basilisk killing the hunter, of the salamander, and 
 other marvels of natural history. The illuminated illus- 
 trations are as wonderful as the text, gleaming in their 
 unfaded and unfading colours as brightly as when the 
 wondering eyes of some little Anglo-Norman boy first 
 gazed upon them. 
 
 To mention one more of these fascinating lesson-books, B. Gianvil 
 we have the work on the "Properties of Things," by ' °" 
 Bartholomseus Anglicus or De Glanvilla. This work was 
 apparently first written in Latin, and was translated into 
 French by Jehan Corbechon in 1372, 1 and about the 
 same time, or later, into English. Beginning with the 
 names of God, the teachings descend to the parts of 
 the body, their uses, diseases, and remedies ; the planets, 
 virtues, mountains, beasts, their nature and uses, and all 
 the usual information. 
 
 This was printed at Cologne in Latin in 1470, and 
 then translated by Trevisa, and printed in 1495 by 
 Wynkyn de Worde. The later editions were numerous. 
 
 It seems most probable that the very quaint little tract, « The 
 or " lytell treatise," as the author calls it, entitled The wyse ^j e/ . 
 Chyld of thre yere old, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, was 
 intended rather as a pleasant way of conveying a little 
 elementary instruction, after the fashion of an Elucida- 
 rium, than as a skit or a scrap of light reading. 
 
 A fair amount of elementary information is certainly 
 put into the mouth of the sage en/aunt of three, who, 
 having confounded many wise men by his wisdom, was 
 finally sent to the Emperor Adrian. The Emperor asks 
 him many questions. 
 
 " Sage enfaunt," he says, " howe is the skye made ? " 
 1 Brit. Mus., 17 E. 3, illuminated. 
 
72 JBoofts from tbe Conquest to Canton. 
 
 And the enfaunt answered him in this maner, " Yf hit 
 had been made by the hande of man it had fallen forth- 
 with, and if it had be borne it had been deede tym syth." 
 
 The child explains the nature of the Trinity by the 
 eun, " Substance shynynge and heat inseparable, for the 
 one ne may be without the other.'' 
 
 After some questions about the creation, the Emperor 
 asks what hope merchants have of salvation ? 
 
 " Little," says the wise child, " for that they gette 
 they porchase often by fraude and deceyte." Of labourers 
 he has a better hope, and of children under three if 
 baptized. Of knights he will not commit himself to 
 say either ill or good. Man is finely described as "the 
 ymagenyng of oure Lorde Jesus Christe," but woman as 
 " the image of death." 
 
 Trying to pose this terribly wise child, the Emperor 
 inquires if souls can grow ? " Not in quantity, but in 
 virtue," says the child. 
 
 " Who asked the greatest gift ever asked ? " — " Joseph 
 of Arimathea." 
 
 Languages are seventy-two in number, serpents of 
 twenty-four kinds ; the dimensions of the ark are given 
 as three hundred fathoms in length, two hundred and 
 thirty in height, one hundred and sixty in breadth. 
 
 Man, according to the wise child, was made of " the 
 slyme of the earth," his blood of sea-water, his bones of 
 the stones, his breath of the wind, his eyes of the sun, 
 while his soul was given by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Finally, the Emperor asks an irreverent question. 
 " Where was God before he made the world ? " — " In a 
 wood," retorts the infant, " where he made fagots for to 
 burne the(e) and all these the which will from henceforth 
 enquere of the secrets of oure Lorde." 
 
 This snub causes the questioner to hold his peace, and 
 brings the little book to an end. 
 
3Boofts from tbe Conquest to Gaston. 73 
 
 The questions asked by the Emperor of the Wyse 
 Chylde are very much of the same sort as those which 
 appear in the " Boccus and Sydrack," l which Hugo of " Booous 
 Caumpeden translated out of French, and which was tydrack." 
 "prynted by Thomas Godfray, at the coste and charge 
 of dan Robert Saltwode, monke of Saynt Austens at 
 Canterbury." 
 
 Many of these are akin to the queries over which the 
 schoolmen delighted to argue interminably. For instance, 
 whether souls were all made at once, or whether their 
 manufacture goes on daily? Whether the grains of 
 earth are more or fewer than the drops of the sea? 
 Others rather suggest the half-awakened mind of men, 
 pondering and wondering as a child does over the 
 mysteries that surround them. 
 
 Or 
 
 " Why come some thi3 world unto 
 Dumbe borne, and defe also 1 " 
 
 " Why are chyldren whan they borne are 
 So unconyng as beastes ware ? " 
 
 Both questions and answers are in verse. 
 
 The origin of all such books, however, may be found 
 in the great partiality of the Anglo-Saxons for riddles and 
 puzzles of all kinds. 2 Dialogues between Saturn and 
 Solomon or Adrian and Rithasus were composed long 
 before the Conquest. Sometimes Scripture and theo- 
 logy are discussed, sometimes natural history and natural 
 science. The statements are, as we should expect, of a 
 very wonderful kind. For instance, the questioner asks, 
 " Where does the sun shine at night ? " and receives for 
 answer, " In three places, first in the belly of the whale 
 
 1 Bodl. Douce. 
 s Wright, Biog. Brit., vol. i. p. 75 ; Thorpe's Analecta, p. 95. 
 
74 Boofes from tbe Conquest to Cajton. 
 
 called Leviathan, next it shines in hell, and afterwards 
 it shines on the island which is called Grlith, where the 
 souls of holy men rest till doomsday." 
 
 One such dialogue in verse is preserved at Cambridge. 
 That attributed to Alcuin, already mentioned, is very 
 similar. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SCJje ffifjilto in ffinglatrti, 1066-16^0. 
 
 " Here before all this company, I profess myself an open enemy to ink 
 and paper. I'll make it good upon the accidence, body of me ! that in 
 speech is the devil's paternoster. Nouns and pronouns, I pronounce you 
 
 as traitors to boys' b s ; syntaxis and prosodia, you are tormentors of 
 
 wit, and good for nothing but to get a schoolmaster twopence a week." — 
 Nash, Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600. 
 
 EFORE describing the books -which the inven- 
 tion of printing brought forth in numbers, it 
 may be well to sketch the position of the 
 English child, his surroundings and education, 
 during the period which began with the Norman Conquest 
 and ended with the bursting in 1640 of the dykes of 
 law and order, and consequent overflowing of the chaotic 
 tide of wrath and strife which drowned the promising 
 harvest of the new learning. This epqch is divided into 
 two tolerably distinct periods byjthe revival of learning 
 and outburst of educational energy under the Tudors, a 
 movement directed by the noble band of reformers, among 
 whom Colet and Erasmus stand foremost. 
 
 Chaucer (1328— 1400) was : a bird singing before 
 dawn. The taking of Constantinople in 1453, and 
 consequent dispersion of a band of Greek scholars over 
 Europe, contributed to quicken the languid pulse of 
 learning. In England the new impulse of thought and 
 delight in learning gave at once an immense impetus to 
 
 75 
 
7 6 
 
 TTbe Cbfl& in Englanb. 
 
 Two sorts 
 of Educa- 
 tionists. 
 
 The 
 Jesuits. 
 
 Value of 
 Education. 
 
 education. " Let us learn " went hand in hand with 
 " Let us teach our children." 
 
 The religious reformers felt that popular education 
 would be an almost necessary foundation for their edifice 
 of faith guided by reason. They therefore toiled to impart 
 the utmost amount of education to the greatest possible 
 number. 
 
 The untrained mind obeys, the educated mind ques- 
 tions, weighs, decides. But on the other hand, there 
 were those lovers of culture for its own sake, " literary 
 humanists," as they have been called, men such as 
 Erasmus, who, though not less eager educationists, would 
 only teach the few. Choice spirits, in their view, should 
 be carefully selected — Ascham is at great pains to define 
 the most promising material — and these should be trained 
 with the utmost care to be rulers of the masses or learned 
 men, the ornaments of their country. 
 
 The Jesuits ere long were everywhere erecting their 
 schools, freely giving the learning they had freely received, 
 and making their instruction still further attractive by 
 short hours of study, careful attention to exercise and 
 healthy recreation, and a kindly personal interest in the 
 lives of their pupils both at school and at home, besides a 
 gentler discipline than was usual elsewhere. They too 
 recognised the all-importance of training the young mind 
 to their desired pattern, " ad majorem Dei gloriam." 
 
 For the ambitious boy, education, leading almost in- 
 variably into the Church, had long been the best path of 
 promotion. It was so when Langland wrote his " Piers 
 Plowman" in 1392. 
 
 "The child of a cobbler or beggar," he says, "has 
 but to learn his book. He will become a bishop and 
 sit among the peers of the realm, and the sons of lords 
 shall bow down to him, in spite of his origin and of his 
 parents." 
 
Ube Cbilfc fn England. 77 
 
 " His syre a soutere y-suled in grees, 
 His teeth with toyling of lether tatered as a sawe.'' 
 
 So Longchamps, Bishop of Ely, Chancellor to Cceur de 
 Lion, was waited upon by sons of nobles, and visited any 
 failure in attentiveness by prickings with an ox's goad, 
 in remembrance, says Eoger de Hoveden, of his grand- 
 father, of pious memory, a serf in the district of Beauvais. 1 
 And Wolsey, carrying himself haughtily to his noble 
 retainers, " shakes them by the eare," and makes them 
 " bowe the knee before his majestie." 2 
 
 Indeed it may almost be said that education was the 
 only ladder of promotion. At home the poor man's son 
 had little chance of training,, according to Harrison, who 
 declares in 1574 that the "poorer sort" of mothers are 
 to blame ("for the wealthier doo seldom offend herein"), 
 that " being of themselves without competent wit," they so 
 neglected the education of their children that many " came 
 to confusion" who might, if well-disciplined in youth, 
 have become worthy members of society. And a statute 
 of 1405 3 established a twenty shillings property qualifi- 
 cation for any parent who desired to apprentice a child. 
 It was already law (since 1388) that any child put to 
 agricultural labour, and kept at it till the age of twelve, 
 might not lawfully become an apprentice. The poor 
 child's chance in life was probably the monastery school, 
 or, if he had a voice, he might be admitted into the 
 cathedral or " song "-school, for which indeed promising 
 choristers were sometimes taken forcibly. 4 Grammar- 
 schools were fast springing up, beginning with Derby 
 Free School in 1 162, 5 but these were especially middle- 
 
 1 See F. J. Fumivall, Forewords to the Babees' Book. 
 
 2 Skelton, " Why come ye not to Courte ? " quot. ibid. 
 
 3 Ibid. 
 
 4 Tusser was seized for the King's bhapel. 
 B Carlisle, Endowed Schools, quot. ibid. 
 
78 Ube Cbilfc in Enalanfc. 
 
 class institutions, and arose with the rise of the middle 
 class. When the under-servants of the royal household 
 lay about the kitchen at night so filthy and half-clad that 
 Henry VIII. was obliged to publish an ordinance for 
 their reformation, 1 we may imagine the degree of refine- 
 ment of poorer homes. 
 
 With the tradesmen, as time went on, the habit of 
 
 apprenticing their children to strangers and of taking 
 
 apprentices themselves became more common, apparently 
 
 almost universal. 
 
 A Foreign- The Venetian author of the very curious " Eelation of 
 
 er'sview. the Island of Bngland> » 2 in Henry VII.'s time, gives a 
 
 graphic account of this custom. His description must, 
 however, be taken with a grain of salt, as some of the 
 other statements in the book are not strictly accurate, or 
 at least strictly fair. 
 
 " The want of affection," he says, " in the English is 
 strongly manifested towards their children ; for after 
 having kept them at home till they arrive at the age of 
 seven or nine years at the utmost, they put them out, 
 both males and females, to hard service in the houses of 
 other people, binding them generally for another seven 
 or nine years. And these are called apprentices; and 
 during that time they perform all the most menial offices ; 
 and few are born who are exempted from this fate, for 
 every one, however rich he may be, sends away his 
 children into the houses of others, whilst he, in return, 
 receives those of strangers into his own. And on in- 
 quiring the reason for this severity, they answered that 
 they did it in order that their children might learn better 
 manners." 
 
 But the author is of opinion that the real reason was 
 selfishness and greediness of the English middle class, 
 
 1 F. J. Furnivall, Forewords to Babees' Book. 
 s Printed by the Camden Society, 1847. 
 
Gbe Cbilb in England 
 
 79 
 
 who fed their apprentices on "the coarsest bread and 
 beer, and cold meat baked on Sunday for the week," of 
 which, however, the supply was abundant. 
 
 Apprentices, we are further told, seldom returned home Appren- 
 at all, as they most often married from the master's tices ' 
 house, or entered into business on their own account. 
 
 Certainly the masters seem to have been responsible 
 for the education of these children. 
 
 Edmund Ooote, in the preface to his " English School- 
 master," an elementary reading - book, commends it for 
 the use of master - tradesmen or artisans — "and thou 
 maist sit on thy shopboard, at thy loom, or at thy needle, 
 and never hinder thy work to hear thy scholars, after 
 thou hast once made this little book familiar to thee." 
 
 Not only the children of the tradespeople were thus Page and 
 sent out, however ; a precisely similar practice prevailed ^"den. 
 among the upper classes. The court and the houses of 
 the greater nobility were a kind of boarding-school 
 in which the terms were distinctly "mutual." 1 The 
 young page attended upon his lord, while his sister 
 waited upon the lady, and probably not only worked 
 dainty embroideries in the "bower," but did all the 
 lighter work of the house. Many of the duties of the 
 squire and page were simply those which nowadays are 
 performed by housemaids. They were also expected to 
 be able to enliven the company with music ; and indeed, 
 to be able to sing seems to have been no unimportant 
 part of the whole duty of a squire. For one instance 
 among many, at the making of a Knight of the Bath, 
 according to the elaborate solemnities described in an old 
 tract printed among the Harleian Miscellanies, the squire 
 
 1 This is curiously opposite to the Celtic custom of fosterage of the sons 
 of the great in the families of retainers. Members of an Irish sept often 
 paid largely for this privilege. 
 
8o XLhc Cfoilfc in Englanb. 
 
 must precede the hero of the day with music and dancing 
 to his very literal bath. 
 
 Sometimes the maintenance of the children seems to 
 have been at the expense of their friends, but they more 
 frequently served in return for their keep. Or if, as 
 would often be the case in those turbulent times, they 
 were orphans, their revenues as well as their persons were 
 controlled by their protector, which again was mutually 
 profitable, as the lands of minors were easy prey to a 
 self-seeking guardian. 
 
 Edward IV. had six of these Enfaunts or Bele (Pair) 
 Babees at his court, and a Maister of Henxmen or Master 
 of the Wards, as in later days this official was generally 
 called, to control their studies, and probably their spirits 
 
 Wardship. Evidently for young gentlemen thus placed a good 
 education was a path of promotion. Courtesy, grace- 
 ful and gracious manners, elegant accomplishments of 
 French-speaking, rehearsing of chronicles, dancing, and 
 music would be helpful at the court or in the great 
 house, and riding, fencing, and good skill in arms would, 
 be very necessary acquirements. That their lives were not 
 all holiday, we may gather from the rules laid down for 
 Queen Elizabeth's wards. At six they went to prayers, 
 then had a Latin lesson till eleven, when they dined. 
 Prom twelve till two they studied music, French from 
 two till three, then Latin and Greek till five. Then 
 came prayers again, followed by an interval for "honest 
 pastimes." From eight till nine the music-master again 
 attended, and then these Bele Babees went to bed; 
 though we find other accounts of pages and squires 
 gathering round the winter-fire to pipe, and harp, and 
 talk of chronicles. 
 
 Wardship, however, was a custom liable to abuse. 
 The care of the royal wards appears to have been bought 
 
XEbc Cbilfc in England. 
 
 or granted as a reward for service. And these guardians 
 sadly neglected the education of the youths, lest, says Sir 
 Humphrey Gilbert, they should disdain to stoop to marry 
 the guardians' daughters. Accordingly Sir Humphrey 
 set forth * a scheme for the establishment of an academy 
 in London, and formulated a plan of education. He 
 would have the young nobles learn oratory, partly that 
 they may be able to speak with due choice of words, 
 partly that they may hear rehearsals of noble exploits ; 
 moral philosophy also — to be directed into civil and war- 
 like policy — arithmetic, geometry, fortification, with a 
 due allowance of powder and shot for experiments; 
 horsemanship, including tilting and pistol skirmishes on 
 horseback, and drill at the hands of a trained soldier. 
 Also cosmography, astronomy, navigation, and chirurgery 
 and medicine on alternate days, with practical dispensing, 
 a garden to be laid out especially for the growing of 
 simples. They should also learn civil and common law, to 
 be fitted, if need were, to become magistrates ; languages, 
 including French, Italian, and High Dutch, Latin of 
 course, divinity, fencing, dancing, and vaulting. Music, 
 to include playing on the lute, bandora, and cytherne, 
 v and singing. One perfect herald was to initiate them 
 -^Into his mysteries. And the acting teachers were to be 
 required to produce a book or books of their own com- 
 position once in three years. " So," adds the author, 
 "that there shall presently be no gentleman within this 
 realme but shall be good for something, whereas now the 
 most part are good for nothinge." 
 
 Girls, as has been said, were received, like their brothers, Girls. 
 into the great houses. We may suppose their sojourn 
 there to be attested, like that of Israel in Egypt by the 
 Pyramids, by the monuments of immense tapestries that 
 
 i Some time after 1 562. See Lansdowne MS. 98. Printed as Queen 
 Elizabeth's Academy by the E. E. Text Soo. 
 
 F 
 
82 XTbc Cbilfc in England. 
 
 remain to us. These children went at a very early age, 
 if we may judge by Anne Boleyn, sent to France at seven, 
 and there transferred from the service of one princess to 
 that of another. 
 
 The Gover- Sometimes the young ladies had a governess at home, 
 though whether this lady's functions were those of a 
 teacher, or rather of a chaperon or deputy-mother, does 
 not clearly appear. In 1 1 3 5 the daughters of a baron, 
 Osbert de Clare, 1 are under the charge of a lady-governess, 
 and in 1452 one was chosen for Bichard III. and his 
 brothers by their mother. Bathsua Makins, governess to 
 one of Charles I.'s daughters, was evidently an instructress, 
 for she proceeded to set up a school at Putney. But 
 
 The Tutor, girls were frequently taught by tutors, as Dionysia de 
 Montchensi, the Kentish heiress, by Walter de Bibles- 
 worth, and the Tudor princesses by some of the most 
 eminent men of the day. The " Relation of the Island 
 of England " describes women kneeling by twos in church, 
 reading the Office of the Virgin turn about. The oft- 
 quoted description of Lady Jane Grey's enjoyment of Mr. 
 Elmer's lessons might apply to many other ladies of rank. 
 Thus the Countess of Richmond, born 1 44 1, was very 
 well educated, and translated from Latin the Speculum 
 Aureum Peccatorum. 2 Lady Cecil, Lady Russell, Juliana 
 Berners, the author or compiler of treatises on fishing 
 and hawking in the fifteenth century, the daughters of 
 Sir Thomas More, corresponding in Latin with Erasmus, 
 do not seem to have been isolated instances. 
 
 The treatise of Erasmus on the Paternoster was trans- 
 lated for Wynkyn de Worde's press in 1524 by "the 
 studyous and vertuous yonge mayde Praunces S., aged 
 
 nineteen." 3 
 
 1 F. J. Furnivall, Forewords to Babees' Book, 
 
 2 Ballard, Learned Ladies. 
 
 3 Dibdin's Ames. 
 
Ube CbilO in England 8 3 
 
 At a later date, Anne Lady Halkett, born in 1620, 1 
 relates how her widowed mother spared no expense, but 
 " paid masters for teaching my sister and mee to write, 
 speake French, play on the lute and virginals, and dance, 
 and kept a gentlewoman to teach us all kinds of needle- 
 work, which shews I was not brought up to an idle life." 
 
 The epitaph of Elizabeth Lucar, in the Church of St. Elizabeth 
 Michael, in Crooked Lane, London, gives so graphic a 
 picture of the well-educated young lady, that we quote it 
 entire as given by Ballard : — 
 
 " Every Christian heart seeketh to extoll 
 The glory of the Lord, our onely Eedeemer, 
 Wherefore Dame Fame must needs enroll 
 Paul Withypoll his childe by Love and Nature, 
 In whom was declared the goodness of the Lord, 
 With many high vertues which truly I will record. 
 
 She wrought all needleworks that women exercise, 
 With pin, frame or Stoole, all Pictures artificial, 
 Curious Knots or Traits that Fancy could devise, 
 Beasts, Birds, or Flowers, even as things naturall. 
 Three maner hands could she write them faire all, 
 To speak of algorisme or accounts in every fashion, 
 Of women few like (I think in all this nation). 
 
 Dame Cunning gave her a gift right excellent, 
 The goodly practise of her science musical, 
 In diverse tongues to sing and play withal, 
 Both vial and Lute, and also virginall, 
 Not only upon one, hut excelled in all. 
 For all other virtues belonging to Nature, 
 God her appointed a very perfect creature. 
 
 Latin and Spanish and also Italian 
 
 She spake, writ, and read with perfect utterance, 
 
 And for the English she the Garland won 
 
 In Dame Prudence's School by Grace's purveyance, 
 
 Who cloathed her with Virtue from naked ignorance. 
 
 1 Autobiography, pub. Camden Soc. 
 
8 4 
 
 Zbc Cbilfc in England 
 
 Grammar- 
 Schools. 
 
 Severity. 
 
 Reading the Scriptures to judge light from darke, 
 Directing her faith to Christ the only Marke. 
 Died 1537, of years not fully twenty-seven." 
 
 Below the rank of a gentlewoman we may suppose 
 that female education hardly descended. Judith Shake- 
 speare's signature was a mark. 
 
 The great house, then, was the common school of the 
 young nobility throughout the whole of the period from 
 the first establishment of the powerful barons in England 
 till the time of Elizabeth, and even to that of Charles I. 
 During the latter part of this time public schools were 
 arising, and as a middle-class sprang up, the free 
 grammar-schools increased and multiplied very rapidly. 
 An immense number were founded between 1502 and 
 1515. 
 
 It was against the unsatisfactory condition of these 
 schools that the voices of the Eeformers were first lifted 
 up. The low salaries offered seem to have been the 
 means of bringing in a class of ignorant and brutal men 
 as masters. 
 
 "Eor the love of God," pleads Latimer in 1548, 1 
 " appoint teachers and schoolmasters, you that have charge 
 of youth, and give the teachers stipends worthy of their 
 pains." 
 
 In an age which was not over-tender, the severities 
 employed in schools were such as to rouse the indignation 
 of the true lovers of learning. All the lesson-books of 
 the period, if they contain an engraving of a school, show 
 the master sitting with a birch-rod in his right hand, 
 and the same device appears on the seal of Uppingham 
 School. So universal was the practice of administering 
 a blow at each mistake, that Brinsley, 2 himself a practical 
 schoolmaster as well as an ardent educationist, goes no 
 
 1 Sermon of the Plough. 
 
 2 Iiudua Literarius. 
 
Ube Cbilb in 3£nglan&. 85 
 
 further than to suggest that a lytel twigge should replace 
 the mighty birch for these chastisements, that weapon 
 being reserved for the regular flogging. 
 
 It will be remembered that the illuminations and early- 
 cuts of monastery-schools never represent the teacher 
 with an instrument of correction, unless some special 
 punishment is to be administered to an individual scholar. 
 The Jesuits only inflicted floggings for moral offences, 
 and then they were performed by a " corrector," who was 
 not one of the Order. 
 
 But the brutalities of the grammar-school, and even 
 of the public schoolmasters, must have been very great 
 to excite indignation in an age when the habitual treat- 
 ment of young people was tolerably rough. Agnes 
 Paston, in 1454, is described as beating her marriage- 
 able daughter, Elizabeth, once or twice in the week, and 
 sometimes twice in one day, and even breaking her head 
 in two or three places ; while Ascham's account of the 
 severities endured later by Lady Jane Grey is familiar 
 enough : — 
 
 " When I am in presence either of father, or mother, 
 whether I speake, kepe silence, sit* stande, or go, eate, 
 drinke, be merie or sad, be sewyng, plaiying, dauncing, 
 or doing anie thing else, I must do it as it were in 
 soch weight, mesurej and number, even so perfitelie as 
 God made the world, or els I am so sharplie taunted, 
 so cruellie threatened, yea presentlie some tymes with 
 pinches, nippes, bobbes and other waies which I will not 
 name for the honour I bear them, so without measure 
 misordered that I thinke myselfe in hell till tyme cum 
 that I must go to M. Elmer." 
 
 Among the Balliol MSS. is a very quaint poem de- 
 scribing the emotions of a schoolboy who has been whipped 
 for playing truant : — 
 
Zbc Cbilfc in England 
 
 " I wolde fayn be a clarke (laments the urchin), 
 But yet hit is a strange werke 
 the byrchynne twiggis be so sharpe 
 hit makith me haue a faynt harte ; 
 What avaylith it me thowgh I say nay ? 
 
 My master lokith as he were madde ; 
 ' Where hast thou be, thow sory ladde ? ' 
 ' Milked dukkis, my mother badde.' 
 What vaylith it me thowgh I say nay 1 " 
 
 The boy's final wish is delightful — 
 
 " I wolde my master were an hare, 
 & all his bokis howndis were, 
 & I myself a Ioly hontere ; 
 To blow my horn I would not spare, 
 ffor if he were dede I wold not care. 
 What vaylith it me thowgh I say nay 1 " J 
 
 Often, as Tusser tells us, a mere mistake was enough 
 to earn a severe beating. His complaint of the severity 
 of Nicholas Udall at Eton has often been quoted : — 2 
 
 " From Paul's I went, to Eton sent, 
 To learn straightways the Latin phrase, 
 Where fifty-three stripes, given to me 
 At once I had. 
 
 See, Udall, see the mercy of thee, 
 To me, poor lad." 
 
 And the tutor employed at home appears to have fol- 
 lowed the same example, if we may judge from a sentence 
 
 1 Printed in the Babees' Book. 
 
 2 Servants were no doubt subject also to such chastisements. Crowley 
 ("Last Trumpet," 1550) bids them serve their master — 
 
 "Faythfully, 
 As though he were thy Lord and thy God, 
 Not with eye-service fainedly, 
 Neither for fear of the rodde." 
 
Ube Gbitt> in England. 87 
 
 in the Boy Bishop's Sermon, printed by Wynkyn de 
 Worde : — 
 
 " When that infant age is ended, the father provideth 
 for his child a master, the which giveth him instruction 
 in such doctrines as in his Donate, Parts of Reason, and 
 such other, the which master commonly is called Peda- 
 gogus in Latin. The master giveth commandments to 
 the child in his growing age, and if he break them he 
 is sharply corrected ; there is no fault that he doth but 
 he is punished. Sometimes he wringeth him by the 
 ears, sometimes he giveth him a stripe on the hand with 
 the ferell, sometimes beateth him sharply with the rod. 
 And so, with commandments and sharp correction, he 
 giveth him full instruction in the lower science." 
 
 Erasmus tells a story of a schoolmaster of high stand- 
 ing, " a man of great name," who seldom failed after 
 dinner to find some excuse for having some boy flogged 
 by his tormentor. On one occasion this man, after some 
 difficulty, succeeded in finding sufficient cause for the 
 punishment of a little ten-year-old, newly come from an 
 excellent mother, who thereupon was beaten " as if he 
 had committed sacrilege," although, as the master owned 
 to his guests, he had " deserved nothing, but that he 
 must be laid low." "Whoever," asks Erasmus, "after 
 this manner hath taught his slave or his ass ? " 
 
 The immediate cause of the publication of Ascham's 
 " Schoolmaster " was, he tells us, a conversation during 
 which Sir William Cecil mentioned that some scholars of 
 Eton had run away for fear of the rod. With great 
 indignation vibrating through the stately dignity of his 
 stylej Ascham tells his countrymen they are wise enough 
 about th,eir horses, and careful enough over their training, 
 paying their horse-breakers gladly 200 crowns, while the 
 schoolmaster is reluctantly given some 200 shillings. 
 "But," says Ascham, " God that sitteth in heaven laugheth 
 
88 Ube Cbilt) in BnQlanfc. 
 
 their choice to skorne, and rewardeth their liberalitie as 
 it should, for he suffereth them to have a tame and well- 
 ordered horse but wilde and unfortunate children, and 
 therefore in the end they, find more pleasure in their 
 horse than comfort in their children." These severities, 
 so late as 1669, drew forth from one Eoger L'Estrange 
 a little book entitled "The Children's Petition." 1 A 
 notice opposite the title-page begs this work — a " Modest 
 Eemonstrance," humbly presented to the consideration of 
 the Parliament — may be passed from hand to hand, and 
 remain the property of the gentleman who will take upon 
 himself to lay the matter before the House. The author 
 complains grievously of the brutality of the lower class 
 of schoolmasters, 2 and quotes from Sydney's " Arcadia " 
 his account of Cecropia, who, too frequently chastising 
 her nieces, came in the end positively to love punishing. 
 
 Busby's name is familiar enough as a wielder of the 
 rod. It has been said of him that since his decease 
 it may be well for the cherubs that they have no ex- 
 tremities, otherwise, like the Eed Indian eternally hunt- 
 ing, he might be found pursuing his favourite avocation. 
 Charles Burney, who kept a school at Greenwich, actually 
 included birch-rods in his bills for items. 
 
 It is said of Busby 3 that once when he was in school a 
 stone came through the window. Busby, supposing the 
 offender to be a boy, sent for him, and a Frenchman entered 
 apologising profusely. Busby, however, merely said to his 
 scholars, "Take him up," and the unfortunate foreigner 
 was duly flogged. He departed furious, and sent a chal- 
 lenge to the schoolmaster. Busby read the challenge, 
 tore it up, and turned to the boys with " Take him up ! " 
 The infuriated ambassador returned to his principal 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. 
 
 2 In 1603 a canon empowered the Ordinary to license all schoolmasters. 
 
 3 W. Carew Hazlitt, Schools, School-books, and Schoolmasters. 
 
Ube CbilD In England. 8 9 
 
 and demanded compensation, but was met with a shrug. 
 " Ah ciel, que faire ? He is the vipping-man. He vip 
 me, he vip you, he vip all the world ! " 
 
 A good example of a grammar-school lesson and its 
 usual ending appears in Marston's " What You Will," 
 1607. The master and various boys, Battus, Holofernes 
 Pippo, Nous, and others are present : — 
 " All. Salve, magister. 
 
 Ped. Salvete pueri estote salvi vos salvere exoptor 
 vobis salutem. Batte mi fili, fili mi Batte. 
 
 Bat. Quid vis ? 
 
 Ped. Stand forth, repeat your lesson without book. 
 
 Bat. A noun is the name of a thing that may be seen, 
 felt, heard, or understood. 
 
 Ped. Good boy, go on." 
 
 After a joke about lingua being feminine, Holofernes 
 Pippo is set on to " As in prsesenti : " — 
 "Hoi. As in prsesenti perfectum format in — in — in — 
 
 Ped. In what, sir ? 
 
 Sol. Perfectum format in what sir — 
 
 Ped. In what, sir ? in avi ? 
 
 Sol. In what sir in avi ut no nas navi vocito vocilas 
 voci, voci, voci. 
 
 Ped. What's next ? 
 
 Sol. Voci what's next ? 
 
 Ped. Why, thou ungracious child, thou simple animal, 
 thou barnacle. Nous, snare him, take him up, and you 
 were my father you should up. 
 
 Sol. Indeed I am not your father. Lord now, for 
 God's sake," &c,, &c. 
 
 The original of the foolish Holofernes of "Love's 
 Labour Lost " is said to have been Florio, the dictionary- 
 maker. 
 
 To turn to the more cheerful side of the schoolboy's 
 life, however, as we find it sketched in the works of the 
 
9 o ube cbilfc in Englanb. 
 
 educationists, we find that there were compensations. 
 In the matter of variety in games the schoolboy of old 
 times seems to have been better off than his descen- 
 dants of nowadays. During the twelfth century the 
 London grammar-schools were honoured by the presence 
 of King and court at their sham-fights on Sundays in 
 Lent. And if bull-fighting and bear-baiting and cock- 
 fights in the schoolroom itself on Shrove Tuesdays were 
 exceptionable sports, at least the water-quintain must 
 have been good fun, as also the archery, wrestling, leap- 
 ing, stone and buckler throwing, skating with bones 
 fastened to the foot, with prisoner's base, barley-brake, 
 and other games now forgotten. Hoodman-blind, when 
 the everyday wear was a hood, would be a merry 
 game easily played, and hot-cockles, crambo, and bob- 
 cherry, 1 with dancing at moonrise and round maypoles, 
 must have been more healthy for girls of the middle 
 class than the later promenading of the Miss Montflathers 
 establishments. 
 
 Part of the amusement of the children of St. Paul's 
 School and the choristers of the Chapel Eoyal consisted 
 in getting up plays, of which a great many by Lyly and 
 others 2 were printed as having been acted by these 
 children before the royal family. This practice in 
 1569 drew forth the furious Puritan diatribe entitled, 
 "The Children of the Chapel Stript and Whipt." It is 
 curious, however, that at first holidays, except in case of 
 illness, when they were granted as a remedy, were quite 
 unknown. On holy days and Sundays the boys had 
 games, but more often their amusement was arguing, 
 
 1 See Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, for numerous games. The object 
 " bobbed " for in his illustration is about the size of an apple. 
 
 2 e.g., Sapho and Phao (Lyly), played before the Queenes Maiestie on 
 Shrove tewsday by her Maiesties Children and the Boyes of Paules. Im- 
 printed at London by Thomas Orwin for William Broome, 1591. 
 
Zbc Cbilb in England 91 
 
 disputing in Latin, sometimes in public, and even in a 
 church. In 1 644 the boys of Merchant Taylors appealed 
 to the Company for play-days instead of holy-days. 
 
 One volume at least of schoolboy speeches survives. 
 These were made (partly in English — the fact is apolo- 
 getically mentioned — so as to suit the capacities of mothers 
 and sisters present) by the boys of a private school 
 " about London." 
 
 The speeches are, of course, very facetious, fun being 
 poked at the great scholar, whose three properties are 
 supposed to be, first, to love pudding ; secondly, to be a 
 great sloven ; thirdly, to be an arrant clown. The " neck- 
 verse" is also a standing joke, many a rascal having 
 'scaped the gallows at the last moment by claiming 
 benefit of clergy, proving, that is, his ability to read 
 but one verse of a psalm. 
 
 Boys often went to the grammar-school at six, or even 
 earlier, so that, as has already been said, they had to pass 
 through the abecedarian stage there. By seven they 
 were facing their Lily. Part of the boy's daily duty 
 seems to have generally been to run home and help to 
 lay the dinner-table and wait upon his parents. Accord- 
 ingly we find him in his place at seven, having break- 
 fasted or not — the meal does not seem to have been a 
 regular one — returning home to "dine" at half-past eight, 
 or, if an alderman's son, obtaining special leave to tarry 
 till ten, or possibly even eleven, to await his father's return 
 from council. 
 
 Such were, in brief, the circumstances of the English The Books 
 child during the epoch which saw the making of our dren. 
 modern England. With the educational revival came the 
 production of a wholly new literature for the children, 
 which naturally consisted almost entirely of lesson-books. 
 We may roughly classify these under the headings, first, Demea- 
 of books of demeanour, to instruct in courtesy, that is, in 
 
9 2 ftbe Cbilfc in England. 
 
 manners, and social and domestic arts, the young page in 
 A. E. C. the great house ; secondly, the books of elementary Eng- 
 lish and religious instruction, which will be found to form 
 a curious and distinctive feature in the Tudor period, 
 being, in truth, a sort of history of the Eeformation in 
 Lesson- miniature ; and, finally, the school-books, a subject not 
 so dry as we might suppose, especially if we add one or 
 two books of general knowledge, which were probably not 
 strictly. intended for school use, but for the improvement 
 of old and young alike. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 Maimers iffilaJsgtf) Pan. 
 
 " It was the worthy Lord of learen, 
 he was a lord of hie degree ; 
 he had no more children but one Sonne, 
 he sete him to schoole to learn curtesie." 
 
 — Lord of Lea/me, Percy MS. 
 
 " Curteys he was, lowly and serviceable, 
 And carf before his f adur at the table. " 
 
 — Chadckk {Description of " The Squire "). 
 
 OUETESY, then, was the important part of 
 a nobleman's education. Not that book- 
 learning was despised, except by here and 
 there a wild rough baron, such as he who 
 roused Pace's x virtuous indignation by swearing that he 
 would rather his son should hang than study letters. 
 " For," said he, " it becomes the sons of gentlemen to 
 blow the horn nicely, to hunt skilfully, and elegantly 
 carry and train a hawk ; but the study of letters should 
 be left to the sons of rustics." 
 
 Book-learning was a good thing, but still " gentil " 
 behaviour, and a knowledge of the arts of carving and 
 waiting at table, and generally "serving a lord," and a 
 good knowledge of music, were, on the whole, more im- 
 portant for the young page who wished to get on in life. 
 
 1 Pace, Letter to Colet, prefixed to Be Fructu. 
 93 
 
94 /Ifoanners fl&afcytb ZlDan. 
 
 Accordingly we find a great number of little works on 
 courtesy, demeanour, and the arts of carving and serving, 
 circulating first in MS., and then continually issuing from 
 the presses of the early printers. They were generally in 
 the handy shape of a small tract, and very frequently in 
 verse, which, as we have seen, was a favourite way of 
 conveying instruction. 
 
 The more popular amongst them went through many 
 editions, and were frequently reprinted, especially the 
 Stans Puer ad Mensam, and the later " Schoole of Vertue," 
 the latter being regularly used as a reading-book in schools. 
 So late as 1 8 1 7, indeed, a part of the " Schoole of Vertue " 
 was reprinted by Bensley under the title of " The Book 
 of Demeanor and Allowance and Disallowance of certain 
 Misdemeanors in Companie." 
 
 The later books, however, contrast painfully with those 
 of the sixteenth century. For though the details of be- 
 haviour needful to be taught are quaint in the extreme, and 
 indicate a primitiveness of manners which seems surprising, 
 perhaps a little revolting, to our modern notions, the 
 spirit in which they are handled is essentially the gentle 
 spirit, kindly, dignified, and pure. It was reserved for 
 an age which had attained to the use of table-forks and 
 pocket-handkerchiefs to season the books designed to 
 teach its children manners with unseemly jest and doubt- 
 ful double-entendre. 
 
 Grave _ and wise men thought it not beneath their 
 dignity to produce a little Book of Courtesy. Among 
 the authors of the earlier tracts are Caxton (or Chaucer 
 for him); Frere Jacques le Grand; Alexander Barclay 
 or Berkley, " preeste and monke of Ely," and author of 
 several works ; Andrew Borde, the wise and witty doctor, 
 perhaps the original Merry Andrew ; Bartholomew Batty,' 
 the Jesuit educationist, and the great Erasmus himself. 
 The original idea of the books appears to have come 
 
Maimers /ifoafeEtb flfoan. 95 
 
 from abroad, and the English public may be credited Foreign 
 with having welcomed them heartily and studied them Tracts ' 
 diligently. Certainly it is on record that foreigners 
 admired the manners of Englishmen in the sixteenth 
 century, and compared them to Italians ; * and the Stans 
 Puer ad Mensam, ascribed to Lydgate, is a translation 
 from the Carmen Juvenile de Moribus Puerorum of Sul- 
 pitius. Probably England by the fifteenth century had 
 reached the pitch of civilisation attained in Italy by the 
 thirteenth, and in France by the fourteenth .century. 
 
 The very earliest courtesy treatise 2 seems to have been 
 written by the Germanised Italian Tomasin von Zirclaria 3 
 (Toramasino di Circlaria), under the title Der walshe 
 Gast. This treated of manners and morals also. About 
 1265, the birth -year of Dante, Brunetto Latini wrote a 
 Tesoro in French prose and a Tesoretto in Italian verse, 
 both containing instruction on a good many subjects. 
 
 Brunetto, it may be observed, was afterwards Dante's 
 master, and was repaid for his efforts by being consigned 
 by his grateful pupil to a region in the Inferno, where, 
 under an unremitting rain of fire, he must either walk 
 for ever, or, if he should pause for a moment, stand still 
 for a hundred years. 
 
 The hero of the Tesoretto, being at Roncesvalles, gets 
 lost in a forest, where he meets Dame Nature, who bids 
 him explore the wood. He does so, and meets Philosophy, 
 Love, and other personages, among them the Lady Cour- 
 tesy, who bids him be careful in speech, no liar, no 
 bearer of grudges, no tale-bearer, and also to ride grace- 
 fully and carry his body well, not wriggling eel-like, or 
 staring up to the roofs of houses. 
 
 1 Polydore Vergil, quoted in Notes to "The Relation of the Island of 
 England," pub. Camden Soo. 
 
 2 See Q. Eliz. Academy, E. E. Text Soc, with Essays by E. Oswald and 
 W. M. Rossetti. 3 See page 46. 
 
96 /banners ZlBaftgtb /n>an. 
 
 In 1290 or so, Fra Bonvicino composed a book of 
 " Fifty Courtesies for the Table," having reference 
 especially to behaviour at meals. The Italian Galateo, 
 treating also of manners, appeared about 1 450, and F. 
 da Barberino's Documenti d'Amore has a section devoted 
 to the same subject. It will be seen from a few lines, 
 as translated by Mr. W. M. Eossetti, 1 that the Carmen 
 Juvenile of Sulpitius the grammarian, which carried the 
 idea to England, was a very close imitation of these 
 Italian books. 
 
 The company are taking places at table : — 
 " Next consider about placing 
 
 Each person in the post that befits him. 
 
 Between relatives it behoves 
 
 To place others midway sometimes. 
 
 He makes a fool of himself who prematurely lays aside 
 
 His plate while the others are still eating, 
 
 And he who untidily 
 
 Turns the table into a receptacle for scraps.'' 
 
 "Boke of One or two of the little books were current in manu- 
 
 ur asye. scr jp^ k e f or e the introduction of printing. Thus the 
 
 manuscript " Boke of Curtasye " 2 among the Sloane MSS. 
 
 in the British Museum is supposed to date from about 
 
 1430 to 1440. 
 
 It is a rhymed poem of 848 lines, and in three books. 
 The first book describes the visit paid by a young gentle- 
 man to a house where he dines. On reaching the house, 
 his first act will be to surrender his weapon — a wise rule 
 of courtesy, no doubt : — 
 
 " When thou comis to a lordis gate, 
 The porter thou shalle fynde ther-ate ; 
 Take hym thow shalt thy wepyn tho, 
 And aske hym leue in to go, 
 To speke with lorde, lady, squyer, or grome." 
 
 1 Queen Eliz. Acad. * Babees' Book. 
 
banners /ilbaft^tb flfoan. 
 
 97 
 
 If the host is of lower rank, he will come to meet his 
 guest ; if of higher, the guest will be conducted to him 
 by the porter. Beaching the hall, he will take off hood 
 and gloves at the door, and will salute the company 
 in order, the steward, controller, and treasurer at the 
 dais, the gentlemen on the right, and then those on 
 the left, and the yeomen. Then he will stand by the 
 screen until the marshal or usher shall place him at the 
 table. He may then occupy himself with his bread in 
 the manner duly detailed as follows, but will not eat 
 it nor drink ale or wine till his mess is brought from the 
 kitchen : — 
 
 " Pare thy brede and kerue in two, 
 Tho ouer crust tho nether fro, 
 In foure thou kutt tho ouer dole, 
 Sett hom to-gedur as hit where hole ; 
 Sithen kutt tho nether crust in thre, 
 And turne hit down, lefne this at me." 
 
 He must not begin to eat his bread lest he should 
 seem hungry, and he must never bite it. He will 
 certainly not flyte or quarrel at table, make mawes at his 
 neighbour, stuff his mouth too full or eat noisily, sup 
 with grete sowndynge, put his own spoon or bitten bread 
 into a dish, spit on tTie table, claw the dog.' Handker- 
 chiefs not being invented, all the earlier books of courtesy 
 have elaborate directions for decently doing without them. 
 
 The second book has reference rather to morals than 
 to manners. 1 The yong en/aunt will learn the elements 
 of religion, first the sign of the cross prefixed to all 
 learning, with its formula Christ's cross me spede, the 
 Paternoster, Creed, Ave Maria, In Nomine Patris, and 
 Confiteor : — 
 
 1 It must be remembered that this word had, like the French maters, a 
 wide meaning. 
 
 G 
 
q8 /banners /l&aftgtb /iDan* 
 
 " To seche the kyndam of god, my chylde, 
 Therto y rede thou he not wylde. 
 Ther-fore worschip god hothe olde and yong, 
 To he in body and soule yliche stronge." 
 
 In church, courtesy will help devotion, as our author 
 counsels : — 
 
 " Be curtayse to god, and knele down 
 On hothe knees with grete deuooioun ; " 
 
 while to man the lad shall bend one knee only. If 
 required to serve at mass, as any boy might be invited 
 to do, he will fulfil the duty reverently, while to father 
 and mother he will give worschip and mylde speche. 
 He will do to others as he would they should to him ; 
 but here there crops up a bit of worldly wisdom : — 
 
 "Be not to meke, hut in mene the (thee) holde, 
 For elleis a fole thou wylle be told." 
 
 But the courteous enfaunt will love peace. If he 
 cannot give anything to a suppliant, he will at least 
 answer vafayre manere with glad semblaunt, since 
 
 " Thou sohalle neuer lose for to be kynde." 
 
 Courtesy will teach him to govern his tongue : — 
 
 " A schort worde is comynly sothe 
 That fyrst slydes fro monnes tothe." 
 
 He will tell no lies, nor even laugh too often. 
 
 Three enemies have to be faced (where courtesy comes 
 in here is not quite apparent, but manners and morals 
 run naturally into one another) : — 
 
 " The deuel, the flesshe, the worlde also, 
 That wyrkyn mankynde ful mykyl wo.'' 
 
 From these abstract ideas the author descends abruptly 
 to a wise counsel to the boy not to strive with his master, 
 or lay wagers against him. Courtesy will not allow him 
 
banners ZlDafc^tb /[o an , gg 
 
 to be inquisitive, to laugh when others fall down, to criti- 
 cise the priest's performance of divine service, to point at 
 •others or whisper, or to speak evil of women. In tra- 
 velling the courteous youth may have to share a bed. If 
 so, he will offer the first choice to his companion, and 
 will keep far from him. He will not be persuaded, how- 
 ever, to be the guest of a red-haired man or woman. 
 Some elaborate details for graceful carriage of the body 
 conclude this book. 
 
 The third book is entirely occupied by a description of 
 the duties of the various officers of a great household, 
 from the porter up to the clerk of the kitchen and the 
 chancellor, whose duties seem to have been the super- 
 vision of clothing and horses for the servants and steward- 
 ship of the lord's lands ; so that the aspiring page could 
 con the duties of various offices, and consider which might 
 suit him best. Some of the details are interesting enough, 
 as when we learn that on the lord's removing, the porter 
 shall hire horses at the statute price of fourpence apiece, 
 and that the chancellor hold a regular office, making and 
 giving out according to allowance candles little and big, 
 and mortars for burning at night. 
 
 The tftans Puer ad Mensam, 1 modestly described by its "Stans 
 author as a litil oalade voide of eloquence, was printed by 
 Carton, and appears from the numerous reprints to have 
 been one of the most popular of the books of demeanour. 
 It appears also to be addressed to a young page living in 
 a great house : — 
 
 " My dere childe first thiself enable 
 With all thin herte to vertuous discipline 
 Afore thi soverayne standing at the table. 
 Dispose thi youth after my doctryne 
 To all norture thi corage to enclyne." 
 
 1 Reprinted in the Babees' Book, from the Lambeth MS. of about 1430 
 a.d., and the Harleian of 1460. 
 
Maimers /libafegtb flfcan. 
 
 Nurture." 
 
 Then follow the elaborate directions for deportment : — 
 
 " First when thou spekist be not rekles, 
 Kepe feete and fingeris and handes still in pese. 
 Be symple of chiere, cast nat thyn ye aside, 
 Agenst the post lete nat thy bak abyde ; 
 Gaase nat aboute tournyng ouer alle, 
 Make nat thi myrrour also of the walle, 
 Pyke nat thy nose, and in especialle 
 Be right well ware, and sette hieron thi thought, 
 Be-fore thy souerayne craeehe ne rubbe nought." 
 
 If spoken to, the courteous child will not rudely cast 
 his eyes down, but with a sadde chiere or sober demeanour 
 will look his interlocutor in the face. He will never 
 break into dissolute laughters in presence of his lord, 
 and at meals will not offend against decorum in any of 
 the very numerous ways described, 
 y Bote of The Stans Puer assumes than the child will take his 
 seat with the company at table. John Russell's 1 " Boke 
 of Nurture " contains more directions, more especially for 
 the youth who will wait upon the company, and who 
 desires to learn the somewhat elaborate duties of a body- 
 servant and the correct service of the table. The book 
 professes to be " written by me, Iohn Russell, sum tyme 
 seruande with Duke vmfrey of Glowcetur, a prince fulle 
 royalle with whom vshere in chamber was y and mershalle 
 also in halle," — the " Good Duke Humphrey," that is, 
 who was murdered in prison in 1477. 
 
 The inditing of his book was to Master John Russell 
 a solemn matter, and he begins with a sacred invocation, 
 as men were used to begin all serious tasks : — 
 
 " In nomine patris, god kepe me / et filij for charite 
 Et spiritus sancti, where that y goo by lond or els by see.'' 
 
 He enjoys teaching young people " vertew and con- 
 
 1 Harl. MS., 401 1, reprinted in the Babees' Book. 
 
^banners /l&afeptb /Iftan. 101 
 
 nynge," for " me thynketh it charitable." But for a boy 
 who will not learn, why 
 
 " he shalle neuer y-thryve, therfore take to him a babulle, 
 he is only fit to play with toys.'' 
 
 Worthy John Russell, walking in a forest in a mery 
 sesonn of May, meets a youth stalking deer. The youth 
 is sad because he serves himself only and no other man, 
 and that for the lamentable cause that he knows nothing, 
 and therefore no one will employ him. To him, there- 
 fore, benevolent John will teach the duties of a butler, 
 a panter, a chamberlain, and especially those of a carver ; 
 and the youth will pray for the soul of his kind teacher, 
 that it may never come in painne. 
 
 The duties of a butler or panter may be performed 
 during the first year of his service. It is important that 
 the lord's bread should be cut very nicely, and should 
 be fresh ; other people may have it more or less stale, 
 according to their degrees. Elsewhere 1 directions are 
 given for serving the bread in a stately way, neatly 
 wrapped in linen, with one end left open. The butler 
 will need three sharp knives to do justice to the bread. 
 He must learn also to broach casks properly, to serve 
 suitable fruit and compotes before dinner, and certain 
 others with nuts and hard cheese after dinner. He must 
 learn something of the digestibility of various foods, and 
 the important making of hippocras. In attending to his 
 buttery and its duties, he also will need to be fayre of 
 answer, gentelle of chiere. And then men will say, " here 
 gothe a gentille officiere." "When the time of laying 
 table comes, the youth will put a towaile about his nehhe, 
 for that is curtesy, one end to lie on the left arm. He 
 
 1 In "The Boke of Keruing," first printed by Wynkyn de Worde, re- 
 printed in the Babees' Book. 
 
/iDanners fltofeEtb /ifoan. 
 
 will then lay the board according to details given, wrap- 
 ping his lord's spoon, like the bread, in a napkin. 
 
 The art of carving must have been a serious study in 
 those days, the rules being very precise, and the correct 
 terms almost as numerous and varied as the dishes them- 
 selves, 1 which is saying a good deal, when to our modern 
 fare are added the mallard, osprey, crane, heron, curlew, 
 bustard, porpoise, peacock, and other disused additions to 
 the larder. The young butler will learn also the suitable 
 sauce for each dish, as ginger-sauce with lamb, pig, or 
 fawn, sugar and mustard, salt and cinnamon, with thrushes, 
 sparrows, and such small deer. Beaver's-tails are maigre, 
 and may be eaten in peasoup or frumenty ; tench is good 
 in jelly or sauce, while the recipe for lampreys sounds so 
 tempting that we almost cease to wonder at the greedy 
 monarch who lost his life through a surfeit of them. 
 
 The butler may rise to be sewer, and marshal things 
 in order. One of the injunctions to this officer is 
 curious. He is to have officers both courtly and connyng, 
 to see that no dish be stolen. As the fourty Squyers of 
 Houshold at Edward IV. 's court were bidden to "take 
 care of every messe, that thereof be nothing withdrawe 
 by the squires," we may conclude that there was some 
 need for the precaution. Possibly the students of nursery- 
 rhyme and folk-lore will find herein the original history 
 of the Knave of Hearts and his malpractices. Two 
 specimen menus are given for the sewer's guidance, one 
 for a flesh-day and one for a fish-day, both apparently 
 abundant and dainty repasts, and a good solid Fest for a 
 Frariklen is also described. 
 
 The young pupil may also know the duties of a 
 chamberlain. These include every detail of his master's 
 toilet, the baths, which we infer to have been only an 
 
 1 Lift that swan, Display that crane, Unlace that cony, &c. See The 
 Keruing. 
 
flfcanners flfoafcptb Man. 
 
 occasional luxury, being quite an elaborate ceremony, 
 the arrangement of bis pew with every detail of carpet, 
 cushion, books, and beads, and all other personal atten- 
 tion. 
 
 If he afterwards become an usher or marshal, he must 
 know all the minutiee of precedence. He learns that a 
 cardinal is to sit above a king's son, and that a doctor 
 Of twelve years' standing is to be placed higher than one 
 of only nine years, though the latter may be better off 
 in gold red and fyne. 
 
 As all the offices that have been described may be 
 filled in a small household by one man, the young aspirant 
 will do well to know something of their several duties. 
 In a great house each post would naturally be filled by a 
 well-trained retainer. It is difficult to ascertain whether 
 these officials were all of gentle blood. There seems no 
 sharply-drawn line anywhere. 
 
 Another of the rhymed treatises 1 addresses itself 
 specially to the Bele Babees, or fair children of blood 
 royal who dwell in great houses as wards or pages. 
 The usual details of courtesy in manners and at meals 
 are impressed upon them. A terrible thing indeed the 
 ill-bred en/aunt of the period must have been ! Yet 
 another treatise 2 devotes itself specially to the instruction 
 of children who do not bide long at school. This invokes 
 a high authority for the teaching of courtesy. For 
 ClerMs say — 
 
 " That curtesy from hevyn come 
 "VVUan Gabryelle oure lady grette 
 And Elizabeth with Mary niette,'' 
 
 The demand for these tracts was sufficient to justify 
 Caxton, who had always a shrewd eye for what would 
 
 1 Harleian MS., 5086, reprinted in Babees' Book. 
 
 2 Harleian, Bgertonian, and Ashmolean MSS. Reprinted in Babees' 
 Book as the "Lytil Children's Lytil Boke." 
 
io4 flDanners /Ifoafegtb dl>an. 
 
 sell, in printing two, The Booh of Good Manners and The 
 Booh of Courtesye. The translation of the first was under- 
 taken at the request of William Praat, a fellow-member 
 of the Association of Mercers, " an honest man and a 
 singular friend of old knowledge," who on his deathbed 
 begged Caxton to print the work, from which he himself 
 had derived pleasure and profit. It appeared on the 
 nth of May 1487. The author of the original French 
 was an Augustin friar, Jacques Legrand, who, as he 
 tells us, pitied the conditions of unmannered folk, who 
 were like to brute beasts ; and Caxton and his friend 
 deemed that its publication should tend to promote the 
 " amendment of manners and the increase of virtuous 
 living." Of The Booh of Courtesye, printed before 1479, 
 only one copy is known to exist, and this is in the Public 
 Library at Cambridge. 
 
 Caxton's little work shows us a glimpse of child-life 
 outside courts and great castles. His " lytil new instruc- 
 tion to a lytil chylde to remove him from vice and make 
 him follow virtue," is, he says, " playn in sentence but 
 playnere in language." Caxton was, as we know, frequently 
 publisher and author in one, and may have written the 
 little tract himself. Mr. Bagford ascribed it to Chaucer, 
 but from the references to Chaucer and Lydgate, this does 
 not seem at all certain. 
 
 This lytil Johan to whom the poem is addressed will 
 rise early, will cross himself and say Paternoster, Ave, 
 Creed, and other prayers while dressing. Going out, he 
 shall speak fair to folk whom he meets, that they may 
 think him a goodly chylde, and so to church, where he 
 must not chatter, and if asked to serve Mass, must do so 
 debonairly and circumspectly. At table he will behave 
 nicely, and will share dainties with his neighbours. 
 Here a bit of worldly wisdom peeps out. He is in 
 
/Ilianners /Iftaftstb fl&an. 105 
 
 especial to study to be polite to those who may be of use 
 to him : — 
 
 " In. especial vse ye attendaunoe 
 Wherein ye schal yourself best auaunce." 
 
 And a delightful item of pretty manners is the suggestion 
 if the board be thynne to make up deficiencies by plenty 
 of conversation. In leisure hours lytil Jbhan's pastimes 
 will be of a proper kind, and well syttynge for a goodly 
 chyld. Otherwise he risks unpleasant consequences, a 
 herchely or brecheles feast. Music and dancing will delight 
 author, him, and literature, especially the works of Chaucer, 
 Ocklyf, and Lydgate, the author's master, whose happy 
 soul is now in a curiously described paradise, singing — 
 
 "Rex Splendens, that hevenly kyrye 
 Among the Muses nyne celestyalle 
 Before the hyest Iubyter of alle.'' 
 
 It is strange, indeed, to find the author regretting that 
 all the great English books are already written ; that these 
 faders auncyente have already 
 
 " Eepen the feldes fresh of fulsomness 
 The flours fresshe of silver langage," 
 
 and that their successors can at best but hope to be but 
 gleaners. 
 
 The " Boke of Nurture," by Hugh Ehodes, was another 
 popular work, and soon swelled in siise. The edition of 
 1530 was a quarto of twelve leaves; that of 1560 was 
 an important affair, as appears from the title. 
 
 " The Book of Nurture for men-seruants and children Hugh 
 (with Stans puer ad memam). Hereunto is annexed 
 our Lord's Prayer, our Beliefe, & the X Commandments, 
 with godly Graces to be sayde at the Table before and 
 after meate. Very vtile and necessary for all youth to 
 
io6 /banners /Iftaftgtb flliart. 
 
 learne. Imprinted at London, in Breadstreet, at the 
 nether ende, by Thomas Bast." 
 
 The title-page has a woodcut of a master with his 
 pupils. The proper education of youth seems to Hugh 
 Rhodes to be the world's best hope, since, as he declares, 
 the cause of the world being so euil of lining as it is, is 
 for lack of virtue and godly bringing up of youth. They 
 should be taught to use fair and gentle speech, and have 
 masters who can punish sharply with patience, and not 
 with rigour. They should not be allowed to read " fayned 
 fables, vayne fantasyes, wanton stories, and songs of love," 
 but only the Bible and other godly books. The direc- 
 tions for waiting on a lord and the Stans Puer are fol- 
 lowed by a long rhymed instruction in morals, a rule of 
 honest living, and such rhymed proverbs as — 
 
 " He that spendeth much 
 
 And getteth nought, 
 He that oweth much 
 
 And hath nought, 
 He that looketh in his purse 
 
 And fyndeth nought, 
 He may be sorry and say nought." 
 
 The " Schoole of Vertue," however, appears to have 
 been the most universally known of the Books of De- 
 meanour. It was regularly used as a lesson-book in 
 schools, and reprinted up to 1817. 1 It is in two parts; 
 the first printed by Eobert Crowley, whose press worked 
 from 1534 to 1588, and written by Francis Seager, 
 whose name is given in an acrostic ; the second part, by 
 
 1 See Brinsley (Ludus Literarius, 1612), who explains that children 
 delight in the metre, and learn it quickly, and are led as by the hand in 
 the way of all good manners. The elaborate manners required from 
 children are graphically depicted in a passage in the lately published 
 Memoirs of the Electress Sophia, who had daily to perform nine curtseys 
 before breakfast. 
 
^Banners fltoftstb /ffi>an. 107 
 
 E. Weste, being of later date. Besides the usual man- 
 ners and morals, rhymed prayers and graces are given, 
 and the schoolboy to whom the book addresses itself — 
 not a Bele Babee, but a gentleman or alderman's son 
 perhaps — will have to run home and know how to pre- 
 pare dinner and wait upon his parents till told to sit and 
 eat also. 
 
 The following is the evening prayer' from Seager's 
 " Schoole of Vertue " : — 
 
 " A praier to be saide when thou goest to ledde. 
 
 merciful God ! heare this our requeste, 
 
 And graunt unto us this nighte quiet reste. 
 
 Into thy tuicoin Oh lorde do us take ! 
 
 Our bodies slepyng, our myndes yet maie wake. 
 
 Forgeve the offences this daye we haue wrouglite 
 
 A-gainste thee and our neighbour, in worde, dede, and thoughte ! 
 
 And graunte us thy grace hense forth to flie sinne 
 
 And that a newe lyfe we maie now beginne ! 
 
 Deliuer and defende vs this night from all euell, 
 
 And from the daunger of our enemie, the diuell, 
 
 which goeth about sekyng his praie 
 
 And by his crafte whom we maie betraie. 
 
 Assiste vs, oh lorde, with thy holy sprite 
 
 That valiantly against him we maie euer fighte ; 
 
 And winning the victorie maie lifte vp our voice, 
 
 And in his strength faithfully reioice, 
 
 Saying ' to the lorde be all honour and praise 
 
 For his defence bothe now and alwaies ! ' " 
 
 Besides all these rhymed Books of Demeanour, there were 
 works in prose and sections of works, as in Bartholomew 
 Batty's " Christian Man's Closet," in which the eminent 
 Jesuit educationist devotes a chapter or two to pretty be- 
 haviour. And Erasmus's Be Civilitate Morum Puerilium, 
 several times' reprinted, is also a prose work. Erasmus 
 addresses a chylde of nolle bloude and singular hope, who 
 has been brought up at the legynnyng of an infant among 
 
io8 banners flfoaftstb ZlDan. 
 
 courtiers. Nevertheless the noble child needs the usual 
 detailed injunctions not to ruffle his hair like a wanton 
 colt, nor lick dishes, for that is the propertie of cattes, 
 and to be taught that it is very foolish to feed or handle 
 dogges at table, and particularly rude to pyl thy egge. 
 
 Lily added a Carmen de Moribus to his grammar, and 
 Edward Coote a similar poem in English to his " English 
 Schoolmaster," beginning — 
 
 " My child and scholar, take good heed 
 Unto the words that here are set, 
 And see thou do accordingly, 
 Or else he sure thou shalt he beat. 
 
 First I command thee God to serve, 
 Then to thy parents duty yield ; 
 Unto all men he courteous 
 And mannerly in town and field." 
 
 We feel that here and there the instructions in 
 manners are almost hyper-courteous, as when Oorderius 
 teaches that " it is a wilde and rude thing to lean upon 
 one's elbow.'' The number of the Books of Demeanour, 
 however, and the insertion of sections in other works, 
 sufficiently show the importance attached to graceful 
 behaviour. Upon even this fell the influence of the 
 strange decadence of thought in the seventeenth century. 
 
 In 1605 appeared a caricature, a somewhat ponderous 
 joke, in the form of a volume entitled the " School of 
 Slovenrie, or Cato turn'd wrong side outwards." 1 It 
 treats de morum simplicitate, and Grobianus and Grobiana 
 are counselled after the following fashion : — 
 
 1 Translated from Dedekind Das Buch Grobiani, first printed in Latin 
 at Frankfort, 1549, in two books, aud completed in three books, 1554. 
 There is also " Caeoethes Leaden Legacy, or his Schoolhouse of 111 Man- 
 ners." Bodleian, Malone. 
 
/(Banners /Ifcafestb ^ an , Iog 
 
 " When thou art set, devoure as much aa thou with healthe canst 
 eate, 
 Thou therefore wert to dinner bid, to help away hie meate." 
 
 This jest was perhaps hardly intended for youug people, Later 
 but the legitimate successor to the " Boke of Curtasye" 
 is found in such works as " The New Academy of Com- 
 pliments," as published in 1748. The original idea is 
 attenuated into a few short sections of advice to parents 
 and children, instructions for entering a room with the 
 bows made hat in hand, or the triple curtseys still re- 
 quired by politeness, injunctions to stand till told to 
 sit, and so forth. But the rest of the book is occupied 
 by such weighty matters as instruction in phrenology, 
 palmistry, the meaning of moles on the person, the in- 
 terpretation of dreams, all with a view to love-making. 
 And though the primitiveness of social customs has 
 given place to a more refined order of things, the honest 
 simplicity, the pure mind, whose true expression is Honi 
 soit qui mal y jpense, has gone too, and an incredible 
 coarseness, both of thought and expression, defiles pages 
 ostensibly meant for the eyes of children. A still deeper 
 depth is reached in such a work as " Aristotle's Legacy, 
 being Youth's Delightful Pastime." The palmistry and 
 such matters have completely gained the upper hand, 
 and though the old idea of a Book of Demeanour still 
 remains, it occupies the smallest possible room, while the 
 volume is absolutely unfit for the drawing-room table. 
 
 Some of the recipes are curious enough, as that for 
 true-love-powder, which requires — " Bllecompane, seeds 
 or flowers, veurine, berrys of mestleto. Beat well, when 
 dried, in a mortar, and give to the party you design 
 upon, a drachm in a glass of wine or other liquors." 
 
 An earlier book, 1635, "The Mirror of Comple- 
 ments," 1 appears as " A pleasant and profitable Academy 
 1 Brit. Mus. 
 
no ^Banners flDafegtb ZlDan. 
 
 for all such as have occasion to frequent the Court, or 
 to converse with persons of worth or quality," and directs 
 every sort of going out and coming in with a terrible 
 superfluity of politeness, as " When One invites a Friend 
 to Dinner : " — 
 
 " Sir, you shall oblige me very much if you will doe 
 mee the honour to come to take a poore dinner with me. 
 
 I thank you with all my heart, I have not merited the 
 favour of your courtesie, but I pray you excuse me for 
 this time. 
 
 Why, sir, you shall doe me a great favour if it please 
 you, and for a requital I shall serve you in al things 
 where it may please you to employ me. 
 
 Sir, you are too courteous and persuasive to be refused, 
 and therefore I shall trouble you. 
 
 You cannot, sir, but you will doe me a greater honour 
 in it than I know how to deserve," &c, &c. 
 
 The style of the model letters in the volume may be 
 imagined from this specimen of the conversation. That 
 such compositions were in a measure intended for children 
 may be gathered from the fact that the Polite Letter 
 Writers of Erasmus x and others were used as reading- 
 books in schools under the Tudors. The correct and 
 suitable " indyting " of letters would be one of the all- 
 important requirements of courtesy. 
 
 "Youth's Behaviour," 2 which must have been popular, 
 since it reached a seventh edition in 165 1, was trans- 
 lated into English by Francis Hawkins, aged seven, whose 
 portrait at the age of ten forms the frontispiece. It 
 was originally composed in French by Grave Persons 
 for the use and benefit of youth. After the etiquette 
 appear two pictures of Vertue and Vice, a lady modestly 
 dressed with tippet and velvet hood, and one in a low- 
 
 1 Erasmus, He Conscribendis Epistolis. 
 
 2 Bodleian. 
 
^Banners /l&aftgtb /iDan. 
 
 necked and lace-trimmed gown, her face covered with the 
 recently introduced black patches, to which the author 
 strongly objects. The book gives a section to the educa- 
 tion of young ladies, and contains also proverbs, lists of 
 hard words, model letters, and so forth. 
 
 Dr. Trusler, known for comments on Hogarth, produced 
 in 1 79 1 a volume, which was illustrated, like some of 
 the Doctor's other works, with Bewick cuts. This was 
 "The Honours of the Table; or Rules for Behaviour 
 during Meals, with the whole Art of Carving." 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 5. ffi. 
 
 " Armado (to Holofernes). Monsieur, are you letter'd? 
 Moth. Yes, yes, he teaches boys the hornbook." 
 
 — Low's Labour Lost. 
 
 " Their books of stature small they take in hand, 
 Which with pellucid horn secured are, 
 To save from fingers wet the letters fair." 
 
 — Shenstone, The Schoolmistress. 
 
 " Neatly secured from being soiled or torn 
 Beneath a pane of thin transparent horn, 
 A book (to please us at our tender age, 
 'Tis called a book though but a single page) 
 Presents the prayer our Saviour deigned to teach, 
 Which children use, and parsons when they preach." 
 
 — Cowpkb, Tirocinium. 
 
 j|N days when printed paper was too costly a 
 treasure to be freely trusted to the fingers 
 of little children, necessity, as usual, proved 
 the mother of invention. Many books besides 
 Bibles were chained, and parents, as Edward Coote tells 
 us, 1 were apt to object to the cost of lesson-books, which 
 their children would quickly destroy. Hence we find 
 various precautions taken. In 1578, for instance, the 
 Corporation of Boston, in Lincolnshire, effect the im- 
 portant purchase of a dictionary for their Free School, 
 
 1 Preface to his " English Schoolmaster." 
 
h. b. <r. 113 
 
 on condition that it shall be " tied in a cheque," and laid 
 upon a desk for reference. 
 
 The hornbook exactly met the case. It came, like a 
 veiled Moses carrying knowledge, its fair white paper 
 protected by a slip of transparent horn, and its back 
 fortified by a slice of good English oak. 
 
 The hornbook was not a book at all in the sense of The 
 being able to open and shut. It consisted simply of the orn 00 ' 
 leaf printed on one side only, then pasted on wood and 
 covered with horn, secured all round by a narrow rim of 
 copper, fastened down with small tacks. The wooden 
 back was continued at the bottom into a handle, through 
 which a string was sometimes threaded, so that the horn- 
 book could be slung to a child's waist. 1 Prom its shape 
 the hornbook was often called a battledore, and the 
 young learners Battledore Boys. Hence came various 
 proverbs — " Say B or Bo to a Battledore," " Not know 
 a B from a Battledore," and the like, the former being 
 equivalent to saying Bo to a goose, in which sense Bishop 
 Montague uses it of the clergy of his own day. 2 
 
 Now and then the leaf appears to have been merely 
 pasted on the horn, but in this form it was of course far 
 less durable. Indeed the earliest form of all appears to 
 have consisted of a leaden casting on which the letters 
 appeared in relief. Two stone founts, apparently intended 
 for casting these, are, or were, in the possession of the 
 Musgrave family of Edenhall. 3 
 
 The earliest appearance of the hornbook seems to be 
 lost in obscurity. The most rudimentary alphabet in 
 use in England appears to have been the Christ-cross, 
 or, by corruption, Criss-cross-row, the first nine letters 
 
 1 Centuruola, a child's hornbook hanging at his girdle. Florio, quoted 
 by Timbs, "Schooldays of Eminent Men." A washing-tally preserved 
 at Haddon Hall is similarly protected with a slip of horn. 
 
 a Diatribes. 3 Chambers, " Book of Days." 
 
 H 
 
A HORNBOOK. (British Museum.) 
 
H. 3B. C. 115 
 
 of the alphabet in form of a cross strung upon wire, 
 something in the fashion of the bead-counting frames, 
 and probably half lesson, half charm in the eyes of the 
 vulgar. Thus Shakespeare speaks of Eichard III. pos- 
 sessed by superstition : — 
 
 " He from the cross row plucks the letter G, 
 And says a wizard told hiin that by G 
 His issue disinherited should be." 
 
 In " Scogin's Jests,'' of the time of Henry VIII., we have 
 a story of a rustic who brings his son to Scogin to obtain 
 learning. In nine days the boy masters the nine letters, 
 and then asks anxiously, " Am I through the worst of 
 it yet?" 
 
 The term " Chris-cross Eow " was very commonly ap- 
 plied to the hornbook 1 alphabets, either as successors of 
 the nine-letter cross, or because they were invariably 
 prefaced with the printed sign which signified that the 
 child should begin his study by crossing himself, accord- 
 ing to Catholic custom before beginning any important 
 work, adding, probably aloud, "God me speed," or, mak- 
 ing a jingle, " God spede me, A B C." 
 
 We seem to gather from the preface to Edward 
 Coote's " English Schoolmaster " 2 that the hornbook was 
 an invention of his own day, and the table of syllables, 
 ba, be, bi, bo, bu, &c, taken from his own book. If so, 
 the invention may well date from about 1587, when the 
 "Home ABC" was licensed to John "Wolfe. But the 
 
 1 " La croix de par Dieu, the Chris cross Row or home book, wherein 
 a child learns it." — Cotgrave. 
 
 2 " The printer, upon sight of this, framed the Hornbook according to 
 the order of this little book, making the first part of my second page the 
 matter thereof." The first publication of Coote's book seems to have been 
 in 1596. His Christian name appears as Edward on his books, but 
 according to Leslie Stephen's Dictionary of National Biography this is 
 incorrect. 
 
1,16 H. 3B. <E. 
 
 specimens preserved in the British and South Kensington 
 Museums are supposed to belong to the middle of the 
 eighteenth century only. 
 
 That hornbooks nowadays are rare, and prized accord- 
 ingly by antiquarians, is not wonderful, considering the 
 destructive propensities of children's fingers. The few 
 that have survived appear to owe their longevity to 
 chance concealment in some odd hiding-place. Thus 
 two, for instance, were found under the floor of a church, 
 and the " Middleton " hornbook in the thatch of an old 
 farmhouse at Middleton-by-Youlgrave, in Derbyshire. 
 
 This is a very curious and interesting relic. The 
 printed leaf has nothing distinctive about it, but the 
 back is covered with leather, on which is graved or 
 stamped a well-drawn equestrian figure of Charles the 
 First. Above the King's head a cherub holds out a 
 crown on the tip of its extended wing. Below are the 
 letters T. H., and lower still is an Irish cross enclosed 
 by two jagged or waved objects, of which the meaning 
 is not clear. Evidently the design was executed soon 
 after the King's death. 
 
 An earlier specimen of the leaf, without the accessories 
 of wood and horn, however, is preserved in the British 
 Museum, and this also owes its survival to an odd chance, 
 having been found in an old copy of Boethius, to which 
 it had served as a fly-leaf. It sold in 1879 for £1 5. * 
 
 This page seems to have been intended to make, when 
 mounted, four hornbooks, the usual letterpress being 
 printed four times, with slight variations, back to back, 
 in black-letter type. 
 
 This letterpress varies little. If the Syllabarium was 
 first copied in England from Coote's work, he himself 
 
 1 Printed by Edward Raban, Aberdene. Mr. Hazlitt calls this the 
 most curious article in the Laing Collection. E. Raban was printing in 
 1630. 
 
21. JB. C. 117 
 
 may have taken it from foreign teachers, as almost every 
 educational idea of the age was taken. Certainly an 
 octavo leaf, published by one Joannem Withagium at 
 Antwerp about 1 5 40, 1 contains precisely the same table, 
 the whole being Latin and black letter. It has also the 
 responses necessary for serving at Mass. The alphabets 
 and syllabarium appear in the same form also in a broad- 
 side or folio sheet printed by Tolomeo Janicuolo da Bressa 
 at Venice about 1550. Strange to say, no crosses appear 
 on this, but it is illustrated by a woodcut of the Tree of 
 Knowledge with a vicious-looking serpent coiled about 
 its stem. A rhymed Paternoster and Hymn to the 
 Virgin follow, and then comes a verse : — 
 
 " Chi dira queste in genochi dev6to, 
 Col volto vol to verso l'oriente, 
 E col cappello gid del suo capello 
 Speri chel v6ta sua non sara voto." 
 
 Broadsides of this kind appear also to have been in use 
 in England, but they were of course even more perish- 
 able than the hornbook. 
 
 It would hardly seem, at a cursory glance, as if much 
 interest could attach to the history of the alphabet and 
 its place in the literature of England during the past 
 four centuries. Nevertheless the history of children's 
 ABC books during this period is in brief the history 
 of thought, and follows every development of the reli- 
 gious, the moral, and the educational idea in England. 
 
 Some new Hans Andersen might even find a happy 
 theme in this Decline and Fall of Great A and his merry 
 men. Once this hero was an important, and even a 
 somewhat awful personage. Men treasured him under 
 horn as in a glass house ; they bound him up in prayer- 
 books, and signed themselves with the sacred sign of 
 
 1 British Museum. 
 
n8 H. B. C. 
 
 their faith before beginning to unravel his sacred lore. 
 Later generations dissevered him more and more from 
 these holy associations ; he became continually less and 
 less connected with the mysteries of religion, and more 
 with instructive histories of good and bad children. 
 Then they fixed him on square wooden blocks or joined 
 him to gaudy illustrations, that he might represent Ass 
 in an alphabet of animals, or Affability in a series of 
 virtues, or stand for an Archer or an Apple-pie, till, 
 finally, the audacious pencil of a Cruickshank fears not 
 to assail him, and he and his henchmen can no longer 
 hope to inspire awe, for they have become Comic. 
 
 During the period which begins with Caxton's printing 
 and ends with the outbreak of war in 1 640, the alphabet 
 seems to have appeared in three forms. 
 
 First, as the hornbook ; secondly, in the little ABC 
 tracts, which after a time took for themselves the title of 
 Primer, originally owned by the " Layman's Prayer-Bopk," 
 the book, that is, of Hours and other prayers, as dis- 
 tinguished from the Missal. The connection was natural 
 enough, as the Primer contained the elements of Christian 
 doctrine, and, moreover, sometimes contained a page 
 devoted to various alphabets and syllables, and on its 
 title-page declared itself " very necessary for the edu- 
 cacyon of chyldren." This leaf in the Primer, then, was 
 the third form in which the alphabet appeared. It 
 appears to be peculiar to the printed primer, and not to 
 be found in any MS. Book of Hours. 
 
 There was, however, never any attempt at gradation 
 in the lessons. With the sole exception of Coote's book, 
 to be noticed presently, such a thing as a simple reading- 
 lesson seems never to have been thought of. In the 
 earlier books the pupil passed at once from the short 
 table of syllables to the In Nomine, the Ave Maria, 
 Credo, Paternoster, Commandments, Graces, and responses 
 
H. 35. a. 
 
 119 
 
 at Mass, followed in the Primer by the Hours and Psalms, 
 which usually filled up the book. And the hornbook 
 repeated the same idea within its narrow limits. 
 
 A child must learn to read and he must learn to pray, 
 said priest and mother, the only teachers before the 
 revival of learning. The religious idea was doubtless 
 uppermost — let him learn to read that he may learn to 
 pray. And by making reading-lessons of the prayers 
 themselves, perhaps two ends might be attained : the 
 words, being more or less familiar, might sooner be recog- 
 nised, and by frequent spelling the prayers be fixed in 
 the memory. The modern look-and-say principle, though 
 not admitted in theory, must have worked in practice, in 
 bold shots at the harder words. As the books began to 
 expand, however, the syllabarium swelled to portentous 
 size, and included such jaw-breaking combinations as 
 quack, queck, quick, quock; spral, sprel, spril, sprol, 
 sprul. 
 
 But to return to the hornbook. The alphabets were 
 generally three in number, the Roman, the black-letter 
 (which slowly died out of use during the seventeenth 
 century, and found some to regret it as a good old English 
 institution), and the italic. The alphabets were usually 
 finished off by the etcetera symbol and the figure for and, 
 which was long called in dame-schools ampussyand, 1 a 
 term variously derived by the learned from a-per-se-and, 
 e-per-se-and, et-per-se-and, or, finally, and per-se-and. 
 The vowels, double letters, and various stops, notes of 
 interrogation, hyphens, and brackets follow. Sometimes 
 there were five alphabets, including one for secretary 
 handwriting. 
 
 After this came the syllabarium, which even in itsg^ 
 shorter form must have been a formidable obstacle by 
 way of a "first fence." This was always the same — 
 1 In Ireland this term was in use within the last thirty years. 
 
120 B. 3B, C 
 
 Ab, eb, ib, ob, ub, to ad, ed, &c, and backwards, ba, 
 be, bi, bo, bu. We learn from Brinsley * that the 
 orthodox mode of using this table was to cause the child 
 to spell it through backwards and forwards, down and up 
 and across, until every one of the meaningless syllables 
 should be firmly hammered into the memory. No wonder 
 the grammar-school masters complained 2 that mothers, 
 for the sake of peace at home, would pack the five-year- 
 old abecedarians off to school, there to waste the time 
 and skill which should have been spent on the teaching 
 of Latin. Nevertheless, the syllabarium lingered on into 
 the present century, and only finally disappeared before 
 the universal adoption of the theories of reading " without 
 tears." 
 
 Doubtless it is more easy — we might almost say more 
 possible — for children nowadays to learn to read. It is 
 not even worth while to expend criticism upon a system 
 long since exploded and discarded. Yet in reviewing 
 these clumsy and laborious methods of our forefathers, 
 we are conscious now and then of an arriere pensie. All 
 the inventions and contrivances of modern days seem to be 
 made for ease and comfort, the exaltation of every weari- 
 some valley, the cutting down of every Hill Difficulty, 
 that each generation may travel with less labour than the 
 last — to its grave. 
 
 " He shall learn it ! lie shall learn it ! " said the great 
 Swedish king, seeing his child in difficulties over a 
 lesson. The strengthening of the will that was gained 
 by the victory over disinclination and weariness at those 
 hard 'lessons may have been worth the cost. The mere 
 knowledge is so little, the making of the man so much. 
 
 The space remaining upon the hornbook was little, 
 and generally held no more than the Paternoster, prefaced 
 by the sacred invocation habitually used before prayer — 
 1 Ludms Literarius, 1612. 2 Ibid. 
 
H. JB. C 121 
 
 " In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the 
 Holy Ghost, Amen." This also to superstitious ages bad 
 something of the value of a charm. 1 
 
 In precisely, this form, though the sign of the cross 
 had long since been disused, and the In Nomine was no 
 longer a usual form of prayer, the hornbooks of the 
 eighteenth century were produced. Occasionally they 
 were made in card, but only one specimen is known to 
 be in existence. 2 
 
 About 1770 a new departure was made by Benjamin Battledore. 
 Collins, of Salisbury, printer, and energetic helper of 
 Newbery in his publications for children. This was a 
 three-leaved card which folded up into an oblong pocket- 
 book shape, and contained easy reading-lessons and little 
 woodcuts, besides the alphabets, numerals, and so forth, 
 but never any religious teaching. Now and then a short 
 fable or didactic story appears — the reign of the Moral 
 Tale having begun. 
 
 Enormous quantities of these battledores, as they were 
 most often called, were made and sold by the firms who 
 dealt in children's literature' — Newbery, Darton & Harvey, 
 Dean, Mozley, and Thomas Eichardson of Derby especi- 
 ally. Collins himself records the sale of some 100,600 
 between 177 1 and 1780, and we learn that the cost 
 of making was ^3 10s. for a thousand, and the selling 
 price 12 s. a gross, so that the profit was not great. The 
 backs were generally decorated with the " Dutch " paper, 
 having coloured flowers on a gold ground, which adorned 
 so much of the children's literature of the last century, 
 the " little gilt books " for (exclusively) good little 
 Masters and Misses. 
 
 1 See inscription on the back of a modern imitation hornbook in the 
 British Museum. 
 
 8 In the Educational Library at South Kensington. It was printed at 
 Glasgow. 
 
i22 H. 3B. <L 
 
 The card battledores were much used during the early- 
 years of the present century, and in fact so late as 1 840 
 Dean & Son printed and published them. 
 
 Sometimes the battledore broke out into verse, the 
 morality being of higher excellence than the poetry, as 
 in the following specimen beneath a woodcut of children 
 exercising : — 
 
 " These little girls do dumb-bells use, 
 But wherefore, do you ask ; 
 "Why 'tis to make them walk upright, 
 Oh 'tis a pleasing task ! " 
 
 The word " hornbook " was by this time very loosely 
 used, and applied to any small first book as well as to 
 the three-leaved battledore. The drudgery of alphabet 
 teaching being now often given over to the nurse, 
 children were sometimes bribed to learn in the fashion 
 described by Prior : — 
 
 " To Master John the English maid 
 A Hornbook gives of gingerbread, 
 And that the child may learn the better, 
 As he can name, he eats the letter." 
 
 As a companion picture to this, we may hang one of 
 the village-school as not described by Shenstone, though 
 the picture is perhaps as true to life as his : — 
 
 " Commetha, Billy Chubb, an' breng the hornen book. 
 Gie ma tha vester in tha winder yon, Pal Came. What, 
 be a sleepid ? I'll wake ye. Now, Billy, there's a 
 good bway. Ston' still there, an' mind what a da za 
 to ye an whaur I da point. Now cris-cross, girt a, little 
 abed. That's right, Billy, you'll zoon learn the criss-; 
 cross lane, you'll zoon auvergit Bobby Jiffry, you'll zoon be 
 a scholard. A's a pirty chubby bway — Lord love 'un ! " l 
 
 1 Specimens of West Country dialect, quoted by Timbs, " Schooldays 
 of Eminent Men." 
 
H. B. (L 
 
 123 
 
 Such was the hornbook, which now belongs to a dead 
 and buried past. The toy-box of alphabetical bricks and 
 such contrivances was undreamt of in its day, though 
 Locke records the clever invention of a friend of his own 
 who pasted the letters upon dice, so that his child played 
 himself into so much knowledge. 
 
 We return to the sixteenth century to trace the history ABC 
 of the little books which formed a kind of supplement °° ' 
 to the hornbook, containing the A B C of letters and 
 religion at rather fuller length. As these were more 
 important, their history is more eventful. The number 
 of editions which appear in the Stationers' Eecords from 
 1538 onwards show the changing temper of the times 
 and the gradual development of the established religion 
 of England, moulded alternately by Catholic and Pro- 
 testant influence — that is, of old and long-respected 
 modes of thought, and of those which were new and 
 which promised light and freedom. 
 
 The little elementary tract was published, like the 
 Prayer-Book, by royal authority, and by each successive 
 edition all former ones were superseded. 
 
 This royal authorisation was not absolutely confined 
 to religious books, but seems occasionally to have been 
 sought with intent to secure a kind of copyright for some 
 promising work. With regard to books of religious in- 
 struction, stringent regulations would seem natural and 
 necessary at a time when Government took a truly paternal 
 care of the subject's conscience, and permitted no dis- 
 agreement with the royal belief of the hour. Considering 
 the variations of the latter, the public mind must always, 
 during the later Tudor reigns, have been, in nautical 
 phrase, " getting ready to go about." This, for instance, 
 is part of a proclamation put forth on the 5th June 1 5 S 5> 
 on behalf of " the Kynge and the Quene " who— 
 
 "Most entirely and earnestly tendering the preserua- 
 
i24 h. jb. <r. 
 
 tion and saulfty, as wel of the soules as of the bodyes, 1 
 landes and substance of al theyr good and louyng sub- 
 iectes and others, myndyng to root out and extinguysh al 
 false doctrine and heresies and other occasions of schisms, 
 diuisions and sects that come by the same heresyes and 
 false doctryne, straytly charge and commaunde that no 
 person or persons, of what estate, degree, or condicioun 
 soever he or they be, from henceforth presume to brynge 
 or conueye, or cause to be conueyed into this realme any 
 bookes, wrytynges, or workes hereafter mentioned " (those 
 of Luther, Calvin, Zwingle, and the Reforming literature 
 generally). " Also that no person or persons presume 
 to wryte, prynte, utter, sell, reade, or kepe, or cause to be 
 wrytten, prynted, uttered, red, kepte — (any of these) — 
 they must be brought within fifteen days to the Ordi- 
 nary of the diocese and solemnly burnt." Defaulters 
 were to have their premises searched and themselves 
 imprisoned. 2 Whether the children's superseded ABO 
 books were to^ share the same fate, or to be surrendered 
 like expired tickets, does not appear, but the prohibitions 
 are couched in sufficiently clear language, as will pre- 
 sently be seen. "After the Reformation," says Mr. 
 Arber, " the grip of authority — principally in the shape 
 of the Bishop of London — went on tightening and tight- 
 ening, until it climaxed in the Star Chamber decree of 
 1637, as books also became more and more a power, 
 and therefore dangerous things unless fully authorised by 
 the Ordinary. The Book of Entries (at Stationers' Hall) 
 became a permission, an imprimatur rather than a cash 
 receipt. The change in their nature would seem to have 
 occurred in the period 1571-76, and was probably 
 occasioned by the Anglican hierarchy then assuming 
 
 1 See Arber's Reprints of the Stationers' Registers. 
 
 2 Similar paternal care was taken of the subject's mind, one uniform 
 grammar being commanded under Elizabeth. See p. 142. 
 
H. 3B. C. 125 
 
 (? by what right), in self-defence against the secret 
 printing presses of the Puritans, a greater authority- 
 over unborn books than their Romish predecessors had 
 hitherto continuously exercised. This supervision became 
 more and more stringent, until almost every important book 
 was either entered in a full Court of Masters, Wardens, 
 and Assistants of the Company, or else was authorised by 
 the clerical license, and, as if that were insufficient, by 
 one of the Wardens as well." 1 
 
 Between 1538 and 1 640 at least eight editions of the Editions. 
 ABC appeared. The license for them was given to 
 various printers^to the one, that is, who happened to 
 be most orthodox, as orthodoxy went at the moment. 
 Naturally much malice and uncharitableness resulted. 
 Thus Seres had enjoyed the monopoly of psalters, 
 primers, and prayer-books till Queen Mary deprived 
 him of it in favour of Waylande ; and on the restora- 
 tion of the privilege by Elizabeth, one Denham raised 
 objections, which led to much controversy, and finally 
 to an agreement that persons so privileged should make 
 certain grants to the Stationers and their poor. And 
 that infringements of the patent were duly punished 
 appears by an entry under the heading " Fynes for 
 pryntyng without lycense" — "John Tysdale, for prynt- 
 ynge without lycenses the A, B, C, and other such lyke. 
 For both he ys fined iiij 8, viiij d " In 1588 B. Jones was 
 licensed to print the "ABC for children, newly deuised 
 with Syllables, the Lorde's praier, our Belief, and the Ten 
 Commandments;" and in 1590 this was again allowed 
 him, on condition that there shall be no addition made to 
 the same hereafter. The fervour of religious controversy 
 was cooling, and belief began to crystallise into shape. 
 But this. license was cancelled by order of a court holden 
 1 Reprints of Sta. Reg., ed. Arber. 
 
i26 H. B, C. 
 
 May 15, 1605. 1 And the letter-patent for an edition 
 of the Primer published by Grafton in the first year of 
 Edward VI. declares that none other is to be "taught, 
 lerned and red therowout his dominions." Clearly the 
 title " Defender of the Faith " was in those days no dead 
 letter. 
 
 It will be interesting to note a few of the variations 
 in these successive editions. 2 
 
 The first, octavo, was produced about 1538 by the 
 famous printer Thomas Petyt. The only known copy is 
 among Archbishop Sancroft's papers at Emmanuel Col- 
 lege, Cambridge. The Creed, Paternoster, and Ave 
 Maria appear in Latin and English, and also the re- 
 sponses needed to serve Mass, or, as the phrase went, " to 
 help a priest to sing," a duty which any child might be 
 called out of the congregation to perform. The Command- 
 ments are versified, and the Graces almost word for word 
 those of the Sarum Manual. 
 
 These Graces, it may be said, in passing, were no 
 unimportant feature in the elementary religious instruc- 
 tion. Some were quite long pieces of verse, others were 
 quite a little service in themselves, and required two 
 people to say them. These, the older form, which indeed 
 are still in use at some old foundations, 3 were hardly ever 
 printed in full, being so familiar that merely a prompter's 
 word was required as a reminder, and therefore they read 
 
 in a most incoherent manner, thus — In Vigilia Pasche 
 
 Benedicite, Dominus — Edent pauperes — Gloria Patri — 
 Sicud erat — Kyrieleyson — Christeleyson — Kyrieleyson— 
 Paternoster — Et ne nos — Sed libera (these last two 
 suffrages being divided between the two speakers)— 
 
 1 Ames' Typographical Antiquities, Herbert's edition. 
 
 2 See the interesting paper by Mr. Henry Bradshaw, published in the 
 Bibliographer, vol. i. p. 133. 
 
 3 As at Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 
H. B. C. 127 
 
 Oremus — Benedic, Domine — Jube domine benedicere — 
 Cibo spirituals alimonie — Si consurrexitis cum Christo que 
 sursum — Sunt querite ubi Christus est in dextera Dei 
 sedens — Amen. 
 
 These mere catchwords would suffice to remind the 
 children and their elders also of the Offices which they 
 were supposed to know by heart, and would enable them 
 to remember the distinctions between the Grace for a 
 feast and that for a fast, and so forth. 
 
 Richard Lant seems to have obtained the next 
 license. No copy of his edition is known to exist, but 
 the title declares the volume to be the "A B C, with 
 Paternoster, Ave, Orede, and the Ten Commandments in 
 Englysshe, newly translated and set forthe at the Kynge's 
 most gracyous Commandment." The Gloria Patri and 
 Graces were included, and there were five different 
 alphabets, including probably the secretary and italic for 
 handwriting. 
 
 In 1547, the year of Henry VIII.'s death, William 
 Powell seems to have produced another edition. 1 Two 
 years before this the Primer, as reformed by the King's 
 command, had appeared, and since 1538 the Epistles 
 and Gospels had been read in English during service; 
 the English Litany since I 544 only; while not till the 
 year after the King's death was any part of the Communion 
 Service read in English. 
 
 This A B C is distinctly reformed. The instructions 
 for serving Mass are gone, the Commandments are printed 
 at full length. The long Graces become short forms ; a 
 very short Catechism 2 is added. Some prayers are taken 
 from the reformed Primer, and as petitions are made for 
 the King and Queen, it is evident that Catherine Parr 
 still lived. The other editions are to be abolished. This 
 
 1 Brit. Mus., l2mo, black letter. 
 
 s The Church Catechism was not added to the Prayer-Book till 1549. 
 
i28 H. JB. C. 
 
 is set forth by the Kynge's Maiestie and by his clergy, 
 and to be taught throughout all his realme. All other 
 utterly set apart as the teachers thereof tender his Grace's ' 
 favour. But this book takes a half-way place, the Cate- 
 chisms being studiously moderate in tone. 
 
 John Day printed another ABC between March and 
 July I 553, the letters-patent being dated March 25. A 
 further step in the direction of Protestantism is taken 
 by him. The Lord's Prayer and Creed stand as now in 
 our Prayer- Book, the Commandments also take their 
 present form, with the people's response after each ; the 
 Ave Maria is gone, and the old Catholic graces are re- 
 placed by a modern form. 
 
 In July of this year Edward VI. died. After Mary's 
 accession the Protestant A B C of Day would not be in 
 favour. Apparently the Catholic printer, Waylande, had 
 now the privilege of an edition. That this was a privilege 
 of some value is shown by the case which came in 1582 
 before the Star Chamber, when John Day, whose copyright 
 had been restored by Elizabeth, brought the complaint 
 against Roger Warde and "William Holmes ; " diverse 
 evil-disposed persons," having persuaded Roger Warde, 
 a printer, " being but a poore man," to print the ABC 
 with the Catechism in great numbers, and W. Holmes 
 having " bound, stitcht, and uttered for sale " 600 copies. 
 Roger Warde admitted having printed 10,000. 
 
 Lant, again, printed an " A B C with the Paternoster, 
 Ave, Crede, and Ten Commandments in Englyshe, newly 
 translated and set forth at the kyng's most gracyous Com- 
 mandement." This is a small octavo of four leaves, 
 printed only on one side, to be folded so as to allow of 
 the blank pages being pasted together ; 1 licensed in 
 
 1 By kind permission of Mr. Carew Hazlitt, from notes at present 
 unpublished. 
 
H. S3. G. 129 
 
 1 5 5S— 59 j but this edition was very soon superseded, for 
 Thomas Purfoot produced another in 1561—62. 
 
 In 1588 E. Jones prints " An A B C for children, 
 newly deuised with syllables, the Lord's Praier, our 
 Belief, and the Ten Commandments." The permission 
 was renewed to him in 1590, and withdrawn in 1605. 
 
 In 1 63 1 there was printed for the Stationers' Com- 
 pany in Dublin an A B in English and Irish. 1 This was 
 edited by the saintly Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore, and the 
 Irish portion printed by types presented to O'Kearney by 
 Queen Elizabeth for the purpose of printing a similar 
 book wholly in Irish in 1 5 7 1 . Under the Commonwealth 
 (in 1652) Bedell's book was re-edited and published 
 with the characteristic addition of Perkins' " Six Principles 
 of Christian Doctrine." 
 
 Henceforward the usual contents of the sixteenth century 
 were most often supplemented in various ways. Under 
 the Puritan rule, as we shall see, a solid supplement on 
 religion was added, which even became controversial, as in 
 the quaint " Protestant Tutor," and at a later date lengthy 
 spelling-lessons and moral chapters swelled it into a 
 solid book. Still the old-fashioned form appeared every 
 now and then, as in 1774 at Glasgow, where the religious 
 teaching was supplied by the Assembly's Shorter Cate- 
 chism, and such points as the descent into hell are carefully 
 explained. 2 And this volume, or one almost identically 
 the same, 3 reappeared so late as 1852. 
 
 In 177 1 an English edition appeared, its title-page 
 graced with the royal arms, and marked " Cum privilegio." 
 The old crosses and In Nomine appear with the Church 
 Catechism, and the Graces are quaint, the old and new 
 being oddly jumbled. Thus the very old Grace after 
 supper, "Christ, which at his Last Supper gave himself 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. 
 2 Educational Library, S. Kensington. 3 Ibid. 
 
 I 
 
i3° 
 
 H. B. G. 
 
 Alphabet 
 Pages. 
 
 Alphabet 
 Poems. 
 
 unto us, promising his body to be crucified and his blood 
 to be shed for our sins, bless us and our meat," is finished 
 with a modern jingle : — 
 
 " God save his Church, our King and Realm, 
 And send us peace in Christ our Lord." 
 
 The four lines which finish the little book seem also 
 to be of old date : — 
 
 " This little Catechism learnt 
 By heart (for so it ought), 
 The Primer next commanded is 
 For children to be taught." 
 
 This appears to bring us back to the ABC pages 
 which frequently began the Primer or Book of Hours. 
 Their form was precisely the same, the pupil going 
 straight from the short syllabarium to the elements of 
 religion, and then to the Hours and other private prayers. 
 Thus a Primer printed in 1539 by Waylande 1 begins 
 with graduals and a calendar marked with fasts and 
 feasts, saints' days, and vigils, - after which come the 
 alphabets and syllabarium, while the title of the book 
 declares it " most necessary for the educacyon of chil- 
 dren." Another of 1564 has several alphabets, preceded 
 by a cross and followed by Amen. 
 
 As a further instance of the important position of the 
 little alphabet books in literature, we may mention the 
 numerous specimens of short good counsels of various sorts 
 which appeared in alphabetical form, and which have 
 been alluded to in a former chapter. Thus we have 
 "A Ballet intituled an A B C with a Prayer," 1557. 
 "The Battaile of A B 0," 1587. "All the letters of 
 the A B C by every sondrye letter whereof ther is a good 
 document set forth and taught in rhyme." 2 "A Right 
 Godly and Christian ABC, showing the duty of every 
 1 Brit. Mus. 2 W. C. Hazlitt, Handbook of Pop. Lit. 
 
H. 3B. C. 131 
 
 degree." This is a broadside to be sung to the tune of 
 Bogero, and consists of such verses as — 
 
 XXrise and wake from wickednesse, 
 Repent and thou shalt live, 
 Or else with sword and pestilence 
 The Lord God will thee grieve." 
 
 Possibly these alphabetically arranged poems served some- 
 times as a kind of memoria technica of the letters. The 
 nuns of Godstow, who composed for their own use an 
 A B of Devotion, may have found it helpful to jog the 
 memory of their battledore children. Certainly the 
 so-called A B C of Aristotle 1 of Mayster Benet (Burgh), 
 Rector of Sandon, in Essex, which was popular in manu- 
 script before the introduction of printing, would be con- 
 venient for both literary and moral teaching. Thus it 
 runs : — 
 
 " Who-so wilneth to he wijs & worschip desirith, 
 Lerne he 00 lettir, & looke on anothir 
 Of the a. h. c. of aristotil : argue not agen that : 
 It is councel for right man ye clerkis & knyghtis a thousand 
 And eek it myghte ameende a man ful of te 
 For to lerne lore of 00 lettir, & his lijf saue ; 
 For to myehe of onything was neuer holsum. 
 Eeede ofte on this rolle, & rewle thou ther aftir ; 
 Who-so be greued in his goost, gouerne him bettir ; 
 Blame he not the barn that this a. b. c. made, 
 But wite he his wicked will & his werk aftir. 
 It schal neuere greue a good man though the gilti be meendid 
 Now herkeneth & heerith how y bigyune. 
 
 A to amerose, to aunterose, ne argue not to myche. 
 
 B to bolde, ne to bisi, ne boorde not to large. 
 
 C to curteis, to cruel, ne care not to sore. 
 
 D to dul, ne to dreedful, ne drinke not to ofte. 
 
 E to elenge, ne to excelent, ne to eernesful neither. 
 
 1 Lambeth MS. 541. Harl. MS. 541 has two versions. 
 
132 H. B. C. 
 
 F to fers, ne to famuler, but freendli of cheere. 
 
 G to glad, ne to gloriose, & gelosie thou hate. 
 
 H to hasti, ne to hardi, ne to heuy in thine herte. 
 
 I to iettynge, ne to iangelyng, ne iape not to ofte. 
 
 K to kinde, ne to kepynge & be waar of knaue tacchis. 
 
 L to looth for to leene, ne to liberal of goodis. 
 
 M to medelus, ne to myrie, but as mesure wole it meene. 
 
 N to noiose, ne to nice, ne use no new iettis. 
 
 to orped, ne to overthwart & oothis thou hate. 
 
 P to presing, ne to preuy with princis, ne with dukis. 
 
 Q to queynte, ne to quarelose but queeme weel youre souerayng. 
 
 B. to riotus to reueling, ne rage not to rudeli. 
 
 8 to straunge, ne to stirynge, ne straungeli to stare. 
 
 T to toilose, ne to talewijs, for temperaunce is beest. 
 
 V to venomose, ne to veniable, & voide al vilonye. 
 
 W to wielde,ne to wrathful, neither waaste, ne waadenot todepe. 
 IT For a mesurable meene is euer the beste of alle. 
 
 Even a prayer might be so arranged, as in Chaucer's 
 English version of Deguileville's Hymn to the Virgin, 
 where C, for example, begins — 
 
 " Comfort is none but in you, Lady dear.'' 
 
 One famous and familiar alphabet jingle also deserves 
 some mention here. This is A apple pie, of which the 
 origin seems to be lost in the clouds of antiquity, but 
 which we certainly know to have been a familiar nursery 
 story two centuries ago, 1 when a learned clergyman of 
 the Church of England named Eachard, refers to it in 
 criticising the modes of preaching of various sects. 
 
 " And whereas," he says, " it has been observed that 
 some of our clergy are sometimes over-nice in taking 
 notice of the mere words that they find in texts, so these 
 are so accurate as to go to the very letters. As suppose, 
 sir, that you are to give an exhortation to repentance 
 
 1 Halliwell, Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales. Eachard, " Observa- 
 tions," 1671. 
 
H. 3B. <L 133 
 
 upon that of St. Matthew, ' Kepent ye, for the Kingdom 
 of Heaven is at hand ; ' you must observe that Eepent 
 is a rich word, wherein every letter exhorts us to our 
 duty. Eepent, B readily, B earnestly, P presently, E 
 effectually, N nationally, T thoroughly. Again Eepent, 
 Boaringly, Eagerly, Plentifully, Heavily, (because of H), 
 Notably, Terribly. And why not Eepent Rarely, Evenly, 
 Prettily, Elegantly, Neatly, Tightly ? And also why not 
 A apple-pasty, B bak'd it, cut it, D divided it, E 
 eat it, P fought for it, G got it, &c. I had not time, 
 sir, to look any farther into their way of preaching, but 
 if I had, I am sure I should have found that they have 
 no reason to despise our Church upon that account." 
 
 Towards the close of the last century Marshall brought 
 out a little 32mo edition, entitled " The Tragical Death of 
 A apple pye, who was cut in pieces and eat by twenty-five 
 gentlemen with whom all little people ought to be very 
 well acquainted." After the familiar alphabet this little 
 volume describes the feast of the letters, giving a " Curious 
 Discourse that passed between the twenty-five letters at 
 dinner-time," — 
 
 " Says A give me a good large slice, 
 Says B a little bit but nice "— 
 
 and so forth, and then, following Newbery's fashion of 
 advertising, the publisher suggests that if the little 
 readers are pleased with this work, they " have but to run 
 to Mr. Marshall's " for more of the same kind, and then 
 manages to drag in two Graces and the Lord's Prayer as 
 suitable thanksgivings and helps to a goodness which 
 may merit pies and picture-books. 
 
 Finally, as a curiosity of literature, we may mention Battle-^ 
 the extremely quaint quarto published in 1660 by George T ^ e oh ^ 5 . 
 Fox, John Stubs, and Benjamin Furley. This hornbook 
 is really a mere exposition of the author's views on the 
 
134 
 
 H. JB. G. 
 
 subject of the use of the pronouns thou and you. The 
 title runs thus : — 
 
 A 
 
 BATTLE-DOOR 
 
 for 
 
 Teachers Sc Profeflbrs 
 
 to learn 
 
 T t 
 
 Plural & Singular 
 
 You to many & thou to one Singular 
 
 one Thou ; Plural many You. 
 
 hat now why the teachers of the World, Schollars 
 & Schoolmafters teach People & Children which 
 will not have People, nor Children, fpeak Thou to 
 One & You to Many is not fenfe nor good Latine, 
 nor good Englifh, nor good Greek nor Hebrew ! 
 Therefore to you that ftumble at the word Thou 
 to a particular becaufe we do not fay You to a 
 particular, this Battledoor is for you to learn, 
 
 The Light which 
 
 Chrift hath en- 
 lightened you with 
 
 all, believe in 
 
 that the anoynting 
 
 within you, you 
 
 may know, to teach 
 
 you. 
 
 Geo. Fox. 
 
 The " vulgar " professors thus attacked are supposed to 
 need a hornbook again. They are freely addressed as 
 fools, novices and ideots. Each section begins afresh 
 with the hornbook-shaped frame, and shows how each 
 
a. b. (L 135 
 
 nation uses its pronouns, the " Syriack," Ethiopian, and all 
 European languages being taken as instances. Of the 
 depth of the author's wisdom the following is sufficient 
 proof. It is among the " several instances : " — 
 
 " Job. — Job, the greatest man in all the East, in the 
 Land of Uz (a Judge), Job 2. He thou'd his wife, and 
 his wife thou'd him. 
 
 Temanits Language, Job i. — And Eliphaz the Temanite 
 thou'd Job and told him he had taught many, and spoke 
 plural and singular. 
 
 And the same is said of Zophar's Naomitieh, and 
 Bildad's Shuit's language." 
 
 No wonder book-loving Joseph Ames appends a pen- 
 and-ink note to his own copy x — " Here's little music 
 harping so long on one stringe, wherefore high time to 
 put Finis." 
 
 1 British Museum. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 (Educational Befontt. 
 
 i 5 10-1649. 
 
 " A man is a stair lower from God than a child. His father hath writ 
 him as his own little story, wherein he sighs to see what innocence he has 
 outlived. . . . Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got 
 eternity without a burden, and exchanged but one heaven for another. 
 . . . His soul is yet a white paper, unscribbled with observations of 
 the world, wherewith it at length becomes a blurred notebook." — Bishop 
 Eaele, MicrocosmograpAic. 
 
 length 
 
 B have seen that the condition of schools was 
 
 such as to need thorough reformation at 
 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century. It 
 
 would be a pleasant task to sketch at some 
 
 the lives of the great men who were the leaders 
 
 of the movement. Our present concern, however, is 
 
 rather with the books they produced than with the men 
 
 themselves, and we must therefore be content with a 
 
 mere glance at their lives and doings. 
 
 In 1497 Erasmus paid his first visit to England, and 
 
 "was delighted with everything that he found, especially 
 
 at Oxford." He then went to Paris and studied Greek, 
 
 enduring many real privations for the love of learning. 
 
 In his own words, " I have given my whole soul to Greek 
 
 learning, and as soon as I get any money I shall first 
 
 136 
 
Etmcattonal TReform. 137 
 
 buy Greek books and then clothes." * In I 5 t O by the 
 efforts of Colet, Grocyn, Linacre, Latimer, Fisher, and 
 More the great Dutch scholar was brought back to teach 
 Greek at Cambridge. He had but few scholars, and 
 these were mostly little able to pay their teacher. But 
 the influence of Erasmus reached far beyond his little 
 circle of students, and was rather that of the educationist 
 than of the schoolmaster. An energetic essay or Decla- 
 mation addresses itself especially to parents, remon- 
 strating with them on their carelessness regarding their 
 children's highest interests, though mothers, he says, will 
 take all possible pains about their child's milk, food, 
 baths. This they do not think of deferring till the 
 child's seventh or tenth year. Those who expose their 
 children to be devoured by wild beasts are punished by 
 law, but no penalty visits the parents who leave their 
 little ones to become a prey to their own evil passions. 
 Tender babes are fed with small morsels, even so children 
 should have short and pleasant lessons at first, and " small 
 increasings will not be felt." Begin with that which 
 will interest the child. Tell him, for instance, how the 
 companions of Ulysses were turned to swine. He will 
 laugh at the tale, but for all that he will learn from it 
 the chief point in all moral philosophy, that those who 
 will not be governed by reason, but are carried away by 
 their own desires, will turn from men to beasts. 
 
 A Latin metrical version of the Paternoster, with some 
 "Precepts of Good Living," was made by Erasmus for 
 the scholars of his friend Oolet's foundation, "Powles' 
 boys," in 15 18. Colet himself made a short paraphrase 
 in English of this work, Christiani Hominis Institutum. 
 
 The " Adages " and " Apophthegmes," written " partly 
 for all manner of persons, and especially gentlemen," were 
 very probably put into the hands of schoolboys, though 
 1 Hallam, Lit. Europe. 
 
i33 E&ucatfonal "Keform. 
 
 not specially written for them. The Be Civilitate Morum 
 Puerilium was translated by Whytington, and immensely 
 used in schools, as also the Be Conscribendis Bpistolis, as 
 already mentioned, and editions of the Distichs of Oato. 
 J°k?°°J et ' The friend and contemporary of Erasmus, John Colet, 
 had returned in 1499 from Florence to lecture at Oxford 
 on the Greek Testament. In 1 5 1 o, on the death of his 
 father, Colet founded St. Paul's School, and set William 
 Lily over it. Above the gate was represented a figure of 
 the Christ- Child, with the motto " Hear ye Him " graven 
 beneath, a fit emblem of the Christian gentleness which 
 was the keynote of Colet's teaching. To his short Acci- 
 dence or elementary Grammar Colet added a Catechizon, 
 or rules of faith and life, not arranged as question and 
 answer, but as a series of statements to be made by the 
 child. 
 
 A " lytel proheme " to the Catechizon ends thus beau- 
 tifully : — " I praye God all may be to his honour and to 
 the erudicyon and profyt of chyldren my countremen, 
 Londoners specyally, whome dygestying this lytel werke 
 I had alwaye before myn eyen, consideryng more what, 
 was for them than to shewe ony grete connynge, wyllyng 
 to speke the thynges often before spoken in such manner 
 as gladli yong begynners and tender wyttes myght take 
 and conceyve. Wherefore I pray you al lytel babys, all 
 lytel chyldren lerne gladli this lytel treatise and commend 
 it dyly gently unto your memory es. Trustynge of this 
 begynnynge that ye shal procede and growe to parfyt 
 lyterature, and come at the last to be gret clarkes. And 
 lyfte up your lytel whyte handes for me, whiche prayeth 
 for you to God. To whom be all honour and imperial 
 maiestie and glory. Amen." 
 
 " Teche that thou hast lerned louyngly " was one of 
 Colet's own precepts. 
 
 1 See p. 174, 
 
Educational IReform. 139 
 
 We should like to quote, the Catechizon entire, 
 beautiful as it is in its noble simplicity. The section 
 headed " Oharyte " begins thus : — " In this trewe beleue I 
 shall first loue God the fader Almighty that made me, 
 and our Lord Jesus Christ that redemed me, and the 
 Holy Ghost that alway inspyreth me. This blessed holy 
 Trinity I shall alway loue and honour and serue with 
 all my herte, mynde and strengthe, and fere God alonely, 
 and put my trust in hym alonely. 
 
 " I shall loue my neyhbour, that is every man to God- 
 ward, as myn owne selfe, and shall helpe hym in all his 
 necessytees spirytually and godlyly as I wolde be holped 
 myn owne selfe, specyalli my fader and my moder, that 
 brought me into this worlde." 
 
 The schoolboy will also love his masters that teach 
 him and the fellows that learn with him. 
 
 A more intelligent teaching of Latin was to accom- 
 pany gentleness of treatment in Colet's Foundation. It 
 is well, he says, to learn and read good Latin authors or 
 chosen poets and orators, and note how wisely they wrote 
 and spake, and study always to follow them, desiring none 
 other rules but their examples. " For in the beginning 
 men spake not Latin because such rules were made, but, 
 contrarywise, because men spake such Latin, upon that 
 followed the rules and were made. That is to say, Latin 
 speech was before the rules, and not the rules before the 
 Latin speech." A truism of which the schoolmasters at 
 least sorely needed to be reminded. 
 
 The mention of Lily leads us naturally to ask after Latin 
 
 „ , _ ,. ., Grammars. 
 
 the progress of the Latin grammar in the new era. 
 
 "We are scarcely entitled," says Mr. Hazlitt, 1 "to 
 
 plume ourselves on the elevation from which it is our 
 
 privilege to look back on obsolete educational theories 
 
 and principles. The change which we witness is of re- 
 
 1 W. Carew Hazlitt, School-books and Schoolmasters. 
 
mo Educational IReform. 
 
 cent date and of political origin. It is within an easily- 
 measurable number of years that the democratic wave 
 has loosened and shaken the direct clerical jurisdiction 
 over our schools and our studies. What more significant 
 fact can there be, in proof of the conservative bigotry of 
 those who so long exercised control in schoolroom and 
 college than that a primer compiled in the first quarter of 
 the sixteenth century was still substantially the standard 
 authority less than a hundred years since ? " 
 
 At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Grammar 
 in general use was that of Alexander de Villa Dei, or 
 Alexander Gallus, a Franciscan monk of Brittany, who 
 followed the time-honoured system of Priscian, but com- 
 posed his work entirely in Leonine verse : — 
 
 " Rectus as, es, a, dat deelinatio prima, 
 Atque per am propria quaedum ponuntur hebrsea, 
 Dans se diphthongon genitivis atqua dativis." 1 
 
 Versions of the old work of ^Elius Donatus were also 
 in use, and a Donatus Minor and Donatus pro Pueris were 
 printed towards the end of the fifteenth century. 
 
 Almost the first book that issued from Pynson's press 
 had been a collection of grammar rules by Nicholaus 
 Perottus, Bishop of Sipontum (i486). In 1494 ap- 
 peared the Opus Grammaticum of Sulpitius, afterwards 
 edited by Ascensius, 2 whose Declensions appeared in I 5 1 3. 
 
 1 "Did the reader ever open the Doctrinale of Alexander de Villa Dei, 
 which was the grammar in general use from the middle of the thirteenth 
 to the end of the fifteenth century ? If so, he is aware how great a step 
 towards simplicity was made by our educational reformers, Lily, Colet, 
 and Erasmus. Indeed those whom we now regard as the forgers of our 
 chains were in their own opinion and that of their contemporaries the 
 champions of freedom."— J2. II. Quick, Essays on Educational Reformers, 
 pp. 21, 296. 
 
 2 Grammatice Sulpitiana cu textu Ascesiano recognito et aucto; ut 
 proximo palebit epistolo. . . . Per Richardum Pynson. Anno mcccccv. 
 xi. die Augusti. 4to. Alihorp. 
 
E&ucational TReform. i 4 i 
 
 Some two years earlier than the work of Perottus, how- 
 ever, a little book had been published at Oxford by an 
 English schoolmaster. This was Annaquil, master of the 
 Free School next to Magdalen College, perhaps the first 
 teacher in England who strove to bring new life into 
 the dry course of grammar-school work of the time. 
 He wrote, primarily for his own pupils, a Compendium 
 Grammatices, with Terence's Vulgaria attached, and also 
 a Parvulorum Institutio. Stanbridge became usher to 
 Annaquil about 1488, and eventually succeeded him. 
 He also wrote various works, especially a Vocabula, which 
 up to 1647 passed through many editions. This was a 
 book resembling the old vocabularies, of which mention 
 has already been made. Stanbridge wrote also a Vulgaria. 
 
 There were three books printed about the same period 
 with this title. 
 
 The Vulgaria of Stanbridge, that of Horman also, Horman 
 Vice-Provost of Eton, that of Whytington, grammarian, IS35- 
 poet-laureate, and author of various treatises, are the last whvtin 
 of those cheerful Latin reading-books of which iElfric's ton,b.i48o. 
 is the first, which describe everyday life, and so afford to 
 the student of history many choice scraps of information, 
 invaluable as " local colour.'' 
 
 Thus Stanbridge describes how " scholars must lye 
 hardly at Oxford," with interesting circumstances, and 
 Whytington throws light upon prices : — 
 
 " Befe and motton is so dere that a peny worth of 
 meet will scant suffyse a boy at a meall. 
 
 " A gallon of swete wyne is at viii pens in London. 
 
 " A gallon of ale is at a peny and ferdynge." 
 
 And the reckless treatment of their costly books by 
 boys appears from the same author : — 
 
 " I warne the fro hensforthe medle not with my bokes, 
 for thou blurrest and Hottest them as thou were a bletchy 
 sowter" (cobbler). 
 
142 Educational "Keform. 
 
 Horman had apparently not a high opinion of women, 
 since he impresses upon his scholars that — ■ 
 
 " It is conuenient that a man have one several place 
 in his house to hymselfe fro combrance of women.'' 
 
 " Lytel popies," he mentions, " that serueth for ladies 
 were sumtyme bellis, sumtyme colers ful of prickes for 
 theyr defence." 
 
 " Frobeynes prynt is called better than Aldus, but yet 
 Aldus is neuer the lesse thankeworthy, for he began the 
 fynest waye and left saumple by the whiche other were 
 lyghtly provoked and taught to deuyse better." 
 
 Grammar reforms were important matters, and the 
 grammarians did not always agree. The quarrel between 
 Horman and Lily 1 was tolerably violent, and sides were 
 taken, and the differences emphasized to an extent which 
 was certainly not edifying to the scholars of these wrath- 
 ful teachers. The schoolmasters selected the principles 
 they preferred and worked upon them, while vehemently 
 proclaiming their opponents' errors, till finally, in 1540, 
 the royal authority found it necessary to interpose, and 
 a Primer was composed, primarily for the benefit of the 
 Prince of Wales (Edward VI.), who was held up in a some- 
 what fulsome preface as a model and example to the 
 " tender babes of England." 
 short in- In i 547 a " Short Introduction to Grammar" appeared 
 
 traduction. . , . , . . . rr 
 
 with the royal authorisation. Political commotions inter- 
 fered, and put grammar out of the minds of the authori- 
 ties, however, so that it was not till 1567, twenty years 
 after the first effort, that a new edition appeared, licensed 
 to Eeynoll Wolfe, all others being superseded. The 
 diversity of grammars was declared to be a serious 
 nuisance, and the nation were told that Henry VIIL, 
 " in the midst of weighty affairs, had not forgotten nor- 
 neglected the tender youth of the realm," but unfor- 
 
 1 See Maitland, "Early Printed Books in the Lambeth Library." 
 
TE&ucatfonal IReform. 143 
 
 tunately had died, and hence the long delay in its publi- 
 cation. The book so solemnly announced ought to have 
 been very successful, protected as it also was by the royal 
 command abolishing all others. Nevertheless Lily's Gram- 
 mar long survived it. 
 
 Lily was a pupil of Whytington. His " Eudiments " William 
 appeared in 1529, with a preface from no less important 1468-1523. 
 a person than the great Cardinal Wolsey, who was anxious 
 especially to supply his own foundation, the grammar- 
 school at Ipswich, with suitable school-books. This book 
 of rudiments begins with elementary religious instruction, 
 the Creed, Paternoster, &c, and goes on to the eight parts 
 of speech and grammar generally. 
 
 His Grammar seems to have been first known as " The 
 Short Introduction to Grammar," then to have appeared 
 as " The King's Book," and finally as " Lily's Grammar." 
 
 Lily's Carmen de Moribus was added to it and some 
 versified prayers, amongst them the following curious 
 classical version of the Paternoster : — 
 
 " Pater Omnipotens, clarique habitator Olympi 
 Laudetur merito nomen honore tuum. 
 Adveniat regnum. Tua sit rata ubique voluntas 
 Fiat et in terris sicut in arce poli. 
 Da nobis hodie panem, et nos exime noxse 
 Ut veniam nostris hostibus usque damus. 
 Nee siue tentando Stygius nos opprimat Error 
 Facaminas nostras ut mala nulla ligent. Amen." 
 
 Colet was succeeded in the Deanery of St. Paul's Noweii, 
 by Nowell, whose Catechism, first published in Latin in * ° 7 
 1570, and an abridgment in the same year, was the 
 standard religious lesson-book for many years. 
 
 Although Henry VIII. did not carry out his plan of a 
 simple Latin book for the children of his realm till I 540, 
 he had apparently long since discovered the need of such 
 a work for the education of his daughters. In 1522 
 
i44 E&ucational IRcform. 
 
 Linacre was invited to compile a Latin Primer for the 
 Princess Mary. He carried out the task ; but apparently 
 simplicity was not attained, for the Spanish educationist, 
 L. Vives, Ludovicus Vives, was presently asked to do the same 
 IS4 °' thing. He produced a De Rationale Studii Puerilis. 
 For this Princess's benefit also Maister Gyles Dewes or 
 De Guez wrote an "Introduction for to lerne to rede, to 
 pronounce, and to speak French trewly," compiled, as he 
 says, for " the Right high excellent and most vertuous 
 lady, the Lady Mary of England," just as Palsgrave had 
 already made an Esclaircissement de la Langue Prangoise 
 (15 30) for another Princess Mary, who was Henry VIII. 's 
 sister and Queen of France. 
 
 Vives also compiled a little volume of religious and 
 moral instructions for young people, entitled, " Introduc- 
 tion to Wysedom," under such headings as " What a man's 
 behaviour ought to be towards himself." 
 
 The aphorisms are selected from the Fathers and other 
 respected authorities, and are such as this : — " It is a 
 great shame for the to be better knowen of other men 
 than of thyself." 
 
 fC Some attempt at comparative study of English and 
 Latin was evidently being made, and some books for the 
 learning of 'Latin were published in English. Thus 
 Wynkyn de Worde had already brought out " Lac Pucro- 
 rum, or Mylke for Chyldren," by Holt of Magdalen 
 College. Holt was tutor to Sir Thomas More, and 
 included some verses by More, then a promising youth, 
 in his book. A curious feature of the volume is a cut 
 representing hands held up, upon the fingers of which 
 the declensions are marked — four on the fingers, the 
 fifth on the ball of the .thumb — apparently a sort of 
 backboard device. J_ v-Ca 
 
 To the list of early sixteenth-century grammar-writers 
 we must add Alexander Berkley, a monk, whose Grammar 
 
Educational IReform. 145 
 
 appeared in 1516, and who also composed a " Myrrour Alexander 
 of Good Manners " and an " Introduction to Write and b. 1375. ' 
 Pronounce French "(1521). __^ 
 A - A " Glancing over these books, desperately tough and 
 involved as they are, we cannot help feeling that the 
 young folks may have smiled on the wrong side of their 
 mouths at the inviting title of a work offered them in 
 1569 — "A delysious surupe newly claryfied for yonge 
 scholers yt thurste for the swete lycore of Laten speche." 1 
 And a book by Skelton, poet-laureate, published early in 
 his career by Pynson, may well have seemed rather in- 
 tended to set young people down than to bring them up. 
 The title is worth quoting in full, if only as a curiosity 
 of literature : 2 — 
 
 " How yong scholers nowadays, emboldened with the 
 fly-blown blast of the moch vayne-gloryous pipplying 
 wind, whan they have delectably lycked a lytell of the 
 lycorous electurry of lusty lernyng in the moch studyous 
 scholehouse of scrupulous philology, countyng themselves 
 clerkes excellently informed and transcendingly sped in 
 moch high conyng. and whan they have ones superciously 
 taught." 
 
 William Hayward's translation in 1 5 6g 3 of "The 
 Grammer Warre" of Andrea Guarna of Salerno was 
 perhaps intended not entirely as a skit for the amuse- 
 ment of grown-up people, but as a raspberry-jam accom- 
 paniment for a pill of Latin instruction to young folks. 
 It is certainly amusing. Amo, king of verbs, and Poeta, 
 king of nouns, hold a great warfare ; pronouns appear as 
 allies, and the rules of grammar are ingeniously worked 
 in, the exceptions giving rise to minor adventures, as 
 
 1 Sta. Reg., ed. Arber. 2 Ames, ed. Dibdin. 
 
 3 In 1565, according to the Stationers' Register, Pekeryng printed a 
 " Preface of and upon the Dyscourse of the Warre of the ii. Gramer Speches, 
 that is to say, the Nowne and the Verbe." 
 
 K 
 
146 Educational IReform. 
 
 when the victorious Studeo wins three meanings, and 
 Oleum and Frumentum are declared to be so gluttonous 
 that through great scarcity they were not found in the 
 plural ; and some verbs, losing their own preter tenses, get 
 the goods of other slain passives, as Audeo, Gaudeo, &c. 
 
 These are stray plums of amusement, easily picked 
 out, but a terribly heavy pudding remained in the usual 
 Latin lessons. 
 
 The great educationists gave their opinions to the 
 world in books on the theory of teaching. In 1570 
 Eoger Ascham produced his " Schoolemaister, or Plaine 
 and perfyte way of teaching children to understand writing 
 and speakyng the Latin tong, but specially purposed for 
 the private Bringing up of youth in Jentlemen's and 
 Noblemen's houses.' - 
 
 This book was the first complete treatise produced by 
 the new teachers, putting into words what they had been 
 endeavouring to put into practice, and preaching a fresh 
 crusade against the senseless course of teaching, which 
 was obliged to depend upon the rod to impress it upon 
 children's memories. " Pleasure allureth love," says 
 Ascham ; " love hath lust to labor ; labor always obtaineth 
 his purpose.'' 
 
 Ascham, however, was not at all desirous that all 
 children should be equally educated. He would have 
 the most fit subjects chosen and carefully trained. His 
 definition of the desired pupil, gifted with a " hard witte," 
 is worth quoting. 
 
 " — hard to receive but sure to keepe, painefull 
 without werenesse, hedefull without wauering, constant 
 without new fanglenes, bearing heauie thinges, though 
 not lightlie, yet willinglie, entring hard thinges though 
 not easelie yet depelie, a witte though not ouer dull, 
 heauie, knottie, and lumpishe, but hard, rough, and 
 somewhat stafEshe — like runnet apples, seeming greene, 
 
JSoucatfonal "Reform. 147 
 
 hard and sour." Whereas a quicker wit will often, " like 
 sweetynges, receyve wormes, rotte and dye on the tree, , 
 
 and never or seldom come to the gathering for good and /7xf/t_/dX 
 
 lasting use." . — ~~ 
 
 But the brutality of the schoolmaster often drove away 
 these very scholars, the slow-and-snre sort, discouraged 
 from study, to other walks in life. Sports and physical 
 exercise are strongly recommended as part of the school 
 system. The remainder of the hook is chiefly occupied 
 with the details of a system of teaching Latin which Dr. 
 Johnson has declared to be the best advice that was ever 
 given for the study of language. 1 Translation and re- 
 translation are special features of the system. 
 
 The ability of the Jesuit educationists has already been 
 mentioned. 
 
 In 1 5 8 1 the " Christian Man's Closet " of Bartholomew B. Batty. 
 Batty, an Irish Jesuit from Salamanca, was published in 
 an English translation. This is a treatise on the whole 
 bringing up of children, from birth to marriage, in con- 
 versations between Theodidactus, the teacher, Amusus, a 
 perplexed parent, and other representative persons. 
 
 The faults of parents are not all those of over-severity, 
 according to this author. On the one hand, it is " better 
 not to beate them with harde fists on ears and head, 
 and with cudgels and staves ; " and on the other, " some 
 parents do so spoile and marre their children with nice 
 pampering and too much cockering of them." 
 
 This Jesuit also composed a " Noah's Ark for Words," 
 on a plan resembling the Orbis Pictus of Comenius. An 
 English translation appeared in I 5 1 5 . 2 
 
 Alexander Berkley or Barclay, the monk of Ely, seems Aiex.^ 
 to have been a noble and liberal-minded man. He praised b. 1475.' 
 
 1 Life of Ascham. See for a full account of the system, R. H. Quick, 
 " Educational Reformers.'' 
 
 2 R. H. Quick, "Educational Reformers." 
 
148 
 
 E&ttcattonal IReform. 
 
 SirT. 
 Elyot, b. 
 before 
 1490. 
 
 N. Udall, 
 
 Colet, and said of him, " This man hath won some souls." 
 Henry VIII. invited him to the Field of the Cloth of 
 Gold, 1 " to devise histories and convenient raisons to 
 flourishe the buildings and banquet-house withal." He 
 wrote, as already mentioned, on grammar, besides " An 
 Introductory to write and pronounce French," also a 
 " Myrrour of Good Manners," and a moral allegory called 
 " The Castell of Labour." The former of these works 
 dealt with conduct generally, as appears by the title : 
 " The Myrrour of Good maners conteyning the iii ver- 
 tues called cardynell, compyled in Latyn by Domynyke 
 Mancyn, and translated into Englyssh at the desire of 
 Syr Gyles Alyngton, Knyght, by Alexander Bercley, 
 preeste and monke of Ely." In the same King's court, 
 Sir Thomas Elyot, a busy statesman, found time to write 
 an educational work, chiefly treating of the fit bringing 
 up for a statesman. " The Governour " 2 was dedicated to 
 Henry VIII., and went through many editions. It was 
 in part compiled from Patrizi, Erasmus, and Pontano's 
 Be Principe. In 1539 Elyot brought out a " Bankette 
 of Sapience," a collection of moral sayings, much like 
 Vives' "Introduction to Wysedome," already mentioned. 
 He also translated the "Education of Children" from 
 Plutarch, and composed various other works, including a 
 dictionary. 
 
 Nicholas Udall enjoys a double fame as author of 
 " Ralph Roister Doister " and too energetic wielder of 
 the rod at Eton. The schoolmaster peeps out in his 
 famous work, when Udall gives a lesson on the minding 
 of stops by causing some verses written by Ralph upon 
 Dame Custance to turn into insults when wrongly punc- 
 tuated. To Udall is ascribed a little book entitled " A 
 Pleasant, Plain, and Pithie Pathway, leading to vertues 
 and an honest lyfe, no less profytable than delectable." 
 1 De Vaux to Wolsey. Ellis, Orig. Lett. 2 Brit. Mus. 
 
B&ucatfonal IReform. 149 
 
 Here an old man discourses to a youth on the Seven 
 Deadly Sins, and then moralises more amusingly on 
 Love. Udall also compiled a volume of " Ploures o£ 
 Latyn Spekynge," 1533. 
 
 The masters of the grammar-schools would seem to Somk 
 have improved, considered as a body, when we find quite masters. 
 a galaxy of authors among them in the latter half of the 
 century. 
 
 The most eminent of these was Richard Mulcaster, the K. Mui- 
 first headmaster of the Merchant Taylors' School. Bishop ^i"^. 
 Andrewes was among his pupils, and kept a portrait of 
 his master hanging in his own study. 
 
 In I 5 8 1 Mulcaster produced an educational treatise 
 entitled, " Positions, 1 wherein those primitive circum- 
 stances be examined which are necessarie for the training 
 of children, either for skille in their booke or health in 
 their bodie." 
 
 The author speaks with some authority after twenty- 
 two years of teaching. A wise and kindly man this, 
 despising no detail that might tend to the good of his 
 scholars. He would have parents see, for instance, that 
 their child's diet be such as neither to " stuffe the bodie 
 nor choke the conceit," and his garments, " which oftimes 
 burden the bodie with weight, neither faint it with heat 
 nor freese it with cold." He would have plenty of exer- 
 cise, of different kinds according to different constitutions. 
 He would have good discipline, " but for gentlenesse and 
 curtesie towards children, I do thinke it more nedefull 
 than beatinge." 
 
 But he does not consider it to be for the good of the 
 nation that all should be well educated. Girls should 
 have, all advantages ; reading, writing, and music should 
 be their first lessons, then, if they please, the learned 
 languages and something of medicine, and, adds our 
 1 Brit. Mub. 
 
is° E&ucatfonal IReform. 
 
 author with a sharp insight into feminine character, 
 " what they learn, let them learn thoroughly." 
 
 In the next year, 1582, Mulcaster produced "The 
 First Part of the Elementarie," l of which no second part 
 apparently was ever written. The " Elementarie " chiefly 
 treats of English. The study of the mother-tongue was 
 utterly despised, as we know. Every man spelt as he 
 chose (a state of things which, after all, may have had 
 some advantages !). 
 
 One of Mulcaster's chapters is devoted to the " seven 
 meanes to find out and ascertain the right writing of 
 English." In 1596 he became headmaster of St. Paul's 
 School, but died soon afterwards. Jc/1A*£a^ 
 C Hoole, Charles Hoole, a kinsman of Bishop Sanderson, wrote 
 a treatise entitled "A New Discovery of the Old Art of 
 Teaching School," in four parts. " It is as natural," he 
 considered, " for a childe to learne as for a bird to fly, 
 a fish to swim, or a beast to goe." He highly commends 
 the practice of making schoolboys speak Latin, even in 
 their play-hours, because " it is not such a gallant thinge 
 to understand Latin as it is base to be ignorant of it." 
 He accordingly edited the "School Colloquies" of Corderius 
 — chats among schoolboys in parallel columns of English 
 and Latin. Hoole also edited six plays of Terence, wrote 
 a " Common Accidence " in question and answer, and 
 "ordered" Lily's Grammar "in a method more agree- 
 able to children's capacities," making also an edition of 
 ^Esop in English and Latin, " phrased and marked with 
 figures specially for children,'' and a translation of the 
 Orhis Pictus of Comenius. 
 Brinde d Another edition of Corderius was made by Brinsley, 
 
 fl. 1663. ' with additions, under the title Pueriles Confabulatiunculce. 
 These Colloquies are interesting as a study of schoolboy 
 life at the time; the naughty boy dog-ears his books 
 1 Brit. Mub. 
 
Educational IReform. 151 
 
 and throws them at his neighbour ; nay, he even pawns 
 a borrowed book for threepence. A funny dialogue con- 
 cerns a boy whose parent has given him a letter of " com- 
 mendation " requesting the schoolmaster to lick him into 
 shape. With the connivance of a school-fellow, the boy 
 manages to exchange this for another boy's letter suggest- 
 ing a quite different treatment. Brinsley also wrote an 
 interesting educational treatise called Ludus Literarius, 1 
 in the form of a dialogue between two schoolmasters. 
 This book chiefly discusses grammar-school teaching, it 
 dwells on the disadvantages of sending children so young 
 as was customary, their mothers desiring to be rid of 
 them at home, and the schoolmasters being compelled to 
 waste time, that might be spent on Latin, in getting the 
 ABC into these infant understandings. Like all the 
 eminent men who have been mentioned, Brinsley pleads 
 earnestly for an intelligent system of teaching, which will 
 not require to be hammered in by the rod, though, as 
 has already been said, he only dares to suggest that the 
 ready birch-rod in the master's hands should be replaced 
 by a " lytel twigge." The idea that a blow should im- 
 mediately follow any mistake was evidently very deeply 
 rooted. 
 
 And the idea of teaching English in schools was of 
 course utterly undreamt of. We find Mulcaster asking 
 why — as many of us have asked since — why should his 
 own tongue be utterly unworthy of the attention of the 
 schoolboy ? 
 
 " Is it not," asks Mulcaster, " a marvellous bondage to 
 become servants to one tongue, for learning's sake, the 
 most part of our time, with loss of most time ; whereas 
 we may have the very same treasure in our own tongue 
 with gain of most time ? Our own bearing the joyful 
 title of liberty and freedom ; the Latin tongue remem- 
 1 Brit. Mus. 
 
is 2 Efcucational IReform. 
 
 bering us of our thraldom and bondage ? I love Rome, 
 but London better ; I favour Italy, but England more ; 
 T honour the Latin, but I worship the English. ... If we 
 must cleave to the eldest and not the best, we should be 
 eating acorns and wearing old Adam's pelts. ... It is our 
 accident which restrains our tongue, and not the tongue 
 itself, which will strain with the strongest and stretch 
 to the farthest, for either government if we were con- 
 querors, or for cunning if we were treasurers ; not any 
 whit behind either the subtle Greek for couching close, 
 pr the stately Latin for the- spreading fair." 
 B. Coote. Edward or Edmund Coote, master of the Eree School 
 at Bury St. Edmunds, was especially anxious that Eng- 
 lish should be rationally and intelligently studied. 
 
 In 1596 he brought out his "English Schoolmaster." 
 We are not surprised, on looking at this book, to find 
 that it went through many editions. 1 "We are more apt 
 to wonder that the nation did not arise as one man and 
 destroy all its old spelling-books ; for we find in it for 
 the very first time the idea that first reading-lessons 
 should be in monosyllables. Coote was also an English 
 forerunner of Ollendorff. His principle was to repeat in 
 each lesson what had been learned in the last, so that 
 even if the mischievous little fingers should tear each 
 page as soon as read, the loss would not be irreparable. 
 Parents in those days, Coote tells us, grudged the ex- 
 pense of costly and soon ruined lesson-books. 
 
 Coote seems to claim the invention of the hornbook. 
 " The printer," he says, " upon sight of this, framed the 
 hornbook according to the order of this book, making the 
 first part of my second page the matter thereof." 
 
 The first lesson accordingly is a, I, ah, &c, but instead 
 of proceeding to table after table of meaningless syllables, 
 
 1 Heber gave six guineas for the thirty-seventh edition. The British 
 Museum possesses the thirty- first edition, 1662. 
 
Educational IReform. 153 
 
 a reading-lesson follows in monosyllables — " Ah, it is so, 
 he is my fo." And in Chapter II. the rudimentary I, a, 
 la, is expanded into lab, bad, bar, bat, lay. The next 
 reading-lesson is in connected sentences. A portion may 
 be quoted for its quaint morality : — 
 
 " Boy, go thy way to the top of the hill, and get me 
 home the bay nag. Pill him well, and see he be fat, 
 and I will rid me of him, for he will be but dull as his 
 dam. If a man bid well for him, I will tell him of it ; 
 if not, I do but rob him, and so God will vex me, and 
 may let me go to hell if I get but a jawbone of him ill." 
 
 The same system is continued throughout, twi, being 
 spelt, is expanded into twig ; and cheerful little reading- 
 lessons are frequent, no words harder than cough or 
 wrastle appearing in the first book at all. 
 
 In the second part a boy questions the master about 
 vowels, consonants, silent letters, division of syllables, and 
 the like. He is answered in a kindly and encouraging 
 way. A good deal of grammar is taught in this manner, 
 and some very interesting information appears as to the 
 pronunciation of English at the period. There is also 
 a kind of " Spelling Bee " amongst the scholars, and some 
 psalms, paraphrases, a little catechism, and the like, with 
 some verses on demeanour complete this interesting book 
 — a green spot in the long desert of dreary spelling- 
 books through which the children to whose lot a copy of 
 Coote did not fall had generally to travel for a couple of 
 centuries longer. The earnest preface is worth reading, 
 in which the author explains his system, and commends 
 it not only to schoolmasters, but to those also — as tailors, 
 weavers, shopkeepers, seamstresses, and such others — as 
 have undertaken the charge of teaching children. He has 
 tried, he says, to get rid of superfluous letters, spelling 
 plum instead ofplummb, and going farther in this direction 
 than modern changes have done, as in tempi for temple. 
 
154 E&ucational IReform. 
 
 The success of this book might encourage him to write 
 another on the teaching of Latin, which, however, he 
 does not seem to have done. " Meantime, in this, if you 
 find my words true," adds Coote, with the simple piety 
 of his age, " accept my goodwill, and give glory to God." 
 T. Far- Thomas Earnaby, another schoolmaster, deserves men- 
 
 157J1647. ^ on on account of his numerous school-editions of the 
 classics and a Florilegium Epigrammatum Grcecorum,} 
 
 His life was a somewhat eventful one. Son of a 
 carpenter in London, grandson of a small merchant and 
 mayor of his town in Cornwall, the young Earnaby went 
 to study in a Spanish Jesuit College. He went off, 
 however, with Drake and Hawkins on their last voyage, 
 and at a later date is found fighting in the Low Countries. 
 Eeturning to England, he landed in Cornwall quite desti- 
 tute, and was glad to teach small children their hornbook 
 as a first attempt to earn money. He is presently found 
 under the name of Bainrafe, an anagram of Earnabie, 
 keeping a school at Martock, and then removing to 
 London, so successful there that three hundred scholars 
 were taught by him, boys of the upper classes apparently, 
 sons of gentlemen and other generous youths. Several 
 houses and gardens had to be joined together to contain 
 these troops of pupils, and the master's reputation became 
 very great both as a successful teacher and as a classical 
 scholar. Ben Jonson was numbered among his friends. 
 CoS* ^ n I ^S7 Edward Cocker was keeping school on the 
 
 1631-1675. south side of St. Paul's Churchyard, teaching the arts of 
 writing and arithmetic, we are told, in an extraordinary 
 manner. He took in boarders in considerable numbers, 
 and wrote a variety of books on his two favourite lessons. 
 In one case he happily combined the two, for in 1660 
 he published " Rules of Arithmetic ... in Ornamental 
 Writing." But to his contemporaries his name had wider 
 1 1629, Grenville Coll. 
 
E&ucattonal IReform. 15s 
 
 associations than to us nowadays. Pepys describes the 
 schoolmaster as a very pleasant companion, well read in 
 English poetry and " very ingenious," and this ingenuity 
 appeared in a variety of quaint and clever verses. One 
 volume of distichs and poems is entitled " Cocker's Morals, 
 or The Muses' Spring Garden." He collected also a large 
 and valuable library of rare manuscripts and of scientific 
 books in various languages. But one failing appears to 
 have proved his ruin, if a street-ballad in Mr. Bagford's 
 " Collections " may be trusted, entitled as it is " Cocker's 
 Farewell to Brandy," and describing his death " by brandy's 
 mighty power.'' 
 
 It is true that the good seed sown by all these earnest 
 men sprang up and bore fruit ; but the battle could not 
 have been wholly won when we find Milton lifting up 
 his protest against the " asinine feast of sow-thistles," 
 which was still too often the intellectual food of the 
 young. Francis Bacon's " Advancement of Learning " 
 in 1605 had given another impetus to the efforts of the 
 educationists, and in 1 64 1 the Moravian Bishop, Comenius, 
 was invited to London to consult with him and with other 
 leading men upon a scheme for the establishment of 
 a Universal College of all nations in or near London, 
 where sciences especially should be taught. But this 
 plan was for ever extinguished by the outbreak of the 
 Civil War. 1 
 
 John Amos Comenius or Komensky, " Apostle ad gentes Comenius, 
 minutulas," as he delighted to call himself, was the son of 2 * ?1 ' 
 a miller, and early left an orphan. " Through the neglect 
 of my guardians," he tells us, "I began but at sixteen 
 years of age to taste of the Latin tongue. Yet, by the 
 goodness of God, that taste bred such a thirst in me, that 
 I ceased not from that time, by all means and endeavours, 
 
 1 See Laurie's and other Lives of Comenius ; Quick, "Educational 
 Reformers," &c. 
 
156 Educational IReform. 
 
 to labour for the repairing of my lost years ; and now not 
 only for myself, but for the good of others also." 
 
 The mind of Comenius was essentially of a religious 
 cast, and the Latin classics appeared to him, as they had 
 appeared to St. Basil and other Churchmen, unfit for the 
 education of Christian youth. Hence his endeavour to 
 produce a series of books by which Latin might be taught, 
 and other knowledge, but Twt that of Pagan fictions, 
 acquired at the same time. 
 Ratich, In Germany, Ratich, the educationist whose principles 
 
 J o7i i 3o- attracted so much approval, but who failed so miserably 
 in his efforts to put them into practice, had at least laid 
 a foundation upon which Comenius and others were able 
 to build. 
 
 First the mother-tongue was Ratich's great principle. 
 Then, let everything in education follow the order and 
 course of Nature. Let the same thing be repeated over 
 and over again. Let nothing be learnt by heart, for 
 then the attention is all given to the words learnt, and 
 not to the sense. Let knowledge come before rules. 
 
 Comenius would have children taught only in the 
 mother-tongue, and " about things." " Whereas," as he 
 says, " boyhood is distracted for years with precepts of 
 grammar infinitely prolix, perplexed, and obscure." 
 
 His Didactica Magma sets forth his theory of teaching 
 and desired school system at full length. It was written 
 in troublous times, when the Moravians suffered much 
 persecution, and Comenius, with others, had fled from 
 Moravia to the Polish town of Leszno or Lisza. He did 
 not at once publish his great work, but issued instead 
 the first of his Latin school-books ; and to his amazement 
 the author suddenly found himself famous. Letters of 
 congratulation came pouring in, and the little book was 
 promptly translated into almost every European language 
 and many tongues of the East. 
 
Ebucational IReform. 157 
 
 This Janua Linguarum Reserata appeared in England 
 as " the Gate of Tongues Unlocked and Opened, or else 
 a Seminary or Seed-Plot of all Tongues and Sciences, 
 that is, a short way of teaching and thoroughly learning 
 within a year and a half at the furthest the Latin, Eng- 
 lish, French, and any other tongue, with the ground and 
 foundation of arts and sciences, comprised under a hun- 
 dred titles and 105 8 periods." The fourth edition, from 
 which this title is taken, professes to be much enlarged by 
 the labour and industry of John Anchoran, Licentiate in 
 Divinity, and appeared in 1639. 1 
 
 The chapters are in three columns — Latin, English, 
 and French — and treat of such varied subjects as religion, 
 the Creation, " of the "Will and Aflections," " of Herbs," 
 " of Justice," " of the Angels," " of the Chamber and things 
 belonging to it." Some of the chapters, like the last- 
 mentioned, are interesting in the same way as the earlier 
 vocabularies and colloquies, as sketches of manners and 
 customs. But the good Bishop's instructions in "arts 
 and sciences " are not very valuable. 
 
 " Stars are lamps hanging up in the skie, that being 
 incessantly turned about, they might, by their light, 
 illumine the darkness." 
 
 In 1,633 Comenius added a Vestibulum to his Janua ; 
 but the idea, though so warmly received at first, was 
 already, when Charles Hoole wrote a preface to the Orbis 
 Pictus in 1658, losing popularity. This new work added 
 the attraction of pictures, and went through a great 
 number of editions up to 1777 (this being reprinted in 
 America in 1 8 1 2). 
 
 The Orbis Pictus was originally written in " High Orbis 
 
 . - PictiLt 
 
 Dutch " and Latin, and was translated by Hoole. 
 
 Comenius's preface declares his desire to be to " entice 
 
 witty children" by pictures, that so scarecrows may be 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. 
 
( 9* ) 
 
 The Barbers Shop. LXXVI. 
 
 Tenjlriya- 
 
 The Barter, i. 
 »'«/£* Barbers-fhop, 2. 
 evttelh off tbe Hair 
 and the Beard 
 luitb a fair of Sdzzars, 3. 
 or Jhameth "with a Razor, 
 txbicb he taketh 
 cut of bis Cafff, 4. 
 
 And he ivajheth one 
 ever a Bafon, 5. 
 cwl/h . Suds running 
 tut of a Laver, 6. 
 land al/o ivith Soap, 7. 
 and ivipeth him 
 .with a Towel, 8. 
 combetk him •with a Comb, 9 
 and turletb bint 
 'with <2-Crifping Iron, 10. 
 
 Sometimes he cutteth a Vein 
 wit h a Pen : knife... 11. 
 wbtretbcBhidfpirtcihiut, 12. 
 
 Tonftr, 1. 
 in Tonjlrina, 1. 
 tondetCr/n« 
 & Barbam 
 Forcipe, 3, 
 vel n6.\t-NovacuIa, 
 quam dipromit 
 c Tbera, 4. 
 Et lavit 
 fuper Pel-vim, £. 
 Lixhtio deflueme 
 h Gutturnio, 6. 
 ui & Sajtone, 7. 
 &• tergit 
 Lin no, 8. 
 peftit Pefline, g. 
 criipat 
 Calamijiro, 10. 
 
 - .Injerdurn fecat Venam 
 
 Stalpello, 11. 
 
 ubi Sanguis propullulat, 1 ?. 
 
 7'A* 
 
 A Page from Oriis Pictus, 12th edition of 1777. 
 
Etmcational IReform. 159 
 
 taken away out of Wisdom's Gardens. A letter by W. 
 Jones (? William Jones of Nayland), prefixed to the 
 twelfth edition, 1777, regrets that the book should so 
 much have fallen into disuse, though no fit substitute 
 had been found, and repeats Comenius's own opinion, that 
 it is a pity not to give boys better ideas than those built 
 upon the false bottom of the Pagan theology, adding a 
 story of a schoolboy who had recently asked his companion 
 which was the highest, Jupiter or God Almighty. 
 
 Comenius also published a Schola Ludus, his Janua in 
 dramatic form. In 1 64 1 , as has been said, he left Eng- 
 land, deeply disappointed, and turned his steps to Sweden, 
 where Queen Christina and the great Chancellor Oxen- 
 stiern were much interested in education. In Oxenstiern's 
 mind, however, a strange objection to educational effort 
 arose, which actually caused him to abandon the idea 
 of supporting Comenius in his projects. Darkness and 
 degeneracy, according to Scripture, were to be tokens of 
 the last days. Of what use then to combat them ? 
 
 Finally, in the taking and burning of the town of 
 Leszno, the manuscripts of a work which had long occu- 
 pied Comenius, and to which he attached great import- 
 ance, were burnt, and at sixty-three he patiently set to 
 work to replace them. 
 
 Desire for the religious and moral improvement of his 
 pupils lay at the root of all Comenius's efforts. " Christ 
 my Lord knows," he said, " that my heart is so simple 
 that it matters not to me whether I teach or be taught, 
 act the part of teacher of teachers or disciple of disciples. 
 What the Lord has given me I send forth for the common 
 good." But the earnest educationist had fallen upon evil 
 days. 
 
 We can scarcely turn away from these great men Sir T. 
 without at least a mention of Sir Thomas More, who put 1478-1535. 
 into practice in his own household the educational theories 
 
x6o Ebucatfonal IReform. 
 
 of his friends, and in his Utopia set forth his own idea 
 of fit training for youth. Speaking of More's house at 
 Chelsea, Erasmus writes, " There he converses with his 
 wife, his son, his daughter-in-law, his three daughters 
 and their husbands, with eleven grandchildren. ... I 
 would call his house the Academy of Plato, were it not 
 an injustice to compare it with an academy where dis- 
 putations concerning numbers and figures were only 
 occasionally interspersed with disquisitions on the moral 
 virtue. I should rather call his house a school of Chris- 
 tianity, for though there is no one in it who does not 
 study the liberal sciences, their special care is piety and 
 virtue. No quarrelling, nor intemperate words are heard, 
 idleness is never seen." 
 
 In Utopia every child was to receive an equally good 
 education. The correct speaking and writing of the 
 mother-tongue were to be followed by arithmetic, geome- 
 try, logic, music, and natural science, besides, of course, 
 religion ; and no person was to labour so incessantly as 
 to have no time left for reading and thought. 
 
 In the Schokmaister Ascham had pointed out the in- 
 jury done to many young lads by foreign travel at an early 
 age. Lyly's Euphues, of which the first part appeared 
 in I 579, emphasised this, and added some other thoughts 
 on education. 
 
 The Italians themselves indeed had a proverb — 
 
 Inglese italianato 
 
 E un diabolo incarnato. 
 
 John With the failure of the hopes of Bacon and Comenius 
 
 1608-1674. ends this period. Political turmoil drowned all educa- 
 tional effort. Milton shines like a lonely star ; but even 
 in his mind the teaching of the young was far from being 
 the uppermost thought, as in the days when he kept 
 
Educational iRcform. 161 
 
 school and wrote an Accidence for his boys. We know 
 something, however, of his ideal of education. 
 
 A very wide field of culture was that which Milton 
 would open to young people. They should study law 
 and lawgivers, Moses first, Lycurgus, Solon, Zaleucus, 
 Charondas, and on to Justinian, the Saxon laws and 
 present Statutes of England. "To set them right and 
 firm in the knowledge of virtue and hatred of vice, their 
 young and pliant affections are to be led through all the 
 moral works of Plato, Xenophon, Oicero, Plutarch, and 
 those Locrian remnants — they may easily have learned 
 at any odd hour the Italian tongue." 
 
 But he would also give them the helpful experiences 
 of hunters, fowlers, fishermen, shepherds, gardeners, and 
 apothecaries, and in other sciences, architects, engineers, 
 mariners, and anatomists. 
 
 To write letters well was, no doubt, a valuable branch 
 of courtesy. The " Polite Letter- Writer " of Franciscus 
 Philelphus (Milan, 1 471) was, like the. " Schoole of 
 Vertue,' ; habitually read in schools ; and the work of 
 Erasmus aimed more particularly at supplying the youth 
 of England with a work especially fitted for their use. 
 But a study of the copybook of the period certainly 
 inclines us to wonder how any one ever found courage 
 to write letters at all. 
 
 Writing appears usually or frequently to have been Copy- 
 taught by itinerant masters, who would carry their 
 bound volumes of copies about with them. One such 
 book is preserved in the British Museum, an oblong 
 volume opening lengthways, entitled " A New Booke 
 containing all sortes of hands usually written at this daie 
 in Christendom." It is bound in leather handsomely 
 tooled, and was once tied with ribbons. There are 
 illustrations of human hands drawn in writing-postures, 
 described as good and navght, one of those objected to 
 
 L 
 
Educational IReform. 
 
 being the placing of the second finger on the pen. 
 Versified instructions " how to sit writing " are given : — 
 
 " Your bodie upright, stoupe not with your head, 
 Your breast from the boord when you have well fed ; 
 Ink alwaies good store, on right hand to stand, 
 Brown paper for great hast, or else box with sand ; 
 Dip pen, and shake pen, and touch pen for haire, 
 Wase, quils, and penknife see alwaies ye beave." 
 
 And so forth. 
 
 Then come the copies, the terribly-crabbed secretary- 
 hand, the " Set Chauncery," and various others, com- 
 prising a fairly-legible " Italic " and an eccentric Lettre 
 Frisia, of which every letter is minutely zigzagged. The 
 capital letters used to decorate the volume are singularly 
 beautiful. 
 
 Jean de Beauchesne published another book of the 
 same sort in 1570. The "Writing Scholemaster " 1 
 (1590) was the work of Peter Bales, master of a pri- 
 vate boarding-school ; and Cocker, better known by his 
 " Arithmetic," produced " The Pen's Triumph " in 1660. 
 Beautiful writing appears to have been raised by some 
 people to the rank of an accomplishment. Ballard 2 
 mentions as one of the merits of Esther Inglis, one of his 
 heroines, that she could write several hands beautifully. 
 Arith- Arithmetic-books appeared, of course, though not at 
 
 very frequent intervals. Besides Cocker's works, for 
 example, " The Well-Spring of Science," 1 S62, 3 by Hum- 
 phrey Baker, a schoolmaster, treats of it ; and in 1576 
 an amateur seems to have ventured to discourse of the 
 same science under the title " The Storehouse of Breuite 
 
 1 157°. Patrone for Parents, an Alphabet of Copyes for the Secretary- 
 hand. Sta. Reg. 
 
 2 " Learned Ladies." She published " Emblems " in 1604. 
 
 3 Stationers' Register. 
 
 rustic. 
 
E&ucattonal IReform. 
 
 163 
 
 in the Workes of Arithmetic, 1 sette furthe by Dionis Grey, 
 a London Goldsmith." 
 
 Handbooks to other sciences were also now and then 
 
 issued, as in 1552 " The Kule of Eeason, conteining the 
 Art of Logique," or " The Pathway to Knowledge " in 
 1 5 5 1 , treating of geometry. 
 
 1 Stationers' Register. 
 
i6 4 E&ucattonal IReform. 
 
 Books on the study of French were very necessary. 
 The first regular grammar published in England was the 
 Eclaircissement of Palsgrave (1530, Berthelet), already 
 mentioned ; but Alexander Bercley printed an " Intro- 
 duction to Write and Pronounce French" in 1530. A 
 certain number of French teachers came over and kept 
 small private schools, chiefly in London, taught especially 
 their own language, and wrote books to assist the learners. 
 Among these was Peter du Ploiche, who kept a school at 
 Trinity Lane, and produced a " Treatise in English and 
 French, very necessary and profitable for all Young 
 Children" (15 53). 1 This has sections "For to speak at 
 the table ; for to bie and sell." There were also, among 
 others, Claude de Saintliens, who translated his name 
 into "Holyband," and Jacques Bellot, whose Jardin de 
 Vertu et de Bonnes Mosurs dates from I 5 8 I . 
 
 Italian might be learned from the little " Italian 
 Schoolmaster" annexed to the story of Arnalte and 
 Lucenda, 1 5 7 5- 2 In 1555 a regular grammar appeared. 
 And certain books were made for the benefit of those 
 whose business as merchants might cause them to require 
 at least a smattering of various tongues. One such was 
 published in 1 548 by Augustus Spalding, a London mer- 
 chant, 3 and included Malayan and Malagasy phrases. 
 
 A century earlier than this, 1458, and again in 1462, 
 William Wey 4 travelled to Jerusalem, and in 1456 be 
 made another pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella. 
 For the benefit of other travellers, he added to his 
 " Itineraries " a variety of useful lists of names, and some 
 conversation-phrases in what we can only call Pilgrim- 
 language, a jargon which was apparently the pidgin- 
 English of the period, thus : — 
 
 1 Ames, ed. Dibdin. 2 Hazlitt, Schools and Schoolmasters. 
 
 ? Hazlitt, ibid, 4 Jusserand, Way-faring Life in England. 
 
Educational IReform. 165 
 
 Good morrow, Calomare. 
 
 Welcome, Calosertys. 
 
 Tel me the way, Dixiximo strata. 
 
 Gyff me that, Doys me tutt. 
 
 Woman, have ye goyd wyne ? Geneca esse calocrasse ? 
 
 Howe moche ? Posso ? 
 
 Occasional spelling-books appeared by way of supple- |P el '™8- 
 ment to the Hornbook or A B 0. With the one bright 
 exception of the " English Schoolmaster," however, these 
 books are utterly dull, difficult, and dreary. 
 
 Amongst them are Hart's " Orthographie," * 1569, 
 which professes to teach " howe to write or paint thimmage 
 of mannes voice most like to the life or nature, by I. H. 
 Chester Herault," and Bullokar's "Orthography," 1580, 2 
 his " English Expositor, an explaining dictionary, and Bref 
 Grammar," 1586; also " An Alphabet and Plaine Path- 
 way to the Faculty of Reading," and " Most Easie Instruc- 
 tions for Reading, specially penned for the good of those 
 who are come to years." 3 Bullokar's book is so far in- 
 teresting that he was an advocate, perhaps the earliest, 
 of phonetic spelling. 
 
 A more ample dictionary than the old vocabulary Dietion- 
 and older gloss could offer soon became a desideratum, 
 and there arose writers to answer the demand. The 
 Fromptorium Parvulorum* of about 1440 must have 
 been most helpful to the young student, for it gave 
 English words in alphabetical order, frequently garnished 
 with explanations, followed by the Latin for each. 
 Thus : — 
 
 " Coorne, or harde knott in the flesche. Comicallus. 
 
 Flekerynge, or wauering yn an vnstable hert. Nutatus, 
 vacillacio." 
 
 This book was printed by Pynson in I499> by Julian 
 
 1 Dibdin's Ames. 2 British Museum. 
 
 s Stationers' Register. 
 
 1 Reprinted by Camden Soc, ed. Albert Way, 1843. 
 
1 66 E&ucatfonal tReform. 
 
 Notary in 1508, and no less than four times by Wynkyn 
 de Worde. 
 
 In 1570 Peter Levins produced his Manipulus Voca- 
 lulorum, 1 " A Dictionarie of English and Latine wordes 
 set forthe in suche order as none heretofore hath ben, 
 the Englishe going before the Latine, necessary not only 
 for Scholers that want varietie of words, but also for 
 such as vse to write in English Meetre." 
 
 Little is known of this author. Besides this dictionary, 
 he produced a " Pathway to Health," and he appears to 
 have both practised medicine and taught a grammar 
 school. His book, like the Promptorium already men- 
 tioned, is nowadays of much value to students of our 
 language. The author seems to have been an early 
 pioneer of cheap literature. Many have made dictionaries, 
 he says, in a most quaint and interesting preface, but as 
 for his, men may see what it is, Manipulum, a mere handful. 
 But being cheap, the poorer sort of students may be able 
 to buy it, and being arranged in alphabetical order of the 
 the last syllables, the delectableness of metre, which 
 delights and comforts the wits, might stir up negligent 
 and unwilling youth to a willingness to learn. Master 
 Howlet's great dictionary was so costly, that many young 
 and humble students could not have the use of it. So 
 that it was as if no man might work in the mint but he 
 who had a golden hammer, or as if there were but one 
 hammer which others must wait to borrow. Some fear 
 of the critics possessed our author. The world, he says, is 
 now fine and disdainful. He may be blamed for wasting 
 labour on so trivial a matter, or counted rude and ignorant 
 if his work is not quite up to their standard. 
 
 The dictionary begins — 
 
 "Alleluia, laudate dominum. 
 
 1 Reprinted by Camden Soc, ed. W. Wheatley. See his Preface for an 
 account of Rhyming Dictionaries. 
 
E&ucatfonal IReform. 167 
 
 Coloquintida, an herbe, coloquintida, ce. 
 
 Y e Fistula, disease, fistula, ce. 
 
 Serrha, heus, ia. 
 
 Ha, ha, laugh, ha ha ha." 
 
 This first of rhyming dictionaries had many successors. Rhyming 
 Perhaps nowadays we might more heartily welcome a ?ries. 0n " 
 book that would endeavour to deter young folks from 
 aspiring to be poets. However, eighty years after Levins' 
 work, appeared (in 165 1) Vestibulum Ungues Latinos, 
 A dictionarie for children, consisting of two parts : — 
 1. English words of one syllable alphabetically with the 
 Latine words annexed. 2. Words of more syllables 
 derived from the Latine words adjoined. By H. Willis, 
 of Thistleworth, in Middlesex. 
 
 Such a book is useful now as a guide to the pro- 
 nunciation of our forefathers, and a contribution to the 
 history of words. Thus, "to bait, eight, a plait, to 
 sleight (negligere), to wait," rhyme together ; so do "a 
 flea, a keie, the." 
 
 Six years later Joshua Poole, of Clare Hall, Cambridge, 
 produced an " English Parnassus, or help to English 
 Poesie, containing a short institution of that art." Master 
 Poole was kind enough not only to give some 3500 
 rhymes, but also a collection of " the choicest Epithets 
 and Phrases, with some general forms upon all occasions, 
 Subjects, and Theames." Why not be a poet, when 
 the way to Parnassus was thus smoothed ? we may 
 ask. 
 
 Edward Bysshe published " The Art of English Poetry " 
 in 1702, and in 17 14 a "British Parnassus," which was 
 afterwards joined on to his former work as volumes iii. 
 and iv. This contained a rhyming dictionary, in which 
 somewhat looser rhymes which had been used by "Mr. 
 Dryden and our other best poets " were permitted to find 
 place. 
 
Educational IReform. 
 
 J. Walker, In 1775 Walker published a dictionary to answer at 
 1732-1 ° 7 ' once " the purposes of Ehyming, Spelling, and Pro- 
 nouncing." The last of many editions of this appeared 
 in 1866. In 1776 William le Ians'ur gave to the 
 world " The Beauties of Poetry, or a Portable Eepository 
 of Verse," on an entirely new plan. Dr. Trusler also 
 produced "Poetic Endings," 1783, which he declared to 
 contain nearly all the words in the English language, 
 but which actually only gave about twelve thousand. 
 
 So late as 1852a helping hand was given to the young 
 pilgrim to Parnassus, in a " Rhyming Dictionary for the 
 use of Young Poets," published by Hogg, and since it 
 saw a second edition, we may suppose there was some 
 demand for such a work. The aspirant after a perfect 
 prose style was considered in 1805 by one W. P. Russell, 
 who delighted to call himself the verbotomist or word- 
 dissecter, and who produced a work entitled, " Verbotomy, 
 or the Anatomy of Words, showing their component 
 parts, being an elegant specimen of what may be accom- 
 plished in the arrangement of Language." The two parts 
 are styled the Adjectiviad and Substantiviad. As a 
 specimen of the humility of true genius, a statement of 
 the author's is worth quoting. 
 
 "I challenge the Universe (or the literati of each 
 quarter of the globe) to produce any page exhibiting 
 brevity and perspicuity equal to the two columns in 
 page 52. They cannot do it, at least no such book has 
 ever been before me. I should be glad to see the work 
 that equals Verbotomy in this respect." 
 
 But we are anticipating, and must return. 
 Greek. Of Greek we have made no mention. Though nomi- 
 
 nally taught at St. Paul's School and elsewhere, it was 
 little studied by boys, 1 and the books scarcely come withiu 
 
 1 "As for Oxford, its ovm History and Antiquities sufficiently confess 
 that nothing was known there but Latin, and that in the most depraved 
 
Educational TReform. 169 
 
 our province of children's literature. A grammar was 
 compiled in 1595 or 1597 by Camden, 1 headmaster of 
 "Westminster, and being adopted at Eton, became known 
 as the Eton Grammar. In 1600 another grammar was 
 made by Knolles, author of a History of the Turks. 2 
 
 The paternal supervision exercised by the Crown over 
 books was notably exercised in the case of the first of 
 these grammars. According to the Calendar of the 
 House of Lords, on the 26th of May 1675, "Lilly's and 
 Camden's Grammar Bill " was read, but at that time not 
 further proceeded with. This act declares that, " Whereas 
 heretofore for the avoiding of tediousness and diversity 
 of leading of youths in good literature one uniform 
 grammar for the Latin tongue commonly called Lilly's 
 Latin Grammar, and one other for the Greek tongue 
 commonly called Camden's Greek Grammar, yet" school- 
 style of the School-men. Cornelius ViteUius, an Italian, was the first who 
 taught Greek in that University, and from him the famous Grocyne learnt 
 the first Elements thereof. 
 
 " In Cambridge, Erasmus was the first who taught the Greek Grammar. 
 And so very low was the State of Learning in that University that (as he 
 tells a Friend) about the Year 1485, the beginning of Ben. VI. Reign, 
 there was nothing taught in that publick Seminary besides Alexander's 
 Parva Logicalia (as they called them), the old Axioms of Aristotle, and the 
 Questions of John Seotus, till in Process of time good Letters were brought 
 in and some Knowledge of the Mathematieks, as also Aristotle in a new 
 Dress and some skill in the Greek Tongue ; and by Degrees a Multitude of 
 Authors, whose Names before had not been heard of." — Knight's "Life of 
 Colet," pp. 17-18. 
 
 1 Institutio Gracse Grammatices Compendiaria, In usum Regise Scholae 
 Westmonasteriensis. Editio prioribus emendatior. In usum StudiosSB 
 juventutis adduntur etiam quidam literarum nexus et soripturse compendia, 
 qus8 partim elegantiae, partim Brevitatis causa usurpari solent. Scien- 
 tarum janitrix Grammatica. Londini, Excudit Eogerus Nortonus Regius 
 in Latinis Grseces and Hebraicis Typographus. 1 662 8° B. M. Another 
 ed. 1667, and 1679, cum. priv. There is a long series of editions of this 
 manual, of which the inception is ascribed to William Camden. W. C. 
 Hazlitt, Unpublished Collection. 
 
 a Hallam, Literature of Europe. 
 
170 
 
 Educational "IReform. 
 
 masters had taken the liberty to use others, it was now to 
 be decreed that any schoolmaster daring to use any but 
 these works for the public instruction of youth should 
 forfeit a sum to be specified, with full costs, to the person 
 suing him, and in case of his disregarding an episcopal 
 monition, should be deprived of his charge, and declared 
 incapable' of resuming it. 
 
 It may possibly interest some readers to have, by way 
 of appendix to this chapter, the list made out in 1 620 of 
 schoolbooks (chiefly) belonging to the Englishe stocke of 
 the Stationers' Company : — 
 
 Aphthonius. 
 Cicero Officiis. 
 
 „ Epistolse. 
 
 „ Sententise. 
 Castalionis Dialogi. 
 Corderii Colloquia. 
 Cato. 
 
 Epitome Colloquiarum. 
 Esopi Fabulas. 
 
 Isocrates ad Demonacum Grece. 
 Mantuii Phrases, Epistolse. 
 Maneinus de Quatuor Virtutibus. 
 Nouelli (Nowell, Dean of St. 
 
 Paul's) Oatechesmus. 
 Ouidii Metamorphosis, 
 
 „ cum Sabinom. 
 
 „ Epistolse. 
 
 „ de Tristibus, Eastis, et 
 
 Ponto. 
 Palingenesis. 
 
 Pueriles Confabutinaculse. 
 Sallustius. 
 Setonii Logica. 
 Sturmii Epistolse. 
 Susanbroti Figurse. 
 
 Smetii Prosodia. 
 
 Tulli Rhetorica. 
 
 Textoris Epethita. 
 
 Tusculanse Qusestiones. 
 
 Terentius. 
 
 „ Christianus. 
 
 Virgilius. 
 
 Vives de Lingua Latina. 
 
 ABO with the Catechism. 
 
 The Horn ABC. 
 
 Spelling ABC. 
 
 English Scholemaster. 
 
 Primers. 
 
 Psalms and Psalters in all vol- 
 umes. 
 
 Almanackes. 
 
 Kalenders for Table-bookes. 
 
 Acts and Monuments (of the 
 Church), John Fox. 
 
 Howe'9 Chronicle, 8. 
 
 Blundeville's Horsmanshippe. 
 
 Carie's Farewell to Phisicke. 
 
 Nowell's Cathechism in English. 
 
 Tusser's Husbandrye. 
 
 Testament of the 12 Patriarchs. 
 
 "Considering," says Mr. Hazlitt ("Schools, school- 
 books, and Schoolmasters "), " the state of our population 
 
Educational IReform. 171 
 
 and the restrictions on learning, it cannot be said that 
 the market for works of reference and instruction was 
 poorly supplied; and the remains which have descended 
 to us of books published in England, many wholly or 
 partly in that language, for the use of the young, certainly 
 bespeak and establish an eager and wide demand on the 
 part of our public and private seminaries in the fifteenth 
 and following centuries." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " Instruct your son well yourself, or others will instruct him ill for you. 
 No child goes altogether untaught. Send him to the school of wisdom, or 
 he will go of himself to the rival academy of the lady with the cap and bells. 
 There is always teaching of some sort going on, just as in the fields vege- 
 tation is never idle." — Essay on Mental Tillage. 
 
 AVING so far followed the development of 
 the A B C of letters and of religion, and 
 that of the grammar lesson-books, we return 
 to ask what books of instruction in wider 
 fields of knowledge might be at the service of at least 
 the better educated young people, now that the art of 
 printing began to make books more plentiful. 
 
 William Caxton, returning from a sufficiently successful 
 career, first as merchant and then as printer in Flanders, 
 established his press at Westminster, and began to pro- 
 duce those books which it appeared to him most desirable 
 to multiply. An earnest and conscientious man our first 
 printer seems to have been, labouring diligently to trans- 
 late and complete books for his press, and deeply im- 
 pressed with the responsibility of the new power that he, 
 first among Englishmen, was able to wield. 
 
 At the same time he was an eminently practical per- 
 son, unlike his unhappy brother-printers, Sweynheim and 
 
 Pannartz, who established their press at Some, and in 
 
 172' 
 
Some Earls printed Eoofts, 173 
 
 their zeal for printing the classics, so far over-estimated 
 the demand that they sank ruined under the weight of 
 unsold volumes, some twelve thousand in five years. 
 Caxton often shows an eye to probable demand ; his 
 " Knyght of the Toure " was printed, as already mentioned, 
 at the request of a mother of many daughters ; his book 
 of " Demeanour " by the suggestion of a fellow-mercer, 
 who had been edified by it. 
 
 About two years after the establishment of his press 
 in England, Caxton printed a little book, 1 composed by 
 a mother for her young son, by Christine de Pise, that is, 
 for Etienne Castel, part of whose young life was spent in 
 England. 
 
 Christine de Pise was a lady, well-born and delicately Christine 
 nurtured, nourrie en ddlices et mignottements, as she £? 3?J*' 
 herself says, whom poverty impelled to a literary life. 
 Married at fifteen, widowed after but a few years of 
 domestic happiness, and left with aged parents and three 
 young children needing support, she was fortunate in 
 having received an excellent education from her father, 
 sometime court physician to Charles V. of France. She 
 now began to write on politics and morals, and both her 
 works and her own personality were soon in high favour 
 with the wisest of her day. The purity of her life sup- 
 ported the high teachings of her books, which ever 
 pleaded for a nobler political and social morality, and 
 her "Moral Proverbs " would be welcomed, when printed "Moral 
 in England, as a most desirable book of instruction for r0Ter s ' 
 young people. The title of the book will give a sufficient 
 idea of its contents, the proverbs being carefully selected 
 and classified. 
 
 Wise saws could not but be good food for the young 
 mind. For a long time a volume composed of them had 
 been in familiar use as a reading-book in the monastic 
 1 Blades, Life and Typography of Caxton. 
 
174 Some Earls printeo IBoofte. 
 
 schools, the so-called Distichs of Cato, by which Latin 
 and morals were happily taught together. Not to know 
 one's Cato was the mediaeval euphemism for extremest 
 ignorance. Chaucer's Miller applies the proverb to the 
 wealthy but untutored Gnof. 
 
 " He knew not Catoun, for his wyt was rude." 
 
 It is not known who was the author or what the 
 raison d'etre of the title, but some of the verses have been 
 traced back as far as the second or third century. To 
 the book, as circulated in England, one Daniel Churche, 
 a priest of Henry's II.'s court, prefixed some further pre- 
 cepts, which became known as Parvus Catho or . Cato, 
 and thenceforth the two generally, but not invariably, 
 appeared together in transcripts and numerous 1 later 
 reprints, the original collection being called Magnus 
 Cato by way of distinction. The English version was 
 made for Caxton by Maister Benet Burgh, vicar of 
 Maldon in Essex, who, says the printer, "full craftily 
 hath made it in Balad Boyal for the erudition of my 
 Lord Boucher, son and heir at that time to my Lord the 
 Earl of Essex." No doubt Cato was improving to the 
 young mind, but he must have been somewhat dull 
 reading. 
 
 1 The following, from the Huth Catalogue, shows that Erasmus ex- 
 pended labour on editions of this popular work : — 
 
 Erasmus, Catonis Moralia cum Scholiis Des. Eras. Rot. Apophthegmata 
 Geroie (sic) Sapietum interprete Erasmo. Eadem per Ausonium cum 
 Scholiis Erasmi Roterodami (sic). Mimi Publiani cu eiusde Scholiis auctis 
 recogniti Institutu Hominis Christian; Carmine per eundu Eras. Rote. 
 Isocratis parenesis ad Demonicu Additis aliquot Sapientu dictis, 1532. 
 W. de Worde. 
 
 Catonis Distichda Moralia ex Castigatione D. Erasmi Roterodami vna 
 cum Annotationibus et Scholijs Richardi Tauerneri Anglico idiomate Con- 
 scriptis in usum Anglias inuentutis Aliquot Sententiae insignes ex Varijs 
 Collectae Scriptoribus per eundem Erasmum Mimi publiani cum Anglicis 
 eiusdem Richardi Scholijs recogniti. Caly, 1555. TTnique. 
 
 The proverbs here quoted are, says Mr. Huth, extremely curious. 
 
^JnttyjJpatperamfte 
 f enj * repaptetb, anorljet 
 bcttt toljtctje is of DpuecS 
 colouces; of fpottes as 
 totytertlacK/gtme/Wfia 
 3 pelcfooe/lpteastttoete 
 papntcD/anots calleUpas 
 tljetevanD ttyeteromttl) 
 outof tjtsnuiutl^ro (one 
 teaauont9b2eti)e/tlja£ 
 ttjebeftpSgofolotopnge 
 after ft foj toe foorteueff 
 of ijtjff boDp / feue ttjc f ec^. 
 pent/to tottofflttyefmete 
 cmrtl peuetb,/ in fueije 
 wpfetijatoftettefetpent 
 
 Dcth/anD toijan tW$ belted otnewoupie ft fpHeD ano foil of be, 
 npttm that be bath, tatwn 9 eaten/i?e riepetttfeetiapes faletmtb; 
 outatoafcpngc/anDtol^lKatoalJrt^ljegci^ljoutrfh^moutii 
 To ttoctea fauout ano (mrtl/ttjat anon tlje beQcst ttjat fat it fecije 
 bnn/tflug brfte battle but ones ponge fattme0/ ainD toljan 
 ftefhalfatone/fueljatlje rucbtDpftteffc aufc angovOjt tljat r&etye 
 Isetliwttb Jjetnaplesanoteittttb^maKUeintuct) loopte ttjatljec 
 fotnne^ come out/3Bno neuet aftettob,antt)e matttce is tenteana 
 Woken thepmsenoec nebzpngefo^fatontS/^creisamanei; 
 ofmnttSt&atcoceuieoft&eMnlwaffl) ben in acoritwpnameoca 
 paooce/butftepenoute not blittftjicp.ere. 
 
 A page from "The Myeroue.' 
 
 To face p. 175. 
 
Some Earls ftrinteo Boofcs. 175 
 
 Our next book is anything .but dull. Mention has 
 already been made of the Elucidarium books. The 
 "Myrrour of the Worlde," translated from the French "Mvrrour 
 by Caxton, and printed in 148 1, was a descriptive and worlde." 
 pictorial compendium of all branches of knowledge. 
 
 A fascinating volume this is, with its exquisite print, 
 its wonderful illustrations, and its beautiful English, grave 
 and simple and rhythmical. 
 
 Caxton's weighty reasons for the publication are given 
 in his preface : — 
 
 " Oonsydering that wordes ben perishyng wayne and 
 forgateful, and wrytynes dwell and abide permanent, as 
 I rede, vox audita perit, litera scripta manet. These 
 thinges have caused that the faites and deedes of ancient 
 men ben sette by declaracion in fair and avourned (sic) 
 volumes to thende that science and artes lerned and 
 founden of thinges passed might be had in perpetual 
 memorye and remembrance for the hertes of nobles in 
 eschewyng of Idleness at such tyme as they have none 
 other vertuouse occupatio on hande ought texercise them 
 in redyng studieng and visytyng y° noble faytes and 
 dedes of the sage and wysemen sometime trauaillyng in 
 prouffytable vertues, of whom it happeth ofte that some 
 ben enclyned to vysite the books treatyng of sciences 
 particular " — shows — " the sytuacion and moeuyng of the 
 firmament and how the vnyuersal erthe hangeth in the 
 myddle of the same. . . . Translated out of Latyn into 
 frensshe by the ordynauce of the noble duk Johan of 
 Berry and Aunergne the yere of our lorde mccxlv. 
 rudely translated by me symple persone Willm Caxton 
 at the request desire cost and dispense of the honourable 
 and worshipful man Hugh Bryce, alderman and Cytezen 
 of London, entending to present the same unto the ver- 
 tuous noble and puyssaut Lord Wyllm lord hastynges, 
 lord Chamberlain vnto the most Orysten kynge kynge 
 
176 Some Earls printeo 3Boofcs. 
 
 Edward the fourthe, kynge of England and Fraunce &c. 
 and lieutenant for the same of the town of Calais and 
 marches there. 
 
 " Translated mccclxxx." 
 
 He who reads may hope to " the better auayle in know- 
 leche alle the days of his lyf." 
 
 Some idea of the varied contents of the volume may 
 be obtained by a few extracts from the index. 
 
 Thus Chapter i. treats " of the power and puyssance of 
 God." Chapter ix. explains " Wherefore God made not 
 man in such wise as he might not sin." 
 
 Chapter vii. treats of grammar, then follow logic, 
 rhetorick, arsmetrilce, geometry, music, astronomy. 
 " Nature, how she worketh and what she is. Of the 
 form of the firmament. How the four elements be set. 
 How the earth holdeth him right in the middle of the 
 world. Wherefore God made the world round." Geography 
 includes " Where hell is set and what it is." 
 
 We need not pity the child who was taught theology 
 from such a book as this. The passage which treats of 
 the nature of God would be wonderfully impressive in its 
 stately simplicity to the young mind. 
 
 " Certaynly God was tofore / and shalbe incessauntly 
 after without ende / and without begynnynge. Than he 
 shal nothyng amende ne be the better / for hym fayled 
 neuer ony thyng / he seeth all / hereth all / knoweth 
 all / And holdeth al thyng in his hond. He had neuer 
 hunger ne thurst tyme / ne day / ne hour / but abydeth 
 contynually in all good. / For to him apparteyneth soon 
 ne late And of al them that euer were /, that ben / and 
 shall be / haue alway ben and schal be tofore his eyen as 
 well the ferre as the nere / And the euyl as the good / 
 he saw as well the worlde ere it was made and fourmed 
 as he dothe nowe at this daye / And yf he had neuer 
 made the worlde / as moche had he ben than worth and 
 
Some JEarlE prfnteo JBoofts. 177 
 
 of as great valew as he euer myght haue be / For other 
 wyse he myght not be god, yf he knewe not / saw not / 
 and herde not all that myght be / " 
 
 " We ought to know," says the first sentence of the 
 book, " that whan our lorde God had made the world / 
 and that he had made al thynges of nought / he had no 
 nede of it. For as moche hadde he before / as he had 
 afterward." 
 
 Caxton's amplification of the title is worth a glance : — 
 
 " A dyscrypcyon of the worlde with many meruaylles, 
 as the VII Scyences / as Gramayre, rethoreke with the 
 arte of memorye; Logyke / Geometrye / wyth the Standarde 
 of mesure and weyght, and the knowledge how a man 
 sholde mesure londe / borde / and tymber, and than 
 Arsmetryke / wyth the maner of accoutes / and rekenynges 
 by cyfres, and than Musyke and Astronomye / with many 
 other profytable and plesant comodytes." 
 
 The " Syences " are taken one by one. The definition 
 of rhetoric is very quaint : — 
 
 " Rethoryke is a scyence to cause another man, by 
 speche or by wrytynge / to beleue or to do that thynge 
 whyche thou woldest haue hym for to do / To the which 
 thou must fyrst deuise some wey to make thy herers glad 
 and wel wyllynge to here / " 
 
 Truly a clear and logical definition! 
 
 The four rules of " arythmetryke " are taught, followed 
 by the " taking out of the rote." 
 
 Passing on to Geography, "the city of Aaron," we 
 learn, " stands right in the very middle of the worlde, 
 and is made quite round." Here astronomy was founded 
 by " great studye, maystrye, and greate dylygence." 
 
 Excellent reasons are given to explain why and how 
 "the erthe holdeth her ryght in the myddle of the 
 worlde " : — 
 
 "For as moche as the erthe is more heuy than ony 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 Some Earls prfnteo Boofes. 
 
 Poly- 
 chronicon 
 
 Paris and 
 Vienne. 
 
 other of the elementis / therefore she holdeth her more in 
 the myddle / and that which is most heuy abydeth about 
 her. For the thynge whiche moste weyeth draweth 
 most lowest." The explanation is long and elaborate. 
 
 Music is described as " the scyence of all other moste 
 plesant, which is but the ordering of swete sounes and 
 tunys set in perfyte accordes to make plesant armony to 
 manes ere." The author was evidently a lover of music, 
 for he holds that " this scyence of itself is moche to be 
 praysed / for it is like a salve or a medycyn for euery 
 disease / for whan a man is pensyve and sorrowfull / the 
 exercyse of this scyence maketh hym to rejoyce and be 
 glad / and renuyth his dull spyrytes." 
 
 The Natural History contains some curious and not 
 generally known particulars, thus : — 
 
 " The turtle-dove / hauing lost its mate / will neuer 
 perch again ne sette upon grene tre." 
 
 " The hostrych," also, " by hys nature eateth well yron, 
 and greueth hym not." 
 
 To supply his countrymen with a full and reliable book 
 of history, Caxton in 1482 printed the Polychronicon of 
 Eanulphus Higden, Monk of Chester, with additions of his 
 own, bringing the work down from the close of the four- 
 teenth century to his own time, and revising the English 
 into which Trevisa, chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley, had 
 rendered the original Latin of the two old monks, Higden 
 and one Eoger, who originally began the work. 
 
 And in i486 he printed a romance which seems to 
 have been extremely popular and highly thought of as 
 reading for children. This was the romance of "The 
 Knight Paris and the fair Vienne," "the whyche suffred, 
 many aduersytees bycause of theyr true love, or they 
 could enioye the effect thereof of eche other." The 
 romance was originally written in Catalan, and translated 
 nto Latin, French, Italian, Flemish, and English. 
 
Some Early iprfnteo Boofes. 179 
 
 Caston's version from the French was soon reprinted by 
 Wynkyn de Worde, and the Latin edition was made by 
 the eminent scholar Jean de Pins, Bishop of Eieux, for 
 the children of a friend, the Chancellor Duprat. Father 
 Charron, biographer of Jean de Pins, writing in 1748, 
 found it, he says, impossible to praise the book too 
 highly. As for children, he declared it would be im- 
 possible to find a work more fitted to imbue the mind 
 with correct taste and elegance of style, to influence 
 their characters by the wisdom of its reflections, or to 
 forearm their hearts against the assaults of passion, which 
 blindly precipitate the young into the abyss of misery. 
 
 Such, in brief, were Oaxton's contributions towards the 
 education of his young fellow-countrymen. 
 
 The teacher who should require a geography-book in Andrew 
 Henry VIII.'s reign might consider himself well supplied 1500-1549. 
 if he obtained " The Introduction to Knowledge " 1 of 
 Andrew Borde, dedicated by the wise and merry Doctor 
 to the Lady Mary, daughter of Henry the Eighth. This 
 book is partly in verse and partly in prose, and is enlivened 
 with woodcuts, in which fun is freely poked at the idiosyn- 
 crasies of each nation. Thus the first illustration repre- 
 sents an unclothed Englishman holding an immense pair 
 of scissors. He describes himself in rhyme : — 
 
 " I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here, 
 Musing in my minde what raiment I shall were ; 
 For now I wyll were this, and now I wyll were that, 
 Now I will were I cannot tell what, 
 All new fashions be pleasant to me." 
 
 Next year the Englishman will take to learning, and 
 will study hard. He will learn — 
 
 " Hebrew, Greek, French, 
 And I wil learne Douche, sitting on my benche." 
 
 1 Reprinted by E. B. Text Soc. 
 
180 Some Earls printeo Boofts. 
 
 He boasts much of his own strong will, also, which/ 
 always obtains his own way for him in spite of everybody, j 
 
 In prose the Doctor grows more serious, and discourses! 
 of the metals and agriculture of Britain, lamenting that] 
 wine is no longer grown, whereas there used to be many 
 sorts. He mentions Stonehenge, and is naturally interested 
 in the baths of Bath. It is a source of pride that the 
 English coinage is of gold and silver only. 
 
 Of the "Welsh our author says that they cannot speak 
 ten words without bringing in the devil ; that they love 
 toasted cheese, and that their songs and harping are as 
 the buzzing of bumble-bees. The Irish suffer from over- 
 hot temper, and love to wear saffron shirts, even though 
 all torn. His account of the English of the Pale is worth 
 quoting : — 
 
 " The people of the English pale be metely wel manerd, 
 using the English tongue, but naturally they be testy, 
 specially if they be vexed. Yet there be many well- 
 disposed people as well in the English pale as in the 
 wylde Iryshe, and vertuous creatures when grace worketh 
 above nature.'"' 
 
 Specimens of simple conversation accompany each 
 section. Our author conducts us over the Continent, 
 admiring the Cathedral of Antwerp and Santa .Sophia 
 at Constantinople, and treating of the manners and cus- 
 toms of the various nations in the same half-instructive, 
 half-jesting way, ending by instructions " how to travel 
 to Jerusalem." 
 
 Whether or no the worthy Doctor wrote " Scogin's 
 Jests," a book immensely popular in his own day, it 
 is certain that to write without joking was quite im- 
 possible to him. Discoursing on medicine, he describes 
 an evil fever, "the which doth cumber yonge persons, 
 named the Peuer Lurden," which " doth come naturally, 
 or els be euyll and slouthfull bryngynge uppe." For a 
 
Some Earls ftrinteo JBoofts. 
 
 remedy there is nothing so good as ungitentum baculinum, 
 that is to say, " take me a stycke or wande of a yerde in 
 length or more, and let it be as great as a man's fynger, 
 and with it anoynt the back and the shulders well. . . . 
 If this will not helpe, sende them then to Newgate ; for if 
 you wyll not, they wyll brynge themself thither at length." 
 
 Andrew Borde wrote also a text-book of astronomy, 
 besides his various works on health and medicine. 
 
 We are, of course, scarcely justified in classifying some 
 of these volumes among children's books. " The Myrrour," 
 for instance, was hardly a lesson-book. Nevertheless such 
 a work was certainly produced for the benefit of the 
 young and ignorant — and we can imagine how they 
 enjoyed its wonders, and feel even a pang of envy. The 
 world has grown so prosaic since we have explored it all ; 
 there are no delightful unknown isles and seas, where the 
 salamander and the mermaid may dwell, and the phoenix 
 perch in boughs of golden-fruited trees. Certainly geo- 
 graphy was a more interesting study a few centuries ago. 
 As for natural history, the wonders of creation are at 
 least as interesting as the inventions of man ; in fact, 
 we must feel that there is a gain here in our increased 
 knowledge. As for history, the old chronicles were 
 enlivened by fascinating legends ; but still, on the whole, 
 the true romance of human life is as interesting as any 
 invention of man. But were there, besides these which 
 we may consider as in part the children's property, any 
 books specifically intended for them ? The answer is, 
 there were a few. 
 
 In 1528 Copelande printed a book entitled, " The Secret of 
 Secret of Secrets of Aristotle, with the governale of 
 princes and every maner of estate, with rules of helth 
 for body and soul, very profytable for every man, very 
 gode to teach children to read English, newly translated 
 out of French and emprented." 
 
Some Earl)? fl>rtnteo Boofes. 
 
 The italics are ours. Aristotle was the favourite 
 philosopher of the time, and many compositions adver- 
 tised themselves under his name. Thus, the rhyming 
 alphabet already mentioned professed to be " Aristotle's 
 A B C," an etiquette book would be his "Golden 
 Legacy," and so forth. 
 
 In the " Secret of Secrets," the philosopher is sup- 
 posed to instruct Alexander of Macedon, and he begins 
 with the duties of kings, devoting sections to such 
 subjects as largesse, the vices of princes, their duties 
 to their subjects, and so on. He then discourses of 
 astrology, of the influences of the seasons, of judging 
 character by physiognomy, of sleep, of the toilet, and 
 dress. On these last he is sufficiently explicit, giving 
 directions for morning ablutions, for the use of an ivory 
 comb to refresh the brain and memory, for the healthful 
 practice of a good stretch to supple the limbs after sleep. 
 Altogether this must have been a sufficiently amusing 
 and edifying reading-book, but it was of course composed 
 with no attempt'to simplify the language. 
 
 Another and. yet more interesting reading-book was 
 printed by Alexander Lacy in 1562—3, as a quarto of 
 eight leaves, 1 specially composed, as the title will show, 
 for the benefit of children. The author was Thomas 
 Newbery, and the title runs as follows — "A Booke in 
 Englyssh metre of the great marchaunt man called 
 Dyves Pragmaticus, very pretye for chyldren to rede, 
 wherby they may the better and more readyer rede and 
 write Wares and Implements in this worlde contayned." 
 
 The tract is entirely in verse, and every imaginable 
 sort of merchandise is offered in it by the merchant, who 
 first begins by calling to men of all trades to come and 
 buy, so that the children may learn to read and write 
 
 1 Reprinted in "Fugitive Tracts," 1875. Hazlitt and Hath. Privately 
 printed. 
 
Some Earls ©dnteb Boofts. 183 
 
 their designations also as well as those of the wares and 
 implements mentioned before. 
 
 Thus begins the Preface or Declaration : — 
 
 " God, the great geuer of vertue and grace 
 Hath planted man here, but for a space, 
 To live and to learne by his vocation 
 To serve God and man, by their ordination." 
 
 The names of the trades are curious enough, including 
 such avocations as women-hosiers, sopers, forgers of lyes 
 (not necessarily untruthful persons), bowyers, fletchers and 
 makers of heads, patten-makers, collyers, woodmasters 
 and good Billit cleavers. 
 
 Then follow the names of the various wares offered to 
 them, from Owches, brooches and fine aglets for kynges, 
 stayned clothes and Images from the great Turke, to 
 fine powder to make you sleepe. Or again, a commodity 
 of such doleful sound as Fyne Rode for children of Wyllow 
 and Burch. A verse or two will serve as a sample. 
 
 " I have Suchet, Surrip, Grene Ginger and Marmalade, 
 Bisket, Cumfecte and Carraways as fine as can be made, 
 As for Poticarv and Grocery, I have all that trade, 
 You shall se of sni thyriges, come hether to me. 
 
 I have here to sell fine Needelle and Thimbels, 
 Nayle pearsers, smalle podde 0hyselle3 and Wiinbels, 
 Blades, and for weavers fine Shuttelle and Brembils, 
 What doe you lacke, friend 1 come hether to me. 
 
 I have Inkyll, Crewell and gay Valances fine, 
 Pannes to warme Bedcle, with gyrte corde and lyne, 
 The money is your owne, and the ware is myne, 
 Come see for your love, and come bye of me. 
 
 I have to sell carpets, chestes, coffers and locks, 
 Presses and keyes, wheels, spindels and Rocks, 
 Pig, Goose and Capons, Hennes, Chickens and Cocks, 
 What wares do you lacke ? eome hether to me." 
 
 It is evident that this little book follows the old idea 
 
1 84 Some Earls iprinteo Boofes. 
 
 of giving the children names of everyday objects to read, 
 the idea upon which iElfric worked, and Biblesworth 
 and De Garlande also, but which from the time of " Dyves 
 Pragmaticus " seems almost entirely to disappear, to be 
 revived in our own century as a refreshing novelty when 
 the brilliant success of the " Child's Guide to Knowledge " 
 had caused the grown people to reflect that much in the 
 everyday world excited the curiosity of the children, and 
 that their intelligence will be aroused and developed by 
 explaining to them something of the things they see. A 
 unique copy of " Dyves Pragmaticus " exists in the Al- 
 thorp library ; other and similar books may have perished 
 altogether in the heedless fingers of the little people. 
 
 The title-page, ifc may be worth while to mention, 
 brings a tinge of religion into the book, by referring to 
 Deuteronomy the twenty-third, and to the nineteenth of 
 Leviticus, "When thou sellest ought unto thy neighbour 
 or byest anythyng of him, deceaue not nor oppresse him." 
 
 John Bale, Carmelite monk in Henry VIII.'s time, had 
 embraced the reformed faith, and proceeded to write 
 against that which he had abandoned with all the zeal 
 of a proselyte. Vehement attacks upon the priests flowed 
 from his pen, and he wrote also memoirs of Sir John 
 Oldcastle, Lord Cobham. Several of his works were 
 prohibited by Henry VIII. before his own change of 
 view was complete. Under Edward VI. Bale was made 
 Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland, where he got into endless 
 trouble, even to the peril of his life, by his zeal for reform. 
 In 1 549 he published a little work entitled, " A Dialogue 
 or Communicacyon to be had at table between two 
 chyldren, gathered out of the Holy Scriptures by John 
 Bale for his two yonge sonnes Johan and Paule." 
 
 There is nothing very childish about this work, which 
 is simply an argument on various points of theology. It 
 begins thus : — 
 
Some J£at\y ftrfnteo Boofes. 18 
 
 
 
 " Paulus, iunior filius. For so much as God hath con- 
 stituted me a creature reasonable, and indued me with 
 an understandynge, I am naturally desperonse to knowe 
 to what ende I am created. 
 
 Iohannes, senior filius. Than wyl it be necessary for 
 you to have fayth." 
 
 In which style the dialogue continues from point to 
 point of the highest doctrines. There is no suggestion 
 here of what our own period would consider fit " milk 
 for babes." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 " 3Ef)j Jear. of tlje Hort ana of tjje Broomstick." 
 
 "As for play-books and romances and idle tales, I have already shewed 
 in my ' Book of Self -Denial,' how pernicious they are, especially to youth, 
 and to frothy, empty, idle wits, that know not what a man is, nor what 
 he hath to do in the world. They are powerful baits of the devil, to 
 keep more necessary things out of their minds, and better books out of 
 their hands, and to poison the mind so much more dangerously, as they 
 are read with more delight and pleasure, and to fill the minds of sensual 
 people with such idle fumes and. intoxicating fancies, as may divert them 
 from the serious thoughts of their salvation ; and (which is no small loss), 
 to rob them of abundance of that precious time, which was given them 
 for more important business, and which they will wish and wish again 
 at last that they had spent more wisely." — Richard Baxter, Christian 
 Directory, Part I., Direction 16. 
 
 The Seven- 
 teenth 
 Century. 
 
 UT the seventeenth century saw great changes. 
 The brilliant intellectual promise of its early 
 years was quenched in the strife and turmoil 
 of its middle age. In the words of an emi- 
 nent authority : " The intellectual vigour of its youth was 
 followed by the senile pruriency of its age. But the 
 Court of the Eestoration accounts for the fact that the 
 age of Milton and Shakespeare is followed by that of 
 Farquhar and Dryden." 1 
 
 Milton to Dryden — that was the step ; and it was 
 
 1 Professor Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices in the 
 Seventeenth Century. 
 
 1 86 
 
ftbe jfear of tbe ftoro ano of tbe Broomstfcft. 187 
 
 one which greatly affected the young people. In the 
 love-songs of the Lovelaces of the Bestoration they could 
 have no part, and in the odium politicum and odium 
 theologicum of the civil wars their claims had almost or 
 quite been forgotten, pushed on one side by the pressure 
 of other anxieties. The great college that was to have 
 been built and placed under the supervision of Comenius 
 was destined never to arise, and a quite different attitude 
 of mind towards children was taken up under Puritan 
 influence by their elders. 
 
 It was impossible but that intellectual culture should Puritan 
 be less and less prized. Of what use could it be to 
 enrich the mind with knowledge and adorn the person 
 with graces, if at the end of it all was to be the worm 
 that dieth not ? The Puritan continually saw mankind 
 as Addison's Mirza saw them in his Vision, travelling 
 along the bridges through which one and another fell 
 continually, and went — whither ? 
 
 Man from his infancy upwards was ever a lost and New 
 ruined creature, to be saved from an infinitely horrible childhood, 
 eternal fate. Let him then be saved, even if " so as by fire." 
 
 The attitude of mind of the Puritan teachers was 
 therefore very different from that of such men as Earle 
 and Colet or the earlier Churchmen. The child was 
 no longer a "stair nearer God," a child of the Church 
 with the dew of baptism still glittering on his brow, and 
 with his little white robe scarcely stained — a lamb to be 
 tended, a flower to be sheltered and nurtured, a being 
 of whom the sight should cause grown people to ponder 
 mournfully on their own once white robes, defiled now by 
 the world's miry ways. ./_ 
 
 If the treatment of the child had sometimes been 
 pretty rough, that was because the times were rough and 
 the strongest bore rule, and there was danger in being 
 too gentle, so that milder spirits took refuge almost per- 
 
i88 Ubejfear of tbe Xoro ano of tbe Broomstfcft. 
 
 force under the wing of the Church. But now severity 
 became a principle. 
 
 The child no longer seemed the pure and holy being 
 whose opening life was sunned by heavenly love, and 
 whom perhaps a pious mother had commended especially 
 to the wide mercy of Mary, or the care of some sainted 
 mortal, who among the joys of heaven would remember 
 the toiling of his brothers on earth. He was a miserable 
 little sinner, full of original sin, and surrounded by snares 
 and pitfalls, from which his escape was desperately 
 difficult. The Guardian Angel savoured of Popery, and 
 so dropped out of mind ; the Devil and all his works were 
 very real to the Puritan. 
 
 How dare he indulge his child whom he loves ? The 
 sparing of the rod may land him in the bottomless pit 
 for ever and ever. How, then, could the loving parent 
 especially spare it ? Is the child clever ? Then let his 
 spirit be broken betimes, else these powers will be given 
 to the service of the devil. Has Nature gifted him with 
 beauty or grace ? Let the parents beware, for under these 
 lie the snare of the enemy. 
 
 How maidens were to think of their own fair faces let 
 one of the most highly esteemed writers of the period for 
 the young, James Janeway, tell : — 
 
 " When by spectators I am told. 
 
 What beauty doth adorn me, 
 Or in a glass when I behold 
 
 How sweetly God did form me — 
 Huth God such comeliness bestowed 
 
 And on me made to dwell, 
 What pity such a pretty maid 
 
 As I should go to Hell ! " 
 
 "Looking- The works of James Janeway are referred to by other 
 
 Children." writers in terms of high commendation, and during the 
 
 next hundred years his verses were inserted in compila^ 
 
TEbe jfear of tbe Xoro anb of tbe JBroomsticfe. j8 9 
 
 tions and his stories quoted with approval. The verses 
 above quoted are taken from his " Looking-Glass for 
 Children." His "Token for Children" was also much "Token for 
 recommended, and one or two similar books written in 
 imitation. 1 This work professes to be " An exact account 
 of the conversion, holy and exemplary lives, and joyful 
 deaths of several young children." 
 
 Strangely unhealthy reading for children these stories 
 seem to us, especially for any child of a thoughtful and 
 sensitive nature. These infants, who are held up to 
 admiration and imitation, are depicted as possessed by 
 the most morbid and unchildlike ideas. One was " ad- 
 mirably affected with the things of God when he was 
 between two and three years old," and would not suffer 
 his father for any cause to omit having family " duty " 
 {i.e., prayers). Another baby of two appeared " savingly 
 to understand the mysteries of Eedemption ; '" while a 
 third was " a dear lover of faithful ministers," and endea- 
 voured continually to induce its friends " to get Christ 
 for their souls." The sentences of one " were wise and 
 weighty, and might well become some ancient Christian," 
 while another poor little creature " had such extraordinary 
 meltings that his eyes were red and sore with weeping 
 for his sins." 
 
 The discourses put into the mouths of these children 
 show an unnatural and unhealthy precocity of thought, 
 which shows plainly the effect of the religious teaching of 
 the day, at once intense and narrow, upon some sensitive 
 young minds. Upon the young reader the effect could 
 only be hurtful. It is a fact that little children brought 
 
 1 As "A Looking-Glass for Children. Being a Narrative of God's 
 gracious Dealings with some Little Children. Recollected by H. Jessey in 
 his lifetime. Together with sundry seasonable Lessons and Illustrations to 
 Youth, calling them early to remember their Creator. By Abraham Thear, 
 late of Plymouth." 
 
> 
 
 19° XTbe jfear of tbe Xoro anb of tbc JBroomsticft. 
 
 up upon this sort of literature have gone about crushed 
 by the conviction that they had committed the unpar- 
 donable sin. The question was continually borne in 
 upon their minds, Are you saved ? — that is, do you feel 
 saved ? The sensitive child was tortured, the healthy- 
 minded turned away; and we are not surprised to find 
 the hot embers of Calvinism dying down in the eighteenth 
 century into the embers of a dreary morality. 
 
 The children's books show the steady course of this 
 change. Any one of the numerous little spelling-books 
 with reading-lessons attached which appeared during this 
 period can be pretty accurately dated by internal evidence. 
 The Psalms, Commandments, chapters of Proverbs, and 
 Hymns, of which at first the reading-lessons consist, give 
 place by degrees to the moral tale, which finally entirely 
 supplants them. 
 
 In proof of the popularity of such works as Janeway's, 
 it may be noted that so late as 1822 there appeared 
 three volumes called " Examples for Youth," consisting 
 of similar memoirs of pious young people, arranged accord- 
 ing to the ages at which they died, and those in the last 
 volume surviving till between twenty and twenty-five ! 
 I It does not seem ever to have occurred to the well- 
 meaning authors that the fact of a funeral invariably 
 following each story was not the best of all inducements 
 to young people to become like the hero of it. Jane- 
 way's own work, indeed, was reprinted only a few years 
 earlier. That Puritanism could produce noble characters 
 we have abundant evidence in the lives of such men as 
 Colonel Hutchinson, but upon children generally its edu- 
 cational theories must have borne very hardly. 
 Thomas The " Touch not, taste not, handle not " was applied 
 
 to their literature with the utmost decision. "When 
 thou canst read," counsels Thomas White, minister of 
 the Gospel, " read no ballads and foolish books, but the 
 
TTbe ffear of tbe 2Loro ano of tbe Broomsticfe. 191 
 
 ^Bible and ' The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven,' a very 
 plaine, holy book for you ; get the ' Practice of Piety/ 
 Mr. Baxter's ' Call to the Unconverted,' Allen's ' Alarm 
 to the Unconverted;' read the history of the martyrs 
 that died for Christ, and in the ' Book of Martyrs.' And 
 as you read, if the looks he your one [sic], mark in the 
 margent " striking passages. 
 
 " The Plain Man's Pathway " and " Practice of Piety " 
 were, it may be remembered, the two literary treasures 
 which formed the sole wealth of John Bunyan's wife. 
 The former is at full length — 
 
 " The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, 
 wherein 
 every man may clearly see whether he shall be 
 saved or lost." 
 
 The author describes himself as Arthur Dent, preaeher 
 of the Word of God at Shoobery in Essex, and the book 
 consists of dialogues wherein such personages as Theo- 
 logus, a divine ; Philogalhus, an honest man ; Asunelus, 
 an ignorant man ; and Antilegon, a caviller, discuss the 
 most abstruse theological questions. The book had 
 reached its twelfth edition by 1733. But alas for the 
 poor child who, on the faith of Master Thomas White's 
 word, looked to find it plaine / 
 
 A typical volume is "Divine Blossomes," by Francis 
 Cokain. As in a go"od many other old books, the title- 
 page itself is a long piece of reading, and might supply 
 so much material for thinking as to make the reading of 
 the book itself almost unnecessary : — 
 
 "Divine Blossomes. A Prospect or Looking Glass for South. 
 Wherein and whereby he may plainly behold and see a Super- 
 eminency and Superexcellency of Grace and Religion beyond the 
 World's Honor, Glory, Fame, Report, Pleasure, Joy, Delight, Love, 
 and all Lower Accomodations whatsoever. Laid down in Youth 
 by Exciting Parallel Between 
 
192 XCbe jfear of tbe Xoro ano of tbe 3Broomsticfe. 
 
 Earth's Honour \ C Heavens Glory- 
 
 Carnal Pleasure > and < Spiritual Pleasure 
 Inordinate Love J ( Divine Love 
 
 Under euery of which particulars, the Author Exemplarily Ex- 
 presseth himself in Varied Verse. Composed by a Hearty Well 
 wisher to the Youthful Generation, Francis Cockin, alias Cockayne. 
 1657." 1 
 
 "Little Thomas White's "Little Book for Little Children" 2 
 
 appeared in 1702, and went through at least a dozen of 
 editions ; yet the stories contained in it are " either silly 
 or outrageous and revolting." 3 The first page is headed 
 " Youth's Delight," and consists of a hornbook. This is 
 followed by the " sole redeeming feature of the work, ' A 
 was an Archer.' " This is apparently the first appear- 
 ance of this popular Composition, and it may be noted 
 that later generations have edited it a little. Tor 
 instance, in this version — 
 
 " E was an Eater, a Glutton was he ; 
 F was a Fighter, and fought with a Flea." 
 
 After this come the lines beginning — 
 
 " I saw a peacock, with a fiery Tail ; 
 I saw a blazing Star," &c. 
 
 There are also spelling-lessons of from one to seven 
 syllables, and then follows the main staple of the book, 
 " Instructions and Directions for Little Children." 
 
 "Oh, how precious it is," exclaims the author, "to 
 hear a child praying as soon, nay, sooner, than it can 
 speak plain, as how a sad thing it is to hear a child swear 
 as soon as it can speak." A hideous story of a drinking- 
 
 1 At Sion College. Hazlitt, Handbook of Popular Literature. George 
 Cokayne (1619-1691) is described by Wood (Athen. Ox.) as "a prime 
 leader in his preachings in Oliver's time." 
 
 2 British Museum. 
 
 3 W. Carew Hazlitt, Schools, School-books, and Schoolmasters. 
 
Ube ffear of tbe aLoro ano of tbe Broomsticfe. 193 
 
 match at Oxford illustrates one section. It may truly 
 be said that the reproach often aimed at the Eoman 
 confessional, that of the insinuation of evil, is deserved 
 by such books as this, in which the darkest sins are 
 detailed and explained to the young reader, whose litera- 
 ture was yet so carefully supervised ! 
 
 Fortunately a child of ordinarily healthy mind is, with 
 regard to books, as a monkey in the forest, that chooses 
 fit food where many hurtful things grow, and so escapes 
 much harm; and where its book is like a schoolboy's 
 pudding, the occasional plum lost in a mass of unin- 
 viting duff, the child will find the plum. Thomas White's 
 exhortations are forgotten, but " A was an Archer " 
 endures. 
 
 " Take heed of playing with the devil's children," con- 
 tinues Mr. White, who gives many examples of regenerate 
 (and short-lived) children. One hapless baby of eight 
 wept inconsolably because he thought he had lied. When 
 his mother asked if he felt cold, he had said " Yes," but 
 afterwards doubted if he had been really cold. One of 
 the sins which weighed upon his mind was that he had 
 whetted his knife on the Lord's Day; another, which 
 suggests a long-forgotten custom, that once when his 
 mother called he answered " Yes," and not " Forsooth." 
 This book also contains some hideous accounts of the 
 tortures endured by martyrs, both from Pagan and Papist 
 persecutors. 
 
 Pox's " Book of Martyrs " was considered a most de- 
 sirable book for children at this time, and is continually 
 recommended by writers on education. And many books 
 specially intended for the young introduced Martyrologies 
 with an amplitude of revolting detail. 
 
 Thus, "The Young Man's Calling, or, The Whole 
 Duty of Youth," by E. P. D., published in 1685, with 
 the imprimatur of Thomas Grigg, Bishop of London, has 
 
 N 
 
i94 tlbe feat of the 3Loto ano of tbe Broomstfcft. 
 
 R. P. D. most horrible accounts of torture and death, still further 
 Man's ng heightened by grotesque illustrations. The author eu- 
 C 68 Imff '" titles his book " A serious and compassionate address to 
 
 all young persons to remember their Creator in the days 
 
 of their youth." It was illustrated by " thirteen curious 
 
 pictures," and sold at eighteen pence. 
 
 Here, again, subjects with which the taste of other 
 
 days would shrink from defiling a child's mind are freely 
 
 X^ BWOWMHflHWD u W,J,BVT ' JDU - UUU 
 
 From " Female Excellency or The Ladies' Glory," by R. Burton. 1728. 
 
 handled. The illustrative stories are chiefly historical, 
 ranging from Joseph to Lady Jane Grey and Queen 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 Some " Divine Poems " are on a par with the rest of 
 the work. Thus on the events of the Fifth of November 
 the author sinc;s : — 
 
Ube ffear of tbe ftoro ano of tbe Broomsticfc. 19s 
 
 " With Parthian Bows the Archers came, 
 
 Rome's poisonous Oil on th' Arrows shone, 
 Thy Turtle was the Archers' aim — 
 Shoot, shoot, says Satan, it's our own.'' 
 
 A number of little books were published in the later n. Crouch, 
 years of the seventeenth century under the name of ^^_ T 6 
 Eichard Burton, or with merely the initials E. B., 
 printed for Nathaniel Crouch, for whom Eichard Burton 
 was a pseudonym. They are wonderful compositions, 
 generally absolutely puerile and inane, and yet their 
 sale was apparently large, and their number shows the 
 popularity of the author. 
 
 " Winter Evening Entertainments " 1 consists of " Ten 
 pleasant and delightful relations of many rare and 
 notable actions and occurrences, fifty ingenious riddles," 
 and has sixty illustrations. It is, according to E. B., 
 " excellently accommodated to the fancies of old or 
 young, and exceedingly useful to advance chearful society 
 and conversation." 
 
 One of the delightful relations is of a lover who 
 coveted and swallowed his lady's pearl necklace, and of 
 his rivals, who insisted on administering an emetic. The 
 after scene has been selected by the illustrator as a happy 
 subject for his pencil. 
 
 "The Apprentice's Companion" 2 (1681) contains 
 " plain and useful directions for servants, especially 
 apprentices, how to perform their particular dutys to 
 their masters, so as to please God, and discovering such 
 sins and vices which are the common hinderances to 
 them herein. With some examples of God's severe 
 judgments upon such as have taken ill courses. To- 
 gether with prayers and devotions for Morning and 
 Evening. To which is added a short and familiar 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. 2 Brit. Mus. 
 
196 XTbe jfear of tbe Xoro ano of tbe Broomstfcft. 
 
 Method of Arithmetic and some copies of the most 
 useful writing hands." 
 
 The title-page will give us a sufficient acquaintance 
 with this book. We may note, however, the effect of 
 the " editing " of the taste of this period on a familiar 
 and noble old " Grace before Meat." This is E. B.'s 
 version : — 
 
 "Sanctifie unto us, Lord, the use of these Thy 
 creatures, of which by our sins we have made ourselves 
 unworthy, and grant that the end of eating and drinking 
 may be to be the better enabled to serve Thee in our 
 several places, through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
 
 " Youth's Divine Pastime " consists of " forty remark- 
 able Scripture Histories turned into common English 
 verse. With forty Curious Pictures proper to each 
 story. Yery delightful for the virtuous employing the 
 Yacant Hours of Young Persons, and preventing vain 
 and vicious Divertisements. Together with several Scrip- 
 ture Hymns upon divers occasions." The third edition 
 of this work appeared in 1 69 1 . 
 
 The present generation has a low opinion of Dr. Watts, 
 and wonders at his fame. But as Lily was a blessed 
 relief to the learners of Alexander, de Yilla Dei, so must 
 Dr. Watts have been joy and light to the pupils of 
 Nathaniel Crouch and his fellows. 
 
 The " Epistle to Youth " prefixed to this volume warns 
 the child that — 
 
 " Upon a world vain, toilsome, foul, 
 A journey now you enter, 
 The welfare of your Living Soul 
 You dangerously adventure." 
 
 The history of Cain and Abel is thus related : 
 
 " Cain seetn'd a zealous worshipper, 
 Yet did he come behind — 
 
Ube jfear of tbe Xorb ano of tbe Broomsticft. 197 
 
 His brother Abel is preferr'd, 
 'Cause he was best inclined. 
 
 Cain saw no further than the Law, 
 
 But Abel walks by Faith, 
 Which makes his offering acceptable 
 
 To God, as Scripture saith. 
 
 Abel lookt through his sacrifice 
 
 To Jesus yet to come, 
 Cain his own work o'ervalued, 
 
 And a curse carried home. 
 
 When God in Judging did receive 
 
 Abel, and Cain reject, 
 Cain murmurs and complains and grieves 
 
 'Cause he had no respect. 
 
 And being proud, did much disdain 
 
 The youth should him outdo, 
 Yet finds no way repute to gain, 
 
 But what adds to his woe. 
 
 He takes his opportunity 
 
 And does his brother kill, 
 'Cause he his God doth glorifie 
 
 And rightly do His will. 
 
 This done, God asks, Where's Abel ? Cain, 
 
 He says, I cannot tell, 
 And yet he had poor Abel slain ! 
 
 Oh, the deceits of Hell. 
 
 But Cain, a very dreadful sound 
 
 I from the Earth do hear, 
 Thy brother's blood spilt on the ground 
 
 Doth sadly pierce mine ear. 
 
 Thou Wretch ! thou hast my Abel slain, 
 
 His Blood revenge I will ; 
 Depart, see not my face again 
 
 Upon my Holy Hill." 
 
198 Ubc Jfear of tbc Xoro ano of tbe Broomsticft. 
 
 But more ludicrous, if possible, is the volume of 
 "Emblems" 1 of the same author, published in 1684. 
 Emblems, we know, were in fashion in those days, 
 those of Quarles (1635) and George Herbert's more 
 beautiful imaginings being highly approved of. " E. B." 
 adds to his collection an invention of his own, which he 
 fears may by some be "reputed as great an Indecorum 
 as erecting an alehouse at the Church Stile," but which 
 is really a '' Moral Pastime " designed to turn one of the 
 Devil's favourite weapons against himself. This happy 
 thought is carried out as follows : — At the end of the 
 book is a page on which is printed a dial with a re- 
 volving cardboard index attached to the centre ; this the 
 player at the Moral Game is to turn round, and to seek 
 in the body of the work for a verdict upon himself, to be 
 found by a number corresponding to that upon which he 
 let the index rest on the dial. 
 
 According to the author — 
 
 " This game occasions not the frequent crime 
 Of swearing or misspending of our time, 
 Nor loss of money, for the play is short, 
 And every gamester winneth by this sport." 
 
 The Morals are of this sort — 
 
 " In secret thou dost oft complain, 
 That thou hast hoped and wrought in vain, 
 And think thy lot is far more hard 
 Than what for others is prepared. 
 An emblem, therefore, thou hast got 
 Which shows it is our common lot 
 To work and hope, and that thou hast 
 Blessing by it at the last." 
 
 Benjamin Keach, Baptist minister, and author of a 
 number of combative works under such titles as " The 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. 
 
Ube tfear of tbe Xoro anb of tbe Broomstick. 199 
 
 Eector Kectified," also of " The Travels of True' Godliness Benj. 
 and of Ungodliness," imitations of Bunyan, reached in I g^. I " 70+ , 
 1724 the fifteenth edition of his "Instruction for Chil- 
 dren," 1 which professed to teach " an Easy Way to spell 
 and write True English," and to direct parents "in a 
 Hight and Spiritual manner to educate their children." 
 We are scarcely sorry to learn that, in 1 644, Master 
 Keach was made to stand in the pillory for the publica- 
 tion of the "The Child's Instructor," which attacked 
 infant baptism. 
 
 But we refrain from further quotation. It is hard to 
 find a redeeming feature — " A was an Archer " being a 
 small oasis in a great desert. Bad grammar, dreary and 
 often undesirable religious exhortations, painful stories of 
 morbid conditions of childhood, hideous details of martyr- 
 dom, and inane " verse " are invariable features, while 
 the spelling and reading lessons sometimes prefixed are 
 merely thrown together without any attempt at method 
 or gradation. ' ^f e ' 
 
 Nothing better can be said of such books as " The Calling," 
 Gentleman's Calling," 1660, and Osborne's "Advice to a * °' 
 Son," 2 1 6 5 6, intended for lads, and though the life of Anne "Advice 
 Halkett was a perfect romance, her books for the young *£ s a 6 Son '" 
 are wofully dreary." 3 The counsels addressed to teachers 
 naturally took the same tone. Thus George Eox addresses George 
 a " Warning to all Teachers," 4 which is intended, he says, 1924-1690. 
 "to go in the world among all that are called school- 
 masters and schoolmistresses." He would suppress, among 
 " other sins of children," the " telling of Tales, Stories, 
 Jests, Ehimes, Fables, which feeds the nature that is out 
 of the fear of God." He objects to learning and languages, 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. 2 Brit. Mus. 
 
 3 Mother's Legacy to the Unborn Child, 1650, and Instructions for 
 Youth, 1 701. 
 * Brit. Mus. 
 
200 tlbe fear of tbe 3Loro ano of t&e 3Broomstfcft. 
 
 because this "puffs them up in the naturals," though 
 parents enjoy and value such knowledge in their children. 
 " You schoolmistresses," pursues the author, " teach chil- 
 dren fashions according to the lusts of ignorance, which 
 fashions and lusts of the world are to pass away; and 
 moreover teacheth young women to play of Instruments 
 and Music of all kinds, and teaching them to Dance and 
 Catches and Songs and Jests, which makes them to lose 
 modesty and shamefastness, but enlarges brazenfacedness 
 and boldness and impudence," " and you that teach young 
 men to fence, consider that you lead them to glory in 
 their own strength." 
 
 The theory of education for girls sank lower and lower 
 throughout this period. Towards the middle of the 
 eighteenth century the most that even an ardent educa- 
 tionist 1 could dare to suggest was that it would be 
 well for gentlewomen to know their mother tongue 
 sufficiently to read and write it correctly, and to have, if 
 they pleased, a smattering of French and Italian ; that a 
 little arithmetic also would be useful in the management 
 of a household. Twice during the latter years of the 
 seventeenth century a proposal was made for the erection 
 of some sort of college for young ladies. A thin quarto 
 volume 2 was published to rouse interest and attract sub- 
 scribers, in which it is quaintly set forth that "before 
 the late unhappy troubles in England, it was the usual 
 observation of Foreigners that the English Lady was the 
 most modest, chaste, and pious woman in Europe," 
 including taciturnity among her virtues. In 1697 Mary 
 Axell, well known in her day as a literary woman, issued 
 " A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, wherein a method is 
 offered for the improvement of their minds." 3 
 
 1 English edition of Pension's Lady's Preceptor, 1743. 
 
 2 An Academy or Colledge. Brit. Mus. 
 
 3 Ballard, Learned Ladies. 
 
Ube jfear of tbe Xorb ano of tbe Broomsttcfc. 201 
 
 This proposal really did attract much attention, and a 
 lady of importance was ready to give ;£ 10,000 towards 
 a foundation, but was deterred by Bishop Burnet, who 
 went to her with the remonstrance that such a step would 
 prepare the way for the re-establishment of nunneries. 
 
 The very broadsides and chapbooks of the day had to Didactic 
 be tuned to the same key. Accordingly we have in sides. " 
 1687 "The Maiden's Best Adorning, or a Directory for 
 the Female Sex, being a Father's Advice to his Daughter. 
 Wherein all young ones, especially those of that sex, are 
 directed how they may obtain the greatest Beauty and 
 Adorn themselves with a Holy Conversation." 
 
 Thus begin the counsels — 
 
 " Dear child, these words which briefly I declare, 
 Let them not hang like Jewels in thine Ear, 
 But in the secret Closet of thy Heart 
 Lock them up safe, that they may ne'er depart. 
 Abhor the lying Tongue, vile Fraud detest, 
 Plain-hearted Men by Providence are blest. 
 Take heed of Idleness, the accursed Nurse 
 And Mother of all Vice, there's nothing worse." 
 
 The parent is here called a father, and James Jane- 
 way also uses father and mother. But at some time 
 during this period the terms papa and mamma replaced 
 the old words in the mouths at least of little " masters 
 and misses." 
 
 Bishop Atterbury's grown-up daughter addresses him 
 in 1729 as "Dearest Papa," and among Swift's satirical 
 "Instructions to Servants" in 1745 we find directions 
 "Where there are little masters and misses, to bribe 
 them so that they may not tell tales to papa and 
 mamma." 
 
 The custom, however, was creeping in at a much Alex. 
 earlier date. In 1660 Minister Peden, of New Luce in l6 e 2 6 e - n i686.; 
 Galloway, lifted up his voice in energetic protest against 
 
202 Zbc ffear of tbe Xoro anb of tbe Broomsticfe. 
 
 it, thus — " And in our speech our Scripture and old Scots 
 names are gone out of request; Instead of Father and 
 Mother, Mamma and Papa, training children to speak 
 nonsense and what they do not understand. These few- 
 instances, among many that might be given, are additional 
 causes of God's wrath." 1 The italics are ours. 
 
 "We pass with relief from these dreary works to one 
 instinct with life and thought, a true product of what 
 was genuine and living in Puritanism. 
 John "The Pilgrim's Progress" was doubtless not written 
 
 i6 U 28-i688. m an y special sense for young readers ; but successive 
 generations of children have so fastened upon it and 
 made it their own, that we cannot exclude the book 
 from their literature. It has been said by a recent critic 
 that had the English nation been by nature frivolous, 
 Bunyan might have written his great work and yet have 
 remained obscure. 2 The intense earnestness of the Elstow 
 tinker appeals to that stratum of seriousness which is 
 the foundation of the English character, and expresses 
 itself in a directness and simplicity of diction which goes 
 straight to the heart of a child. 
 
 Superfluities of language are never to a child's taste. 
 Tell him a story ; he wants to know simply what hap- 
 pened, without needless circumlocution. A bit of graphic 
 word-painting will sometimes delight his imagination, 
 and rhythm and harmony of language will be sure to 
 please his ear, but he is thoroughly impatient of all mere 
 decoration. Tell him of a person, and he desires to 
 know without more ado what manner of person that was, 
 and what he did and why he did it ; any moralising 
 thereupon will not interest him in the least. 
 
 A child let loose among books is gifted by Nature 
 with the happy faculty of discovering and assimilating 
 
 1 Life and Death of Alexander Peden. Quot. Buckle, Hist. Civilisation. 
 1 M. Emile Hennequin, La Critique^ Scicntifiquc. 
 
X£be ffear of tbe Xoro ano of tbe Broomstfcfe. 203 
 
 that which suits him, and passing by all the rest. This 
 faculty it is which will often enable the young mind to 
 pasture freely in old libraries where never came the prun- 
 ing hand of a Bowdler, and take no moral taint. He 
 has eaten no fruit of knowledge, and so to the pure all is 
 pure. In later life he will perhaps learn with a shock 
 of surprise that his old friends were not quite suited to 
 modern taste in the manner of their expression, or even 
 sometimes in the subjects of their discourse. 
 
 Grown people can hardly realise this, especially those 
 who in their own youth were fed wholly upon, to use 
 an Americanism, well-chaperoned literature. Hence the 
 various attempts to edit " The Pilgrim's Progress " to suit 
 the understanding of a child. Of these, the most con- 
 spicuous is Dr. Neale's version, which an eminent critic 
 has stigmatised as " unquestionably the most impudent 
 book he ever read," x Dr. Neale's endeavour has been to 
 edit Bunyan to the point of view he would have taken 
 had he been blessed with " more light," namely, of course, 
 the critic's own Anglo- Catholic mental attitude. It is 
 therefore not the sight of the Cross that, frees Christian 
 from his burden, but three dips in a mystical spring — 
 and so throughout. But probably few of Bunyan's child- 
 readers have ever been much the wiser as to the pecu- 
 liarities of his theology, though his dramatis persona 
 were intimate friends. They live and move. Evangelist 
 with the severe countenance ; no wonder Christian was a 
 little glad, yet guiltily glad, to get away from him ; and 
 Faithful and Hopeful, Christian's two friends, quite 
 different characters, not to be mistaken for each other, 
 though the young reader may doubt as to which he 
 prefers. 
 
 It is interesting to contrast such a passage as that 
 which describes Christian's adventures in the Valley of 
 
 1 George Gilfillan, Third Gallery of Literary Portraits, 1857. 
 
2o 4 Ube feat of tbe Xoro ano of tbe :fi5roomstfcfe. 
 
 the Shadow of Death with such works, for instance, as 
 the modern allegories of the Eev. Edward Monro, in which 
 the good and the evil are depicted with ecstatic mysti- 
 cism and morbid horror. Bunyan's narrative, as simple 
 almost as a relation of the sacred Evangelists, impresses 
 the imagination far more than piled-up horrors could do. 
 Take, for instance, such a passage as that in which 
 the horrors of the Valley of the Shadow of Death are 
 described. 
 
 Christian is about to pass the mouth of hell, which 
 stood hard by the wayside. 
 
 " Thus he went on a great while, yet still the flames would be 
 reaching towards him ; also he heard doleful voices and rush in gs to 
 and fro, so that sometimes he thought he should be torn in pieces, 
 or trodden down like mire in the streets. This frightful sight was 
 seen and these dreadful voices were heard by him for several miles 
 together ; and coming to a place where he thought he heard a comr 
 pany of fiends coming forward to meet him, he stopped and began 
 to muse what he had best to do. Sometimes he had half a thought 
 to go back, then again lie thought he might be half-way through the 
 valley. He remembered also how he had already vanquished many 
 a danger, and that the danger of going back might be much more 
 than for to go forward. So he resolved to go on ; yet the fiends 
 seemed to come nearer and nearer. But when they were come even 
 almost at him, he cried out with a most vehement voice, 'I will walk 
 in the strength of the Lord God.' So they gave back, and came no 
 farther." 
 
 The theological discussions between Bunyan's characters 
 are many, it is true ; but as they do not interfere with 
 the actual narrative, and can very well be skipped bodily, 
 the young reader is little troubled by them. 
 
 A successful sequel is a rare thing, but the adventures 
 of Christiana and her children, forming the second part 
 of "The Pilgrim's Progress," have scarcely been less 
 popular. John Bunyan died in 1688. The first part of 
 "The Pilgrim's Progress" appeared in 1678, the second 
 
Ube fear of tbe Xoro ano of tbe Broomstfcfc. 205 
 
 in 1684, and in 1693 1 appeared a "Third Part," pro- 
 fessedly -written by a friend of his. The preface is 
 followed by a poetical address to the author, signed 
 B. D., and Lines on Perusal of the Book by L. C. 
 
 " I fell asleep again," says the author, and he saw 
 great companies of people travelling from the City of 
 Destruction to the town of Carnal Policy, in the hottest 
 time of year. (This is explained as days of persecution.) 
 Some sat down to rest, some went home, some struggled 
 as far as the Slough of Despond, and were then so dis- 
 heartened that they returned home in droves. A youth, 
 however, gets through ; a cloud comes over, from which 
 a hand is stretched forth which washes him in his own 
 tears. Beelzebub shoots at him as at Christian, but he 
 gets safely inside the wicket-gate, and tells Goodwill, 
 the porter, that his name is Tender Conscience, from the 
 town of Vain Delights. Goodwill gives him a certifi- 
 cate, and a stout crutch of Lignum vitce to replace his 
 miserable little twig of Vain Opinion, plucked from the 
 Tree of Knowledge by the Waters of Confusion, 
 
 At the Interpreter's house the arrows are pulled from 
 his wounds, and he is shown all the things Christian saw, 
 with varied applications ; also two farms, one beautiful 
 and well cared for, and the other ruined and desolate, of 
 which Mr. Interpreter makes, as is fitting, a parable. 
 
 He comes to a place where stand the House of Mourn- 
 ing and House of Mirth. Here also is a cross, at the 
 foot of which Tender Conscience weeps. For this he is 
 mocked by a troop of young men, but some godly matrons 
 console him and take him to the House of Mourning. 
 Hither the mockers come, noisily demanding him; but 
 three Shining Ones appear, give him a mark upon his 
 forehead and a roll, and say " Be thou changed," where- 
 
 1 In 1698 appeared " The Pilgrim's Passage in Poesie to the Palace 
 Beautiful in the Chamber of Peace " (Hazlitt). 
 
zo6 xr&e fear of tbe Xoro ano of tbe JSroomsticft. 
 
 upon he passes through his intending persecutors, and is 
 not recognised. 
 
 He reaches, like Christian, the Hill Difficulty, and 
 makes, a short cut by a path called Danger and through 
 a pleasant wood. The wood soon grows gloomy, beasts 
 begin to roar, and Tender Conscience hurries back, climbs 
 the hill by the proper way, and finds one Good Besolu- 
 tion sitting in a cave ready to comfort pilgrims. Tender 
 Conscience is glad, and breaks forth into song. The 
 author, however, is no greater poet than John Bunyan 
 himself, and this song is sad doggrel. Good Eesolution 
 shows the traveller some bas-reliefs of faithful worthies ; 
 and Contemplation, whom he visits in another cell, draws 
 back a curtain and shows him Heaven. Travelling forth, 
 he meets Spiritual Pride, who talks him over, and then 
 Carnal Security, who takes him into the house of Lady 
 Intemperance and her' daughters, Wantonness and Bor- 
 getfulness. Here he is about to fall asleep, when his 
 hosts intend to tumble him into the burning lake. His 
 drowsy head, however, falls against his crutch ; he wakes 
 to find a fearful storm raging. Going downstairs, he 
 finds a feast spread, to which Mr. Gluttony invites him, 
 " by order of the King ; " but he remembers that the 
 doing of the Divine will is meat and drink, and so 
 escapes with difficulty, and reaches the Palace Beautiful, 
 where Prudence and Piety and the rest greet him. 
 
 'In the Valley of Humiliation the floods are out ; and 
 as Tender Conscience crawls with difficulty among sundry 
 traps and snares, Worldly Honour, Self-Conceit, and others 
 shoot at him from boats. At the end of the Valley of 
 the Shadow are martyrs' monuments, and in a cave 
 opposite Giant Pope's sits grave and mild Eeformation. 
 Here Seek-Truth, Convert, and Weary o' th' World join 
 him, and they all hold much converse as they walk with 
 each other, and with Zealous Mind and Spiritual Man, 
 
Ube ff ear of tbe 3Lorb anb of tbe 3Broomsttcfe. 207 
 
 At the town of Vanity, Zealous Mind's address to the 
 people earns them a safe passage. Weary o' th' World 
 hankers after a silver mine, but the sight of Lot's wife 
 spurs him on. The pilgrims grow drowsy on the Enchanted 
 Ground, but the tears of Convert rouse them. Finally 
 they reach the river, and Weary o' th' World plunges in 
 unbidden, but rises no more, because he was weary of the 
 world, but not of sin. Tender Conscience, however, is 
 helped over by a Shining One. 
 
 This third part, though long since an almost forgotten 
 Look, seems in its day to have enjoyed a fair measure of 
 popularity. Six editions were published within thirteen 
 years of its first appearance. 
 
 As early as 1685 the first part of Bunyan's work 
 appeared in a French translation. Jean Bcekholt, Libraire 
 pres de la Bourse, at Amsterdam, published Voyage d'un 
 Chrestien vers lEtemiU. Bcrit en Anglois par M. Bunjan, 
 F.M., en Bedfordt, et nouvellement traduit en Francois, 
 avec figures. 
 
 Dr. Neale's edition of Christian's Pilgrimage has 
 already been mentioned. Besides this, several other ver- 
 sions for children have appeared. That by Mrs. Sherwood, 
 " The Infant Pilgrim's Progress," supposes three children 
 to be left alone in the City of Destruction — Humble 
 Mind, Playful, and Peace. With them comes to dwell 
 Inbred Sin, who afterwards accompanies them on their 
 pilgrimage, which is substantially the same journey as 
 Christian's. Among the characters introduced are such 
 persons as Mr. Orthodox and Mrs. Bountiful. 
 
 Such "editing" of a great work will hardly find 
 favour in the eyes of any who appreciate the original. 
 But the fact that some five hundred of Mrs. Sherwood's 
 version are still annually sold certainly points to a con- 
 siderable and fairly lasting popularity. For the native 
 children in India, to whom Mrs. Sherwood devoted many 
 
208 zbe jfear of tbe 3Loro ano of tbe :S5roomstfcfe. 
 
 years of diligent labour, she wrote " The Indian Pilgrim," 
 finding by experience that much of the English setting 
 of the story could not be realised by them. 
 
 This is not the place for a discussion of the ques- 
 tion of the originality of Bunyan and his indebtedness 
 to previous -writers. Doubtless the Pilgrim idea was 
 not more an original invention than the story of the 
 " Merchant of Venice ; " and as these works of Bunyan's 
 forerunners were considered very desirable reading for 
 young people, a brief mention of them may be permitted. 
 "The The "Shepherd" or "Pastor" of "St. Hermas" 1 was, 
 Shepherd." accor( ji n g to Eusebius, much used as a book of elementary 
 instruction in the early Church. There is no connected 
 story in this " Vision," or rather there is a very discon- 
 nected sort of story running through it. Bunsen goes 
 so far as to call the book absurd, but the number of 
 English editions proves that it was much respected and 
 used. 
 "Parable Of Symon Patrick's "Parable of the Pilgrim," printed 
 Pilgrim." '665, while Bunyan was in Bedford jail, Dr. Neale, in 
 the preface to his " Pilgrim's Progress," says some people 
 thought it might be used to supplant Bunyan. Here 
 again there is very little story. Philotheus desires to go 
 to Jerusalem, but the volume is chiefly occupied by an 
 account of his spiritual difficulties and communings. 
 "Penitent Brathwait's "Penitent Pilgrim," 1641, is a beautiful 
 1 g" m - b 00 k" } but hardly suited to a childish understanding. 
 
 The dedication is " To that immaculate Lambe Christe 
 Jesus, the sole saviour and Eeceiver of every penitent 
 sinner, hath this poore pilgrim humbly here presented 
 these his penitential teares." 
 
 The pilgrim lives in Idumea, and finally reaches 
 Canaan, working his way through the seven deadly sins, 
 the Commandments, the spiritual and corporal works of 
 1 Eusebius, Hist., B. iii. ch. iii. 
 
Ube jfear of tbe Xoro anb of tbe Broomstick. 209 
 
 mercy, the Beatitudes, the Four Last things. The writer 
 seems to be an English High Churchman. His verses 
 have a flavour of George Herbert, especially in the series 
 of Emblems, of •which the following is a specimen : — 
 
 " The wounded hart knows how to fly 
 To Dittany. 
 
 The Thyme-stor'd Bee in Balme can And 
 A speedy cure, — and shall' my mind 
 
 Through sinne impure 
 
 Seek for no Cure 1 
 Oh no, but like the Roe seek Him 
 Who has a cure for care, a salve for sinne.'' 
 
 The " Pilgrimage to Heaven," reprinted from an ancient "Piigrim- 
 MS. preserved by the Poor Clares, and written by one of ues^lu." 
 their order, consists entirely of aspirations and prayers. 
 
 It has often been said that the works of De Guille- 
 ville were the real foundation of Bunyan's book, and 
 much has been written on the subject. It cannot, 
 however, be said that the " Pilgrim's Progress " shows 
 any unfair plagiarism. 
 
 In 1 330 Guillaume de Guilleville, a French Cistercian Guillaume 
 monk, wrote his Pdlerinaige de V Homme inverse. About v m e . U1 ' 
 twenty-five years later he made a revised version. The 
 first poem was rendered into prose English about 1430. 
 In 1645 and during the following ten years manuscript 
 copies of this book were made and circulated, though it 
 does not seem to have been printed, and it is at least 
 possible that Bunyan saw or heard of it and adopted the 
 idea. The second version was translated into English 
 verse by Lydgate in 1426. De Guilleville wrote also a 
 poem, which in its English prose version of 141 3 is 
 called the " Pilgrimage of the Sowle," and deals with the 
 doings of the departed spirit from the moment when it 
 turns with a shudder from the cold clay newly left, its 
 experiences of judgment and purgatory and ultimate 
 
 
 
2io zhe jfear of tbc Xoro ano of tbe 3Broomstfcft. 
 
 beatification. These were followed by a third poem, 
 " The Pilgrimage of Jesus Christ." 
 
 The "Pilgrimage of Man" begins with Scripture 
 histories — Adam, Babel, Moses, and so on. The sketch 
 of the progress of mankind ends with a final battle 
 between Justice and Vice. From this Bunyan may 
 have taken the idea of his " Holy War," now almost a 
 forgotten book. Worldly Wise is a character in a once 
 famous book, Bernard's "Isle of Man," 1627, which also 
 Bunyan may have seen. 
 " Divine The " Pilgrim's Progress " belongs to the children's 
 
 catalogue by right of annexation; but for their especial 
 benefit John Bunyan certainly wrote one book. This is 
 his "Divine Emblems, or Temporal Things Spiritulised 
 (sic). Pitted for the use of boys and girls," grown people 
 who behave childishly — a large majority, the author 
 seems to think — may also profit by this book, so the 
 preface tells us. 
 
 John Bunyan was certainly correct in describing him- 
 self as " no poet, nor a poet's son." It must be owned 
 that his verses are mostly — this book contains one or two 
 notable exceptions — sad doggrel ; nor is the anonymous 
 editor who professes to make large additions to the ninth 
 edition of 1724 more highly gifted. This is one of those 
 books, equally grotesque in letterpress and illustration, 
 which cause us to wonder whether the sense of the 
 ridiculous is merely a modern development, and whether 
 it is really possible that a past generation found spiritual 
 edification in, for instance, No. 3 1 of these Emblems : — 
 
 " UPON THE PROG. 
 
 The Frog by nature is both damp and cold, 
 Her mouth is large, her belly much will hold, 
 She sits somewhat ascending, loves to be 
 Croaking in gardens tho' unpleasantly. 
 
TTbe feat of tbe Xorb ano of tbe Bvoomsticfe. 2 
 
 11 
 
 Comparison. 
 The hypocrite is like unto this frog ; 
 As like as is the Puppy to the Dog. 
 He is of nature Cold, his Mouth is wide 
 To prate, and at true Goodness to deride. 
 He mounts his head, as if he was above 
 The World, when yet 'tis that which has his Love, 
 And though he seeks in Churches for to croak, 
 He neither loveth Jesus, nor His Yoke." 
 
 Equally quaint, not to say grotesque, is the fourth 
 emblem, " Meditations upon an Egg." 
 
 " The Egg's no Chick by falling from the Hen, 
 Nor Man a Christian, till he's born agen. 
 The Egg's at first contained in the Shell, 
 Men, afore Grace, in Sins and Darkness dwell. 
 The Egg, when laid, by Warmth is made a Chicken, 
 And Christ, by Grace, those dead in Sin doth quicken. 
 The Egg, when first a Chick, the Shell's its Prison, 
 So's Flesh to th' Soul who yet with Christ is risen. 
 The Shell doth crack, the Chick doth chirp and peep, 
 The Flesh decays, as Men do pray and weep. 
 The Shell doth break, the Chick's at Liberty, 
 The Flesh falls off, the Soul mounts up on high ; 
 But both do not enjoy the self same plight ; 
 The Soul is safe, the Chick now fears the Kite." 
 
 The strained similes are pushed still further — 
 
 " But Chicks from rotten Eggs do not proceed, 
 Nor is a Hypocrite a Saint indeed. 
 
2i2 zbz jfear of tbe Xoro ano of the Broomstick. 
 
 The rotten Egg, though underneath the Hen, 
 If crack'd Stinks, and is loathsome unto Men. 
 Nor doth her Warmth make what is rotten sound, 
 What's rotten, rotten will at last be found, 
 The Hypocrite, sin has him in possession, 
 He is a rotten Egg under Profession.'' 
 
 Here we have the very ideal of the seventeenth-century 
 child's book, the literary milk for the unfortunate babes 
 of the period. The one thing necessary to perfection 
 seemed to be to add a Primer, which was soon done ; a 
 few more rhymes were added, and the volume issued as 
 "Country Ehimes for Children" in 1686, 1 "Licensed and 
 entered according to order." The preface about foolish 
 grown people has the following addition : — 
 
 " Thus much for artificial Babes, and now 
 To those who are in years but such, I bow 
 
 ' My pen to teach them what the letters be 
 And how they may improve their ABC. 
 Nor let my pretty children them despise, 
 All needs must there begin that would be wise. 
 Nor let them fall under discouragement 
 Who at their Hornbook stick and time hath spent 
 
 1 No copy of this was known to exist until very recently, when a 
 volume turned up in America, and has been added to the British Museum 
 Library. 
 
Ube feat of tbe Xorb ano of tbe Broomstfcfc. 213 
 
 Upon, that A B 0, while others do 
 Unto their primer or their psalter go. 
 Some boys with difficulty do begin 
 Who in the end the Bays and Laurel win." 
 
 At the present day, when no pains are spared to 
 smooth the beginning of the child's path to knowledge, 
 a short account of the seventeenth-century idea of early 
 lessons may be interesting by way of contrast. There 
 are here three pages, the first headed " An Help to Chil- 
 dren to Learn Spelling." " In order to the at-tain-ing of 
 which, they must first be taught the Let-ters, which be 
 these that fol-low." 
 
 Then come four different alphabets. 
 
 Then " The vowels are these, a, e, i, o, u. 
 
 "As there are vowels, so are there con-so-nants, and 
 they are these [here follow the consonants]. 
 
 " There are also dou-ble let-ters, and they are these. . . . 
 
 " Af-ter these are known, then set your child to spel-ling, 
 thus To to, t h e the, o r or, if in me you find sin, in 
 Christ isEighteousness. 
 
 " And ob-serve that e-ve-ry word or syl-la-ble (tho' 
 ne-ver so small) must have one vow-el or more right-ly 
 pla-ced in it. 
 
 "For instances, these are no words nor syl-la-bles, 
 be-cause they have no vow-els in them, name-ly fl, gld, 
 strngth, spll, drll, fll. 
 
 " Words made of two letters are these and such like, 
 If, it, is, so, do, we, see, he, is, in, my. 
 
 " "Words con-sist-ing of three letters, But, for, her, she, 
 did, doe, all, his, way, you may say nay." 
 
 The second page is headed thus : — " To learn children 
 to spell a-right their names," and is occupied by columns 
 of Christian names. 
 
 The third is headed: — "To learn children to know 
 
2i4 ftbe ffear of the OLorS ano of tbc Broomsttcft. 
 
 figures and numeral letters/' and is occupied by the 
 figures and letters. 
 
 Below is added : — " I shall forbear to add more, being 
 perswaded this is enough for little children to prepare 
 themselves for psalter or Bible." 1 
 
 Such are the infant lessons which the seventeenth- 
 century author " bows his pen " to write. No doubt the 
 result was that not all the children who started off were 
 able to climb this Hill Difficulty. 2 
 
 1 An interesting little American book, " Children Fifty Years Ago," 
 describes the commotion caused in a quiet place by the adoption of " The 
 New American Preceptor," the village conservatives stoutly maintaining 
 that the Bible is the only proper reading-took for school use. The book 
 appeared some twenty years ago. 
 
 2 For an account and reprint of this book see Offor's "Life and 
 Works of Bunyan." It appears, however, to be based on incomplete 
 information. A reprint of the British Museum copy has recently 
 been published. (Elliot Stock.) Offor gives some interesting details of 
 other books which may have inspired Bunyan in writing " The Pilgrim's 
 Progress." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Some Gfyaytaaks, antj tfje progress of tfje SpelltngsBoak. 
 
 FTER plodding through a number of the 
 Puritan child's-books, with their terrifying 
 theology and dismal doggrel, we ask our- 
 selves if it is possible that the young people 
 had absolutely nothing else ? 
 
 The Puritan child had at least one story-book. The 
 diligent study of Old Testament history by his elders 
 made him familiar at least with the wonderful stories of 
 that book. Samson and Gideon, and Jonah and David, 
 were his heroes of romance, while the Psalms of David 
 might help to counteract the influence of the " poetry nl 
 written for his benefit. 
 
 The great sacred story-book of the monks had been 
 the " Golden Legend," which contained some stories from 
 Scripture, others of the lives of saints, some utterly 
 wild and absurd, and some extraordinarily coarse. 
 
 After the invention of printing, many Bible histories | a = re ^ 
 were made available to the young and the poor by being 
 versified and printed as small tracts, known at first as 
 " balletts " or ballads. 
 
 1 It would seem as if now and then some consciousness of the feebleness 
 of their Muse came to the writers of the period. One author, in sending 
 forth his book, trusts that if his readers are unable to call it verse, they 
 will at least consider it good prose. 
 
 215 
 
2i6 XTbe progress of the SpelHtt^JBoofc. 
 
 Thus Wynkyn de Worde printed " Thystory of Jacob 
 and his XII. Sonnes " x in verse. 
 
 In 1560 "A brefe Somme of the Bible" was licensed 
 to John Tysdale, and to Henry Sutton " 4 Storyes of the 
 Scripture in myter." 2 
 
 A ballad of 1 563-64 has an attractive title, "How the 
 prowde tyrant Hamand was hanged, and how the inocente 
 Mardochi was preserved." 
 
 Again, we have " A Ballett taken out of Luke XIV.," 
 1568. In 1567 "A Songe of Jespha's daughter at her 
 death," and countless others. 3 
 
 Indeed the ballad was sometimes used for directly 
 instructive purposes, as one in 1568, which is registered 
 as "A true Invocation of God in the name of Christ 
 Jesus." 4 A more extended effort may be found in a 
 volume in the Huth Collection, this of course being a 
 book, not a ballad — "Egypt's Favourite. The History 
 of Joseph, divided into four parts. 1. Josephus in Puteo, 
 or the Unfortunate Brother. 2. Josephu in Carceres, or 
 the Innocent Prisoner. 3. Josephus in Summo, or the 
 Noble Favourite. Together -with old Israel's Progresse 
 into the Land of Goshen. By Francis Hubert, Knight, 
 and sometime one of the Six Clarkes of His Majesties 
 High Court of Chancerie." Generally, however, the 
 endeavour was to condense a good deal into a limited 
 space, sometimes one line the sense of a chapter. 
 These abridgments are too numerous and of too little 
 interest to describe at length. As a rule, the authors 
 seem more interested in their own " ingenious " efforts 
 than careful to make the production of any real use to 
 young people. 
 
 1 Ames, ed. Herbert (begins, " Al yonge and old that lyst to hear.") 
 - Stationers' Register, ed. Arber. In 1638 Francis Quarles versiBed 
 several Scripture stories under the title "Divine Poems." 
 3 Sta. Reg., ed. Arber. * Ibid. 
 
TLhe progress of tbe SpeIling*3Boo{?. 217 
 
 Thus Samuel "Wesley in 1 7 1 7 " attempted in verse '' Bibio 
 the History of the New Testament in " the intervals of Abstracta - 
 my time, which I wish had never been worse employed." 
 " There are," he explains, " some passages here represented 
 which are so barren of circumstances that it was not 
 easy to make them shine in verse." A curiously im- 
 pertinent comment, certainly. The book is "adorn'd 
 with CLTI. Sculptures," which are of equal merit with 
 the rest of the work. The story of our Lord about the ' 
 beam and the mote is illustrated by a cut representing a 
 man walking along with an enormous " beam," apparently 
 of wood, projecting from his eye ! 
 
 During the last century the Hieroglyph ical Bible came 
 into vogue. Thomas Bewick did some cuts for one, and 
 the publication was continued far into the present cen- 
 tury. A little volume, printed in 1859, contains "a 
 careful selection of the most important and interesting 
 passages in the Old and New Testament," as well as 
 " The Life of our Blessed Saviour and the Holy Evange- 
 lists," within the compass of 132 pp. sextodecimo, the 
 nouns in each passage being replaced by the coarsest 
 possible woodcuts. 
 
 To return to the ballads and chapbooks. These latter Chapmen, 
 were little paper books hawked about by the chapman, 
 who, according to Cotgrave's definition, early in the 
 seventeenth century, was " a paltrie pedlar, who in a long 
 packe or maund (which he carries for the most part open 
 and hanging from his necke before him) hath almanacks, 
 books of newes, or other trifling ware to sell." In this 
 way the stories of the " Guy of "Warwick " class, and 
 others in verse, such as "Chevy Chase," "Eobin Hood," &c, 
 circulated through the country, and were bought by cottage 
 dames for their own and their children's amusement. 
 
 Those stories which took most hold upon the children 
 naturally survived longest. " King Pippin " is forgotten, 
 
218 ube progress of tbe SpelHng=Booft. 
 
 while Fortunatus's purse lias become a proverb. The 
 best example of undying popularity, however, is "The 
 Babes in the Wood." On the 15th of October 1595, a 
 ballad entitled "The Norfolk Gentleman, his Will and 
 Testament," was licensed at Stationers' Hall, and was pre- 
 cisely that with which we are familiar, beginning — 
 
 " Now ponder well, you parents dear, 
 The words which I shall write, 
 A doleful story you shall hear, 
 In time brought forth to light." x 
 
 Of the later flood of chapbooks from 1769 onwards, 
 we shall have occasion to speak more at length ; during 
 the prevalence of Puritan influences the " ungodly ballad " 
 and foolish story were of course discouraged as far as 
 possible. 
 The Nor was the child's spelling-book of a kind to en- 
 
 Spelling. .... . . . 
 
 Book. courage mm m learning to read. 
 
 No doubt the success of Edmund Coote's "English 
 Schoolmaster," and the number of editions called for, 
 encouraged other teachers to try their hands at similar 
 books. But alas ! the " English Schoolmaster " is an 
 oasis in a dreary waste. In 16 10 a difficult and un- 
 methodical spelling-book appeared, on the system which 
 continued for the best part of two centuries to prevail, 
 that of making children learn endless lists of difficult 
 and meaningless syllables before beginning to read. 
 " Milke for Children," 16 54? by Lambroke Thomas, D.D, 
 occupies a sort of half-way place between the old religious 
 ABO and the later more secular spelling-book. " The 
 Poor's English Spelling Book," 1684, 3 professes to be a 
 catalogue of all the words in the Bible. 
 
 1 The oldest edition now known in print dates from 1670, and is called 
 " The Cruel Uncle." 
 
 2 Hazlitt, Handbook of Popular Literature. 
 
 3 Educational Library, South Kensington Museum. 
 
XTbe progress of tbe Spellfng*3Booft. 219 
 
 Two books by Thomas Lye, minister of the Gospel, are 
 much in the same style. These are "A New Spelling 
 Book, or Beading and Spelling English made easie, 
 ■wherein all the words of our English Bible are set down 
 in alphabetical order, and divided into their distinct 
 syllables ; " and " The Child's Delight," which has, an- 
 nexed to spelling and grammar lessons, " Advice to an 
 only Child, or Excellent Counsel to all Young Persons, 
 containing the Sum and Substance of practical Divinity." 1 
 
 " Instructions for Bight Spelling," 2 1700, goes by very 
 rapid steps to polysyllables. The religious element pre- 
 dominates here, though the actual words of Scripture give 
 place to the author's own narrative, in this manner — 
 " Ismael was a wild mocker and a scorning archer, and 
 was turned into the wilderness." Sections are devoted 
 to " Marks of a True Christian," " Names of the Devil," 
 " Meanings of Bible Names," and the like. 
 
 "Bight Spelling, 3 1704, is "clearly explained to the 
 meanest capacity." The author, "in meer compassion to 
 the ingenuous and industrious youth of both sexes, has 
 endeavoured to remove seemingly invincible difficulties." 
 There are dialogues between a master and his scholar, 
 who desires "to be enabled to shun such gross mistakes 
 as frequently occur in the writings especially of our 
 green years," and who receives instruction in orthography 
 and syntax. 
 
 "A Spelling Book for Children,'' 1707, begins with 
 alphabets and a syllabarium, proceeding thence to poly- 
 syllables, chiefly taken from Scripture, such as "uncir- 
 cumcision." The first reading-lesson follows this — these 
 lessons are from Scripture — and then comes a Catechism, 
 the words in both question and answer being divided into 
 
 1 Hazlitt, Handbook of Popular Literature. 
 
 s Educational Library, South Kensington Museum. 
 
 » By G. E. and E. H., enlarged by A. S. 
 
22o xrbe progress of tbe"Spellfng=Booft. 
 
 syllables, so that the whole might form reading-lessons. 
 Of the tone of the teaching the following will give some 
 idea : — " It is the duty of such as would have more of 
 Christ to join themselves to one particular Church of 
 Christ," the Church being defined as " a congregation 
 of saints by profession, gathered by the Gospel, and 
 joined together to enjoy all ordinances." 
 "Pro- It was but natural, that the controversial fire which 
 
 books'.' " burned so hotly in men's minds should colour their chil- 
 dren's books. About 1660 there appeared a " Fannatick's 
 Primmer," and several spelling-books include the militant 
 word "Protestant" in their titles. Thus in 1682 ap- 
 peared "The Protestant School," 1 in 1688 "The Pro- 
 testant Schoolmaster," 2 and shortly after 1 714 appeared 
 a " Protestant Tutor," 3 which not only taught youth to 
 spell, but also discovered to them " the notorious errors, 
 damnable doctrines, and cruel massacres of the bloody 
 Papists which England may expect from a Popish Suc- 
 cessor. To which is prefix'd / A frindly Memorial 
 to all true Protestants demonstrating the certainty of a 
 horrid and damnable Popish Plot." 
 
 A little arithmetic is sandwiched between the Eoyal 
 Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and Bishop Usher's 
 Prophecies, and a book in verse of martyrs persecuted 
 by Papists and a " Prospect of Popery in Prose " help to 
 fill the volume. 
 General During this period we find a series of books cropping 
 
 tioD™ a * U P which are within their small compass quite encyclo- 
 paedic. To describe these in detail would be wearisome, 
 but the mere titles of one or two will sufficiently indi- 
 cate the diversity of their contents. 
 "The Child's Week's "Work, containing Godly Verses, 
 
 1 Hazlitt, Schools, School-books, and Schoolmasters. 
 
 2 Ibid. » 
 
 ' Educational Library, South Kensington Museum. 
 
Ube progress of tbe 5pellfng*Booft. 221 
 
 Eiddles, Fables, Jests, Stories, Proverbs, Eules of Be- 
 haviour, and other useful matters to allure Children to 
 read. Adorned with 24 cuts. To which is added the 
 Father's Blessing. By W. J., M.A. 6d." 1 
 
 " Cologuia Trilingua, or The Scholar's Instructor in 
 English, Latin, and Greek,, containing Familiar Dialogues, 
 Eules of Civility, Proverbs, Sentences, Capping Verses, The 
 way to make Thearnes (sic), Orations, Declamations, &c." 
 
 " A Thousand Notable Things, directing to read, write, 
 and indite Letters, how old or young may speak any 
 Language in a short time, to build, a cheap way, Direc- 
 tions to plant, graft, and for gardeners, to catch birds, 
 Physical receipts to take out Spots of Oil, Grease, Pitch, 
 Tar, Ink, of Dreams, Moles, Eiddles, Jests, Stories, to 
 make Ink, Wax, Wafers, to make old people look young 
 and to have fine colours, to make Pictures and Window 
 Sashes, with 900 other matters. Price is.. 6d." 2 A 
 noble eighteenpenn'orth of education truly ! 
 
 "Every Young Man's Companion," by W. Gordon, 
 teacher of the Mathematics, contains "Instructions for 
 reading and writing English. A familiar Treatise of 
 Ehetoric, suited to the Lowest Capacity. Penmanship. 
 Of the care of forming the manners. Writing Letters. 
 Arithmetic. Geometry. Of the Creation. Of the hooks 
 of the Old and New Testaments.. Geography. History. 
 Trigonometry. Astronomy. Dialling. Useful Eeceipts. 
 Fireworks. Painting Mezzotint Window Blinds, &c, 
 Prints, Maps, Timber. Forms of business and law. 
 Shorthand. Free Masonry. Common notion of spirits, 
 apparitions, and witches, their power and feats exposed. 
 Drawing. List of many things necessary to be known." 3 
 
 1 From publisher's announcements (Tho. Parkhurst) in " A Little Book," 
 already mentioned. 1702. Sold at the Ring in Little Britain. 
 
 2 Books sold by G. Conyers, adv. in a Gesta Romanonm of 1703. 
 
 3 Educational Library, South Kensington Museum. 
 
222 zbc progress of tbe SpelUng=3Booft. 
 
 And all this within the compass of quite a small 
 volume ! 
 
 Letters, according to this author, "should be void of 
 all studied graces," and as near a copy of Nature as 
 possible. Accordingly we have a model epistle from 
 "Master Tommy to his cousin Miss Polly," in which 
 Tommy writes with no small pleasure, by the joint com- 
 mand of his papa and mamma, to inquire after her 
 health. She hadn't been gone from this house above a 
 day or two before Tommy was very dull for want of her 
 good company, " but knowing she has not her health in 
 their nasty smoaky town, cannot wish her to run the 
 risque of a second illness." 
 
 The lesson in drawing reads as if extracted from a 
 comic paper : — 
 
 "Make your outlines, which may be mended occa- 
 sionally. From the Elbow to the Eoot of the little 
 Finger is two Faces. The Thumb contains a Nose. The 
 inside of Arm to the Middle of Arm is four Noses. 
 
 " The Drapery of Magistrates must be large and flow- 
 ing. That of Ladies and Nymphs light, soft, and ■ airy. 
 Eich Ornaments must never be applied to Angels or 
 Heavenly Figures." 
 "School of " The School of Wisdom," 1 776, 1 begins by a " Survey 
 Wisdom." of Man5 with Sublime Eeflections on his most Noble Part 
 the Soul," and proceeds to give instruction in all arts, 
 crafts, and sciences. These books appear to attempt in 
 miniature the extraordinary effort made in 1635 by the 
 establishment of the Museum Minervae at Bethnal Green, 
 where every known science was to be taught, from Cos- 
 mography to " Secret motions of scenes," every language 
 also, every physical exercise, and all accomplishments. 2 
 
 1 The School of Learning, 1668, consists chiefly of prayers and cate- 
 chisms. 
 
 2 See Kynaston, Museum Minervae, 
 
Ube progress of tbe SpeUing*3Booft. 223 
 
 In 1743 we find a refreshing little book. This is "New 
 "The Child's New Plaything," 1 dedicated to Prince PlaythiDg -' 
 George, whose portrait appears as a frontispiece. This 
 book is intended to make the learning to read a diver- 
 sion instead of a task. The author half apologises for 
 entering on such an undertaking, but declares it, after 
 all, not unworthy of a Man. After a few cheerful 
 alphabets, " A, apple-pie," " A was an Archer," and one 
 actually intended to be cut out and played with, he 
 proceeds to a short syllabarium, and then gives easy 
 lessons in one syllable. 
 
 This little book seems to be the very first attempt 
 since Goote to write for children as if they were chil- 
 dren and not ignorant men and women. We are 
 tempted to think Dr. Watts may have had some share 
 in the composition of the work, or at all events that 
 his influence accounts for its existence. For after a few 
 simple religious precepts, we have a little story after the 
 manner of the excellent Doctor, and with moral complete. 
 Here it is : — 
 
 " Once on a time two dogs went out to walk. Tray 
 was a good dog, and would not hurt the least thing in 
 the world, but Snap was cross, and would snarl and bite 
 at all that came in his way. At last they came to a 
 town. All the dogs came round them. Tray hurt none 
 of them, but Snap would grin at one, snarl at the next, 
 and bite a third, till at last they all fell on him and 
 tore him limb from limb, and as poor Tray was with 
 him, he met with his death at the same time.'' 
 
 Moral. 
 
 " By this fable you see how dangerous it is to be in 
 company with bad boys. Tray was a quiet harmless 
 dog, and hurt nobody, but," &c. 
 
 1 British Museum. 
 
224 ftbe progress of tbt Spelliitg^BooF?. 
 
 Longer words are used in the Morals, we are told, as 
 these are intended to be read to the child by the teacher. 
 There are descriptions of a Good Boy, and a Bad Boy, 
 and, wonderful to relate, some old stories in simple lan- 
 guage are brought in — Guy of Warwick, Fortunatus, and 
 others. Altogether, Prince George is to be congratulated 
 on the cheerful book written for him. 
 " Child's In 1757 " The Child's Best Instructor," 1 by Philip 
 structor." Bellie, has chiefly moral stories for reading-lessons, and 
 a " Eoyal Primer," 2 issued by Norbury of Brentford, 
 takes to verse, or doggrel, about birds and beasts, and 
 has stories — one of Miss Goodchild, who, having been 
 well educated, "could reason justly on the obligations 
 of virtue." A more religious bias in the Rev. W. 
 Markham's " Introduction to Spelling and Beading " 
 seems to indicate an earlier date. The same may be 
 said of " Instructions for Children " by H. Knowls. 3 
 The usual syllabarium and spelling lists, from such 
 inviting little monosyllables as myrrh to such poly- 
 syllables as propitiation, are followed by catechisms for 
 a child, boy, and girl respectively, and verses by Jane- 
 way. The secular part begins with a sort of apology, 
 as "necessary to fit youth for lawful callings." The 
 most varied information is imparted, on arithmetic, 
 coins, &c, but the religious tone permeates the whole, 
 even the grammar rules having Scriptural examples. 
 
 Apologetic prefaces to children's books of this period 
 are frequent. 4 It is perhaps a note of the growing 
 
 1 British Museum. 2 Educational Library, S. K. M. 3 Ibid 
 
 * We may note the titles of a few more books which need not be de- 
 scribed in detail. "The First Book," Jer. Roe, Derby (S. K. M.) ; "The 
 Expeditious Instructor," 1756 (S. K. M.) ; "The New Art of Spelling, 
 designed chiefly for Persons of Maturity," J. Jones, M.D., 1704(8. K. M.) ; 
 " The New English Tutor, or Modern Preceptor," 6th ed., 1784 (S. K. M.) ; 
 "Spelling-Book on an entirely New Plan" (Phorson, Berwick), 1700 
 (S. K. M.). 
 
Ube progress of tbe Spcllfng=»Boo^. 225 
 
 falsity of taste that writers of children's books of this 
 time always appear ashamed of their task. "We think 
 regretfully of Colet and his fellows as we notice the 
 pains taken by these writers to conceal their identity 
 under initials, or to explain in prefaces that their work 
 was merely composed for their own children, and is now 
 only given to the world at the pressing request of a 
 large circle of eager friends. Even William Mavor, 
 giving to the public a " Juvenile Olio or Mental Medley," x 
 and declaring that — 
 
 " Children and youth engage my pen, 
 'Tis labour lost to write for men," 
 
 even he puts no name to his book, but declares it to be 
 " by a Father, chiefly for the use of his children.'^ And 
 this reluctance was by no means connected with lesson- 
 books only. 
 
 Certain pedagogues, masters of grammar-schools or 
 small private schools, were, however, willing enough to 
 earn what fame and wealth they might by the com- 
 position of schoolbooks. 
 
 John Entick, for instance, composed a " New Spelling Entiok, 
 Dictionary," which was still in common use in Ireland 
 within the last fifty years, many editions of 20,000 
 copies each being quickly sold. He wrote also (1728) 
 a Speculum Zatinum, to teach Latin on a system tried 
 by himself " when it was his lot to be perplexed with 
 a very dull boy." 2 
 
 Dyche, a schoolmaster at Stratford, also composed a J y ^ 
 spelling-book, which drew forth from a friend, more 
 admiring than poetical, a couplet inserted by the proud 
 author in his volume — 
 
 1 Educational Library, S. K. M. 
 
 2 Leslie Stephen, Diet. Nat. Biog., and N. and Q., Oct. 1, 1881. 
 
 P 
 
226 zhc progress of tfie SpelUng*Booft. 
 
 " Thi3 just essay you have performed so well, 
 Record will snow 'twas Dyclie first taught to spell." 
 
 Dyche also composed a " Youth's Guide to the Latin 
 Tongue." 1 
 B. Coles, Elisha Coles, nephew of the more eminent lexico- 
 i 40-] o. g^pjjg^ ]j e pk a school a t Galway for many years, and 
 
 composed a dictionary much used in schools, as well as 
 two elementary Latin books, Syncrisis 2 and "Nolens 
 Volens, or, You shall make Latin whether you will or 
 no," besides a metrical, or rather doggrel, paraphrase of 
 the life of our Lord. 3 
 
 William Walker of Grantham and Eobertson of York, 
 schoolmasters, each made an edition of Lily in the latter 
 years of the seventeenth century. 
 Eipiunston, A more celebrated man tban most of these, however, 
 1721-1 09. wag j ames Elphinston, who kept a school first at 
 Brompton, and afterwards on the future site of Baron 
 Grant's mansion, where he educated young gentlemen 
 for ^25 a year while under sixteen, and above that age 
 in proportion. Dr. Johnson was acquainted with Elphin- 
 ston, and said he would not put a boy to him whom he 
 intended for a man of learning, "but for the sons of 
 citizens, who are to learn a little, get good morals and 
 go to trade, he may do very well." But the pedagogue 
 had a soaring soul. He had published (1753) an 
 " Analysis of the French and English Languages," " Edu- 
 cation," a poem in four books, and a poor translation of 
 Eenelon's Fables, also a " Universal History " from Bossuet. 
 But his ambition rose higher, and he prepared for the 
 press a volume of "Specimens of Translations of the 
 Epigrams of Martial." This work was so terrible, that 
 Garrick (Dr. Johnson lacking courage) implored Elphin- 
 ston not to publish it, his brother-in-law, Strahan, the 
 
 1 Dict - Nat - Bi °g- 2 British Museum. 
 
 3 See Diet. Nat. Biog., Leslie Stephen. 
 
trbe progress of tbe Spellfng*Booft. 227 
 
 printer, adding his entreaties, and sending £50, which he 
 promised to double if the author would but withhold bis 
 work from the public. It saw the light, however, and 
 was received with derision, Burns thus apostrophising 
 the author — 
 
 " O thou whom poetry abhors, 
 Whom prose has turned out of doors ! 
 Heardst thou that groan ? Proceed no further ; 
 J Twas laurell'd Martial roaring murther." 
 
 Perhaps it was well for his pupils that Elphinston 
 had by this time left off keeping school! He had a 
 weakness for orthographical reforms, and published in 
 1790 a work which the title will sufficiently describe. 
 This was "English Orthography epittomized and Pro- 
 priety's Pocket Dictionary," 1 on a semi-phonetic system. 
 
 It is only perhaps by reviewing these old spelling- 
 books till we are wearied out by their dryness and diffi- 
 culty that we begin to appreciate the merits of the 
 Barbaulds and Trimmers as educational reformers. It 
 is the fashion of our day to despise Dr. Watts and laugh 
 at Jane Taylor; but from them to James Janeway is 
 truly " a far cry," and the change must indeed have been 
 a welcome one. The old idea, however, died hard. 
 
 " Pickburn's Moral Instructor," 2 of which the seventh 
 edition appeared in 1805, a "Preservative against Vice 
 and Folly and Incentive to Virtue," travels within its 
 threepenny compass from syllables to Moral and poly- 
 syllabic reflections on virtue and vice. 
 
 "The Eoyal Primer," "authorized," after the old 
 fashion, by George III. in 1 8 1 8, " to be used throughout 
 His Majesty's dominions," begins in the old way, which 
 every now and again reappears till, perhaps for the last 
 time, we find it in 1856. 
 
 1 Educational Library, S. K. M., and Diet. Nat. Biog. 
 
 2 Educational Library, S. K. M. 
 
228 ubc progress of tbe Spelling*3Boo?5. 
 
 "The Child's Ladder," 1 from the Alphabet to the 
 Bible (Oliver & Boyd), carries on the syllabarium to 
 the most terrible combinations, and leads up to such 
 polysyllables as Tkessalonica and feoffee ; while in the 
 same year the preface to " Martin's Intellectual Primer " 2 
 (Jarrold) protests energetically against "the notion that 
 children may learn to read -without learning to spell." 
 
 But the audacious hand of the parodist might by this 
 time work its will with the once-respected system. Luke 
 Limner's " Boyal Picture Alphabet," of about the same 
 time, has " A, ablution, the act of cleansing," with a pic- 
 ture of a sweep washing his face ; and after a series 
 of similar jests, come a number of comic moral tales. 
 Sic transit ! 
 
 1 Educational Library, S. K. M. 2 Ibid. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Some Nuraerg Classics. 
 
 " You despise books, you whose whole lives are absorbed in the vanities 
 of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure, or in indolence ; but remember that 
 all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books." 
 — Voltaike, Diet. Phil., art. Books. 
 
 URING the earlier part of the eighteenth 
 century some of the books which have been 
 the joy and delight of all children ever since 
 were written. Not that at first they were 
 given over to the children at all. Their "Robinson Crusoe" 
 and " Gulliver's Travels " must, till the happy era of 
 cheap books began, have been only the cherished posses- 
 sion of a happy few among the children. 
 
 In 1 7 1 4 appeared the first edition of " Robinson Daniel 
 Crusoe." Defoe had already written various essays, in- J^J!—,! 
 eluding one upon the " Training of Children at Home,' ; 
 besides his " Shortest Way with the Dissenters." Recent 
 editions have left out so much of the original contents of 
 " Robinson Crusoe," and we have become so accustomed 
 to think of the book as essentially a child's story, though 
 one which grown people may well read and enjoy, that 
 we perhaps look into an old edition with surprise. Lengthy 
 dialogues between Crusoe and the natives, for instnlice, 
 set forth the author's views on religion, and his efforts 
 
 for the conversion of Friday are shown to deepen the 
 
 229 
 
230 Some mursen? Classics. 
 
 white man's own spiritual life. In his narrowed sphere 
 of interest, duty patiently sought out and steadily fulfilled 
 brings happiness ; duty to another bringing a higher happi- 
 ness still. 
 
 " When I reflected," says Crusoe, " that in this solitary 
 life which I had been confined to, I had not only been 
 moved to look up to Heaven myself and to seek the 
 hand that brought me here, but was now to be made an 
 instrument under Providence to save the life, and, for 
 aught I knew, the soul of a poor savage, and bring him 
 to the true knowledge of religion and of the Christian 
 doctrine, that he might know Jesus Christ, in whom is 
 life eternal; I say, when I reflected on these things, a 
 secret joy ran through every part of my soul, and I fre- 
 quently rejoiced that ever I was brought to this place, 
 which I had so often thought the most dreadful of afflic- 
 tions that could possibly have befallen me." 
 
 Whether with or without the moral teaching, how- 
 ever, which Defoe designed to convey, "Eobinson Crusoe" 
 remains one of the best of story-books. The very 
 simplicity of the narrative is a great charm. There is 
 no melodramatic piling up of horrors to make an effective 
 situation ; yet what can be more effective than that 
 finding by Crusoe of the human footprint ? It is one 
 of those immortal stories which appeal equally to the 
 interest and sympathy of any period and any civilised 
 race. 
 ^Philip It is natural that such a work should have many 
 
 imitations, and one of the earliest seems to have been the 
 " Story of Philip Quarll." Miss Yonge conjectures that 
 this story was originally written in the period immediately 
 before the French Eevolution " by some ardent believer 
 in the comforts and benefits of primeval simplicity," 
 which in the original edition are shown to be infinitely 
 superior to any civilisation. The unsophisticated exist- 
 
 Quarll." 
 
Some IRursers Classics. 23 i 
 
 ence of " an American or a Tartar " is found by the 
 author infinitely superior to that of " the inhabitant of 
 cities, pale, feeble, and bloated." 
 
 For fifteen years the hero dwells on his desert island, 
 becoming more and more content with his surroundings. 
 His various adventures and contrivances are described 
 with a pleasant straightforwardness that gives the proper 
 vraiseviblable flavour to his history. For a time he has a 
 Man Friday in the person of a shipwrecked boy who is 
 cast on the hermit's island, but the boy rows off to a 
 passing ship, and Quarll is again left alone, and is, we 
 are made to understand, all the happier in consequence. 
 
 Later editions took various liberties with the original 
 story. One, which was made by Mary Elliott, afterwards 
 Mrs. Belson, author of a number of children's books pub- 
 lished during the first quarter of our own century,, intro- 
 duces a monkey "Man Friday" as a perfectly satisfac- 
 tory companion to the hermit, who absolutely refused to 
 be rescued by a passing ship. Defoe, on the contrary, 
 esteems the loss of society, that is, of human sympathy, 
 distinctly a misfortune, and makes his Crusoe return gladly 
 to human intercourse when the opportunity comes. 
 
 The "Eobinson Suisse" of Herr Wyss, which has 
 been popular in this country, both in the original and 
 in translation, seems likely to continue in favour, if we 
 may judge from the fact of a recent reprint. This 
 author especially seeks to convey information about 
 plants and animals by conducting the shipwrecked 
 family through various perils and perplexities, but 
 always at the critical moment causing them to discover 
 the desideratum, whatever it might be, close at hand. 
 Unhappily the fauna and flora of different climates are 
 jumbled together in this wonderful country in a confusion 
 that destroys most of the value of the book for purposes 
 of instruction. 
 
23 2 Some IKlursery Classfcs. 
 
 Marryat's "Masterman Ready" also provides the 
 family with an omniscient sailor-companion, who at 
 every critical point fills the gap either from his know- 
 ledge of botany or natural history or of seamanship, or, 
 faute de mieitx, from the contents of his own wonderful 
 pockets. 
 
 The " Eival Crusoes," " Boy Crusoes," " Canadian Cru- 
 soes " all followed the same idea, endeavouring generally 
 to mingle a little instruction with such new adventures 
 as the authors could devise for their castaway heroes. 1 
 
 In 1726 Jonathan Swift published "Gulliver's Travels." 
 As a delightful story-book, this also has been appro- 
 priated by the children, who knew nothing, and cared as 
 little, about the bitter satire that underlay the adventures 
 of Samuel Gulliver and the doings of the nations he 
 visited. The foolish Big Endian and Little Endian con- 
 troversy, for instance, that distracted the kingdom of 
 Lilliput, where 1 1,000 persons had suffered death sooner 
 than break an egg at the smaller end, is good as a story 
 apart from its parable ; and the pages containing the 
 doings of the people at Laputa, where the fun is rather 
 more subtle, will merely be found less dog's-eared than 
 the rest in any copy that has seen family service. 
 
 The "Tale of a Tub" might well have been found 
 amusing by children too, so far as concerns the adven- 
 tures of Peter, Martin, and Jack, their conflicts with 
 giants and monsters, and their different fulfilment of 
 their father's commands. We may suppose, however, 
 that it would, as a rule, be carefully kept out of their 
 way, on account of its bitter satire on religious teachers. 
 Cobbett tells us that at eleven years old he spent the 
 
 1 The Eival Crusoes, C. Strickland ; Canadian Crusoes, by Catherine 
 Traill, ed. C. Strickland ; The Young Crusoes, by Mrs. Hoffland ; Leila, 
 or The Island ; The Arctic Crusoe, by Percy B. St. John, &c. 
 
Some murserg Classics. 233 
 
 threepence intended for his supper on the "Tale of 
 a Tub," and " could relish nothing else." 1 
 
 As the Puritan influence grew fainter, the fairy tale c.Perrauit, 
 began to grow popular. In Prance, the eminent philo- * 28 " I7 ° 3 - 
 sopher, Perrault, who died in 1703, had already written 
 a number of stories to amuse a little son born to him 
 late in life. The first translation into English was pub- 
 lished at Paris in 1697 in the name of this son. Among 
 these stories was that of " Blue Beard," founded on the 
 iniquities of Gilles de Laval, a Breton lord, whose crimes 
 had horrified France, and who was said to have dabbled 
 in magic, and to have slain children and others whom he 
 had speciously enticed to his castle. 
 
 At this time the French fashionable world had taken 
 a great fancy to fairy tales. The influence of Madame 
 de Maintenon was unfavourable to stories of gallantry, 
 and society was weary of allegorical romances and the 
 long-winded Scud^ri school, with its eight-volume love 
 stories. 
 
 Fairy tales were short, they were something new, they Mme. 
 were amusing, and they were strictly " proper." Several d Auln °y- 
 writers, all or most of whom were ladies, produced many 
 stories to supply the demand. Those of the Comtesse 
 d'Aulnoy are best known in England. A translation 
 was published early in the eighteenth century, in three 
 volumes, entitled "A Collection of Novels and Tales of 
 the Fairies, written by that celebrated wit of France, 
 the Countess d'Anois, translated from the best edition of 
 the original French, by several hands." The "novels" 
 were stories to link the fairy tales together in time- 
 honoured fashion. 
 
 The "several hands," however, took immense liberties 
 with the author's work. Instead of merely translating, 
 they paraphrased, omitted, abridged, and adapted to such 
 
 1 Advice to Young Men. 
 
234 Some Pursers (Classics. 
 
 an extent, that Madame d'Aulnoy could scarcely have 
 recognised her own work. We owe to Mr. Planche" the 
 careful translation, faithfully preserving the spirit of the 
 original, which has for the past five-and-twenty years or 
 so delighted young people. 
 
 The spirit of the stories is indeed essentially charac- 
 teristic. As we read them, we seem to live and move 
 inside a Watteau picture. It must at least be said in 
 justice to the adaptors, that many incidents which paint 
 the manners and customs of the author's time may seem 
 out of place in a child's story. Such are the graceful 
 triflings of princes and princesses, the sentiments, equally 
 " elegant " and correct, which they utter at considerable 
 length, and the " elegant " verses which every new turn 
 of Fortune's wheel draws from them. Not that the 
 children object. If the talk of their princes and prin- 
 cesses is a little high-flown, the atmosphere of courtly 
 grace is exactly what seems to belong to such personages. 
 In the true popular or folk story however the maid of 
 honour carries up a pail of water, the king minds the 
 baby while the queen goes to church, as in the " Faithful 
 John" of the Grimm stories. And Hans Andersen 
 recalls these simple notions with a delightful touch when 
 he makes his offended prince go back into his kingdom, 
 and " shut the door " in the face of the erring princess. 
 
 Fairyland itself is only a larger Versailles in the 
 French fairy tales; if the virtuous are not at first of 
 high rank, they are generally discovered to have been 
 turned out of their only fit sphere by the machinations 
 of a wicked fairy or some other accident. 
 
 But whatever their dress, the freshness and fertility of 
 imagination in the stories immortalises them. There is a 
 spark of the true fire in " The White Cat," " Gracieuse 
 and Percinet," " The Hind in the Wood," " The Bee and 
 the Orange Tree." 
 
Some IRursers Classics. 235 
 
 The English imagination had produced no such varied English 
 fairy tales as those which came from France, Germany, -j^ka. 
 and Scandinavia, or those which were current in Ireland. 
 The histories of Tom Thumb and Bobin Goodfellow, 
 however, told of Oberon and Titania and their court of 
 elves, whose dealings with human beings were, as related 
 in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," the punishing of 
 slovenly maids and helping of the thrifty, the bringing 
 of dreams and changing of children. About 1635 a 
 tract appeared, which professed to be " A descryption of 
 the Kynge and Quene of Fayries, their habit, fare, their 
 abode, pompe and state," and the old idea of fairyland 
 appears now and then, with little variation, in fairy tales 
 of English authorship. 
 
 The national nursery tale was, broadly speaking, more Nursery 
 human and less fanciful. " The Babes in the Wood," 1 stories - 
 and "Jack the Giant- Killer" are fairly typical. " Pasquil's 
 Jests," 1 604, had contained a story which is also found 
 among Grimm's German Tales. 
 
 " Jack, commonly called the giant-killer," says Sir 
 Walter Scott, " and Thomas Thumb landed in England 
 from the very same keels and warships which conveyed 
 Hengist and Horsa, and Ebba the Saxon." The human 
 element is stronger in such tales than in the wilder 
 Eastern imaginings of genii and fairies, or the more 
 delicate fancies of the Celtic races, gnomes, leprechauns, 
 pixes, and all the rest ; and the English stories partake of 
 the solid matter-of-fact English character. 
 
 At the present moment, the fairy tale seems to 
 have given way entirely in popularity to the child's 
 story of real life, the novel of childhood, in which no 
 effort is spared to make children appear as they are by 
 
 1 Mr. Sharon Turner traces a connection between this and the murder 
 of the Princes in the Tower. 
 
236 Some mursers Classics. 
 
 the pictorial art of fiction, the drawing of every light and 
 shade of the character. 
 
 "We cannot but hope to see a reaction set in in favour 
 of the good old stories. "It would be hard," said 
 Charles Dickens, " to estimate the amount of gentleness 
 and mercy that has made its way among us through 
 these slight channels. Forbearance, courtesy, considera- 
 tion for the poor and aged, kind treatment of animals, the 
 love of Nature, abhorrence of tyranny and brute force — 
 many such good things have been nourished in the child's 
 heart by this powerful aid. It has greatly helped to 
 keep us ever young, by preserving through our worldly 
 ways one slender track, not overgrown with weeds, where 
 we may walk with children, sharing their delights." 1 
 And Washington Irving, in his "Life of Goldsmith," 
 says : — " The world is probably not aware of the inge- 
 nuity, humour, good sense, and sly satire contained in 
 many of the old English nursery tales. They have 
 evidently been the sportive productions of able writers, 
 who would not trust their names to productions that 
 might be considered beneath their dignity. The pon- 
 derous works on which they relied for immortality have 
 perhaps sunk into oblivion, and carried their names down 
 with them, while their unacknowledged offspring, ' Jack 
 the Giant-Killer,' ' Giles Gingerbread,' and ' Tom Thumb,' 
 flourish in wide-spread and never-ceasing popularity." 
 
 Our nursery classics have certainly often been the work 
 of men distinguished in other and graver ways. To 
 Bunyan we owe the " Pilgrim's Progress ; " to Defoe, 
 controversialist and essayist, " Eobinson Crusoe ; " to the 
 great Swift, " Gulliver ; " to Perrault, the philosopher, some 
 of our best fairy tales. The brothers Grimm certainly 
 
 1 Household Words, October I, 1853. Quoted by J. E. Planch^ in 
 the preface to bis translation of Mme. d'Aulnoy. 
 
Some IFlurserg Classics. 237 
 
 based their reputation rather upon their philological works 
 than on their volumes of German fairy tales. 
 
 " Goody Two-Shoes " is possibly or probably to be Pastime of 
 
 -, 1 ^,1-, -, •• ii 1 • 1. -i • Eminent 
 
 ascribed to Goldsmith, writing about that time for his Men. 
 kind friend Newbery. " The Three Bears " was the work 
 of Southey, and appears in his " Doctor." The once very 
 popular " Butterfly's Ball " was written by the grave sta- 
 tistician, Eoscoe of Liverpool, and was originally merely a 
 skit upon a local banquet. In our own time we may 
 quote " Alice in Wonderland," " The Eose and the Bing," 
 Lord Brabourne's "Fairy Tales," and Mr. Buskin's de- 
 lightful " King of the Golden Biver," as instances of these 
 play-hour occupations of grave men. 
 
 Although " Bobinson Crusoe," " Gulliver," and the 
 stories of Ferrault and D'Aulnoy appeared in England in 
 the earlier half of the eighteenth century, they cannot 
 be said to have been in the children's possession. There 
 were as yet no cheap editions, and therefore, unless 
 parents and relatives were sufficiently generous to bestow 
 so costly a treasure as a book, or unless the children 
 were allowed to " browse " in the parent's library, then- 
 range of reading was necessarily very limited, and the 
 mean little chapbooks were naturally prized and coveted. 
 
 Another old favourite among story-books, recently 
 reprinted, will be hailed with delight by those among 
 us who are still sufficiently children to enjoy an enor- 
 mous invention, told with perfect gravity in spite of its 
 surpassing absurdity. In 1785 appeared "Baron Mun- 
 chausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Cam- 
 paigns in Bussia." Eodolf Eric Baspe, the author, ought Raspe, 
 to belong to the class of authors of nursery classics who 
 were famous in other lines of life. Through his own 
 misconduct his great talents were wasted, and great part 
 of his life was spent in England as a disgraced fugitive 
 from his own country. 
 
238 Some Bursen? Classics. 
 
 In 1763 Easpe bad published a volume at Leipzig on 
 the " Formation of Volcanic Islands and the Nature of 
 Petrified Bodies." He held a respectable position at 
 Hesse-Cassel as "professor of archaeology, inspector of 
 the public cabinet of medals, keeper of the national 
 library, and a councillor," 1 but was dishonourable enough 
 to pawn some of these treasures to obtain money for 
 purposes of his own. He then fled to London, and 
 there published some useful mineralogical works, but 
 never prospered. He was arrested for debt to his tailor, 
 and rescued by Horace Walpole, and then obtained em- 
 ployment at Dalcoath Mines in Cornwall. Afterwards 
 he made various mineralogical researches in Scotland, 
 and was invited by Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, father 
 of Miss Catherine Sinclair, to his house to help in a 
 search for valuable metal on the property. Some masses 
 of bright and heavy mineral ore were found, and great 
 hopes began to be formed, when, unfortunately, it was 
 discovered that the ore had certainly been brought from 
 Cornwall and planted in the places where it was found. 
 The charm of Easpe's conversation, however, seems to 
 have made Sir John ready to forgive this somewhat dis- 
 graceful trick. From these proceedings Scott is said to 
 have taken the idea of Dousterswivel in " The Antiquary." 
 Easpe died at Mucross while searching for minerals in 
 the neighbourhood of Killarney. 
 
 The book by which he is remembered is not a very 
 original composition. According to G-ervinus, the pith 
 of the Baron's adventures is to be found in " Travels of 
 the Finkenritter " (Herr Polycarp von Kirlarissa), two 
 hundred years older than Easpe's book. Some of the 
 adventures are also said to have been published already 
 in Bebel's Facetiae, Castiglione's Cortegiano, and Bider- 
 mann's Utopia, and two of them in a Portuguese ma^a- 
 
 1 Chambers's " Book of Days." 
 
Some Burser}? Classics. 2 39 
 
 zine, Folheto de Ambas Zisboas. We shall not, however, 
 quarrel with the author on this account. Like Chaucer, 
 or Boccaccio, or Shakespeare, he had a right to take his 
 stories from wherever he could find them, since he pro- 
 duced as the result a book that went through five 
 editions in two years, and has within the present year 
 (1889), heen once again republished. 
 
 The hero is said to have existed in real life. Accord- 
 ing to a writer in Notes and Queries, the Freiherr 
 Hieronymus Carl von Munchausen, born in 1720, in 
 Hanover, was proverbial as a boaster, so that outrageous 
 inventions were known as " Munchausiaden." The adven- 
 tures which this gentleman delighted to repeat and 
 embroider were chiefly met with during his campaign in 
 the Eussian war against Turkey in 1737—39. 
 
 German fairy tales and the Romances of Sintram German 
 and Undine, besides others like Carovd's " Story with- S^ro* e$ 
 out an End," came into England during our own century, nances. 
 They were, as we know, warmly welcomed,, and need not 
 to be recalled to the minds of the present generation at 
 least. 
 
 One quality in the German supernatural romance 
 seems especially to have struck the English readers — 
 that, namely, which is best described by a German word, 
 schauderhaft. There is something peculiar in that thrill 
 of nameless horror with which the German writer knows 
 how to make us tingle. "We feel it in " Sintram " at 
 the awful moment when "Death and Another are coming 
 upstairs." And in the famous drawing belonging to the 
 book, there is the same eeriness about the Thing, the 
 unnamed, half-guessed horror at the point of Sintram's 
 lance. 
 
 "Monk" Lewis, with a mind saturated in German « Monk" 
 romance, succeeded in attaining the schauderhaft quality ev,is - 
 in his "Tales of Wonder," which certainly have been 
 
240 Some IRursers Classics. 
 
 responsible for much terror by night endured by young 
 folks, lying with heads buried in the blankets, eyes 
 tightly shut, and breathing almost stopped, thinking 
 of the dead who ride by night, or of the terrible knight 
 in sable armour, who perhaps, if they dared to look, 
 would be seen standing by the bedside, with lifted vizor 
 showing empty eye-holes, where "the worms they crept 
 in and the worms they crept out." 
 " Arabian The " Arabian Nights '' stories were first published in 
 Nights. England at the close of the last century. The study 
 of Oriental romance produced Beckford's " Vathek," that 
 extraordinary composition, a sort of written nightmare, 
 and certainly very unwholesome reading for such chil- 
 dren as got hold of , it. In well-regulated families 
 "Vathek." "Vathek" was generally tabooed. The impression the 
 author seems to have chiefly endeavoured to produce is 
 that of Oriental profusion, or rather lavishness in every 
 detail, and of utterly reckless and irresponsible behaviour 
 of potentates. The Caliph, when annoyed, can only 
 manage to taste thirty-two of his usual three hundred 
 dishes, and in his wrath kicks the dead bodies of certain 
 guards from the first glimpse of dawn till evening, making 
 40,000 kicks in all. 
 
 The potentate of the true Eastern tale, if quite as 
 unreasonable, is at least more dignified. "Vathek," 
 however, has a wonderful atmosphere of gorgeous 
 Orientalism. During the period when the Moral Tale 
 reigned supreme, the Arabian Nights stories were 
 subjected to a very quaint process of " moralisation," and 
 were issued by Newbery with the addition to each story 
 of " suitable moral reflections," of the most cut and dried 
 character, by the Eev. Mr. Cooper. Had Dickens begun 
 to write at this time we should doubtless have had a 
 " Pickwick " with suitable reflections, and the addition at 
 
Some TRursen? Classics. 241 
 
 least of a tragic fate befalling the Fat Boy in conse- 
 quence of gluttony. 
 
 The modern series of fairy tales by Dumas and Hoff- 
 man — again the work of eminent men — deserve a word 
 of mention in this context. Delightful as they are in 
 wealth of luxuriant imagination, we doubt, however, if 
 they would ever have been very popular with children, 
 certain established ideas of the ethics of fairy life being 
 too frequently outraged. Thus, in the "History of a 
 Nutcracker," the reader is never quite sure whether a 
 man is a man or a toy, or both interchangeably. In 
 Hans Andersen's graceful imaginings, the laws of poetical 
 justice are always obeyed, as in every good old fairy tale. 
 The Child's Own Book was the delight of generations of 
 children. It contained all manner of stories — "Philip 
 Quarll," Thomas Day's " Little Jack," " Sir Bevis," and 
 similar stories, besides a number of French and other 
 fairy tales. 
 
 But we have digressed far from the original purport of 
 this chapter, the history of those classics of the nursery 
 which were the work of eminent men, and of which 
 several, as " Gulliver's Travels " and " Bobinson Crusoe," 
 appeared in the period between the dying down of 
 Puritan fervour and the rekindling of interest in child- 
 life in the latter part of the eighteenth century. If we 
 inquire whether any books were produced specially for 
 the benefit of the little people during this time, we shall 
 certainly find a few, but they will be of a depressing 
 character. We are confronted, for instance, with some 
 dozen of thick volumes entitled "Nature Displayed," 
 translated from the French, and consisting of dialogues 
 in the most stilted language between a Chevalier, a 
 Count, and others, on the mysteries of landscape-garden- 
 ing and kindred topics, which the title-page, however, 
 declares to be "Discourses on such Particulars of 
 
 Q 
 
242 Some Pursers Classics. 
 
 Natural History as were thought most proper to excite 
 the Curiosity and form the Minds of Youth." Poor 
 youth of 1740 ! 
 
 Or we can study " The Travels of Tom Thumb," 1746, 
 intended to teach geography, but a bald and wretched 
 little work indeed, full of tedious descriptions and cut 
 and dried facts, long-winded sentences and polysyllable 
 words. From such utter dreariness even the heaviest of 
 Moral Tales must have come as a welcome relief. 
 
 Note. — Since the above was written, eighteen months ago, the tide 
 of popularity would seem to have set strongly in the direction of the 
 old i'airy stories. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " Ea $oint a JHoral anU Attorn a Eah." 
 
 LONG period of peace and tranquillity had 
 succeeded the turmoil of the seventeenth 
 century. The fury of religious persecution 
 had also worn itself out ; and though the 
 Catholic and the Dissenter were in theory still consi- 
 dered only worthy of hatred and contempt, yet they were 
 not the least inclined to be aggressive, and the average 
 Englishman, firm in a sturdy conviction that without 
 question the theology of his via media was correct in 
 every detail, could afford to leave his erring neighbour 
 alone and turn to other matters. Meantime society had 
 greatly altered. The court was no longer the great 
 centre of attraction, being, in truth, ever since the coming 
 of the Prince of Orange, somewhat dull. 
 
 A new society sprang up, that of the county squire- TheSquire- 
 archy, gentlemen of moderate fortunes, having now leisure aro y ' 
 to live at home on their estates, to preserve their game 
 and hunt their foxes, and increase their fortunes by 
 careful tillage of their lands. Their wives were the 
 county ladies, gently born and well brought up, priding 
 themselves upon being notable housewives, conscientious 
 mothers to their children and mistresses to their servants. 
 They were seldom highly educated ; the old Tudor idea 
 of classical studies for gentlewomen had given place to a 
 
 243 
 
244 "TTo point a dDoral ano Boom a XCale." 
 
 vague dread of being "blue" — a learned lady. "Madam 
 at the Hall" took a pride in being well-read in her 
 cookery-book; beyond that she had her Bible, "Foxe's 
 Book of Martyrs," perhaps " Plutarch's Lives." 
 
 Novels would not be in great request in these demure 
 households. The Squire was not given to reading ; Madam 
 had no time, and would probably carefully guard her 
 daughters' minds from contact with such literature as the 
 novel of the day too frequently was ; now and then, as in 
 one old country-bouse known to the present writer, where 
 the collection of old stories and plays was of value, 
 making a bonfire of the whole, lest the young ladies 
 should open a volume. 
 'Zeluoo." It is curious to find Miss Edgeworth, in her "Good 
 Governess," representing the well - brought up young ' 
 ladies as reading " Zeluco," Dr. Moore's novel being, in 
 fact, the history of the gallantries and adventures of a 
 profligate Italian gentleman. Certainly Zeluco's conduct 
 is invariably represented as odious, but the reader has 
 to walk through sufficiently miry ways to reach the 
 moral. 
 
 At this time provincial towns and English mineral 
 springs were becoming social centres. Here the wife 
 of the local magnate reigned supreme and aired the 
 fashions brought from town, while the minor squiresses 
 vied with each other in training up daughters who should 
 shine at the fashionable gatherings and make early and 
 satisfactory marriages, so that the position of the family 
 should tend to rise and not to fall. 
 
 This country life was simple and natural and a little 
 prim. On the Continent the reign of simplicity, sensi- 
 bility, and book-muslin had begun since morality and 
 the cultus of Nature had been preached by Jean Jacques 
 Rousseau and his friends. In France, Madame de 
 Maintenon had made propriety fashionable, and Madame 
 
" Zo point a /l&oral ano Hborn a 'Sale." 245 
 
 de Genlis was a ruling spirit. The world was to be ruled 
 by modes of thought, of which the " Moral Tale " was the 
 outcome with which we are principally concerned. 
 
 Looking back upon these modes of thought, we are 
 amazed at the falseness of taste and artificiality with 
 which they were pervaded. Altogether it was a phase 
 of which we can clearly trace the beginning, and of 
 which we seem now to have seen the end. 
 
 The Tudor lady wore a gown of handsome solid silk 
 or velvet. She rode a hunting or a hawking with her 
 brother and husband, or sat at home and worked delicate 
 and artistic designs with her needle, such as have come 
 down to us as the work of Mary Queen of Scots and 
 others. Were a knight sick or wounded, she could tend 
 him; had she leisure for culture, she would read the 
 works of great men. 
 
 But the young lady of the close of the eighteenth The Girl 
 century was a slim, muslin-clad, sandal-shod creature, Period, 
 who, if she rode, must have a man to cling to ; whose 
 diet was limited in childhood by parental decree, in youth 
 by fashion ; who at any painful or alarming sight would 
 show her feminine sensibility by promptly fainting ; whose 
 exercise was promenading in such weather as would allow 
 her scantily-clad frame to be out of doors, and whose 
 culture was that which is represented by " The Use of 
 the Globes," the painting of circular bouquets of garden- 
 flowers symmetrically arranged and tied with an elabo- 
 rately-waved blue ribbon, and by " fancy works " in 
 beads, shells, or gaudy wools. We quote the following 
 from an old magazine x of the early years of the present 
 century as a characteristic specimen of the reigning idea 
 of culture for girls : — 
 
 "It is impossible to congratulate our fair country- 
 women too warmly on the revolution which has of late 
 
 1 Ackermann's Repository. 
 
246 "Zo point a flDoral ano Hoorn a Zalc," 
 
 years taken place, when drawing and fancy-work of end- 
 less variety have been raised on the ruins of that heavy, 
 unhealthy, and stultifying occupation, needlework. . . . 
 Let us also for a moment reflect on the good consequences 
 which a fondness for fancy-works is calculated to produce 
 in future. Ladies who have once engaged in this inno- 
 cent and amusing occupation, which daily affords such 
 abundant scope for new inventions, will never relinquish 
 it. From ornamental subjects they are led imperceptibly 
 to the making of useful articles, so that it is no uncommon 
 thing to enter a drawing, breakfast, or dining room where 
 the fire-screens, card-racks, chimney ornaments, boxes, 
 picture-frames, and a variety of other objects of utility 
 or embellishment are made, painted, and decorated by 
 the ingenious mistress of the house or her daughters." 
 And these remarks are a preface to instructions for the 
 decorating with gaudy green and gold paper of cardboard 
 boxes ! 
 
 As one more instance of how young people's taste was 
 being guided, we select the following from a little book 
 entitled "Jack of All Trades," 1 with descriptions and 
 engravings of various crafts : — 
 
 " When the Roman Empire became a prey to the Goths 
 and other barbarians, architecture was lost, and in its 
 place was substituted a fanciful, disproportioned mode of 
 building, called Gothic. In this style is Westminster 
 Abbey, and many other structures in England a,nd 
 throughout Europe, all which display a confused and 
 irregular mass, loaded with mean and trifling ornaments, 
 whereas those built by Sir Christopher Wren, after the 
 ancient taste, are reckoned masterpieces of beauty, sim- 
 plicity, and grandeur." 
 
 We of the present generation have travelled in spirit 
 so far away from the moral literature which was admired 
 
 1 Darton & Harvey, 1814. 
 
*'XEo point a rtBoral anb Hoorn a Uale." 247 
 
 by our forbears a century ago, and half a century later 
 was still produced, though much modified in tone, that 
 we are disposed to wonder whether the sense of the 
 ridiculous is a purely modern development. The heavy 
 didactics which to this past generation were worthy of 
 reverence appear to us to topple over into that abyss of 
 the ridiculous which lies at the edge of the sublime. 
 
 " Le sublime tient toujours au ridicule ; apres les 
 larmes on finit par se moucher." Our grandparents wept 
 and (we hope) profited ; we can but sniff as we glance at 
 the touching account, for instance, of the excellent Sir 
 William Worthy, who, pointing out village children 
 making mud-pies, describes them to his edified family as 
 " innocent nurslings of our fields, whose hands are to be 
 one day employed in fructifying that soil." * 
 
 Were our grandparents, we wonder, impervious to all 
 sense of the ridiculous, and is this a purely modern 
 development ? We wonder as we contemplate E for 
 Eepentance in an Alphabet of Virtues, wherein a mauve 
 papa stands with eyes uplifted, and one hand on the 
 head of a royal-blue culprit kneeling beside a table with 
 scarlet cover, gold-fringed. 2 
 
 Hitherto religion had been the first element in the 
 education of a child. But the reaction from Puritanism 
 was decided ; and yet the pendulum had not far to swing, 
 for Popery just at present embodied all in politics, reli- 
 gion, and morals that the Englishman most hated. 
 
 There is no enthusiasm about a via media. To cant 
 and to be priest-ridden were Scylla and Charybdis ; be- 
 tween them the Englishman endeavoured to steer in the 
 calm waters of a highly-respectable morality. 
 
 The child's lesson was now not "Be good, and you 
 will go to heaven," nor yet " Be good, or else you will go 
 
 1 Adventures and Conversations of a Morning. Onesiphorus Frankly. 
 
 2 By Mrs. Leathley. Darton & Clark. 
 
248 "Zo point a /iBoral ano Hoorn a Uale." 
 
 to hell " (there was, in the Puritan time, no graceful and 
 merciful euphemism). The most trivial incident may 
 point its trivial moral, and help to guide youth in the 
 paths of Virtue (capital V). Does the untidy boy forget 
 to tie his shoe ? Straightway he will fall downstairs, and 
 papa, before proceeding to call in nurse or doctor, will 
 administer the appropriate lecture. " See, my child, the 
 consequence of a bad habit," &c. The children are always 
 represented as perfectly free agents, choosing the evil or 
 the good, and being rewardpd or punished in consequence, 
 papa and mamma administering praise and reward, or 
 reproof and correction, but the child's own happiness or 
 misery being entirely its own affair. Thus, for instance, 
 it was no fault of mamma's if " little Jack " 
 
 " ran to play 
 Too far from home a long, long way, 
 And did not ask mamma." , 
 
 Nemesis promptly and properly overtakes Jack — 
 
 "So he was lost, and now must creep 
 Up chimneys, crying Sweep, Sweep, Sweep." 1 
 
 That was the ruling idea for children's books, that 
 whatever might be told them, from the most trivial 
 incident of daily life to the wildest flight of imagination, 
 should always be made to work up to a moral. The 
 modern reader will, moreover, often be troubled with 
 grave doubts of the suitability, or at least of the whole- 
 someness, of the moral ideas inculcated. To quote Leigh 
 Hunt's admirable criticism, "The good little boy, the 
 hero of the infant literature of those days, stood, it must 
 be acknowledged, the chance of being a very selfish 
 man. His virtue consisted in being different from some 
 other little boy, perhaps his brother, and his reward was 
 
 1 The Daisy. Cautionary Stories in Verse. 
 
"Uo point a flDoral ano Hoom a Uale." 249 
 
 having a. fine coach to ride in and being a King Pepin. 
 Nowadays, since the world has had a great moral earth- 
 quake that set it thinking, the little boy promises to be 
 much more of a man, thinks for others as well as works 
 for himself, and looks for his reward to a character for 
 good sense and beneficence. In no respect is the pro- 
 gress of the age more visible, or more importantly so, 
 than in this apparently trifling matter. One of the 
 most pernicious mistakes of the old children's books was 
 the inculcation of a spirit of revenge and cruelty in the 
 tragic examples which were intended to deter their 
 readers from idleness and disobedience. One, if he did 
 not behave himself, was to be shipwrecked and eaten by 
 lions ; another to become a criminal, who was not to be 
 taught better, but rendered a mere wicked contrast to 
 the luckier virtue, and above all, none to be poor but 
 the vicious, and none to ride in their coaches but little 
 Sir Charles Grandisons and all-perfect Sheriffs. We 
 need not say how contrary this was to the real spirit of 
 Christianity, which at the same time they so much 
 insisted on. The perplexity in after-life, when reading 
 of poor philosophers and rich vicious men, was in pro- 
 portion — or rather, virtue and mere worldly success be- 
 came confounded." 
 
 Whereas, in the newer teachings of his own day, the 
 critic perceived that good conduct was still represented 
 as desirable and profitable, but that a larger spirit of 
 charity had begun to rule. Men, in short, are not taught 
 to love and labour for themselves alone, or for their little 
 dark corners of egotism, but to take the world along with 
 them into a brighter sky of improvement, and to discern 
 the want of success in success itself, if not accompanied 
 by a liberal knowledge. 
 
 The moral then was the keynote, but the merit of the 
 works produced varies immensely. In looking over a 
 
2So "XTo point a fl&oral ano Hoorn a TTale." 
 
 batch of them, we find some in which a writer of real 
 talent has clothed the dry bones of morality with living 
 Arabella flesh and blood. Such an one was Arabella Argus, whose 
 rgus- works seem to deserve a better fate than entire oblivion. 
 Her "Juvenile Spectator," of which the second edition 
 appeared in 1 8 1 3, is really a very clever composition. 
 The characters of children, as sketched in their own 
 letters, or in Mrs. Argus's accounts of scenes and in- 
 cidents, are admirably drawn, and the book in itself is 
 very amusing. " The Adventures of a Donkey," by the 
 same author, was undoubtedly popular in its own day, 
 reaching a tenth edition in 1829, and being continued in 
 a sequel. 
 
 In the same category an anonymous story called " A 
 Puzzle for a Curious Girl" deserves to be placed. The 
 chain of results which spring from a child's idea that 
 her mother is keeping a secret from her, her guesses at 
 the mystery, and statements to other people, are followed 
 with most genuine cleverness, ending in the completion 
 and circulation of a perfectly probable, but very un- 
 pleasant and wholly untrue story among the gossips of 
 the neighbourhood. 
 Mme. de It is sufficiently curious to reflect that much or most 
 1746-1831. of the impetus given to the idea of the moral tale was 
 given by a person at whose "goings-on" the British 
 matron of the period would, had she known much about 
 them, have lifted up hands and eyes in horror. The 
 Adele et Theodore, VeilUes du Chdteau, and other of 
 the ninety volumes of Mme. de Genlis, did much to set 
 the fashion. Governess to the children of the Duke of 
 Orleans, Philippe Egalite\ yet carrying on a very doubtful 
 connection with their father, flirting also with Eepublican 
 and Kevolutionary ideas, Mme. de Genlis in her old age 
 dwelt in a miserable suite in Paris, poor and " blown 
 upon," but tres divote and desperately prudish, described 
 
"Zo point a flboval ant> Hoorn a "Gale." 251 
 
 to the life in a spiteful epigram — "La vertu n'en veut 
 pas, le vice n'en veut plus." 1 
 
 In speaking of moral stories, the name of Mrs. Sher- Religion v. 
 wood will perhaps occur first to the mind. The class of oraxty - 
 books, however, which we are endeavouring to distinguish 
 is quite distinct from that of the religious writers who 
 merely adopted something of the fashionable form, but 
 with whom religion was the ruling principle. To this 
 latter class belong Dr. Watts, Mrs. Trimmer, and the 
 Taylor family also. 
 
 "What the true moral tale could become in able hands 
 is best shown in Miss Edgeworth's works, where the 
 moral themes were supplied by her father and by Thomas 
 Day, the admired friend, and the stories written especially 
 to illustrate them. The author's "Castle Eackrent" 
 makes us feel, by its wonderful brilliancy, that her stories 
 might have been even better without the moral ballast — 
 but it seems ungracious to complain. 
 
 But, on the other hand, how heavy such literature a Typical 
 could be is abundantly shown by many examples. Such Book ' 
 is " Parental Solicitude," published in Dublin by J. 
 Eyshaw, without date, but belonging apparently to the 
 period shortly before the French Revolution, when sim- 
 plicity, country retirement, and the worship of Nature 
 were most fashionable. A copy in the possession of the 
 present writer is bound in tree calf, showing the value 
 attached to it by the former owner. 
 
 Palemon and Lavinia, " at an age which the gay and 
 thoughtless generally dedicate to dissipation,'' retire to 
 the more rational pleasure of training their little family 
 to Virtue and Happiness. " Let us retire, Lavinia," says 
 the husband, "from art and dissimulation to where Nature 
 in some degree speaks the language of the heart, to our 
 country residence." 
 
 1 See the Life of Maria Edgeworth for an interesting description. 
 
25 2 "TTo point a /Ifooral ano Hoorn a ftale." 
 
 Here also Palemon takes pains to be kind to his 
 servants, and teaches them " to support their humble lot 
 with resignation." But he does not like his children to 
 associate with them ; their society being " unfriendly to 
 that period of innocence," they might learn not only 
 "vulgar improprieties of expression," but also "low art- 
 ful cunning, contracted notions, selfish illiberal sentiments, 
 and melancholy prejudices that embitter life." 
 
 In converse with their children, Palemon and Lavi- 
 nia "placed the virtues, not the foibles, of friends in a 
 conspicuous light," and read passages from history or 
 biography, judiciously selected, or the " elegant moral . 
 essays of amiable writers who have made the perfection 
 of our nature their aim." They also " peruse with taste 
 the volume of Nature, wherein the thorn, the rill, the 
 mountain, the lake suggest some moral analogy," which 
 they at once "apply with happy success." They were 
 "far from indulging their children in an unrestrained 
 perusal of our English poets," because " the harmony of 
 numbers, whose glory it should be to charm the heart to 
 Virtue, has too often given a dangerous softness to the 
 language of Vice." 
 
 At every turn, in the life of this admirable family, 
 there is an opportunity for the utterance of correct 
 sentiments. Leander is "naturally arch and giddy;" 
 he puts a caterpillar on his sister's neck. "Sir," said 
 his mother, with a seriousness that at once abashed 
 him, " if your design was to terrify your sister, your con- 
 duct is inexcusable. Or if you should pretend that it 
 was to remove any foolish prejudice that she might have 
 conceived against this harmless insect, such boisterous 
 rudeness is the most improper method." And when 
 they see a duck oiling its feathers, the family reflect thus : 
 " The activity of Virtue will sometimes engage you in 
 scenes that will ruffle and discompose a temper unpre- 
 
"Go fioint a /literal anb Hfcom a Zalc" 253 
 
 pared for the encounter. Eetire therefore occasionally 
 to repair the injury you have received, and give your 
 mind the smooth polish of a sweet and gentle temper." 
 
 It must be owned that these young people turn out 
 remarkably well. Euphrasia goes to the theatre that she 
 may indulge the sweet impulses of Nature in paying a 
 gen'rous tear to suffering Virtue; Sophia plants wood- 
 bines round her favourite thorn-tree. " You may be 
 surprised. Madam," said this amiable girl to her mother, 
 " at my attachment to this insensible tree ; but whenever 
 I sit under its shade I experience the most delightful 
 sensations, those that warm a grateful heart," &c. 
 
 We have dwelt at some length on this book as a 
 specimen of what the " Moral Tale " became when the 
 narrative was so loaded with suitable reflections as almost 
 to be lost. 
 
 The name of " Sandford and Merton " naturally occurs Thomas 
 at once to our minds when we think of a moral tale. The i 7 4^'_i 7 3 9 . 
 author, Thomas Day, is an interesting figure in the latter 
 part of the eighteenth century. The centre of a quaint, 
 prim little literary coterie at Lichfield, such a coterie as 
 used to gather now and then in provincial towns, Day was 
 the admired friend of Bichard Lovell Edgeworth, and had 
 much to do, by his personal influence, with the forma- 
 tion of Maria Edgeworth's mind. Day was an ardent 
 Eousseauist. Devoted to those ideas which have been 
 aptly described as a cross between those of the Eed 
 Indian and those of the Spartan, he determined to take 
 to wife a young lady who should have been trained on 
 the new lines, the old being utterly to be abhorred. So 
 he chose an orphan of twelve from an asylum at Shrews- 
 bury, and named her Sabrina Sidney, after Sir Philip 
 Sidney and the river Severn, a mixture of courtly culture 
 and lovely nature. Erom the Eoundling Hospital he 
 chose a second girl, and named her Lucretia. He gave 
 
254 "Zo point a /l&oral ano Hoorn a Uale." 
 
 a written pledge at the end of a year to apprentice one of 
 these girls with .£100, and to give either of them ^"500 
 if she married or set up in business. Day then set off with 
 his two candidates to live quietly in France and study 
 their characters. But the experiment was fraught with 
 trouble ; first the girls quarrelled, then they took small- 
 pox and he had to nurse them ; finally Lucretia was 
 apprenticed to a milliner on Ludgate Hill, and eventually 
 married a respectable linen-draper. The experiment was 
 continued with Sabrina, but very unsuccessfully. Her 
 mind remained sadly undisciplined ; if Day dropped hot 
 sealing-wax on her arms, she started ; if he fired a pistol 
 at a floating skirt of her gown, she screamed. When told 
 imaginary secrets, she could not keep them ; and finally, 
 she dressed in thin sleeves, studying ornament instead of 
 warmth. So she was sent off to a boarding-school, and 
 ultimately married a barrister. Day himself married a 
 Miss Milnes, whose opinions were his own. He was 
 eventually killed by a kick from a young horse, which he 
 was trying to train on new and improved principles. 
 
 Such was the author ; his work depended for its popu- 
 larity upon the popularity of certain ideas and modes 
 of thought, from which our age is continually travelling 
 farther and farther away, and not upon the thoughts 
 and emotions that build up human character. The first 
 volume of " Sandford and Merton" appeared in 1783, 
 the second and third at intervals of three years. The 
 author's preface is very apologetic ; he is not sure that 
 it would not be best to commit his work to the flames, 
 for fear of innumerable pleasantries and sneers. But its 
 success at the time was undoubted. Berquin, the author 
 of the well-known Ami des Enfans, translated it into 
 French. 
 
 The real talent of the author is perhaps more evident 
 in his " Little Jack," the story of a stray child suckled 
 
"fto point a flfcoral ano aoorit a TTale." 25s 
 
 by a goat and adopted by a poor old man. This was 
 written for a volume called the " Children's Miscellany," 
 1788, which was very popular in its day, and appears 
 also in " The Child's Own Book " and other collections. 
 "Little Jack" was afterwards (1800) published sepa- 
 rately, " for those who cannot afford an expensive book," 
 as a duodecimo of 1 1 3 pages, with twenty-two Bewick 
 cuts. Day also wrote for a volume of moral tales a 
 little story, " The Grateful Turk." 
 
 Another writer who bowed his pen to the children's Thomas 
 service about this time was a considerable celebrity in eroiva " 
 his own day. This was Dr. Percival of Manchester, 
 described at fuller length on his own title-page as 
 Thomas Percival, M.D., F.R.S. and S.A., Member of the 
 Medical Societies of London and Edinburgh, and of the 
 Royal Society of Physicians of Paris. The worthy 
 doctor was also famed as a philosopher in regular corre- 
 spondence with Voltaire, Diderot, and other eminent 
 thinkers. His " Father's Instructions " went through 
 very many editions. Three objects of instruction, the 
 preface to this work tells us, have been principally kept 
 in view. The first and leading one is to refine the 
 feelings of the heart, and to inspire the mind with the 
 love of moral excellence, to which nothing can operate 
 more forcibly than striking pictures of the beauty of 
 virtue and the deformity of the vice, which at once con- 
 vince the judgment and leave a lasting impression on the 
 imagination. 
 
 The heroes of the little stories which chiefly compose 
 the volume bear such titles as Sophronius and Sacharissa. 
 One typical tale is entitled, " Habits of Sensuality may 
 be formed in Early Youth," and relates that Florio and 
 Alonzo were school-fellows at Eton, and spent their too 
 ample supplies of money on cakes, tarts, and sweets, 
 becoming shortly the greatest -dunces in the school. 
 
256 "Go point a /IBoral anb Hootm a XTale." 
 
 FJorio, whose powers of digestion were feebler than 
 those of bis friend, became pale and emaciated as he 
 grew in stature. He became so dainty as often to 
 starve in the midst of plenty for want of sufficient 
 piquancy in the sauces. His fortune was soon expended 
 in the gratification of his palate, and he has been known 
 to spend a guinea he had begged on a single ortolan, 
 and a larger sum of money entrusted to him for a 
 distressed friend's benefit on unseasonable green peas. 
 Whereas Alonzo became huge and bloated, and died of 
 apoplexy at the age of thirty. Other stories of sen- 
 suality in all nations follow, some sufficiently disgusting. 
 
 About the same time there began to appear the 
 earliest of those little books which endeavoured to give 
 information in a form pleasant to children on all manner 
 of subjects, History, Astronomy, Science, Natural History, 
 Botany, Manufactures. Sometimes the learned tutor takes 
 his pupils for a walk and discourses on all they see ; or 
 else Harry, thirsting for knowledge, extracts it by ques- 
 tions from a remarkably accurate and omniscient mamma. 
 Of these we shall have more to say presently. Of the 
 authors' opinion of the object to be obtained by their 
 efforts, an extract from the preface to Priscilla Wake- 
 field's " Introduction to the Natural History and Classifi- 
 cation of Insects " will give some idea : — 
 
 " Amongst the beneficial improvements of modern 
 times, few deserve higher estimation than the increased 
 attention to the education of children of all ranks, which 
 is greatly facilitated by the number of judicious books 
 that have been written for their instruction and amuse- 
 ment. Nonsense has given way to reason, and useful 
 knowledge under an agreeable form has usurped the 
 place of the histories of Tom Thumb and Woglo" the 
 Giant." 
 
 The literary era we are considering may be considered 
 
"TTo point a /iBoral ano Hoorn a Uale." 257 
 
 to have begun about 1750, when John Newbery began The Epoch. 
 to issue his once-famous books for children. Its close 
 cannot so exactly be dated. As our own century advanced, 
 the desire to point a moral or impart useful information 
 grew less ardent, and the idea of a child's book began to 
 to be that it should give real and wholesome pleasure. 
 The Waverley Novels taught our nation that fiction may 
 be pure and yet interesting, and that historical and other 
 learning may better be imparted by the skilful setting of 
 a good story than by a feeble narrative continually broken 
 • by exhortation or discussion. 
 
 The Tractarian movement also speedily made its effect New 
 felt upon the literature of children. The old Calvinistic oVchM 
 terrorism, the " fear of the Lord and of the broomstick," Life - 
 had passed away, and gave place to a different view of 
 the child and child-life. The child was no longer the 
 miserable little sinner, wandering in a world of snares 
 and pitfalls till rescued by the clear and unmistakable 
 awakening of conversion, and placed among the Elect, 
 if haply so predestinated. Henceforth he is to be recog- 
 nised, as the child of Christian parents, and the clear 
 water of the font, falling upon a brow as yet stainless, 
 ratines the eternal promise "to you and to your chil- 
 dren." Keble's Lyra Innocentium strikes the keynote of 
 the new song, which Mrs. Alexander's beautiful " Hymns 
 for Little Children " put into the child's own mouth. 
 
 And the breezy teachings of the Kingsley school, full 
 of a cheerful and Nature-loving optimism, tended to lead 
 the prevailing taste in the direction of, the simple and 
 natural. The bird, the flower, the shell might be exa- 
 mined and admired, and might teach their own lessons, 
 without the appendage of " suitable reflections ; " or the 
 poetical side of Nature might be set forth, and be trusted 
 to convey its own teaching, as in such a book as Mrs. 
 Gatty's exquisite "Parables from Nature," or the world 
 
 K 
 
258 "Zo point a fl&oral ano Boom a Uale." 
 
 made into fairyland, as in the " Water Babies." These 
 have been the palmy days of the fairy tale in England, 
 during which it has been considered a legitimate object iu 
 literature to seek to keep children amused and pleasantly 
 occupied. At present, the booksellers find the demand 
 for fairy books much diminished ; the fashionable realism 
 of our fiction has extended to the children's books, and 
 to represent children as they are has become the object 
 of the great body of the authors who write for them, 
 encouraged by the success of a number of such writers 
 as Mrs. Ewing, and perhaps also of a class which we can- 
 not think healthy — the American " Wide Wide World " 
 school. But we are anticipating, and must return to 
 the new departure in children's literature, beginning with 
 Dr. Watts, who may be considered as a sort of herald or 
 forerunner of the host of religiously didactic writers. 
 Dr. Watts, Isaac Watts was the eldest of the nine children of a 
 1674-17481 schoolmaster at Southampton. His father was a very 
 decided Nonconformist, and lived in evil days for Dis- 
 senters. He was imprisoned during the babyhood of 
 this son, and his wife often sat for hours during this 
 time on a stone at the prison gate with her child in her 
 arms. So the child's first associations were with persecu- 
 tion and the faith that endured it, and we are not 
 surprised to learn that " when a child he began to act 
 the part of maturer years. . . . The hours devoted by 
 other children to play, he employed in reading or in 
 composing little poems to gratify the fond expectations 
 of his mother." The poems he wrote at seven or eight 
 years old would, according to his biographer, " have done 
 honour to a far more advanced age." 
 
 After distinguishing himself at school, Isaac Watts 
 became tutor to the son of Sir John Hortopp, and 
 during the two years thus spent composed his manuals 
 of logic, astronomy, and geography. He received, how- 
 
TLo lpoint a flDoral and Hborn a "Cale." 259 
 
 ever, a " call " to the ministry in London, and did not 
 feel justified in refusing it, but devoted the remainder 
 of his life to energetic pastoral work, preaching sermons 
 which were published in great numbers, and visiting 
 from house to house, often in spite of very weak health. 
 His father does not seem to have shared the mother's 
 pleasure in the boy's early effusions. It is said, indeed, 
 that on one occasion he resorted to castigation to impress 
 his commands to refrain from producing verse on his 
 son's memory. Whereupon the culprit gasped out an 
 unfortunately-framed entreaty — 
 
 " Oh father, do some pity take, 
 And I will no more verses make ! " 
 
 The hymns sung at the Dissenting meetings at South- 
 ampton displeased the boy's taste extremely, being indeed 
 most probably terrible doggrel. Arrived at years of dis- 
 cretion, he ventured to complain of them to his father, 
 who was displeased with the impertinent criticism, and 
 told his son to write better ones if he could. 
 
 Isaac felt he could, and accordingly did ; and it is to 
 the credit of the Independents that his "Hymns" 
 (1707) and his "Psalms" (1719) were cordially wel- 
 comed, and promptly passed through numerous editions. 
 In later republication, many of them were severely 
 " edited," a fate of which hymn-writers have certainly 
 had good reason to complain. Dr. Watts never married ; 
 great part of his life was passed under the roof of his 
 sincere friend, Sir Thomas Abney. Nevertheless he 
 seems to have been the first person, with the one excep- 
 tion of Edmund Coote, alone in his generation, to whom 
 it occurred to frame children's lessons in the language 
 which children use.. For them he wrote a Catechism, 
 which resembles nothing in their hitherto-published, 
 books except Colet's " Catechizon." Dr. Watts, however, 
 
2 6o "Zo point a Moral ano Boom a Uale." 
 
 addresses himself to younger children, those whom we 
 formerly hear of as the troublesome little abecedarians of 
 the older educationists, and the precocious little professors 
 of the Puritan story-books. These babes are now to 
 be fed with food convenient for them, and Dr. Watts 
 endeavours to put the simplest and yet greatest truths 
 of Christianity into a form which they can grasp. The 
 Fatherhood of God and the loving gratitude of the child 
 are the first thoughts in this little work, which must 
 have been enlargement and deliverance indeed to a 
 generation of children whose religious books had handled 
 such doctrines as predestination and justification in lan- 
 guage far above their comprehension. Dr. Watts com- 
 posed a variety of such simple works, all of which were 
 heartily appreciated. 
 
 Thus begins his " Young Child's Catechism " : — 
 Q. Can you tell me, child, who made you ? 
 A. The great God, who made heaven and earth. 
 Q. What doth God do for you ? 
 
 A. He keeps me from harm by night and by day, and 
 is always doing me good. 
 
 Q. And what must you do for this great God, who is 
 so good to you ? 
 
 A. I must learn to know Him first, and then I must 
 do everything to please Him. 
 
 The prayers are equally adapted in thought and ex- 
 pression to the mind of a child. 
 
 It is the fashion of our day to smile at Dr. Watts, but 
 since his verses have, been banished from most nurseries, 
 few perhaps of those who smile have read the despised 
 compositions. 1 
 
 1 It is much to be desired, said M. Rollin in his BeUes Lettres, that 
 there were a number of prints made especially for the instruction and 
 amusement of children, and that they had likewise books containing, 
 words, phrases, and little histories, adapted to their comprehension, 
 printed in large characters. 
 
"Zo point a flfooral ano Hborn a Uale." 261 
 
 Much of the merriment, in fact, gathers round a 
 grammatical error which the good Doctor never really 
 made. He did not write — 
 
 " Let dogs delight to bark and bite, 
 For God hath, made them so ; 
 Let bears and lions growl and fight, ! 
 For 'tis their nature to." 
 
 The line really stands — 
 
 "'Tis their nature, too." 
 
 An amusing story is told of a social gathering of some 
 thirty people, who, all but one, wagered a new hat that 
 the time-honoured verse read thus — 
 
 " Let dogs delight to bark and bite,' 
 For 'tis their nature to." 
 
 so deeply fixed in mind was the popular mistake. 
 
 Dr. Watts' verse was at all events a great deliverance 
 to the children, brought up on the atrocious doggrel of 
 the Janeway school. They could understand both the 
 ideas and the words in which these were clothed, and 
 the rhythm and rhyme were such as to lodge the verse 
 readily in a child's memory. 
 
 We purposely select for quotation a piece of one of 
 the more difficult " Divine Songs,'' in which the idea of 
 Pinal Eejection is treated, as a contrast to the verses of 
 James Janeway, which have been already quoted as 
 representative of his teachings : — 
 
 " If this rebellious heart of mine 
 
 Despise the gracious call of HeaVn, 
 I may be harden'd in my sin, 
 And never have repentance giv'n. 
 
 What if the Lord grow wroth and swear, 
 
 While I refuse to read and pray, 
 That He'll refuse to lend an ear 
 
 To all my groans another day ? 
 
262 u zo pofnt a /ll>oral an& H&orn a Uale." 
 
 What if His dreadful anger burn 
 
 While I refuse His offertt grace, 
 And all His love to fury turn, 
 
 And strike me dead upon the place ? 
 
 'Tis dangerous to provoke a God — 
 His power and vengeance none can tell ; 
 
 One stroke of his almighty rod 
 Shall send young sinners down to hell." 
 
 The awful theme of the verses is treated with a 
 becoming earnestness and solemnity, that will bear com- 
 parison even with Keble's poem on the same subject, 
 " The Cradle Guarded," in Lyra Innocentium. 
 
 His is also that most lovely of lullabies — 
 
 " Hush, my child, be still and slumber." 
 
 And his are many noble and sufficiently simple hymns. 
 If the verses already quoted compared favourably with 
 those of the Janeway school, surely such a one as this 
 will bear comparison with most of those which in our 
 own day are popular. 
 
 " I sing the almighty power of God, 
 That made the mountains rise, 
 That spread the flowing seas abroad, 
 And built the lofty skies. 
 
 I sing the wisdom that ordained 
 
 The sun to rule the day ; 
 The moon shines full at His command, 
 
 And all the stars obey. 
 
 I sing the goodness of the Lord 
 
 That filled the earth with food ; 
 He formed the creatures with His word, 
 
 And then pronounced them good. 
 
 There's not a plant or flower below 
 
 But makes His glories known, 
 And clouds arise and tempests blow 
 
 By order from His throne. 
 
"Uo fiofnt a /l&oral an& H&orn a ftale." 263 
 
 His hand is my perpetual guard, 
 
 He keeps me with His eye ; 
 Why should I then forget the Lord, 
 
 Who is for ever nigh ! " 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld also belonged to a Dissenting circle. Mrs. 
 She was the daughter of Dr. Aikin, and married a Dis- f^s^. 
 se'nting minister who kept a boys' school at Palgrave, 
 in Suffolk. A precocious child, able to read while still 
 not three years old, she quickly acquired French and 
 Italian, and then obtained from her father a reluctant 
 permission to study Latin and Greek. The Barbaulds 
 had no children, but ' adopted a nephew, the " Little 
 Charles" of the "Easy Lessons" (1780). 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld is perhaps best remembered now as 
 joint author with her brother of '' Evenings at Home." 
 We need hardly say more of this book here ; it is ever- 
 green in the memory of our own generation, and it is 
 perhaps not too much to say that any child of any 
 generation would equally appreciate it. Eecent reprints 
 will at least give the opportunity to the present race of 
 children. 
 
 The " Hymns in Prose " might well be more popular 
 than they are, if grown-up people could realise how 
 children appreciate noble rhythm in prose. The Book of 
 Isaiah is delightful to many children who have scarcely 
 an idea of its meaning. The usefulness of verse to chil- 
 dren is generally recognised, but should we find the 
 power of reading well aloud so rare as it is at present if 
 more attention were paid to giving young people good 
 specimens of prose from their earliest years ? 
 
 One eminent critic, however, had no good word for 
 Mrs. Barbauld or her family. "Coleridge," says De 
 Quincey, "who scattered his sneering compliments very 
 liberally up and down the world, used to call the elder 
 Dr. Aikin, allusively to Pope's well-known line — 
 
2 6 4 " "Go point a /literal an& H&orn a Uale." 
 
 'No craving void left aching in the breast,' 
 
 ' an aching void/ and the nephew, Dr. A. Aikin, by- 
 way of variety 'a void aching/ while Mrs. Barbauld 
 he designated' ' that pleonasm of nakedness/ since, " as 
 if it were not enough to be bare, she was also bald." 
 But De Quincey says, for himself, that her "Prose Hymns" 
 had left upon his childish recollection a deep impression 
 of solemn beauty and simplicity. 
 
 Her poem, "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven," not 
 written for children, contains the first suggestion of 
 Macaulay's well-known idea of the New Zealander of 
 the future standing on the crumbled arches of London 
 Bridge and philosophising on the ruins of St. Paul's. 
 
 Not a whit behind Mrs. Barbauld in his comprehension 
 of child-nature and ready sympathy with it was William 
 Jones of Nayland, that " wise and good man," as Southey 
 in his " Doctor " says. 
 
 "The Book of Nature," 1792, was a charming little 
 first book for children. Thus begins the first lesson : — 
 
 "The ass hath very long ears, and yet he hath no 
 sense of music, but brayeth with a frightful noise. He 
 is obstinate and unruly, and will go his own way, even 
 though he is severely beaten. The child who will not 
 be taught is but little better; he has no delight in 
 learning, but talketh of his own folly, and disturbeth 
 others with his noise. 
 
 " The dog barketh all the night long, and thinks it no 
 trouble to rob honest people of their rest. 
 
 " The fox is a cunning thief, and men, when they do 
 not fear God, are crafty and deceitful. 
 
 " The wolf is cruel and bloodthirsty. 
 
 " As he devoureth the lamb, so do bad men oppress and 
 tear the innocent and helpless." 
 
 The lesson ends with a simple prayer or aspiration for 
 
" Uo point a /Ifcoral ano Boom a ^ale." 265 
 
 deliverance from such evils. The second part of the 
 little volume has a rendering of the account of old age 
 in Ecclesiastes, and various Scripture stories in simplest 
 language. 
 
 A very clever and pleasant countenance looks out at Mrs. 
 us in Mrs. Trimmer's portrait. An engraving prefixed ^""IJo. 
 to her "Memoirs" (18 14) shows a woman of perhaps 
 sixty, with snow-white hair rolled back from a rather 
 plump face, which radiates kindness and peace. Though 
 the mother of a large family, Sarah Trimmer's heart had 
 sympathy to spare for all who needed it, and her life 
 was spent in efforts to help such good causes as Sunday 
 and Charity Schools, and kind deeds of all sorts, in 
 which, moreover, her children's aid was enlisted as soon 
 as they were old enough to be of use. 
 
 Mrs. Trimmer's parents early prophesied a literary career 
 for her, judging her talent by her letters. One of these, 
 written when she was between ten and eleven, is worth 
 quoting as a specimen of the sort of letters children were 
 expected to write a century ago: — > 
 
 "Dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma^ — As I now 
 think myself capable of writing a letter, I do not know 
 of any to whom I can address myself with more justness 
 and propriety than yourselves, for you are my parents 
 in a double capacity, and therefore may reasonably 
 claim my utmost duty and gratitude. By your indulgent 
 care and tenderness, under the gracious hand of Provi- 
 dence, you have blest me with the best of mothers. Let 
 me, therefore, beg a continuance of your blessings and 
 prayers, to enable me to set a right value on the privi- 
 leges I enjoy by having, a rational being, and to put in 
 practice the duties I owe to God, my neighbour, and 
 myself ; and it shall be my daily prayer to the Almighty 
 that He will make the remainder of your lives happy, 
 
2 66 " zo f»ofnt a /Ifooral anD Bborn a txale." 
 
 and receive you at last into everlasting felicity. My 
 Grandpapa and Grandmama Kirby, and all my papa's 
 family, join in suitable commendations with your most 
 obedient and dutiful grand-daughter, 
 
 " Sarah Kieby." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Kirby, the parents, went to live in 
 London, where Mr. Kirby taught perspective to the 
 Prince of Wales, and numbered such men as Johnson, 
 Gainsborough, Hogarth, Eeynolds, among his friends. A 
 dispute arising at Eeynolds' house upon a passage in 
 " Paradise Lost/' Miss Kirby produced the book from 
 her pocket at her father's desire, to the delight of Dr. 
 Johnson, who invited her to visit him next day, and 
 presented her with a copy of the " Eambler." 
 
 At the age of twenty-one she married, and became the 
 mother of six sons and six daughters. 
 
 By dint of early rising and well-planned hours, Mrs. 
 Trimmer seems to have managed to attend to her house- 
 hold duties, to teach her children till the elder ones were 
 able to assist in instructing the younger, to keep up friend- 
 ships, and pursue her literary career. On the publication 
 of Mrs. Barbauld's "Easy Lessons" in 1780, it was sug- 
 gested to Mrs. Trimmer that more of such pleasant but 
 profitable books were wanted, and that her success in 
 teaching her own children qualified her for the work. 
 Accordingly she wrote an "Easy Introduction to the 
 Knowledge of Nature," and in 1782 a volume of " Sacred 
 History, selected from the Scriptures, with Annotations 
 and Eefiections adapted to the Comprehension of Young 
 Persons." This book expanded into six volumes. Other 
 simple books of religious instruction followed : " An 
 Attempt to Familiarise the Catechism of the Church of 
 England," " An Explanation of the Baptismal and Con- 
 firmation Services," and presently " The Charity School 
 
■"Zo iPoint a fl&oral an£> Hfcorn a 'Sale." 267 
 
 Spelling - Book." Mr. Bailies' efforts in the cause of 
 Sunday-schools were now being made, and Hannah 
 More and others were establishing charity schools for 
 the almost savage children of the labouring and mining 
 classes. Some part of the time in the Sunday-schools 
 was devoted to teaching the children to read, many of 
 them being fully employed on week-days in earning 
 bread, almost from babyhood. Mrs. Trimmer compiled 
 another spelling-book, and a companion volume of easy 
 reading-lessons, as helps towards wider education. 
 
 It was natural enough that children who were so 
 uncivilised should be somewhat brutal in their treatment 
 of animals, and good Mrs. Trimmer was anxious to 
 impress upon them, and upon the little ones of higher 
 rank as well, a proper idea of the kindness due to the 
 dumb creation. Hence the delightful "Fabulous His- 
 tories," now generally known as the " History of the 
 Eobins," which has been continually reprinted, though 
 subjected to an amount of editing which seems sufficiently 
 uncalled for and impertinent to those who loved the 
 book in its old form. A recent edition has even, with a 
 view, to admitting monosyllables only, reduced our old 
 friends Dicksy, Flapsy, and Becksy to Dicks, Flaps, and 
 Becks. However, our children still read and still enjoy 
 the Eobins. Let us be content ! 
 
 The widespread kindliness of Mrs. Trimmer included 
 servants in the sphere of her labours; for them she 
 wrote " The Servant's Friend," and " The Two Farmers," 
 which also inculcated kindness to animals, and then 
 started a family magazine to supply them with whole- 
 some literature. 
 
 About 1787 Mme. de Genlis's Adele et Th&dore 
 was published in England, and Mrs. Trimmer naturally 
 was much interested by the Genlis ideas of education. 
 She presently devised a plan of having historical prints 
 
268 " zo point a flfcoral ano Scorn a Uale." 
 
 engraved and mounted to hang up in nurseries, and 
 wrote short descriptions to accompany these. Afterwards 
 small volumes were made of the prints and descriptions, 
 and the idea became popular and was imitated. " The 
 Cabinet History of England," for instance, was "com- 
 pleted in 25 numbers, price sixpence each, containing a 
 selection of 125 Pictorial Eepresentations in English 
 History." According to a notice on the cover, "This 
 elegant little work is designed to impart to youth the 
 most striking events of English History, and to excite in 
 their minds those sentiments of veneration for the foun- 
 ders and defenders of the Laws and Liberties of their 
 Country, which every British Parent must anxiously 
 desire his Offspring to inherit." The subjects are entirely 
 disconnected, and very promiscuously selected. 
 
 The S.P.C.K. placed Mrs. Trimmer's works upon its 
 list, much to her delight — various volumes of Scripture 
 instruction being added to those already mentioned, 
 besides several essays on education. One of these, the 
 " Guardian of Education," appeared periodically, being 
 intended to counteract the influence of hurtful books. 
 
 Mrs. Trimmer's death was a fit close to her peaceful 
 life. Sitting in the chair where she was used to write, 
 she bowed her head, as her children thought, in sleep, 
 and it was only after some time that they discovered 
 this rest to be the last loug sleep. 
 
 Before taking leave of Mrs. Trimmer, we may mention 
 a friend of hers, one of the rank and file of authors 
 writing for children, whose works were submitted to 
 Mrs. Trimmer's judgment in MS. on several occasions 
 before she so much as knew the name of the author. 
 Clearly the reputation of a literary lady was not consi- 
 dered very desirable ; there was something too " advanced " 
 about it, and, as we have seen, the authorship of chil- 
 dren's books was especially considered undignified. 
 
" Zo point a flBoral ano Boom a Uale." 269 
 
 So " Dorothy Kilner," x living to the age of eighty-one Dorothy 
 at Maryland Point, then a country place in Essex, but ^"W 
 now a dreary suburb of London, and writing for her 
 nephews and nieces, concealed her identity with care. 
 After a time she and Mrs. Trimmer became fast friends, 
 but the initials M. P., "Maryland Point/' or "Mary 
 Pelham," a pseudonym, or an S. S. distinguish Miss 
 Kilner's works. Among these are the "Adventures of 
 a Pincushion," " Memoirs of a Pegtop," " The Good 
 Child's Delight," " History of a Great Many Little Boys 
 and Girls," "Familiar Dialogues," "Holyday Present," 
 " Life and Perambulations of a Mouse," and " Jemima 
 Placid." All are in the same style, the little masters' and 
 misses' adventures being of a simple and everyday sort, 
 each little incident having its appropriate little moral. 
 They belong to the class of volumes covered with 
 " Dutch " paper, gold-grounded, and adorned with flowers 
 in blue, pink, and green, which are especially associated 
 with the name of John Newbery. 
 
 Of Maria Edgeworth some mention has already been Maria 
 made. Her father's friend and model, Thomas Day, had worth, 
 a horror of female authorship. Women, according to I 7 6 7-i849- 
 him and to Kousseau principles, might know their letters 
 if they pleased, but were far better unacquainted with 
 " their mischievous combinations." 
 
 Maria, however^ was the elder sister of an immense 
 family (her father had five successive wives, counting an 
 early and unacknowledged marriage). She constantly 
 told stories to her brothers and sisters, and those con- 
 tained in the " Parent's Assistant " or " Parent's Priend," 
 as she herself called the volume, were written on a slate, 
 and copied after passing the ordeal of juvenile criticism. 
 
 These stories were allowed to appear, in spite of 
 Mr. Day's objections, and Maria presently helped her 
 
 1 See Preface to Miss Yonge's "Storehouse of Stories,'' l88o, 1st Series. 
 
270 "Zo point a flfcoral ano Boom a tTale." 
 
 father in a work on " Practical Education." The father's 
 own writing was comically pompous and bombastic; his 
 daughter, however, had the most dutiful admiration for 
 his ideas. 
 
 "Youth and white paper take all impressions," was 
 the foundation of his theory. Edgeworth firmly believed 
 that any child could and would become what the educa- 
 tionist chose to make it. This view, however, became a 
 little modified when his eldest son, in spite of the most 
 carefully organised Eousseau-Spartan-Eed-Indian training, 
 turned out extremely badly. With characteristic incon- 
 sistency, Eichard Edgeworth, after energetic speeches in 
 favour of the Union, voted against it. 
 
 His daughter was set to write stories, and guided in 
 them by her father, the result being, according to one of 
 her biographers, 1 that her best work was always what he 
 had least hand in. 
 
 " Why should a child's appetite be spoiled by allowing 
 it to feed on sweetmeats ? " demanded the educationist ; 
 but the daughter's bright Irish wit had a hankering 
 after "nonsense" as "an alloy to make sense work well." 
 The consequence is, as has been aptly described, that our 
 author " walks by the side of her characters, as Mentor 
 by the side of Telemachus, keeping them out of all 
 manner of pleasant mischief, and wagging the monitory 
 head and shaking the remonstrating finger, should their 
 breath come thick at approaching adventures." 
 
 Perhaps it is well to avoid bringing too much destruc- 
 tive modern criticism to bear upon the morality held up 
 to admiration. Modern opinion is inclined to consider 
 the behaviour of Eosamond's mother about the purple 
 jar rather too bad. It was really a mean advantage to 
 take of a child. Another grown person would have check- 
 mated mamma by buying a pair of black gloves or some 
 
 1 Helen Zimmern, "Life of Maria Edgeworth," 
 
"Ho potnt a UDoral ant> H&orn a Uale." 271 
 
 such trifle in the undertaker's shop. And really the 
 excellent papa was a sad prig, to say the very least, 
 when to illustrate his moral lecture on the folly of birth- 
 day presents he pulls to pieces the basket which Eosamond 
 has with infinite pains made for a present to her cousin. 
 The critic may also discover that the account of Eton 
 Montem is inaccurate, and that Naples is the one place 
 where the story of the little merchants ought not to 
 have been laid. We may as well shut our eyes to either 
 sort of error, and take the stories as stories, and right 
 good ones too. " Harry and Lucy " was begun by Mr. 
 Edgeworth himself, with the assistance of one of his 
 wives, but finally turned over to the daughter to finish. 
 A great deal of useful information was to be imparted 
 by this work. But Miss Edgeworth is not like those 
 writers who put in their " useful information " in a way 
 that makes us think of that famous effort in cookery of 
 good King Arthur — 
 
 " A bag-pudding the king did make, 
 And stuffed it well with plums, 
 And in it put two lumps of fat 
 As big as my two thumbs." 
 
 She avoids this crudity ; her " lumps " of morality or 
 knowledge are carefully kneaded in. And how we can 
 enjoy her stories even now ! 
 
 To begin with, she has a story to tell, and she tells 
 it thoroughly well. What can be more delightful than 
 the scrapes of Angelina in Z'Amie Inconnue ? And no 
 less an authority than Sir Walter Scott says of the 
 lovely story of " Simple Susan," " When the boy brings 
 back the lamb to the little girl, there is nothing for it 
 but to put down the book and cry." 
 
 One merit must be ascribed to Eichard Edgeworth. 
 He foresaw the coming interest in natural science, and 
 " Harry and Lucy " begins to introduce instruction in thi3 
 
272 "Up point a flBoral ano Hoorn a mile." 
 
 subject. Sir Walter Scott, Maria's fast friend, however, 
 disapproved of much of the contents of this hook, declaring 
 that a carpenter or a mason would build the houses and 
 make the bridges much better at half-a-crown a day, and 
 the children had better learn grammar and work samplers, 
 and not waste wood and cut their fingers. 
 
 The "Moral Tales," containing Angelina and the other 
 less childish stories, appeared in 1801. 
 
 " Helen " was the last of Maria Edgeworth's forgotten 
 novels — forgotten probably because too heavily weighted 
 with didacticism. This book shows the influence of 
 Scott, and, for the first time, a love of scenery peeps 
 out. Perhaps, if unfettered by the paternal influence, 
 Maria Edgeworth might have been the author of really 
 good and lasting work as a novelist. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 tfrom 17^0 to aitrat 1810. 
 
 " Old story-books ! old story-books ! we owe you much, old friends, 
 Bright-coloured threads in Memory's warp, of which Death holds the ends. 
 Who can forget you ? Who can spurn the ministers of joy 
 That waited on the lisping girl and petticoated boy ? 
 Talk of your vellum, gold -embossed, morocco, roan, and calf ; 
 The blue and yellow wraps of old were prettier by half." 
 
 — E. Cook. 
 
 HE houestest man in creation," said Gold- John New- 
 smith, writing of, perhaps, the best friend bery ' 
 he had in the world. 1 But we may reason- 
 ably doubt whether his mention of this 
 friend in the " Vicar of "Wakefield " could be taken as an 
 unmixed compliment. Dr. Primrose, taken ill while on 
 his journey in pursuit of Olivia, and having insufficient 
 means to pay his prolonged stay at an alehouse, is relieved 
 by a passing traveller. " This person," he says, " was no 
 other than the philanthropic bookseller in St. Paul's 
 Churchyard, who has written so many little books for 
 children. He called himself their friend, but he was 
 the friend of all mankind. 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. I immediately recollected this good- 
 natured man's red pimpled face, for he had published 
 
 1 For a further account of Newbery, see his Life by Charles Welsh. 
 
 273 S 
 
274 jfrom 1740 to about 1810. 
 
 for me, and from him I borrowed a few pieces, to be 
 paid at my return." It was to Newbery that Johnson 
 took the MS. of " The Vicar " when Goldsmith was in 
 sore straits, and returned with money paid that moment. 
 Nevertheless, it was not till a fourth edition of this 
 immortal work had appeared that the benevolent pub- 
 lisher began to make money by his venture. To feed 
 Goldsmith with guineas in small doses, however, was the 
 only satisfactory plan, and, as a rule, Newbery followed 
 it, and thus kept poor " Goldy " in harness, while keeping 
 him from want. 
 Oliver In return, Goldsmith wrote some of the children's 
 
 j^j™ 1 ^' books which Newbery wanted. Bat his identity was 
 carefully concealed. It is not possible to say with 
 certainty which were these books. " Goody Two-Shoes " 
 is said to be amongst them, and there are certainly a 
 brightness and humour, and some touches of sly sarcasm 
 in the little story, which are very suggestive of Gold- 
 smith's Irish wit. At the same time the two clever 
 brothers, Griffith and Giles Jones, were employed on 
 many books by Newbery, and it is possible that " Goody 
 Two-Shoes," may have been by one of them. Griffith 
 Jones was a successful journalist, and for many years 
 editor of the Daily Advertiser. He also wrote a book 
 called "Great Events from Little Causes," which was 
 very successful in its day ; but he wrote anonymously, 
 and has, therefore, never become a celebrity. 
 
 Many editions of " Goody Two-Shoes " appeared. One 
 has a delightful specimen of the long narrow frontispiece 
 which had to be folded like a map to fit into its place. 
 Very often the story of Margery and the supposed ghost 
 is left out, being apparently thought undesirable for chil- 
 dren. An edition published by Fairburn has a sequel 
 relating the adventures of Margery's brother, Tommy; 
 the surprise of certain savages at his watch ; the manner 
 
jfrom 1740 to about 1810. 275 
 
 in which he found a chest of gold hidden by a philo- 
 sopher, and so forth. Newbery's third edition appeared 
 in 1766, " with cuts by Michael Angelo, from a manu- 
 script in the Vatican." But though her name is a 
 nursery proverb, the " Adventures of Goody Two-Shoes " 
 are likely, on the whole, to be nowadays less attractive 
 to children than to their elders, who may be interested 
 by the sketches of village life a century ago, and Mar- 
 gery's educational efforts with alphabet and syllabarium 
 among the little rustics of the place. 
 
 Goldsmith appears to have been the author of "A 
 Pretty Book of Pictures for Little Masters and Misses ; 
 or, Tommy Trip's History of Beasts and Birds." 1 The 
 book begins with the story of Tommy Trip, another 
 Tom Thumb, of his dog Jowler, and of the Giant Woglog, 
 whom he discomfited. It is illustrated by cuts done by 
 Bewick for T. Saint of Newcastle, " the Northern New- 
 bery." The cuts of birds were used by Wilson and 
 Spence of York in 1802 for a "History of Birds by 
 Tommy Trip," and in 18 18 some of the same blocks 
 were again used by Emerson Charnley of Newcastle in 
 a volume of "Sjlect Fables." 
 
 The " Pretty Book of Pictures " contains the delightful 
 paradoxical rhymes, " Three Children Sliding on the Ice," 
 which follows the story of the Giant Woglog ; then come 
 the cuts of animals with suitable descriptions. Now and 
 then the author allows himself a sly hit, as in the verses 
 affixed to the monkey : — 
 
 " The beau, allow'd himself to deck, 
 A perfect monkey would be, 
 But that his tail hangs from his neck, 
 The monkey's where it should be." 
 
 Some of Master Trip's natural history is tolerably in- 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. and S. K. Mus. 
 
276 3from 1740 to about 1810. 
 
 genious and funny. " The fox, when troubled with fleas, 
 takes a bit of wool in his mouth, and goes gradually 
 down into the water till only his nose is exposed. The 
 fleas jump upon .the wool, and he then lets it drop." 
 
 Goldsmith also compiled a volume of " Poems for 
 Young Ladies, comprising the best in our language." It 
 is interesting to see what were " the best " according to 
 the taste of his day. Not a line of Milton, not a song 
 from Shakespeare, or the merest scrap of Herrick or 
 Spencer, appears ; but only Dryden, Collins, Gay, Parnell, 
 Waller, Doctor Cotton, and Mr. Philips, with one selec- 
 tion from Pope, the " Universal Prayer." All are from 
 that artificial school of poets, in fact, from which 
 Wordsworth came to deliver us; to whom every girl 
 was a nymph, every wood a bosky glade, every bird a 
 feathered denizen of the grove. 
 
 " A History of England, in Letters from a Nobleman 
 to his Son/' was also compiled by Goldsmith for New- 
 bery, together with an edition of Plutarch, in 1762. 
 
 His "Tommy Trip" became a convenient peg on 
 which to hang authorship — that doubtful honour. " Giles 
 Gingerbread," one of the most popular of the little books, 
 was, at least in an edition produced at York, reputed to 
 be by Tom Trip. " Woglog ;; reappears in some "Fables 
 in Verse" sold by Darton, which, consequently, have 
 been conjectured to be Goldsmith's work. Various 
 books also appeared with such titles as " Tommy Trip's 
 Museum," and the like. 
 
 Kewbery's business was not entirely that of a book- 
 seller. The sale of patent medicines, especially of Dr. 
 James's Powder and other remedies, was probably the 
 larger part of his trade. Like the shrewd man he was, 
 he made his books advertise his medicines. Thus the 
 father of Goody Two-Shoes was "seized with a violent 
 fever in a place where Dr. James's Powder was not to be 
 
jfrom 1740 to about 1810. 277 
 
 had, and where he died miserably." In the same way he 
 introduced advertisements of his other books into the 
 narratives. " Tommy Lovebook," 1 as a baby, is always 
 pacified when one of Mr. Newbery's little books is put 
 into his hands. At eight years old, young as he was, 
 Master Tommy had collected a little library, " which 
 consisted of all the little gilt books sold at the corner of 
 St. Paul's Churchyard, from a penny value to a shilling," 
 whither one day his uncle takes Tommy and treats him 
 to "The Looking-Glass for. the Mind," "Blossoms of 
 Morality," "The Oriental Moralist," and several other 
 valuable books of that kind. 
 
 In the Eton magazine, the Microcosm, for 1786-87, 
 a facetious article appeared, written by Canning, in 
 which Newbery's merits were set forth, and parallels 
 were drawn between his heroes and those of old time, 
 John Hickathrift and Achilles, Tom Thumb and Ulysses. 
 Undoubtedly his little publications were giving an im- 
 mense amount of pleasure, and profit also. Eobert 
 Southey declared that the foundation of his love of books 
 was laid by the present from an aunt of twenty sixpenny 
 volumes, bound in flowered and gilt Dutch paper. 
 
 Newbery's advertising devices were numerous. Some- 
 times a flourish of trumpets like the following appeared 
 in one or other of the London papers : — 
 
 " This day was published ' Nurse Truelove's New 
 Year's Gift, or the Book of Books for Children,' adorned 
 with cuts, and designed as a present for every little boy 
 who would become a great man and ride upon a fine 
 horse, and to every little girl who would become a great 
 woman and ride in a Lord Mayor's gilt coach. Printed 
 for the author, who has ordered these books to be given 
 gratis to all little boys and girls at the Bible and Sun 
 
 1 "The Visits of Tommy Lovebook." 
 
278 jfrom 1740 to about 18t0. 
 
 in St. Paul's Churchyard, they paying for the binding, 
 which is only 2d. each book." 
 
 Or this, from the London Chronicle of December 1 9th— 
 January 1st, 1765: — 
 
 " The Philosophers, Necromancers, and the Learned in 
 every Faculty are desired to observe that, on the 1st 
 Jan., being New Year's Day (oh, that we all may lead 
 new lives !), Mr. Newbery intends to publish the follow- 
 ing 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 to have none." 
 
 Yet another device was to advertise a " Pretty Pocket- 
 Book" at 6d. ; but for 8d. to add a ball for a boy, or a 
 pincushion for a girl to the purchase. 
 
 And again the energetic publisher devised, "for the 
 sake of those who can't afford to lay out much money at 
 a time," some little volumes, about 3! x 2§ of an inch, 
 which were called snuffbox or waistcoat-pocket volumes, 
 the pockets being large enough then to contain them. 
 This idea was afterwards taken up by Darton & Harvey, 
 and later in America. 
 
 The number of bright little story-books published by 
 Newbery was very considerable. He had also, however, 
 some plans for the improvement of his young friends also. 
 One of these was a " Child's Grammar," and he offered 
 the work to one Peter Annet for ten guineas. Annet 
 accepted, on condition that his name should be attached 
 to the book, which, as he had twice been pilloried for 
 attacks on the Bible, Newbery was quite determined 
 should not be the case, and accordingly the bargain 
 went off. 
 
 Newbery, however, carried out the idea on a much 
 larger scale, and published a " Circle of the Sciences, or 
 Compendious Library." By way of establishing a sort 
 
jfrom 1740 to about 1810. 279 
 
 of copyright, in the only way then available, he obtained "Circle 
 letters patent from the King, after the manner of the sciences." 
 old writers of A B G books. " Whereas," say the letters, 
 "our trusty and well-beloved John Newlery, of London, 
 Bookseller, hath represented unto us that he hath been 
 at very great Expense and much Labour in compiling a 
 work entitled ' The Circle of the Sciences ; or, The Com- 
 pendious Library,' Digested in a method entirely new, 
 whereby each branch of polite Literature is render d ex- 
 tremely easy and instructive," it was only fair to allow 
 no one else to publish the whole or parts of John New- 
 bery's undertaking for, at any rate, the next fourteen 
 years — a modest term enough, as we should consider. 
 
 The commencement of this publication dates from 
 about 1755. It included, manuals on all sorts of sub- 
 jects, from a spelling-dictionary to a polite letter-writer. 
 
 With Newbery was associated the Salisbury printer, 
 Collins, who has been already mentioned as originator of 
 the " Battledore," and many little plans were the result 
 of consultations between the two. 
 
 Newbery was succeeded by Carnan, between whom 
 and Francis Newbery, John's nephew, there was con- 
 siderable rivalry, Francis having set up in business on 
 his own account. 
 
 Among writers of the early flight of moral stories the Mary pn- 
 name .of Mrs. Pilkington 1 is conspicuous. Hers are kin s ton - 
 " The Mirror for the Female Sex," chapters on Fortitude, 
 Gratitude, and the like, with various historical examples, 
 illustrated by Thomas Bewick ; also " The Asiatic Prin- 
 cess,'' written for Princess Charlotte of Wales, 1 8 1 o, 
 "Biography for Boys," 1808, "Biography for Girls," 
 1809; "Mentorial Tales for Young Ladies," "Marmon- 
 tel's Moral Tales," selected and abridged (it must be 
 
 1 Many of Mrs. Pilkington's works are in the British and South Ken- 
 sington Museums. 
 
De Beau- 
 mont. 
 
 2S0 from 1740 to about 1810. 
 
 confessed that the work, as a whole, would hardly come 
 up to the severe English notions of desirable literature 
 for young people), "Original Poems," 1811, "Tales of 
 the Cottage," and " Tales of the Hermitage." These last 
 were in imitation of the VeilUes du Chdteau of Madame 
 De Genlis. 
 Madame The mention of these French stories reminds us of 
 
 two delightful French books, which we cannot find to 
 have been translated into English, although the second is 
 addressed to a circle of English girls, Lady Mary, Miss 
 Zina, and others. These are the Magasin des Unfans and 
 Magasin des Adolescentes of Madame Le Prince de Beau- 
 mont, consisting of discussions interspersed with stories, 
 in which the usual tendency to twaddle is relieved by 
 a delightful French verve, which makes the books won- 
 derfully fascinating, and the characters of the young 
 ladies, who are very candid and by no means in bondage 
 to " correct sentiments," are admirably touched off. 
 
 To return to Mrs. Pilkington. To her also Newbery 
 was a friend in need. Losing first her parents and then 
 her fortune, at fifteen she found herself forlorn, and 
 married a man who attempted to set up as a doctor at 
 Ely with a knowledge only of surgery, not of medicine. 
 Failing completely, Mr. Pilkington became a navy sur- 
 geon, on pay barely sufficient for one, and his wife became 
 governess to the orphan children of " Mr. W ." 
 
 She ventured, after a time, to note down some of the 
 stories told to her pupils, and took a volume called 
 "Mortimer Lascelles" to Newbery's manager in great 
 trepidation. To her joy it was accepted, and thencefor- 
 ward began a successful career. To the books already 
 mentioned some others should be added, "Historical 
 Beauties for Young Ladies," " Virtue and Vice," " Bio- 
 graphies of Celebrated Females," " Letters from a Mother 
 to her Daughter," " The EockiDgham Family," '■' Parental 
 
jftom 1740 to about 1810. 281 
 
 Duplicity," " Crimes and Characters," " A Child of Hope," 
 " Sinclair." 
 
 Mrs. Pinchard, the wife of an attorney at Taunton, Mrs. Pin- 
 wrote in much the same style at about the same time. ohard - 
 "The Blind Child," "Two Cousins, a Moral Story" 
 (1798), "Dramatic Dialogues'' (1792), "Family Affec- 
 tion," and " The Ward of Delamere," are among her 
 works. How highly they were appreciated appears from 
 a copy of " Dramatic Dialogues " recently advertised for 
 sale, " bound in Turkish silk embroidery of various colours 
 on drab linen ground heightened with fiat burnished gold 
 thread, having a magnificent appearance," so says the 
 bookseller's catalogue. 
 
 Madame Cottin's Elisabeth was translated into Eng- 
 lish in 1 809, and welcomed with acclamation, as appears 
 from the rapid succession of editions. Certainly it would 
 seem as if the "moral" class of literature required the 
 touch of something not quite English to make it — shall 
 we say ? — digestible. Miss Edgeworth's Irish wit, and the 
 lighter touch of Madame Cottin, or Madame De Beau- 
 mont, make a curiously distinct difference between their 
 works and those of the majority of their school. "Mar- 
 montel " also and " Berquin " have a refreshing bright- 
 ness. 
 
 Small private boarding-schools both for boys and girls "School 
 were extremely numerous about this time, and the life ones ' 
 at such establishments is depicted in many of the moral 
 story-books. 
 
 " The Academy," 1 808, * is a very quaint and amusing 
 book as a study of the ideas of parents and teachers. 
 The parents of various boys write letters commending 
 their sons to the master. Edward Townly, the spoilt 
 child of a lady of fashion, has, according to his mother, 
 "his little faults." His latest escapade was syringing 
 
 1 British Museum. 
 
jfrom 1740 to about 1810. 
 
 a young lady with wine. " To give the oak vigour, it 
 should not be confined in a hothouse. I shall not keep 
 your son at a distance from the petty misfortunes of 
 life, but teach him to overcome them," writes the tutor 
 to the anxious mamma. 
 
 Joseph Scourhill's sporting father writes a characteristic 
 letter. Timothy Tradewell's parent says, " Please receive 
 per the bearer my son, whom I consign to your care." 
 The characteristic faults of these boys are then depicted, 
 and corrected by the excellent tutor, one of whose 
 methods is to write moral stories and fables on the black- 
 board, bringing in his pupils' names. " Mr. Eightway 
 and his Pupils " is the significant title of a similar book. 
 The quaintest account of the young ladies' seminary 
 appears in " The Governess," and has been reprinted by 
 Miss Yonge. 1 The wonderful wisdom of Mrs. Teachum 
 and the various characteristics of the little Misses are 
 amusing enough. We feel the immense gulf that sepa- 
 rates children of that day from children of this. Mrs. 
 Teachum's little pupils might be natives of another 
 country altogether, so different are all their ways and 
 ideas. Part of the story is occupied by fairy-tales, 
 properly finished off by moral reflections, which are 
 exquisitely comic in their solemnity. Mrs. Sherwood 
 afterwards produced a version of this book adapted to 
 her own more religious style, and "Mrs. Leicester's School," 
 by Mary Lamb, as also Dorothy Kilner's "Village School;" 2 
 carried out the same idea. The quaint story of " King 
 Pippin," 1768, also sketches village school-life, King 
 Pippin being a model boy. 
 "Elements If the French moral tales were lighter than ours, it must 
 aiiti.^' De owned that the German were heavier. "Elements 
 of Morality," translated from a Moralisches Elementar- 
 buch, by Mary Wollstoncraft, has for its only merit ex- 
 
 1 Storehouse of Stories. 2 Ibid. 
 
jfrom 1740 to about 1810. 283 
 
 cellent engravings by Blake to the first edition. Herein 
 the virtuous hero, rendered in English as " Mr. Jones," 
 holds forth on every possible occasion. A little boy, 
 named William, impales himself on a nail in kicking at 
 a shut door, and receives " a very forcible warning " from 
 Mr. Jones to the effect that, " when anything disagreeable 
 happens to us, we should guard against anger, and rather 
 try to compose ourselves, that we may think of a* remedy, 
 than give way to passion. If we cannot find one, we 
 must wait patiently till circumstances alter ! " A soothing 
 reflection, truly, when one's foot is pierced by a long nail ! 
 
 Mary Wollstoncraft must be included in our category Mary 
 of authors. A conspicuous figure in her own day, much C raft, 
 blamed and no doubt much maligned by the orthodox in J 7S9-i797- 
 religion and morals, but at the same time immensely 
 admired and lionised by the advanced school who 
 mustered in strong force in certain London houses, she 
 no doubt owed much of both her celebrity and her 
 notoriety to the time at which she lived. Much that 
 was shocking to one generation has been listened to 
 patiently in the next, and has been accepted by the 
 third. It was the time of the French Revolution, when 
 accepted social theories were being questioned, and new 
 and most heterodox ones propounded. Tom Paine was 
 being lionised in London, and his views of the rights of 
 man freely discussed in some circles, covertly in others. 
 Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Trimmer were working for the 
 young people, and with the former Mary Wollstoncraft 
 came frequently in contact, especially at the house of her 
 kind friend Mr. Johnston, the publisher. Tew life- 
 histories of literary women have been more sad than 
 hers. The daughter of a wretched father, whose whole 
 relations with his family consisted in making them 
 miserable by his grasping selfishness and the frantic rest- 
 lessness which drove them from each successive home in 
 
284 jfrom 1740 to about 1810. 
 
 which they had begun to take root, Mary Wollston- 
 craft had also, in the misery of her sister's married life, 
 another example of conjugal unhappiness continually 
 before her eyes. Her early education had been scanty 
 enough, but her genuine talent supplied many deficien- 
 cies, and both as mistress of a school for girls, and later 
 as governess to the neglected " wild Irish " children of 
 Lady Kingsborough, whose own affection was lavished 
 upon her pet dogs, she won the confidence and often the 
 love of her pupils. She lived through the scenes of the 
 French Revolution in France, walking sometimes from 
 Neuilly in to Paris, where the ground was wet with the 
 newly-shed blood of victims of the Terror, and the world 
 for the time being seemed turned upside down. The 
 famous pamphlet, written some years later in reply to 
 Burke, made Mary Wollstoncrafb famous. Meantime she 
 had formed a liaison with a Captain Imlay, acting upon 
 the peculiar view of the marriage contract which unfor- 
 tunate experiences of her life had induced her to take 
 up. On business of Imlay's she travelled in Norway 
 and Sweden, and wrote home clever and interesting 
 letters. The connection was, however, broken off, and 
 Mary settled in London, to support herself and her little 
 daughter, and assist the other members of her unhappy 
 family, by literary work under the direction of the 
 shrewd and kindly publisher, Mr. Johnston, her faithful 
 friend and helper to her life's end. For him she trans- 
 lated the "Elements of Morality" already mentioned, 
 and wrote "Tales for Youth." She also in 1786, 
 early in her literary career, published " Thoughts on the 
 Education of Daughters," in which the orthodox found 
 much that was new and startling to their generation, 
 which our own would read with equanimity if not with 
 approval. The same may be said of her " Vindication 
 of the Eights of Women," of which manv of the conclu- 
 
from 1740 to about 1810. 285 
 
 sions which scandalised her contemporaries are to-day 
 matters of common acceptation. 
 
 Among the thinkers of her day who did not admire William 
 the author was "William Godwin. He, guide, philoso- I7 6 5 -i836. 
 pher, and friend to one school of thinkers, feared and 
 hated by the others, had written also on the subjects 
 raised to notice by the French Revolution his important 
 " Political Justice," which raised the banner of the 
 most levelling democracy. Like Mary Wollstoncraft, he 
 wrote novels to support and illustrate his tenets. At 
 the home of Mr. Johnston these two congenial spirits 
 met, and though Godwin's first impression was one of 
 dislike, a union shortly took place which after a time 
 was ratified by marriage. Mrs. Godwin, however, died 
 in a few months, leaving an infant daughter, who after- 
 wards became Mrs. Shelley. In 1801 Godwin married 
 again, and though writing diligently and successfully 
 plays, novels, and other works, he managed to carry 
 on the business of a bookseller in Skinner Street. 
 He published here a number of children's books, some 
 written by himself. These, as might be expected, are 
 sometimes pervaded by morality and the influence of the 
 great Jean Jacques. "What else could be expected of 
 the philosopher who, when his dying wife obtained relief 
 from pain and exclaimed that she felt herself in heaven, 
 bade her correct the statement, and say that her physi- 
 cal sensations were somewhat easier ! Among Godwin's 
 little books was " The Looking Glass," of which we shall 
 have occasion to speak presently. Of the merits of his 
 publications generally let us hear the verdict of a high 
 authority. 
 
 " At the sign of W. J. Godwin & Co.," says Sir Thomas 
 Talfourd, "the prettiest and wisest books for children 
 issued, which old-fashioned parents presented to their 
 children without suspecting that the graceful lessons of 
 
286 3from 1740 to about 1810. 
 
 piety and goodness which charmed away the selfishness 
 of infancy, were published and sometimes revised, and 
 now and then written, by a philosopher whom they would 
 scarcely venture to name." 1 
 Charles " Wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best," is the verdict 
 
 i 77S -'i8 3 6 ; °f the same authority on the work done for children by 
 
 Lamb! ' Charles and Marv Lamb - The " Tales from Shakspeare " 
 1765-1847. and " Adventures of Ulysses " were most worthy efforts 
 to give the world's great stories to the young. A volume 
 of " Poetry for Children " was also made by the brother 
 and sister. The delightful little story-book, " Mrs. Lei- 
 cester's School," in which the little girls relate their own 
 histories, was Mary Lamb's work, and causes us to regret 
 that she did not give more time to the work of writing 
 for children. Possibly, we feel, the insanity that from 
 time to time clouded her " poor moythered brain " might 
 have been kept at bay by constant work of this not over- 
 straining sort. Nay, Elia himself, why did he not do 
 more for the children ? The pen that wrote of Eoast 
 Pig might well have given them many a charming 
 story. 
 
 Perhaps the reason why Lamb did so little work of 
 this kind may be found in his bachelor life, given over 
 altogether to tender care for his poor sister Mary, whose 
 long life was frequently broken by fits of insanity neces- 
 sitating her removal to a madhouse. Gentle, reasonable, 
 and attractive in a quiet and lady-like way at other times, 
 in one of her attacks poor Mary Lamb became all uncon- 
 sciously a murderess, and stabbed her mother to the heart 
 with a knife. Happily for all the survivors, when reason 
 returned, a strange peace of conscience came also, and 
 she ever afterwards appears to have thought of the dread- 
 ful act she had committed chiefly as of a blow of Pate 
 of which her hand had only been the accidental medium. 
 
 1 Works of Charles Lamb. New edition, with Memoir. Moxon, 1865. 
 
jfrom 1740 to about 1810. 287 
 
 To the care of this much-loved and much-afflicted 
 sister Charles Lamb's life from the age of tweny-one 
 was given, till he himself was called away from the 
 world, where for nearly eleven years longer she had to 
 live without him, her strength failing slowly as attacks 
 of her sad melancholy became more frequent. 
 
 The " Tales from Shakspeare " were, as we well know, 
 served up without the fashionable garnish of the moral. 
 Nor have the schoolgirls' little histories any decorations 
 of correct sentiments. " How different," to quote once 
 more the words of Lamb's biographer, " from the stony 
 nutriment provided for those delicate, apprehensive, 
 affectionate creatures, in the utilitarian books, which 
 starve their little hearts, and stuff their little heads 
 with shallow science and impertinent facts and selfish 
 morals ! " 
 
 "We cannot give in detail the titles even of all the other 
 children's books of this period. There are a number of 
 anonymous story-books, with such titles as " The Adven- 
 tures of Master Headstrong and Miss Patient on their 
 Journey to the Land of Happiness, containing an account 
 of the various difficulties Master Headstrong experiences 
 in listening to Passion, leaving Miss Patient, and not 
 consenting that Eeason, whom they met on the road, 
 should always direct his course," with cuts, 3d., 1789. 
 There are Newbery's " Marmaduke Multiply," "The 
 Florist," " with descriptions and a moral poem," " Keeper's 
 Travels in Search of his Master," " The Adventures of 
 a Pin," and of various other heroes of still-life, "The 
 Menagerie," " The Philosophy of Tops and Balls." There 
 is " Tom Telescope," an interesting version of Newton for 
 children, "The Beautiful Page," 1802, a story of the 
 captivity of Mary Queen of Scots, "Domestic Scenes, 
 or Adventures of a Doll," " Lucinda, or Virtue Trium- 
 phant," and " The Shepherd's Son, or The Wish Accom- 
 
tftom 1740 to about 1810. 
 
 plished," by the Eev. Thomas Smith. The Eev. S. 
 Cooper, the moraliser of the "Arabian Nights," wrote 
 also some little histories. " Solomon Serious " has a 
 prose version of Parnell's "Hermit/' a poem of which 
 the original idea came from the Gesta Romanorum, and 
 which is to be found included whenever possible in 
 books of the close of last century and the first ten years 
 or so of the present one. 
 
 Eiddles were very much the fashion, and Puzzlecaps 
 and Puzzlewells were numerous. " The Sphinx, or 
 Allegorical Lozenges," Darton, 1812, contains charades, 
 riddles, and puzzles of all sorts. 1 
 
 " Early Piety, being memoirs of children eminently 
 serious," by G. Burder, has, besides some stories duly 
 authenticated with names and dates, accounts of Master 
 Billy and Miss Betsy Goodebild, who were sent to the 
 genteel boarding school of Mrs. Lovegood, and invited 
 to the house of John Benevolent, Esquire, where " the 
 Esquire " reads them lectures on religion and morals. 
 
 " No, sir, we don't keep them ; there's no demand 
 for Emblems now," was the reply of a second-hand 
 bookseller to a recent inquiry for a book of the kind. 
 The fashion had not passed at the beginning of the 
 century. A very curious volume of " Choice Emblems, 
 Natural, Historical, Fabulous, Moral and Divine, for the 
 use of Schools," reached an eleventh edition in 1 8 1 2. In 
 such a serious atmosphere, it was perhaps only natural 
 that a bit of pure fun should prove delightfully refreshing. 
 We are at a loss otherwise to account for the extra- 
 ordinary popularity into which Eoscoe's "Butterfly's 
 Ball" sprang all in a moment. 
 
 William Eoscoe of Liverpool, writer on statistics and 
 author of a "Life of Leo X.," went one day in 1807 
 (according to certain well-informed answerers of questions 
 
 1 Recently reprinted by Messrs. Griffith & Farran. 
 
3from 1740 to about 1810. 289 
 
 in Notes and Queries J ) to a civic entertainment, of which 
 he afterwards wrote a playful account for the amusement 
 of his children. Other people, however, were also amused, 
 and if the sincerest flattery be imitation, then certainly 
 the author should have felt flattered. His own com- 
 position was published with very quaint cuts, giving 
 human faces to the creatures, which may perhaps have 
 been intended for portraits of the original characters. 
 But the verses appeared everywhere, were included in 
 every collection, scattered broadcast in Catnach's cheap 
 prints, and finally sold at fairs printed on handkerchiefs, 
 one of which, to Eoscoe's great amusement, was one day 
 brought to him. 
 
 The " Peacock at Home " was published in the same charlotte 
 year, written by Mrs. Dorset, the sister of Charlotte i^_iso6. 
 Smith, who is known as the author of very simple and 
 graceful verses, unlike the stilted style prevalent in her 
 day. 2 It is said that 40,000 copies of these two poems, 
 which appeared singly and illustrated, were sold in twelve 
 months. 
 
 In reviewing them, the British Critic specially de- 
 precated imitations. But the hands of the imitators 
 could hardly be withheld, and there speedily followed 
 "The Elephant's Ball," by W. B., with engravings by 
 Mulready ; "The Eagle's Masque," by Tom Tilt, 1808 ; 
 " The Emperor's Eout, or the Feast of the Moths ; " " The 
 Botanical and Horticultural Meeting, by a Lady, from 
 Notes by John Quill ; " " The Peacock and Parrot on their 
 Tour in Search of the Author of the 'Peacock at Home,'" 
 
 1 Notes and Queries, 5th series, November 7, &c. 
 
 2 "Sonnets," 1797, with plates from Stothard and other artists. Char- 
 lotte Smith was also the author of several books for young people, chiefly 
 on Natural History. "Rural Walks," 1 795, consists of dialogues, 
 " Rambles Farther " being a continuation. Also a " Natural History of 
 Birds," and " Minor Morals." 
 
 T 
 
290 jfrom 1740 to about 1810. 
 
 Harris, 1816; "The Lioness's Ball," "The Lobster's 
 Voyage to the Brazils," "The Cat's Concert," "The 
 Fishes' Grand Gala," "The Lion's Parliament," "The 
 Water-King's Levee," "Mme. Grimalkin's Party," and 
 many others also. 
 
 William Pioscoe and his family wrote other very 
 charming poems for young people. " Poems for Youth, 
 by a Family Circle," 1820 or 1821, contains verses by 
 no fewer than eight members of the family. Some of 
 these are exceedingly bright and pleasantly unaffected. 
 
 In dealing with the books of this period, we have 
 not attempted to group them under their respective pub- 
 lishers, because, the publishers being booksellers, the 
 same work was often printed to be sold by several firms, 
 and bore all their names on its title-page. The essen- 
 tially moral literature, however, was especially promoted 
 by ISTewbery, Marshall, Harris, Carnan, Saint of New- 
 castle, and other provincial and smaller London pub- 
 lishers ; while that which was particularly encouraged 
 by the Quaker firm of Darton put religion foremost, and 
 was also especially directed to the imparting of useful 
 information in a pleasant form. And religious teaching 
 of that school which is best represented by Mrs. Sher- 
 wood, was distinctly uppermost in the publications of 
 " the solemn old Calvinistic publisher, Houlston," to quote 
 Miss Martineau's irreverent description. 
 The Cat- Before giving some account of these books, we may 
 mention the efforts made on a humbler scale to supply 
 the young folks with books by the Catnachs, John and 
 his son James, who printed from 1769 to 1841. 
 
 Chapbooks and street-ballads, broadsides with realistic 
 accounts of murders, and love-ballads, are chiefly asso- 
 ciated with the name of Catnach. But the father, while 
 printing at Alnwick, published a number of works, some 
 costing only a halfpenny, which were illustrated with 
 
3from 1740 to about 1810. 291 
 
 beautiful cuts by Thomas Bewick. About 1790 he 
 produced a volume of "Beauties of Natural History," 
 selected from Buffon, illustrated by Bewick with cuts of 
 birds and beasts, and some exquisite little tail-pieces. 
 The children's books were such as " The Boyal Playbook, 
 or Children's Friend," "The Death and Burial of Cock 
 Eobiu," graced with Thomas Bewick's work. 
 
 In 1807 Catnach entered into partnership with one 
 "William Davison, who at first combined the business of 
 a druggist with that of a printer. Davison continued to 
 print till 1858, when be died at the age of seventy- seven. 
 By his own account he paid Thomas Bewick over £500 
 for blocks, which, as the price for each was but small, 
 meant a great collection. Some of the books in which 
 they were used were of the most trifling sort, as a half- 
 penny riddle-book, "The Guess Book," which yet has 
 a Bewick cut on each page. Bewick's clever pupil, 
 Luke Clennell, also worked for John Catnach. In 1 808 
 Catnach moved to Newcastle, and thence to London.' 
 An irregular life, however, and imprisonment for libellous 
 publications, wrecked his business, which was at a very 
 low ebb when his son James and one Mark Smith 
 joined him, and to a certain extent revived it. 
 
 With the mass of James Catnach's productions, broad- 
 sides, ballads, and street literature, we have no concern, 
 but he also brought out an immense number of books for 
 children at a farthing, a halfpenny, and a penny. Most 
 of these were tiny paper tracts in brilliant hued covers, 
 with a cut on each page, and such descriptive rhymes 
 as — 
 
 " This is the Cat 
 
 That killed the Cock, 
 
 For waking her 
 
 At five o'clock." 
 
 Amongst them was an edition of the "Butterfly's 
 
292 
 
 jfi'om 1740 to about t8t0. 
 
 Ball," with human faces to the creatures in the illustra- 
 tions. Alphabets and nursery rhymes were frequently 
 the bill of fare, and the cuts were now of the coarsest. 
 Nevertheless, to many a poor child its halfpenny booklet 
 must have been a thing of beauty and a joy — if not for 
 ever, at least so long as it lasted. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 £ume Illustrators of (IfttRjrnt's Books. 
 
 ' now that the genius of Bewick were mine, 
 And the skill which he learned on the banks of the Tyne, 
 Then the Muses might deal with me just as they chose, 
 For I'd take my last leave both of verse and of prose." 
 
 — Wordsworth, The Two Thieves. 
 
 HE pictures also," says Leigh Hunt, 1 enlarging The pic- 
 upon the delight afforded to the children of 
 his generation by Newbery's publications, 
 " may we own that we preferred the uncouth 
 coats, the staring blotted eyes and round pieces of rope 
 for hats, to all the proprieties of modern embellishment ? 
 We own the superiority of the latter, and would fain have 
 it proceed and prosper, but a boy of our time was much, 
 though his coat looked like his grandfather's." 
 
 Newbery was doubtless no great judge of art, and many 
 of his booklets, especially during the earlier years of his 
 activity as a publisher for children, were illustrated with 
 the coarsest of woodcuts, but were none the less welcome 
 to his youthful clients on that account. Not that the 
 children prefer bad art. What they do appreciate is the 
 graphic presentment of objects which will appeal readily 
 to their simple understandings. Much of the elaboration 
 of the pictures in their books of to-day, the refined and 
 
 1 " The Town." 
 293 
 
294 Some illustrators of CbUoren's Boofts. 
 
 somewhat far-fetched playfulness, if such an expression 
 may be used, both of design and workmanship, is far more 
 enjoyed by their elders. What could be more inartistic 
 as far as colour is concerned than the pictures of the ever- 
 struwwei- popular Struwwelpeter ? but an attempt made some years 
 ago to introduce a more high-class set of illustrations to it 
 proved a dead failure. It is said that in Germany alone 
 thirty thousand copies of this book are still annually sold. 
 These pictures represent simply some childish tragedy or 
 comedy by figures drawn with spirit and coloured with, 
 shall we say, decision? The flames that consume the 
 misguided Harriet are unmistakably red and yellow, as a 
 fire ought to be ; the thunder-cloud is perfectly black ; so 
 are the boys who have been dipped in ink ; papa's purple 
 coat is purple ; mamma's green gown is green as the grass 
 on which she treads. And the child who has studied 
 Struwwelpeter for half the morning to-day is just as 
 ready for it to-morrow. What seems to be most desired 
 in pictures by the children is that they shall be a per- 
 fectly graphic presentment of the story depicted. 
 
 Thus much granted, they may as well be good of their 
 kind. And at about the time of which Leigh Hunt speaks, 
 the last thirty years of the last century, the art of book- 
 illustration was receiving a great impetus from what was 
 in truth the revival or rather a new invention of wood- 
 engraving in England, a new departure in which the 
 childi-en's books played a not unimportant part. Writing 
 about 1770, Horace Walpole declared that "wood-cutting 
 never was executed in any perfection in England ; " and 
 speaking of Papillon's TraiU Historique et Pratique de la 
 Gravure en Bois, then newly published, he " doubted if the 
 author would ever be able to persuade the world to return 
 to wooden cuts." The " Artist's Assistant," moreover, of 
 which the fifth edition appeared in 1788 — one of those 
 
Some illustrators of Cfoiloren's 3Boofts. 295 
 
 books of multifarious instruction in which the eighteenth 
 century delighted — gives no directions for woodcutting, 
 although treating of every sort of artistic or would-be 
 artistic work from etching to painting on silk. 
 
 Such woodcuts as those which adorned Caxton's " Myr- 
 rour" were no longer produced. Some few books had 
 head and tail-pieces of a sufficiently coarse kind, and in 
 1750 the two last plates of Hogarth's "Four Stages of 
 Cruelty" were done on wood by way of an experiment, 
 to find a cheap and popular medium for conveying the 
 artist's graphic moral lessons to the people. But the 
 method was found more costly than copper. 
 
 The schoolbooks of the last two centuries had very 
 generally had a picture of a school interior, and the books 
 of Nathaniel Crouch and others of the same period had 
 the grotesque illustrations of which mention has already 
 been made. A "Catechism for Children and Young 
 People," 1 composed by Cranmer, had one or more cuts by 
 Holbein. 
 
 But in the first half of the eighteenth century the art 
 had fallen almost into disuse. The only really popular 
 book illustrated by it seems to have been the "Fables 
 by ^dlsop and Others " of Samuel Croxall, Archdeacon of 
 Hereford, which, between 1722 and 1798, went through 
 no fewer than sixteen editions. 
 
 There were also, of course, the extremely coarse cuts to 
 the cheap books and to the broadsides and ballads which 
 decorated cottage- walls ; but these, it need hardly be said, 
 were on the lowest possible level both of design and 
 execution. 
 
 The new impetus came from the north. At Newcastle Saint. 
 lived the publisher Saint, who has been called the New- 
 bery of the North, but who seems to have been not only 
 1 Jackson and Chatto, " Treatise on Wood Engraving." 1839. 
 
296 Some SUustrators of Cbfloren's Boofes. 
 
 Gilbert 
 Gray. 
 
 Thomas 
 Bewick, 
 1753-1828. 
 
 as enterprising as Goldsmith's worthy patron, but also a 
 man of some literary culture and discernment, and who 
 planned and published a considerable number of books 
 for children. 
 
 Here also lived Gilbert Gray, bookbinder and friend of 
 Allan Ramsay. This somewhat eccentric personage dis- 
 liked the conventionalities of life to the extent of refusing 
 to allow his life to be governed by them. Accordingly he 
 lived by the rule of his own inclinations, eating when 
 hungry, sleeping when tired, and expending his leisure 
 time upon the production of a variety of little books which 
 he sold to the country folk who came in to the Saturday 
 market. 
 
 His Multum in Parvo is worthy of note because two 
 lines of black-letter are put in each page, the author 
 lamenting that our old English characters should have 
 been of late much neglected by schoolmasters, which he 
 thinks " a pity and a shame." Gilbert Gray also made a 
 " Complete Fabulist," 240 moral and entertaining fables, 
 nearly as many more as have appeared on the subject 
 extant at the price. 
 
 When, moreover, in 1775, the Society of Arts offered 
 prizes for wood-engravings, out of three recipients two 
 belonged to Newcastle or the neighbourhood. These were 
 Thomas Hodgson and Thomas Bewick, 1 son of a small 
 farmer and colliery owner at Ovingham by the Tyne. 
 
 A strong and sturdy little boy, who afterwards grew 
 into a strong and healthy-minded man, whose joy in the 
 use of his genuine artistic gifts was marred by no morbid 
 conditions of mind or body, was Thomas Bewick. All 
 through life the country-side was his paradise. A short 
 stay in London in his youth was enough to convince him 
 
 1 Austin Dobson, " Bewick and his Pupils." Jackson and Chatto, " Trea- 
 tise on Wood Engraving." 
 
From "Poetical Fabulator." —Page 5. 
 
 WMNB 
 
 TWO OF BEWICK'S ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 To face p. 297. 
 
Some illustrators of Cbtloren's Boofes. 297 
 
 for life that for him at least " herding sheep on Mickley 
 bank top " would be pleasanter than life in the metropolis, 
 even if he might be " Premier of England." 
 
 At school the little boy filled slate and book-margin 
 with drawings, always from Nature, attempts to render 
 what she had shown him. The church porch, the grave- 
 stones, the hearthstone at home, all served his purpose; 
 and when a friend at last pitied his scorched face and 
 gave him some drawing paper, pen, ink, and blackberry 
 juice were his simple tools, till a camel-hair brush and a 
 few shells of colour could be attained as the next step. 
 
 In 1767 young Bewick was apprenticed to one Beilby 
 of Newcastle, whose engraving business seems to have 
 ranged from bill-heads and seals to bottle moulds. His 
 first cuts for a book seem to have been for a " Treatise on 
 Mensuration" (1770) by Charles Hutton, a schoolmaster. 
 
 In the next year Thomas Bewick seems to have begun 
 to illustrate children's books, of which Saint was now pro- 
 ducing many. The "New Invented Horn Book," and 
 " New Lottery Book of Birds and Beasts," were most pro- 
 bably his work, as also the " Moral Instructions of a Father 
 to his Son" (1772), 1 and probably "The Child's Tutor, or 
 Entertaining Preceptor." At the end of this volume were 
 some " Select Fables," for which Bewick certainly executed 
 the thirty- three cuts, and in 1774 Saint produced "Youth's 
 Instructive and Entertaining Story-Teller " with his illus- 
 trations. 
 
 Soon after this Bewick must have been at work upon 
 the book from which the revival of the woodcut may truly 
 be said to date. This was " Gay's Fables," published by 
 Saint in 1779. For many o£ the designs Bewick did not 
 scorn to be indebted to the cuts in the popular " Croxall." 
 These are supposed to have been executed by Kirkall, to 
 1 See W. E. Pearson's reprint of "Select Fables." 
 
298 Some illustrators of Cbilbren's Boofes. 
 
 whom Pope gave a line in his Dunciad, describing a por- 
 trait of Eliza Haywood prefixed to her works — 
 
 " In flow'rs and pearls by bounteous Kirkall dressed ; " 
 
 and were in some cases adapted from Sebastian Le Clerc's 
 seventeenth century designs, or from the folio u3Esop of 
 Francis Barlow, 1665. But the most casual glance at the 
 adaptations and their original proves the immense supe- 
 riority of Bewick's work in almost every particular — the 
 fidelity to nature of the animals, the arrangement and signi- 
 ficance of the accessories, the beauty of the backgrounds. 
 His This is not the place for a scientific account of Bewick's 
 
 technique, the success of which made woodcutting in 
 some sense a new art. Briefly, it may be said that his 
 method had some very important peculiarities, of which 
 the "white line," said to be invented by him, was the 
 greatest innovation. In place of cutting away the block, 
 so as to leave the lines of the drawing prominent to be 
 used as type, Bewick cut " white lines " of various thick- 
 ness and depth upon the surface which would print black, 
 gaining in this way new effects of light and shade. In 
 place of the knife and chisel on the flat grain of wood, 
 he also practised the use of a graving tool on blocks cut 
 across the grain. An old plan of cross-hatching as a means 
 of deepening shade he also abandoned. 
 
 Such a brief and unscientific account of the methods 
 which Thomas Bewick was elaborating during the earlier 
 years of his working life, will at least explain something 
 of the novelty of the effects obtained by him and his suc- 
 cessors. His own work showed year after year a steady 
 progress. A volume of the " Select Fables " alone, from 
 the "Moral Instructions" of 1772, was issued by Saint 
 in 1776, and shows a very marked improvement in the 
 execution of the cuts. 
 
Some illustrators of Gbtloren's Boofes. 299 
 
 In 1779 Saint issued the "Tommy Trip's History of "Tommy 
 Birds and 'Beasts" for children, which is believed to have np " 
 prompted the artist to undertake the famous " Birds " and 
 " Beasts " upon which Bewick's real fame rests. 
 
 Whenever possible, the animals were drawn from life 
 — rare birds when shot by some friendly sportsman; 
 the more domestic from daily observation ; the wild crea- 
 tures often from specimens in perambulating menageries. 
 Hence their wonderful life and reality. It was a pity 
 for the children of his day that some of the delightful 
 tailpieces from the " Beasts " and " Birds " were not pub- 
 lished in some book more within the reach of the young 
 people. So many of these, small as they were, an inch 
 square, perhaps now and then some 2\ inches by 3, 
 contain a whole story of rustic dilemma, or tragedy, or 
 comedy, the engraver seeming to find in them an outlet 
 for the ideas that gathered in his brain while working at 
 the more monotonous plumage of birds and limbs of beasts. 
 
 One such little picture represents a toddling child that 
 has strayed into a meadow, and while its nurse may be 
 seen flirting in a corner, is just about to pull a vicious- 
 looking colt by the tail. In the background, the mother, 
 with uplifted arms, flies to the rescue, but will hardly be in 
 time to prevent the impending tragedy. 
 
 A most fascinating picture-book might truly have been 
 made from these. Thomas Bewick is supposed to have 
 done some cuts for Hodgson's " Hieroglyphick Bible " at 
 about the same time as he executed "Tommy Trip." 
 "The Liliputian Magazine/' produced in 1783 by Carnan, 
 perhaps earlier by Saint, was illustrated by him, the letter- 
 press being, very probably, by Goldsmith. 
 
 After this date the busily happy and happily busy artist 
 had hardly leisure to work upon juvenile literature. At 
 the close of his long life we find him wishing to be twenty 
 
300 Some SUustrators of Cbfloren's Boofes. 
 
 years younger that he might still work on at his art. Not 
 that any extraordinary fame or wealth had rewarded his 
 labours. His measure of both was comfortable and ample, 
 however, and filled to the brim by domestic content and 
 happiness. 
 
 The life of the younger brother John was destined to 
 be short. His constitution seems to have been delicate, 
 and the confinement of London, from which Thomas 
 Bewick broke away after a very brief trial, proved fatal 
 to the younger brother's frailer life. He was apprenticed 
 to Thomas, who gave him his liberty after five years, 
 when he went to London, and there he worked upon a 
 number of books for children. That the prices paid for 
 cutting wood-blocks were not high at this time appears 
 from a letter of the elder brother to the younger, express- 
 ing wonder that he should execute cuts for a " Dance of 
 Death " at six shillings each, spending time and grinding 
 out eyes to little purpose. " I would not have done them 
 for a farthing less than double that sum,'' declares Thomas. 
 Although in his short working life John Bewick never 
 rivalled his brother's success, he attained much skill in 
 rendering character and expression, and his cuts have a 
 certain gracefulness which is not so characberistic of 
 Thomas's work. In figures and indoor scenes he chiefly 
 excelled, foliage was with him a weak point, and his con- 
 trast of light and shade sometimes more vivid than pleasing. 
 
 Giass°for g ' Tlle verjr P°P ular " Looking-Glass for the Mind," a 
 the Mind." little volume taken chiefly from Berquin's Ami des 
 Enfans, and published in 1792, 1 had seventy-four cuts by 
 John Bewick. The stories and dialogues in this little 
 book are very childish and very moral. Both it and the 
 original Ami des Enfans were extremely popular in their 
 
 Printed by J. E. Crowder, for E. Newbery, " The New Children's 
 Friend." 
 
Some illustrators of Cbfloren's Books, 301 
 
 day. The first translation seems to have been made by 
 the Abbe" Eeyre, and printed in Paris. The " New Chil- 
 dren's Friend," of which the second edition appeared in 
 1798, was also partly from Berquin. 
 
 Dr. Trusler, a very worthy, but very dull person, whose Dr.Trusier. 
 writings were voluminous, and who is best remembered I73j ~ 1771, 
 by his commentaries on Hogarth, was the author of two 
 books of ponderous morality for children, which were 
 graced with cuts by John Bewick. These are " Proverbs 
 Exemplified," and " The Progress of Man and Society," 
 a sort of adaptation of the Orbis Pictus of Comenius, 
 sufficiently forgotten to be a fair subject for such plagi- 
 arism, the moralist must have thought. 
 
 John Bewick also illustrated the "Children's Miscel- "Chii- 
 lany," 1 a collection of stories and verses made by Thomas C eUany." 1S " 
 Day. The poetry includes " John Gilpin," " Pope's Uni- 
 versal Prayer," " Gray's Elegy," &c. The stories, with 
 the exception of " Philip Quarll " " Little Jack," and one 
 or two others, are not up to a very high level. In one 
 little tale, for example, a little girl gives some, but not all 
 of her money to some poor people, and declines to go 
 into their house. She spends the rest of the money on 
 a bouquet and a piece of jewellery. On her return her 
 mother thus addresses her : " Proud and unfeeling girl, 
 who could prefer vain and trifling ornaments to the delight 
 of relieving the sick and miserable ! Eetire from my 
 presence ; take with you your trinket and nosegay, and 
 receive from them all the comforts which they are able 
 to bestow." Did the mamma of the period, we wonder, 
 ever actually use such a lofty manner of expression ? 
 
 To these books may be added " The History of a School- 
 boy," a new " Eobinson Crusoe," and a little etiquette 
 book, one of the last of the Books of Demeanour, 
 1 Published by Stockdale. 
 
302 Some illustrators of Gbiloren's 3Boofts. 
 
 " Honours of the Table, or Eules for Behaviour during 
 Meals ; " also a " Robin Hood," 1795. Mary Wollstoncraf t's 
 "Tales for Youth," 1794, and "Blossoms of Morality," 
 1795, were also illustrated by him. The last of these 
 books gains a certain melancholy interest, from the fact 
 that the young artist was dying of decline while at work 
 upon it, and indeed before its appearance in 1796 he 
 was already laid to rest in the little rustic churchyard of 
 Ovingham. A very pretty cut from this book is reproduced 
 in Jackson and Chatto's Treatise on Wood Engraving. 
 
 John Bewick's cuts are typical 6f a great number of 
 the illustrations that decorated the children's books of his 
 day, and of the first fifteen or twenty years of our century. 
 " Cuts," says Miss Yonge, 1 " that did duty again and 
 again, always of wainscoted rooms and high-back chairs, 
 and girls with long waists " (more correctly, short waists 
 and long skirts), " sleeves down to the elbow, neat little 
 aprons, round caps indoors and shepherdess hats out of 
 doors. Their mammas have high mob-caps at home and 
 hats abroad. The clergymen promenade in gown, bands, 
 wigs, and shovel hats." And the little masters have short- 
 waisted jackets, on which the trousers are buttoned, round 
 frill collars, and military caps. Occasionally, in more 
 expensive books, steel or copper engravings may appear, 
 but they are scarcely to be found in a book intended for 
 children till well into our century. Coloured pictures 
 were, of course, acceptable. The most refined illustra- 
 tions were produced by the simple method of tinting over 
 the ordinary woodcut with a fiat wash of colour laid on 
 by hand. 
 
 This was not a new idea. The pictures of the ancient 
 Biblia Pauperum and other books had been first printed 
 from wood and then coloured by hand. Colouring by hand 
 1 " Storehouse of Stories." Preface. 
 
Some illustrators of Cbflbren's Boofcs. 303 
 
 now rose to the dignity of a profession, and the streets 
 about Soho Square and Clerkenwell especially were filled 
 with diligent workers. Sometimes, of course, the result 
 was a wretched daub, such as a child with its own paint- 
 box might have produced, but the better executed work 
 was sometimes very prettily and delicately tinted. 
 
 As early as 1838 we have Baxter doing coloured illus- 
 trations for the frontispiece of books. His plan of pro- 
 ceeding in his fine work was first to print from key im- 
 pression from a steel-plate, and then supply all the colours 
 by wood-block. It is said he spoilt as many impressions 
 as he sold, because in those days the machinery was not 
 so perfect as now, and the blocks failed to register. Dean 
 and Munday, and the Dartons, about 1840, introduced 
 lithographed toy-books coloured by hand. 
 
 Thomas Bewick left, in the stricter sense of the word, 
 no " school." His methods were, however, followed by 
 numerous imitators, or rather successive workers, and a 
 number of his pupils and apprentices distinguished them- 
 selves in a greater or less degree. 
 
 Among those of his pupils who fall within our scope William 
 as having worked upon children's books is William ^^li866. 
 Harvey, who was apprenticed to Bewick at the age of four- 
 teen, and whose illustrations to Lane's "Arabian Nights" 
 have been to so many young people an initiation into 
 Oriental life and manners. One secret of this graphic 
 presentment seems to have lain in the fact that the illus- 
 trator worked a good deal under the personal supervision 
 of Lane himself, and the accessories were, therefore, very 
 perfect in detail, and had more of inspiration than the 
 sometimes vapid faces. 
 
 Harvey also designed a very good set of illustrations to 
 Miss Austin's translation of Carove's " Story without- an 
 End. He was,, indeed, a most prolific worker, rather as 
 
3°4 Some illustrators of Cbfloren's :fi3oofts. 
 
 designer than as engraver, doing innumerable drawings 
 which were engraved by others, always graceful and pretty, 
 but with a considerable mannerism of style. After about 
 1824 he seems to have confined himself to designing only, 
 and to drawing upon the block " translations " of his own 
 designs and those of other artists for the engraver's use. 
 This drawing upon the block was by no means a merely 
 mechanical copying of the artist's design. " The use of 
 the white line," says a competent authority, "and the 
 rendering of tone and tint, necessitated a certain power ot 
 design on his part, and gave him as important a position 
 as the engraver on steel held in regard to the translation 
 of a painted picture." x 
 
 About 1830 the engraver's share of the work began to 
 be somewhat less prominent and important, the artist 
 working with more definite intention for the effects to be 
 gained, until now, to quote the same authority, " whatever 
 wonders of literal translation and imitation of chalk, 
 charcoal, or palette and brushes wood engraving has exhi- 
 bited under spell of American enterprise, it cannot be said 
 to have preserved the distinction and independence of the 
 engraver as an artist or original designer in any sense. 
 When not extinguished altogether by some form of auto- 
 matic reproductive process, he is reduced to the office of 
 ' process-server ' — he becomes the slave of the pictorial 
 artist." 2 
 
 To return to William Harvey, in 1 828 he did designs 
 for "The Tower Menagerie;" he also illustrated "The 
 Children in the Wood" and "The Blind Beggar of 
 Bethnal Green," and specimens from the two last are 
 reproduced by Jackson and Chatto as examples of his 
 best work. 
 
 John Jackson, Bewick's apprentice, and a native of his 
 1 Walter Crane, Third Cantor Lecture, 18S9. 2 Ibid. 
 
Some illustrators of Cbiloren's 3Boofts. 3°s 
 
 own village, did much work for Charles Knight's many John 
 publications. He designed a set of illustrations for the 1801-48.' 
 ever-popular " Looking-Glass for the Mind." Lovers of 
 wood-engraving owe him most thanks, however, as col- 
 laborateur in Jackson and Chatto's valuable " Treatise on 
 Wood Engraving," 1839. 
 
 Another very promising pupil of Bewick was the un- Luke 
 fortunate Luke Clennell, who, while still young, became I7 8i" e ' 
 insane. The beauty of his engraving may be seen in 
 some of the lovely illustrations after Stothard to Bogers' 
 "Pleasures of Memory." A child's book of Clennell's 
 illustrating is Solomon Hodgson's " Hive of Ancient and 
 Modern Literature," published about 1804, with, according 
 to Hugo, fourteen cuts by Bewick, the rest by Clennell. 
 This was a book of the " Blossoms of Morality " order. 
 
 Charlton Nesbit was, perhaps, the best engraver among Charlton 
 the pupils of Bewick. Among his works may be men- ^."l^l 
 tioned a History of England and a volume of Beligious 
 Emblems, to which Clennell and Branston also contributed. 
 But all his scholars seem to have learnt inventiveness as 
 well as execution, and could work from their own designs, 
 while the majority of other engravers were dependent 
 upon artists for these. Thus John Thompson, one of the John 
 best of our English wood-engravers, worked frequently om P sou 
 from designs by Thurston, who, amongst other works, earned Thurston, 
 the gratitude of young folks by his designs for Mrs. Trim- I774_I 2r 
 mer's " Fabulous Histories," better known nowadays as 
 " The Bobins." Thomas Bewick had a special admiration 
 for a cut by Thompson representing a salmon, one of a 
 number done by him for Major's edition of Walton's 
 Angler. Both Thurston and his contemporary Craig, Craig, 
 whose drawings may be distinguished by a peculiar heavi- I?? " l "' 
 ness in the figures, drew upon the block illustrations to 
 
 many books for children. 
 
 u 
 
3 os Some 5Uu8trators of Cbiloren's JBoofta. 
 
 Samuel 
 Williams. 
 
 Branston, Another of the Bewick school, Branston, whose work 
 1778-1827. ^ or Ackermann has been mentioned, had a distinctive style 
 of his own, and excelled in figures and indoor scenes. He 
 appears to hare been of a critical turn of mind, at least 
 in so far that he did not wholly admire Thomas Bewick's 
 designs to illustrate Gay's Fables, and even began himself 
 to execute a series. The work, however, seemed to have 
 so little chance in competition with that of Bewick that 
 the idea was abandoned. 
 
 Samuel Williams, who began life as an engraver, is 
 better known as an artist. He illustrated a large number 
 of children's books with exquisite skill, and his drawings 
 are characterised by stronger effects of black and white 
 than any other artist of the same period. He illus- 
 trated " The Young Islanders," " The Book of the United 
 Kingdom," and several other juvenile books. In the 
 preface to Wiffin's " Jerusalem Delivered," 1 826, he is 
 mentioned as a young and self-taught artist, who pro- 
 mises to rank among the first artists of the day. 
 
 Samuel Williams, Tom Williams, Nesbit, Jackson,, Lan- 
 dells, and Thompson engraved the designs for " Northcote's 
 Fables," 1828 and 1833. These last designs are said to 
 have been prepared in a truly original fashion. North- 
 cote, although an excellent painter of animals, apparently 
 shrank from the labour of drawing his illustrations in full. 
 He therefore cut a number of the creatures out from prints, 
 grouped them with much skill, added a few accessories, 
 and gave the whole over to William Harvey, who made 
 suitable translations upon the block, and designed tail- 
 pieces and initial letters to complete the work. 
 Thomas Such an artist as Stothard must be said to have owed 
 
 Stotkard, 
 
 1789-1810. much to the excellence of the engravers who worked from 
 his drawings — James Heath, Bartolozzi, Schiavonetti, 
 Blake, and others. For some fifty years Stothard's pencU 
 
Some Jllustrators of GMloren's JSoofts. 307 
 
 was at work, so that, as has been said, " measuring time 
 by poets," he illustrated from Cowper to Kogers. And 
 although fault may readily be found by whoso will with 
 the weakness of his drawing, showing a certain inverte- 
 brateness of figure and insipidity of expression, yet the 
 easy grace of his pastoral and domestic scenes especially 
 had great charm, particularly at a period when delicacy of 
 work was greatly admired, and the copperplate beauties of 
 the fashionable " Annuals " — the last of which appeared 
 in 1856 — adorned every drawing-room table. 
 
 Stothard's pencil was sometimes employed for the chil- 
 dren. Strange to say, so humble a work as "Mayor's 
 Spelling " was graced by three of his designs. 
 
 The mention of Stothard leads us naturally to that of William 
 the strange, highly-gifted, but perverse genius, William I7 s 7 ^82 7 . 
 Blake. 
 
 Whether Blake was absolutely sane or not has been a 
 much disputed question. That he was at least unlike most 
 other mortals there can be no doubt, and the wayward- 
 ness of his disposition rather than want of appreciation on 
 the part of his contemporaries must be considered the 
 cause of the straits to which he was often reduced, he and 
 his wife sometimes having to live on half a guinea a week. 
 Mrs. Blake, indeed, seems sometimes to have felt com- 
 pelled to apply as a stimulus to profitable work the sight of 
 an empty dish set before her husband. Several books for 
 children were illustrated by -Blake, including Lamb's 
 " Tales from Shakespeare " and Mary Wollstoncraft's " Tales 
 for Youth," which last he both designed and engraved. 
 
 In 1787 he produced — we cannot say published — the 
 " Songs of Innocence," and in 1794 " Songs of Experience." 
 Of these verses the best known are "The Chimney 
 Sweeper," "The Lamb," beginning "Little lamb, who 
 made thee ? " " The Tiger "— 
 
3°8 Some illustrators of GMloren's JSoofts. 
 
 " Tiger, tiger, burning bright 
 In the forests of the night " — 
 
 and the " Laughing Song," which have many times been 
 included in collections for children. 
 
 Produced, not published, must describe the appearance 
 of these works, which were given to the world in a most 
 peculiar manner, suggested to him, as Blake declared, by 
 the spirit of his brother. Having written his verses and 
 designed the drawings that were to illustrate them, Blake 
 proceeded to outline the pictures and marginal ornaments 
 on copper with impervious liquid, in which he also wrote 
 out the letterpress. The designs were in great measure 
 rather decorative than pictorial. "In Blake," says Mr. 
 Walter Crane, " seemed to awake something of the spirit 
 of the old illuminator. ... In writing with his own hand 
 and in his own character the text of his poems, he gained 
 the great advantage of harmony between text and illustra- 
 tion. They become a harmonious whole, in complete 
 relation." 1 He then ate away the rest of the plate 
 with acid, and printed from the plates thus prepared 
 the drawings in yellow, brown, or blue, the verses in red. 
 Next the drawings were hand-tinted by himself and his 
 wife in vivid colours mixed with liquid glue, this process 
 having been, as he said, revealed to him by St. Joseph. 
 Finally Mrs. Blake stitched the leaves together, and cased 
 them in boards. The volumes, prepared with all this 
 labour, were at first sold for £i, ios. to £2, 2s., except 
 when personal friends of the artist desired to give more. 
 Yet competent critics have found it difficult to speak of 
 these " fairy missals " and their flower-like beauty in terms 
 which should not appear exaggerated, and not less high 
 commendation has been given to the verses, or some of 
 them, as the very ideal of poetry for children. 
 1 Third Cantor Lecture, 1889. 
 
Some illustrators of CbUDren's Boofts. 309 
 
 The impartial critic will, however, probably be ready- 
 to admit that though Blake might, had he chosen to put 
 Pegasus in harness, have written admirable verses for 
 children, the note of oddity and eccentricity recurs too 
 often in most of those which he actually produced to allow 
 them to be reckoned quite satisfactory. Nor is the oddity 
 that of expression only, since the poet's peculiar theolo- 
 gical ideas crop up every now and then in a startling 
 manner, as when the " Little Vagabond " suggests that if 
 the church offered the attractions of ale and fire, the 
 Almighty, like a kind father, would 
 
 " Have no more quarrel with the Devil or the barrel, 
 But kiss him and give him both drink and apparel." 
 
 As a specimen of Blake^s happiest manner, both in 
 grace of diction and play of fancy, there is, perhaps, nothing 
 better than the following little poem from "Songs of 
 Innocence," which, as less well known than those already 
 mentioned, we may venture here to quote at length : — 
 
 THE LITTLE BLACK BOY. 
 
 " My mother bore me in the southern wild, 
 And I am black, but oh, my soul is white ! 
 White as an angel is the English child, 
 But I am black, as if bereaved of light. 
 
 My mother taught me underneath a tree, 
 And, sitting down before the heat of day, 
 She took me on her lap and kissld me, 
 And, pointing to the East, began to say : 
 
 ' Look on the rising sun : there God does live, 
 And gives His light, and gives His heat away ; 
 And flowers, and trees, and beasts, and men receive 
 Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday. 
 
31° some Sllustrators of Cbiloren's JSoofts. 
 
 ' And we are put on earth a little space 
 That we may learn to bear the beams of love ; 
 And these black bodies and this sunburnt face 
 Are but a cloud and like a shady grove. 
 
 ' For when our souls have learnt the heat to bear, 
 The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice, 
 Saying, " Come out from the grove, my love and care, 
 And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice." ' 
 
 Thus did my mother say and kissed me, 
 
 And thus I say to little English boy, 
 
 When I from black and he from white cloud free, 
 
 And round the tent of God like lambs we joy, 
 
 I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear 
 To lean in joy upon our Father's knee ; 
 And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair, 
 And be like him, and he will then love me." 
 
 To return to the illustrations, Franklin did some work 
 for children's books, of which specimens may be found 
 in the series edited by " Felix Summerly," and published 
 by Cundell, to which J. Absolon also contributed. Frank- 
 lin's style showed German influence, and he introduced 
 much scroll work, floriated borders, and the like. 
 
 For the firm of Darton, in especial, a good deal was 
 done by "Alfred Crowquill" (Alfred Henry Forrester), 
 whose somewhat eccentric and exaggerated style is suffi- 
 ciently familiar. Familiar also is Eichard Doyle's work. 
 Such a volume as Buskin's child's story, "The King 
 of the Golden Paver," with Doyle's illustrations, is a 
 possession to be valued ! 
 
 We lay down " The Eose and the Eing " with a pang 
 of regret that Thackeray only wrote thus and drew thus, 
 once. There is indeed something tantalising in such a 
 volume as this. The great author, who is so fascinating 
 
Some illustrators of Cbiloren's 3Boofes. 3 11 
 
 when he stoops to prattle — if lie would but have prattled 
 more! 
 
 It does, however, appear that he once planned and partly 
 executed another child's book. According to a correspon- 
 dent of the World in November of the past year, four 
 unpublished proof etchings for this work remain, some 
 seven inches by five in size, with the verses written upon 
 them in pencil by Thackeray's own hand. 
 
 The history of this abortive effort seems to be that Thac- 
 keray, in his early days, while living all unknown to fame 
 in Coram Street, became acquainted with a W. Schonberg, 
 lithographer, of Hatton Gardens, who taught him to etch, 
 and he then planned a child's book. One drawing of this 
 series contains a face afterwards used in Dr. Birch's School. 
 It represents Master Spry and Master Snooks, who are 
 thus described in the appended verses — 
 
 " Little Bob Snooks was fond of his books, 
 And loved by his usher and master ; 
 But naughty Jack Spry, he got a black eye, 
 And carries his nose in a plaister." 
 
 Dr. John Brown, no incompetent critic, declared the 
 best nursery verses in the language to be Thackeray's 
 poetical outburst : — 
 
 "0 what fun! 
 A nice plum bun ! 
 How I wish 
 It never was done ! " 
 
 Let us at least be thankful for "The Eose and the 
 Eing ! " 
 
 A variety of children's books of the early years of the Mulready, 
 century were illustrated by Mulready. Among them were • I?s& 
 the " Butterfly's Ball," and a number of its imitations. A 
 little book which deserves mention in this connection is 
 
3i2 Some 3lIustrators of Cbiloren's Boofes. 
 
 one with rather an unfortunate title, so many variations 
 of it having already been used. " The Looking-Glass, a 
 True History of the Early Years of an Artist," by Theo 
 Marcliffe, is an account of Mulready's early days, written 
 by William Godwin under the pseudonym of Marcliffe. 
 The illustrations are chiefly from drawings done by the 
 artist while still a little boy, who showed early his bright 
 Irish genius, and rose from a humble station to artistic 
 eminence. This history of his progress is related by God- 
 win in a sufficiently pompous and moralising style, full' of 
 that tendency to improve the occasion at every moment 
 which we may suppose was almost unavoidable in his day. 
 
 Some of the earlier illustrations by Sir John Gilbert 
 were done for children's books, and the first book he 
 illustrated was Taylor's " Rhymes for the Nursery." In 
 " Ruins and Old Trees," by Mary Roberts, are some excel- 
 lent specimens of his earlier work. The title-page, like 
 many another drawing of his, where design and effect are 
 required, is excellent. He also illustrated "The Child's 
 First Step to English History," and " Grecian Stories," 
 by Maria Hack, and several others. " The Boy and the 
 Birds," by Emily Taylor, 1 845, had illustrations drawn 
 by Landseer. 
 
 We may once more quote the authority of Mr. Walter 
 Crane, who, feeling strongly that the impressions made 
 by their first books and first pictures upon children are 
 well-nigh ineffaceable, led the van of the movement for 
 good art in the nursery, of which designs by Birket Foster, 
 Landseer, Gilbert, and other eminent artists had been 
 forerunners. Here again the work of the engraver has 
 been of importance, and such artists as Randolph 
 Caldecott, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, and others 
 are largely indebted to Mr. Edmund Evans for a careful 
 and artistic interpretation of their work. 
 
Some illustrators of CbUoren's Boofts. 313 
 
 " The books for babies," says our authority, " current at 
 about 1865 to 1870, of the cheaper sort called toy-books, 
 were not very inspiriting. These were generally careless 
 and unimaginative woodcuts, very casually coloured by 
 hand, dabs of pink and emerald green being laid on across 
 faces and frocks with a somewhat reckless aim. There 
 was practically no choice between such as these and cheap 
 German highly-coloured lithographs." A set of coloured 
 designs to nursery rhymes by H. S. Marks are mentioned, 
 however, in bold outlines and fiat tints, intended originally 
 for cabinet panels. 
 
 Mr. Crane found children's books an attractive field for 
 design, because " in a sober and matter-of-fact age they 
 afford perhaps the only outlet for unrestricted flights of 
 fancy open to the modern illustrator who likes to revolt 
 against the despotism of facts." 1 The influence of some 
 Japanese pictures given to him furnished the artist with a 
 fresh impulse, and in September 1874 appeared his " Puss 
 in Boots," " Valentine and Orson," " Old Mother Hubbard," 
 "Absurd Alphabet," followed at Christmas 1876 by the 
 delicious " Baby's Opera," and in 1 878 by the " Baby's 
 Bouquet." 
 
 The first of Bandolph Caldecott's sixteen picture-books 
 (alas that we can have no more from him !) appeared at 
 Christmas 1 878, " The House that Jack Built " and " John 
 Gilpin ; " and the following year appeared the book which, 
 if imitation be truly the sincerest flattery, may claim to 
 have had the most flattering of receptions, namely, Kate 
 Greenaway's " Under the Window," published at Christ- 
 mas 1879. Nothing more clearly shows the distance 
 which in the last hundred years we have travelled in spirit 
 than the comparing of such pictures as these with the 
 book illustrations which truly belong to the period of 
 1 Third Cantor Lecture, 1879. 
 
314 Some illustrators of Cbfloren's Boofes. 
 
 which Miss Greenaway has borrowed the costume. In 
 just such straight skirt and round cap did a little maiden 
 of Mrs. Teachum's Academy parade primly, her attitude 
 ruled by the backboard, her mind governed by the moral 
 tale. But Miss Greenaway's children are only masquerad- 
 ing, they belong in real truth to our own age, which seems 
 to own no dearer wish than that of making the children 
 happy. 
 
 We cannot enter here more fully into the history of the 
 great development of pictorial art as applied to children's 
 books in our own century, when great artists have, as 
 the eighteenth century author would have expressed it, 
 bowed their brushes to the lowly task of amusing or 
 instructing the young folks. Perhaps, if we are inve- 
 terately critical, we may say that the results are only 
 too good. The nursery picture-book has a curious ten- 
 dency to find its way to the drawing-room table and to 
 the smoking-room lounge, even perhaps to the serious 
 study shelf. And uncles and aunts who buy these charm- 
 ing productions "for the children" are frequently dis- 
 covered to be themselves gloating over them in a corner. 
 
 It must be confessed, however, in spite of the increased 
 beauty of the books generally, that we miss something of 
 the directness and simplicity of the older illustrations. 
 Give to a child a picture of the Bewick kind, and it will 
 be found that, as every touch in the engraving has its 
 purpose and its place, so every detail of the design con- 
 tributes to the purpose of the drawing. The child can 
 "make up" a story of the most satisfactory kind from 
 such a picture, and be happy for half-an-hour in the 
 amusement, when it would hastily turn over and lay aside 
 works of more elaborate art, more recondite fun. It is 
 not that the highest art is wasted upon children, as they 
 know who have watched a little face upturned to some 
 
Some Jllustrators of Cbtloren's JBoofes. 315 
 
 great masterpiece; it ia that whoso would cast the spell 
 of his art over the mind of a child must see the world 
 through eyes like those of a child, eyes that see and yet 
 see not, like those perhaps of Adam and Eve before the 
 fruit of the knowledge of good and evil had fatally opened 
 them to a new vision. Bewick, retreating in haste from 
 the great city, hating the life of towns as a child of 
 healthy mind hates it, is perhaps the typical artist for the 
 young, seeing in every homely detail of life its simple 
 tragedy and comedy, with lively sympathy for every 
 human interest, and almost equal sympathy with the 
 humbler winged and four-footed creatures. To him, as 
 to a child, the simplest scene of nature or the most every- 
 day glimpse of life told its story, and was sufficient to set 
 him thinking. The ideal artist for children will certainly 
 have this gift ; he may add to it something more of play- 
 ful imagination if he will — imagination, perhaps, like that 
 of Kandolph Oaldecott, especially as applied to animals. 
 What child can fail to appreciate the portrait of the smug 
 self-satisfied dog who has " worried the cat " ? 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 JJfUfcern ©efcelopments. 
 
 " The voices of our fathers, gone before, 
 
 Stay here, to help us with their music thus : 
 What voice of ours, abiding evermore, 
 
 Shall help the dear ones who come after us ? 
 
 God of our children, whom we yearn to teach, 
 The lips we kiss, teach them from above ; 
 
 Turn Thou their babblings into manly speech, 
 As strong to move through innocence to love. 
 
 Our days are few, but yet a little more ; 
 
 Help us to leave our children, ere we die, 
 Of treasure added to the only store 
 
 That serves to build the home beyond the sky." 
 
 — Hesky Morlbt. 
 
 W. Darton, 
 1747-1819. 
 
 ESIDES Newbery and the humbler Catnach, 
 the children found another friend among 
 publishers. This was William Darton, foun- 
 der of the well-known Quaker firm which 
 for many years to come was materially to influence the 
 literature of the young people. And whereas Newbery 
 sold books, and was " a very extensive vendor in medi- 
 cine," having an eye chiefly to what would " take " with 
 his public, the efforts of the " benevolent firm," to quote 
 the description of a modern writer, were directed to the 
 improvement of the class of books in tone and literary 
 
 value. 
 
 316 
 
flDooern developments. 317 
 
 "William Darton's attention was first drawn to the 
 scarcity of good books for children by the discovery that 
 he could find . scarcely anything worth illustrating for 
 their benefit by the copperplate engraving which was 
 then his business in Cornhill Alley. Accordingly he 
 attempted to write some simple little stories and narra- 
 tives, which were then illustrated by himself and his 
 friend, Joseph Harvey, 
 
 As a child, William Darton had an extraordinary talent 
 for getting into all sorts of predicaments and out again 
 without serious injury, and many of these childish adven- 
 tures were recorded in his "Little Truths better than 
 Great Fables," " A Present for a Little Boy," " A Present 
 for a Little Girl," u Chapter of Accidents," " The Little 
 Postman," and others. 
 
 The pursuit proved interesting and successful, and 
 the friends presently established themselves at 5 5 Grace- 
 church Street as printers and publishers. Later, when 
 William Darton's eldest son had completed his appren- 
 ticeship as a copper plate engraver, he started a branch 
 at 58 Holborn Hill. Here he published a number of 
 children's books of a more educational character than 
 th« old firm. With his graving tools he executed a 
 number of frontispieces to children's books, educational 
 prints, and maps. 1 He was succeeded by his son, John 
 Maw Darton. Of this firm Samuel Clark, afterwards 
 head of Battersea College, was at one time a member. 
 To him Goodrich, the original "Peter Parley," paid 
 a high compliment in saying that, of all the English 
 imitations of his books, Samuel Clark's " Wonders of 
 Earth, Sea, and Sky " was the only one he would have 
 
 1 In 1 82 1 he published one of the largest maps' of England and 
 Wales, and in order to secure accuracy he verified many of the main 
 roads by driving through England and Wales (Bibliography of Ack- 
 worth School). 
 
318 /iDooern Developments. 
 
 cared to be able to acknowledge. " Wonders of Nature 
 and Art" and "Keuben's Eambles in the Counties of 
 England " were also written by Mr. Clark. So also were 
 several of " Wilson's Catecbisms," which series had an 
 instructive little history. ' That great authority on mat- 
 ters of literature, the Athenceum, did not at first appre- 
 ciate the series, and pronounced one volume especially 
 to be " exactly the thing that was .not wanted." Never- 
 theless, the sale of the one referred to was 30,000 a year, 
 reaching considerably over 1 00,000 in all. The discern- 
 ment as well as the energy of these friends of children 
 did much to encourage a better class of literature for 
 them, and they were the first publishers to introduce 
 instruction in the form of toy-books. Cheerfully "im- 
 proving " books began to multiply, and the subjects were 
 selected with critical care, and promising writers en- 
 couraged — among others, the Taylors of Ongar. 
 TheTay- So much has recently been written about the Taylor 
 family, that a lengthy account of them here would be 
 superfluous. The literary gift, which was shared in a 
 greater or less degree by the family of Isaac Taylor, 
 line-engraver and Independent minister, descended to the 
 next generation. The Eev. Isaac Taylor, Vicar of Holy 
 Trinity, Twickenham, son of the brother (Isaac) of Ann 
 and Jane, wrote a valuable book in his "Words and 
 Places ; " and Ann Taylor's son, Josiah Gilbert, is famous 
 for his " Cadore, or Titian's Country," and a book on 
 the "Dolomite Mountains," besides his excellent work 
 in the editing and completing of his mother's auto- 
 biography. 
 
 There is something very charming in the view this 
 book gives us of the striving, cheerful family, where 
 poverty was not sordid because bravely and cheerijy 
 faced and overcome. Isaac, the father, determined to 
 bring up the two elder girls as well as the two elder 
 
 lor 
 
/Ifoooem Developments. 319 
 
 •sons of his all-too-large family to his own profession of 
 engraving. Accordingly, Ann and Jane's days were Ann Tay- 
 almost entirely spent in the workroom, except that for QaiMrt),' 
 some years the mornings of alternate weeks were given 1782-1866. 
 by each sister to helping the hard-worked mother in her lor, 1783- 
 household duties. Intervals were only allowed for meals x 24 ' 
 and an absolutely needful amount of physical exercise 
 until evening. Nevertheless, by resolutely practising 
 the art of employing every moment, the girls contrived 
 to find time for reading, for dressmaking, and even for 
 imitations of Miss Linwood's pictures in needlework, just 
 then much admired. Moreover, there was within them 
 the creative force which must needs find its way out, 
 and Ann and Jane often worked at their engraving with 
 pencil and paper at hand wherewith to " pinion a flying 
 thought," and so keep it safe till evening should bring 
 leisure for working out. This was before the expression 
 of their thoughts proved a remunerative business, for 
 which it was worth while to take time, even from the 
 serious pursuit of engraving. 
 
 It was at first a small matter, which was felt by these 
 pious minds to give a " gracious direction " to their lives. 
 " When you see a bee or a butterfly left unfinished as 
 beneath the exertion of creative wisdom, indulge your 
 suspicions and believe only in the obviously magnificent," 
 said the elder sister in later life. The determining cir- 
 cumstance was the purchase in 1798 of the "Minor's 
 Pocket-Book," a small juvenile annual published by 
 Darton & Harvey, and largely contributed to by William 
 Darton. Among the contents of this little book were 
 various short poems, enigmas, charades, and puzzles, for 
 the solution of which prizes were offered. The first 
 prize, consisting of six copies of the "Annual," was 
 gained by Ann Taylor, under the signature of Juvenilia. 
 
 The efforts of the Taylors found favour in the eyes of 
 
3 2o flDooern Developments. 
 
 the publishers, who in 1803 wrote a characteristic letter 
 to the father of the family: — 
 
 "Losdon, ist6mo., 1803. 
 
 " Isaac Taylor, — Kespected Friend, we have received some pieces 
 of poetry from some branches of thy family for the ' Minor's Pocket- 
 Book,' and we beg that the enclosed trifles may be divided among 
 such as are most likely to be pleased with them. My principal 
 reason for writing now is to request that, when any of their harps be 
 tuned and their muse in good humour, if they could give me some 
 specimens of easy poetry for young children, I would endeavour to 
 make a suitable return in cash or books. If something in the way 
 of moral songs (though not songs) or short tales turned into verse, or 
 — but I need not dictate. What would be most likely to please 
 little minds must be well known to every one of those who have 
 written such pieces as we have already seen from thy family. Such 
 pieces as are short, for little children, would be preferred. 
 
 " For self and partner, very respectfully, 
 
 " D arton & Harvey." 
 
 "Books good, but cash better," thought the young 
 authors. But their father, from the high desk where be 
 habitually stood at his work, said, " I do not want my 
 girls to be authors," not foreseeing that almost all his 
 children would be more or less distinguished in litera- 
 ture ; that his wife, when past sixty, would take up the 
 pen ; and finally, that he himself would add a " Self- 
 Cultivation " and other works to the family total, 
 original The first series of " Original Poems for Infant Minds " 
 
 ' "' appeared about 1803, and included verses by Miss O'Keefe 
 (" Adelaide "), which, however, were afterwards separated 
 and published alone, but never retained any great popu- 
 larity. 
 
 The Taylors' " Original Poems " were soon reprinted 
 in America, and translated into German, Dutch, and 
 Eussian. For the first series £5 was at first paid, and 
 a second £$ added as the sale proved rapid ; the second 
 
/l&obern developments. 321 
 
 volume brought in £15, and the still more simple 
 "Ehymes for the Nursery," £20, not inconsiderable sums 
 at that time. The prevailing mania for poems in the 
 style of "The Butterfly's Ball" produced a "Wedding 
 among the Flowers," for which Darton & Harvey paid 
 ;£i2. At a later period the terms for some of the books 
 were augmented. 
 
 The celebrity of Jane Taylor seems rather to have 
 overshadowed that of her sister Ann, whose merits as 
 a writer were scarcely inferior. The difference between 
 the genius of the two was that Ann's sympathies went 
 out most towards human work and human life, in 
 which, first as the eldest of a large family, and then as 
 the wife of a Dissenting minister, Mr. Gilbert, she took 
 a very practical part. She died in 1866, aged eighty- 
 four, while her younger sister, Jane, passed away so early 
 as 1824. Jane perhaps loved Nature more deeply, and 
 rural stillness and seclusion were most congenial to the 
 frail body and thoughtful, deeply religious spirit. In 
 Essex, among scenery often lovely, in a peaceful and 
 thoroughly English way, but never grand, the quiet lives 
 of the Taylors were passed in various successive homes. 
 Jane lies buried at Ongar, under the floor of what has 
 now become the vestry of a little Dissenting chapel. 
 
 Some sixty years after the appearance of the verses 
 "My Mother," a writer in the Athenceumi, said to be 
 Professor De Morgan, described these verses as one of the 
 most beautiful lyrics in the English language, but dis- 
 approved of the theology of the last verse, and suggested 
 that the children of England should petition the Laureate 
 to replace with something better suited to modern ideas 
 the original ending : — 
 
 " For God, who lives above the skies, 
 Would look with vengeance in His eyes 
 If ever I should dare despise 
 My Mother." 
 
 X 
 
32 3 ZlBooern Developments. 
 
 To the surprise of many or most readers, the next 
 number of the Athenceum contained an answer by Mrs. 
 Gilbert, whom few knew to be still living. An alteration 
 was given, in which, however, the sentiment was scarcely 
 altered, the author's opinions of filial gratitude being 
 coloured by a family tradition of the unkindness of a 
 member of it in some past generation. Ann's verses 
 have been more often chosen for setting to music than 
 Jane's, also. Perhaps the most beautiful she ever wrote 
 were those beginning : — 
 
 " I saw the glorious sun arise 
 
 From yonder mountain grey, 
 And as he travelled through, the skies 
 
 The darkness went away, 
 And all around me was so bright, 
 
 I wished it had been always light." 
 
 Plenty of childish fun, too, finds expression in some of 
 the verses of both sisters. 
 
 As Ann in her humility observes, the Taylors had 
 scarcely any one with whom to compete. There was 
 Dr. Watts, and practically no one else in the field before 
 them, though many followed ; and therefore, unless a 
 fortunate child here and there in England might be 
 given the beautiful Scotch paraphrases, there was nothing 
 in the way of religious verse except the ponderous 
 doggrel of the school of James Janeway. Imagine a 
 child set to learn the "" Spiritual! Song '' of Master Pioger 
 Cotton : — 
 
 " Thou Rome, thy Frogs yape all in vain, 
 Thy Scorpions' stings be dull ; 
 Thou Rome, take heed, the kings of earth 
 
 Thy flesh from back will pull. 
 Thou Rome, thy Locusts have the fruits 
 
 Of ground so long ate up ; 
 Thou Rome, thy senses be too dull 
 By reason of thy fat," — 
 
 and the same child introduced to " Original Poems ! " 
 
/Ifoooern Developments. 3 2 3 
 
 There is too " moral " a tone in the Taylors' verses to 
 entirely please present-day taste perhaps, but at least 
 they have been the joy of some three generations, and 
 that is much to say for any books. 
 
 There are those of this generation, too, who keep on " Contri- 
 their shelves a dearly loved volume of the " Contributions q"q." 
 of Q. Q." These were by Jane Taylor, and were contri- 
 buted to The Youth's Magazine. " It was with the utmost 
 anxiety," said an affectionate mother to me, writes " A 
 Pastor" in this periodical for 1827, "that our family 
 on the first of every returning month glanced their eyes 
 over the cover of The Youth's Magazine, to see if any of 
 the Contributions of Q. Q. had been inserted." These 
 stories are, of course, heavily weighted with religious 
 discourses and reflections, but still, to those who knew 
 them in youth, their memory is evergreen. They loved, 
 and love still, to think of Fanny of the Sore Tongue, and 
 of the garrulous Looking-glass, and the foolish child who 
 begins work after work to leave all unfinished, and is 
 suitably rewarded with incomplete presents. And they 
 cannot forget that most impressive story, entitled "How 
 it Strikes a Stranger," in which a visitor from some other 
 sphere, coming to live in our own world, is acquainted 
 with the fact that he must die. The impression made 
 by this little story on a great mind has recently been 
 shown by the appearance of Browning's poem on " The 
 Star of my God Eephan." '' Limed Twigs to Catch Young 
 Birds, being Easy Eeading for Children," and " Sketches 
 from a Youthful Circle," were also written by the Taylor 
 sisters. 
 
 Jeffreys Taylor, considered by his brothers and sisters 
 the wag of the family, wrote a great number of bright 
 little books for children, stories and others. Among 
 them are " A New Description of the Earth, considered 
 principally as a Eesidence for Man," "The Young 
 
324 jflBooern Developments. 
 
 Islander," "Ealph Eichards," "Harry's Holiday," "A 
 Month in London," "^Isop in Ehyme." Two little 
 volumes, " City Scenes," illustrated by John Gilbert, and 
 " Eural Scenes," were also the work of the family. 
 
 The elder brother, Isaac Taylor, was the author of 
 graver works, " The Natural History of Enthusiasm " and 
 " Saturday Evening." 
 
 Considering the great reputation of the Taylor family, 
 it seems strange that the verses of their cousin, Helen 
 Taylor, should have been so forgotten. She was the 
 author of two tiny volumes, " Sabbath Bells " and " Mis- 
 sionary Hymns." The following little poem from the 
 first of these collections will show that her work would 
 bear comparison with that of her cousins. 
 
 " We have no words with which to tell 
 The truths that others teach, 
 And scarcely one would hearken well 
 Unto our childish speech. 
 
 Yet day hy day, if we should try 
 
 To do the things we know, 
 The wisest that should pass us by 
 
 Might wiser, holier grow. 
 
 Our Saviour Christ a lesson taught 
 
 From lilies in the grass ; 
 From little birds that quick as thought ■ 
 
 Amongst the branches pass. 
 
 A wise man and a holy one, 
 
 God's blessed word should preach ; 
 
 But if by us His will be done, 
 Some truth may children teach. 
 
 If when our neighbour does us wron<* 
 
 An answer kind we make, 
 And bear it patiently and long, 
 
 A lesson he may take. 
 
The Camel and Monkey as seen in the Streets many years ago. 
 
 The Newsboy and Penny Pieman. 
 
 '* Sedan chairs are only used by the nobility and others ... As for us poor authors, 
 
 we must adopt the plan of riding when we must and walking when we can." 
 
 From "Taylor's City Scenes" (ist Edition). 
 
 To face p. 324. 
 
" And if to battle he never had gone, 
 He'd have been better off, and his leg better on.' 
 
 An Invalid Boy taking Ass's Milk. 
 
 .% 
 
 Wli • ' "m 
 
 ImfWt' ' li'i 
 
 MMmB" ' 
 
 ggssaiai^ 
 
 '• A-going, a-going; who wishes to buy? 
 Though he's lame of one leg and blind of one eye." 
 
 From "Taylor's Rural Scenes" (ist Edition). 
 
 To face p. 324. 
 
fl&ooern Envelopments. 325 
 
 And sinner thus from sinner learns 
 
 Something that God has taught, 
 And by a lamp that feebly burns 
 
 A holier light is brought." 
 
 From Jane Taylor to Eichmal Mangnall is a very long Richmai 
 step, but the fifth edition of the " Miscellaneous Ques- ^ a X a "' 
 tions " was published in 1 806, and Mangnall and Lindley 
 Murray and Mavor were the school companions almost 
 invariably of the young people for whom the Taylors 
 wrote. Mangnall was undoubtedly a great authority for 
 a number of years, though all our recent educational 
 writers lift up their voices against her book, as indeed 
 we may suppose any earnest educationists would have 
 done in any age. "Writing in 1869, 1 Mr. E. H. Quick 
 declares himself almost driven to the supposition that 
 it was written as a satire on the instruction generally 
 given to a child. And Mr. Fitch 2 points out that fre- 
 quently two-thirds or so of the condensed information on 
 any subject is contained in the question, which of course 
 was not learnt by heart, although learning by heart could 
 be the only possible way of fastening any of this Liebig- 
 essence of knowledge in the memory. Thus : — 
 
 " What Eoman Emperor projected an invasion of 
 Britain, gathered only shells upon the shore, and then re- 
 turned to Eome in triumph?" — " Caligula, in the year 40." 
 
 The little Miss who had. steadily worked her way 
 through Mangnall was apt to think herself well educated 
 when her knowledge of such 'a subject as the civilisation 
 of Greece as derived from Mangnall consisted of this kind 
 of thing : — 
 
 " What progress did the Greeks make in the Arts ? " 
 — "From the time of Cyrus to that of Alexander, 
 they were gradually improving. Warriors, statesmen, 
 
 1 Essays on Educational Reformers. 
 * Lectures on Teaching. 
 
326 /l&ooern Developments. 
 
 philosophers, poets, historians, painters, architects, and 
 sculptors form a glorious phalanx in this golden age of 
 literature, and the history of Greece at this period is 
 equally important and instructive." 
 
 Then follow answers containing lists of the poets, 
 painters, and other distinguished characters already alluded 
 to, the lists containing names only. In other parts of 
 the book there are instructive biographical sketches, as 
 that which tells us all about " Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of 
 Salisbury, born in Edinburghshire 1643, died in 1715. 
 He is memorable as an historical and political writer." 
 Of these sketches Mr. Quick remarks, that " their length 
 does not vary according to the importance of the person 
 treated of. We find, e.g., sixteen and a half lines 
 (space enough in such a work as this for the literary 
 and political history of an empire or two) should be 
 devoted to 'Jeremiah Horrox, who continues to be re- 
 garded with admiration.' " x 
 
 As we put down our " Mangnall," we look back again 
 and think of the Tudor lady with her Plato, her em- 
 broidery, her falcon ; and then of the muslin-clad Miss 
 with her backboard, her fancy-works of eggshells and 
 coloured paper, her " Mangnall " and use of the globes. 
 We take up a bundle of children's books, belonging to 
 the advancing years of the century, and see with satis- 
 faction, from the letterpress to the prints, that fashion 
 grows more healthy in clothing and literature, for the 
 former grows more substantial and allows of healthy 
 outdoor exercise, and moral twaddle gives way to a 
 more human tone of thought. 
 Mrs. Sher- A genuine literary talent was in Mrs. Sherwood 
 
 wood 177^- 
 
 1851.' ' under the control of the very strongest religious bias of 
 mind. Brought up at a boarding-school of the traditional 
 
 1 Eichmal Mangnall wrote also a volume of poems, " Half an Hour's 
 Lounge," which may be described as of equal value with her "Questions." 
 
flftooern Developments. 3 2 7 
 
 sort, where the " parlour " was hung round with " chenille- 
 pieces," depicting tombs and weeping willows and the 
 like, Miss Mary Martha Butt began to write at seven- 
 teen. Her matiuscript, a story entitled " The Traditions," 
 was published to help a friend in difficulties, and it was 
 a piece of real self-sacrifice on her part to consent to the 
 publication, her idea and that of her circle being that an 
 authoress must be an odious blue-stocking. 
 
 Her father, however, desired it. He had always had 
 a high opinion of her talent for writing, and had once 
 shut her and her brother up in his study till they should 
 produce something. Another story, " Margarita," was 
 published before long. After her marriage to an officer 
 in the army, Mrs. Sherwood went to India, where she 
 spent many years, losing several infant children in spite 
 of the most devoted efforts to care for them, and giving 
 much of her time to the teaching of the children of the 
 regiment, and of little natives also. 
 
 In 1 815 Mrs. Sherwood sent home a little story 
 jotted down on thin foreign writing-paper to her sister, 
 Mrs. Cameron, who edited it, adding considerably to the 
 religious portion, and sold the work for £5 to Houlston, 
 a young bookseller at Wellington, in Shropshire. This 
 book, "Little Henry and his Bearer," had a most re- 
 markable success, and was rapidly translated into many 
 languages. Dr. Morrison made a Chinese edition, and 
 wrote that he heard of one in Cingalese. 
 
 For her Indian children, to whom English story-books 
 were difficult to understand and realise, Mrs. Sherwood 
 wrote her " Stories on the Church Catechism," and also 
 her Indian version of the "Pilgrim's Progress" for her '™ff! 
 own children and scholars — the " Child's Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress," of which mention has already been made, and of 
 which the popularity has been so lasting that Messrs. 
 Hatchards still print it. 
 
328 flDooern Developments. 
 
 A great many of Mrs. Sherwood's stories arose out of 
 her Indian life. " George Desmond " was written after 
 seeing a performance of dancing-girls. " The Ayah and 
 Lady," " Memoirs of Sergeant Dale, his Daughter, and 
 the Orphan Mary," all have the same origin. 
 
 On returning to England, Mrs. Sherwood desired to 
 take in some pupils, as her husband's half-pay would be 
 but a poor provision for their family. Her literary fame 
 was scarcely known to her ; she chiefly thought of it as 
 a possible help towards recommending her to parents. 
 She found herself famous, however, and saw that writing 
 would be a profitable employment. Accordingly she 
 published a number of other, stories, some with the help 
 of her daughter, Mrs. Kelly, who indeed very probably 
 wrote the whole in some cases. Many of these were for 
 Darton & Clark, sometimes " written to cuts " which 
 were supplied by the firm, and strung into a story 
 according to the author's idea of their suggestiveness. 
 
 Such were " The Eose," " The Busy Bee," " The Bed 
 Book," "Little George and his Penny," "The Errand 
 Boy," " Maria and the Ladies." One of the most popular 
 of her shorter stories, "The Little Woodman and his 
 Dog Caesar," was produced by Houlston in 1819. 
 
 " The Fairchild Family " is one of the books, now 
 thoroughly " old-fashioned," of which some in our own 
 generation have happy recollections. The very naughty 
 children were personal friends, and so, looking back in a 
 critical spirit, we infer that the author knew how to 
 draw character. 1 But was the moral so very good ? 
 Our recollection of the terribly well-brought-up children 
 is that each chapter found them in worse mischief than 
 the last. "Henry Milner" was a series of stories told 
 
 1 The story of Evelyn in the third volume waa written in consequence 
 of a present of books from some American " Universalist," whose doctrines 
 Mrs. Sherwood at once set herself to counteract. 
 
/l&ooern developments. 329 
 
 in Mrs. Sherwood's later days to children. " The Little 
 Millennium Boy " became an immense favourite ; children 
 were christened after the little hero, who had become a 
 household word, and a child was deputed to present two 
 ornamental pens, with a request for another volume. Of 
 Mrs. Sherwood's shorter stories, one of the most popular 
 was " The Flowers of the Forest," in which the conversa- 
 tion of a little Protestant child is shown to open the 
 eyes of a French cure - to the errors of his Church. 
 
 Besides the adaptation of " The Governess " already 
 mentioned, Mrs. Sherwood wrote an " Introduction to 
 Geography '' and " An Introduction to Astronomy." 
 
 Mrs. Cameron's literary efforts were not entirely con- Mrs - 
 fined to the editing of her sister's works. She herself 
 wrote a number of intensely religious, but from a literary 
 point of view, somewhat feeble stories. Such are " Mar- 
 garet Whyte," "The Two Lambs," "Memory," "The 
 Faithful Little Girl." "Whereas Mrs. Sherwood delights 
 to tell us " what happened," we are painfully conscious in 
 reading her sister's stories that the plot is but a vehicle 
 for the desired instruction — a mere gilding of the pill of 
 improvement. Mrs. Sherwood might, we feel, under 
 other conditions, have become a great story-teller. " Little 
 George and His Penny" is almost an ideal story for a 
 very young child ; whoso doubts it has but to try the 
 experiment. 
 
 The plan of selling books by other writers under the Harriet 
 
 » ? 1 1 t « i-i a • i Martineau, 
 
 name of some successful author — a device which certainly i 79 6-i86o. 
 we should hardly expect to find adopted by so religious a 
 person as Houlston — was a great annoyance to Harriet 
 Martineau, who found her own works made to sail under 
 Mrs. Sherwood's colours, and then, when her own name 
 had become known, other works palmed off on the public 
 as hers. At this time, about 1827, Miss Martineau was 
 writing for Houlston. In 1830, when she was twenty- 
 
33° flDobern Developments. 
 
 eight, she wrote " Five Years of Youth " for Darton, aud 
 received £20. But this was the work of a time of 
 weariness, and consequently an indifferent performance : 
 the plot is feeble and invertebrate, though the hand of a 
 good writer is discernible in many passages. But " The 
 Crofton Boys," "Feats on the Fjord," and "Settlers at 
 Home" are first-rate books, too well known to need 
 further description here, and, if we may judge by recent 
 reprints, not likely to lose their popularity for many a 
 day. 
 Mary Before this time Mary Howitt had begun to write 
 
 1800-1888. for the children. Of her works, also, we should hardly 
 have need to speak. Her " Tales in Verse," " Tales in 
 Prose," " Birds and Flowers," " Marien's Pilgrimage," and 
 others, from time to time reprinted, are as sure to delight 
 the children of this day as they did the children of fifty 
 years ago. Only a year ago, in her beautiful Tyrolese 
 home, Mary Howitt passed away. One of her less 
 known works, perhaps, is the "Birthday Gift," 1829, 
 which for two years appeared in monthly parts as " The 
 Dial of Love," a collection of stories and verses of the 
 freshest and brightest sort. 
 Miss « Tales of the Great and Brave " had a great popu- 
 
 Tytier. larity — has still, perhaps. This book was written by 
 agreement for Darton; but after the first edition, the 
 good Quaker thought the style too warlike, and the copy- 
 right was transferred to Hatchard, two other stories being 
 supplied by Miss Fraser-Tytler in the place of this. 
 "Tales of Many Lands" appeared in 1839. "Leila, or 
 the Island," a story of the Crusoe sort, was always a 
 very great favourite. But on reopening this book after 
 long years, the extreme grown-upness of the style strikes 
 us of the present generation forcibly. Have we indeed 
 travelled so far from the modes of expression of our 
 youth ? The question often recurs as we look into the 
 
fl&ooern Developments. 331 
 
 books of even thirty years ago. Not even a group of college 
 dons to-day would converse with the elaborate propriety 
 of diction and the marked preference for words of Latin 
 extraction over the shorter and homelier Anglo-Saxon, 
 which pervade the children's talk, as reported in these 
 books. 
 
 One of Miss Fraser-Tytler's most popular works was 
 " Mary and Florence." The two little heroines were such 
 real people, the child-reader felt personally acquainted 
 with them. This was indeed one of the first books of 
 a purely modern literature in our country, that which 
 attempts to show us children as they are, telling of not 
 merely a good little boy or a naughty little boy, or a 
 premature little man or woman, or a little Puritan prig, 
 but a real child, with likes and dislikes, tempers and 
 longings, in short with a character of its own. 
 
 Such books as " The Fairchild Family " often depicted Catherine 
 naughty children, but always let us hear the hasty foot- b^oa 
 falls of Nemesis behind them. Miss Catherine Sinclair's 
 " Holiday House " ventured, perhaps for the first time, 
 to set ill deeds in an amusing light. Most certainly the 
 children chuckled as they read of the naughty boy and 
 girl who wanted for purposes of their own to catch cold, 
 and who therefore went out without neckties, ran up and 
 down stairs, and then sat in a draught and did various 
 other things commonly supposed certain to give them 
 " their death," but continued perfectly well. Stories of 
 childish pranks and misdemeanours have grown common 
 enough since then. But perhaps the writers do some- 
 times forget that it may not be absolutely profitable for 
 the young readers to be told that the flush of anger on 
 little May's face made her look deliciously pretty, or 
 that Lilian's disobedience was merely an idiosyncracy — 
 the prickly bud from which a noble strength of will 
 should blossom in later years. 
 
332 /iDobern developments. 
 
 That is an ill day for a child on which it for the 
 first time hears grown people make light of wrong- 
 doing. It may seem a trifling matter. There comes a 
 day when it first observes the smile that greeted a jest 
 which depended for its flavour upon, in Puritan phrase, 
 " herbs from the devil's garden," and in that moment, as 
 if by a trifling insect-wing, much of the bloom of the 
 young soul's purity is rubbed off. 
 Sarah Sarah Flower Adams is best known to us as the 
 
 Adams aut h° r of the beautiful hymn, " Nearer, my God, to Thee." 
 1805-1849. Among the many touching stories connected with these 
 verses is that of a little drummer-boy at the battle of 
 Fort Donelson who, as he lay dying, one arm shot away 
 by a cannon-ball, was heard to repeat them to himself. 
 Mrs. Adams wrote several hymns for the hymn-book in 
 use at the Unitarian Chapel at South Place, Finsbury. 
 She also wrote for children a very short and simple little 
 catechism-book entitled "The Flock at the Fountain." 
 She lies buried at Harlow in Essex. 
 
 By this time the utilitarian books were fast gaining 
 ground. 
 
 In reading such books as these, we become pleasantly 
 conscious of a real improvement in the standard of pro- 
 ductions of our own generation. It is at least certain 
 that a higher ideal obtains. The literary tyro is not so 
 sure of attaining fame at a bound by the production of 
 Mrs Hof- " only a child's book." Mrs. Hofland was in her day a 
 
 land. £G . , * 
 
 sufficiently popular author, and may be taken as repre- 
 sentative of a number of writers of the time. 
 
 Her books have neither the ponderous morality of the 
 Thomas Day and Dr. Percival type, nor the evangelical 
 fervour of Mrs. Sherwood and her school. They are 
 closely packed with moving accidents by flood and field, 
 incidents of the most sensational kind piled one upon 
 the other. But they fail to be effective in much the 
 
flDooern Envelopments. 333 
 
 same way that the clowns' tragedy of "Pyramus and 
 Thisbe " fails to move us to tears or even to good whole- 
 some laughter. It is merely a puppet-show, and we 
 care nothing for what will become either of the virtuous 
 hero — he is bound to come right in the end — or of the 
 wild and wicked cousin, who will as certainly come to 
 ruin, or of the lovely maiden, white muslined and blue 
 sashed, whose wedding or funeral will end the book. 
 
 We cannot contrive to care what becomes of the char- 
 acters, but we do vaguely wonder whether there ever 
 was a time in the world's history when one mortal ad- 
 dressed another in the fashion adopted by these people. 
 
 Thus it is related in Mrs. Hofland's " Affectionate 
 Brothers," that one Edward Mainwaring had taken to 
 gambling, which resulted in a total depravation of char- 
 acter. Wishing to see a companion tarred with the same 
 brush, he tries to lead him astray, but the undeviating 
 propriety of his victim prostrates his schemes for a time, 
 and he waits " till luxurious living shall have enervated 
 his victim's mind, and rendered him liable to seduction." 
 
 When Edward, proceeds our author, " had finished this 
 confession, the humiliation of which he appeared severely 
 to feel," thus spoke the virtuous Charles : — 
 
 " Wounded as I am by your proposal, and shocked as 
 I must be with knowing how closely I have associated 
 with one whose conduct has been so diametrically opposed 
 to all that a young man in my situation ought to approve, 
 yet I can never tear you wholly from my affections, 
 Edward, nor forget my own obligations to you. Leave 
 me for one hour, during which I will calculate my own 
 wages, and I promise faithfully to give you to the amount 
 of the last shilling I am worth in the world ; in the mean- 
 time consider if there is any other way in which I can 
 serve you, and be assured I will do it to the very utmost 
 of my power. Oh my friend, if you can resolve to be 
 
334 /iDooern Developments. 
 
 worthy of that name, how happy would it make 
 me!" 
 
 Among her stories published from 1 8 1 6 onwards are 
 " Theodore," " The Gift of Friendship," " Adelaide," " The 
 History of an Officer's "Widow and her Young Family," 
 "The History of a Clergyman's Widow and her Young 
 Family," " The Daughter of a Genius," and " Son of a 
 Genius," also " The Barbadoes Girl," " Africa Described." 
 
 Slavery The two last mentioned of Mrs. Hofland's stories belong 
 
 ories- to the class of books which the growing interest in the 
 Slavery Question brought out. "The Adventures of 
 Samboe," 1823, was dedicated to Wilberforce. There 
 were also " The Adventures of Congo," " Kadama, or The 
 Enlightened African," 1824, "The Babes in the Basket," 
 and many more. 
 
 Maria Maria Hack's " Winter Evenings, or Tales of Travel- 
 
 lers," is, according to a high authority, " a capital book," * 
 although the conversations, interpolated after the manner 
 which is well remembered in Mrs. Markham's " Histories,' 
 are rather childish for boys who would enjoy the main 
 part of the work. Many odds and ends of information, 
 considered too trifling for the text, are worked in in 
 this way. The book appeared in 18 18, and "Grecian 
 Stories "in 1824. Apparently the plan of introducing 
 conversations did not seem to the author quite satisfac- 
 tory, for in the second edition of the " Grecian Stories " 
 these are worked into the narrative. 
 
 "English Stories," 1824, " Oriental Fragments," 1828, 
 being studies intended to illustrate and confirm Scripture ; 
 "Fireside Stories," 1825, "English Stories of the Olden 
 Time," all convey information in simple narrative. " Lec- 
 tures at Home " gave information on the eye, glass, spec- 
 tacles, and so forth. " Geological Sketches," 183 1, shows 
 mamma instructing that ardent inquirer, Harry, who is 
 
 1 H. R. Quick, " Educational Reformers." 
 
flfoooern Developments. 33s 
 
 the catechist in many of the books. " Harry Beaufoy, 
 or The Pupil of Nature," 1821, endeavours to teach him 
 " to look from the creature to the Creator." " Familiar 
 Illustrations of Christianity," 1824, deals with the sin- 
 cerity of martyrs, the art of magic, the variations of 
 the Gospels, and the like. All these books are of the 
 same style — simple, pleasant, and profitable — nowadays 
 old-fashioned, since dialogues are "a bore" and books of 
 information on all subjects only too abundant. 
 
 The Eev. W. Bingley wrote a number of useful and w. Bing- 
 interesting books in a style somewhat heavier or more 1774-1823. 
 solid than Miss Hack's. "Useful Knowledge," 1825, 
 deals in the first volume with minerals. "Animated 
 Nature," 1826, is a simple introduction to zoology. 
 " Travels," in North America, Asia, Northern and Southern 
 Europe respectively, are chiefly extracts from modern 
 writers. The information is closely packed, and is some- 
 times curious, as in the account of Munich : — 
 
 " The politest men in Munich are the military. The 
 burghers are almost wholly destitute of politeness. It 
 is not unusual to see them in great-coats and boots at 
 private balls, and with tobacco-pipes in their hands in 
 the open streets. They are said to care little respecting 
 literary attainments." 
 
 Miss Strickland wrote occasionally for children. Be- Agnes 
 sides the imitation of Eobinson Crusoe formerly men- 
 tioned, she wrote the prose portion of a " Juvenile Scrap- 
 Book," and also "Sketches from Nature," "Hints for 
 Juvenile Naturalists," "The Sketchbook of a Young 
 Naturalist." Of these books of information indeed there 
 was a perfect flood. "The Little Engineers" go for a 
 walk, and talk of animals, vegetables, and minerals. 
 "A Peep into Nature," 1827, is taken in words of one 
 syllable. "The Interesting Walks of Henry and his 
 Tutor" are sufficiently described by the title. Then 
 
336 /l&ooern Developments. 
 
 there were "Youthful Travellers," 1823, who go about 
 the world and write descriptive letters ; " A Tour through 
 England," fourth edition, 1821, in letters from a boy; 
 " Eeal Stories of Foreign Countries," " The Moss-House," 
 which children build, and obtain all sorts of information 
 as they work ; " Amusement Hall," " Eational Sports," 
 "Letters to a Governess," in which the young people 
 describe their late acquirements, and many more. 
 PnsciUa A great many such books were the work of Priscilla 
 
 Wakefield 
 
 ' Wakefield, author of the " Classification of Insects," 
 already mentioned, in which great delight is expressed 
 that the reign of Woglog and nonsense has given place to 
 the reign of sense and useful information. 
 
 Her "Domestic Eecreation," 1 806, consists of dialogues 
 on insects, meteors, &c. "The Juvenile Travellers," 
 1 801, and the young people who take a "Family Tour 
 through England," which attained a tenth edition in 
 1820, write instructive letters. "Instinct Displayed" 
 consists of letters containing stories of animals. " Mental 
 Improvement " consists of conversations on metals, shells, 
 and the like. The "Introduction to Botany'' reached an 
 eleventh edition in 1841. "City Scenes" and "Peram- 
 bulations in London " are interesting as studies of a past 
 life in a much-altered city. 
 Charlotte The lady who wrote under the name of " Charlotte 
 iza et . Elizabeth" belongs to -the school of Mrs. Sherwood. She 
 was the daughter of an Irish clergyman named Browne, 
 whose views are well expressed by his comment on 
 Pope's " Universal Prayer " as atrocious and a blasphe- 
 mous outrage on Eevelation. Miss Browne's first attempt 
 at authorship was not what might be expected ; at sixteen 
 she amused herself by writing political squibs. She 
 married a Captain Phelan, but the marriage proved un- 
 happy, and finally, on her husband being ordered to 
 America, she refused to accompany him. A later 
 
flBooern Developments. 337 
 
 marriage to a Mr. Tonna, a preacher, was more success- 
 ful as regarded her happiness. Charlotte Elizabeth wrote 
 a number of tracts and edited the Protestant Magazine. 
 By her endeavours a church was built in the then 
 hideous purlieus of St. Giles in London. Her "Deserter" 
 is an interesting but melancholy story of military life in 
 India. But the work which especially showed real talent 
 was her " Siege of Deny," which, especially in her native 
 country, had a great popularity, Eeligious discussions, 
 and dissertations full of a horror of Papacy weigh the 
 book heavily, but the stirring story of the splendid and 
 romantic defence of the city — of the closing of its gates 
 by the 'prentice boys, the brave endurance of starvation 
 and suffering by women and children, the would-be 
 treachery of the governor, the ineffectual effort of the 
 relieving ships and final deliverance — is brilliantly told. 
 . So vehement was the author's anti-Popery, that a 
 young lady introduced to her declares her first words 
 to have been, "Well, my dear, I hope you hate the 
 Papists ? " 
 
 One of the most prolific writers of the. time was Mary Mary 
 Belson, afterwards Mrs. Elliott, who wrote a number of 
 clever and pleasant books for the Dartons. Among these 
 are "Tales of Truth," "Eural Employments," 1820, 
 " Eustic Excursions," describing a stay in a village, and 
 the pursuits of the " unpolished inhabitants " in brightly 
 written sketches. " The Sunflower " consists of poems.. 
 "The Adventures of Philip Quarll," as edited by this 
 lady, have already been mentioned. " The Truant 
 Eeclaimed," "The Orphan Brothers," and an immense 
 number of other little stories, were also written by her. 
 
 The works of Mary Hughes show the influence of Mary 
 Miss Edgeworth, to whom some of them are dedicated. Hu g hes - 
 "The Alchemist," ,1818, "The Ornaments Discovered," 
 and "The Metamorphoses," 1818, are really clever 
 
 Y 
 
338 flDooern Developments. 
 
 stories of the Edgeworth type. "Aunt Mary's New 
 Year's Gift," " Something New from Aunt Mary," and 
 " Aunt Mary's Tales," are also good of their kind. 
 
 "Reading- Meantime books for teaching to read were appearing 
 in numbers. We are glad to trace a steady improve- 
 ment in method, though here and there we find oddities. 
 For instance, at so recent a date as 1871 "The 
 Practical Moral Lesson-Book," by M'Culloch (Oliver and 
 Boyd), reverted to the old syllabarium, and the reading- 
 lessons include such sentences as : — " No sa-go ? Why 
 so ? Why de-ny me the sa-go ? " which is suggestive of 
 the grand Panjandrum ; and another rather suggestive of 
 a festive bar-dinner : — " Is the wig of the wag in the 
 big bag ? " 
 
 In 1869 also, an eccentric volume professes itself to 
 attain "Beading made Easy in spite of the Alphabet." 
 The enemy is to be vanquished by crossing out and 
 marking letters, whereby polysyllables may be read at 
 once. The first lesson, to follow the alphabet, begins — . 
 " a beautiful larger doLf." 
 
 LadyFenn. Under the names of " Solomon Lovechild " and " Louisa 
 Lovechild," some books for young people appeared. 
 Those of Lady Fenn, writing as Mrs. Lovechild, are 
 chiefly reading-lessons — " Mrs. Lovechild's Easy Beading," 
 " Little Vocabulary," and various others. Her " Infantine 
 Knowledge," begins with the syllabarium, and has a little 
 section — a last reminiscence of the old " courtesy-book " — 
 on the behaviour of children, reminding them that to sing 
 or whistle in company are idle tricks of vulgar children. 
 She also wrote " Dialogues and Letters on Morality, Eco- 
 nomy, and Politeness," "The Child's Grammar," "The 
 Mother's Grammar," " Short Sermons for Young Persons," 
 " The Infant's Friend," &c. 
 
 Peter Par. The stories belonging to the Peter Parley series 
 owed much of their charm to the naturalness of the 
 
fllbooem Developments. 339 
 
 characters. "The Hatchups of me and my School- 
 fellows," by William Martin, gave capital pictures of 
 schoolboy-life, neither morbid nor priggish. Goodrich, 
 the originator of the series, was himself eminently suc- 
 cessful. "Dick Boldhero" and "Wit Bought" are 
 among his books. The series received the sincerest of 
 flatteries ; imitations appeared in great numbers, and 
 were even audaciously introduced into America. 
 
 From that country came also the once-popular stories Jacob 
 of Jacob Abbott, " Caleb in the Country," " The Young Abbott ' 
 Christian," and others. It would seem as if their charm 
 must chiefly have lain in the realism of the character- 
 drawing, then a new idea, and to English readers, in 
 accounts of a child-life somewhat different from that of 
 their own country. 
 
 As we turn from book to book, we seem to be able 
 almost to mark the date by the progress of a kind of 
 unstiffening process. Various causes were combining to 
 make the Englishman a more flexible creature. Such 
 descriptions of him as those in the inimitable Nouvelles 
 Genevoises were ceasing to be portraits and becoming 
 caricatures. Naturally, less and less buckram entered 
 into the training of the children. The backboards which 
 stiffened the shoulders into woodenness, the stocks which 
 twisted the feet into impossible " third positions," had 
 had their moral counterpart. Etiquette-books may be 
 allowed to be a little old-fashioned in their rules of 
 behaviour, but still the " Polite Academy, or School of 
 Behaviour for Little Masters and Misses," published 
 early in the century by William Darton, shows what 
 solemnity of salutation and elaborateness of manner had 
 at least been required in family life. And the letter 
 from his grandmother, given in the ''Life of W. E. 
 Forster " — granting that Quakers also were a little behind 
 the age — is so graphic a picture of discipline, that we 
 
34° /ifeobern 2>e\>elopments. 
 
 quote it here. The grandson was at the time about eight 
 years old : — 
 
 " "Weymouth, Third Day. 
 {About 1825.) 
 
 " My vert dear Willy, — The very pretty books called 'Frank' I 
 have sent upon conditions as follows : — 
 
 " 1st. Thou art to try to read this letter before the books are 
 untied. 
 
 " 2nd. Whenever thou art so far forgetful of thy duty as to let thy 
 dear mother call thee or order thee more than once to do anything, 
 thou art to tie up the books for one week for each offence, and beg 
 Maria [his nurse] to write such offence or offences on the outside of 
 the cover of the books, and the day of the month when they are 
 tied up and when they are untied. 
 
 " yd. When thou art so forgetful of thy duty as to let Maria call 
 thee or order thee more than once to do anything, thou art to tie up 
 the book for three days for each offence, and beg Maria to write thy 
 offence or offences on the outside cover of the books, and the day of 
 the month when they are tied up and when they are untied. 
 
 " i,th. If I receive the covers of the books after thy having them 
 three months without any writing on the outside, I intend to allow 
 thee to choose another book. — I remain, thy very affectionate grand- 
 mother, A. Henning." 
 
 Eeactions are apt to be violent. From the excellent 
 story of " Frank," valuable as a moral agent, to the boy- 
 novels of Marryat and Mayne Eeid was only the swing 
 of the pendulum. 
 
 Naturally the boys pounced eagerly upon these books ; 
 and perhaps naturally, also, their sisters escaped from 
 " Mary and Florence," and " Anna Eoss, the Orphan of 
 Waterloo," to read the " War Trail " in sly seclusion. 
 
 Of late these books have been much condemned for 
 their dangerous sensationalism, and indeed within the 
 last year x an instructive commentary has been furnished 
 by a tragic event at Leeds, where a boy named Albert 
 Cundall, aged fifteen, having twice run away to sea, in 
 1 Written in 1889. 
 
flfoooem Developments. 341 
 
 imitation of one of these youthful heroes, hanged himself 
 in endeavouring to copy the achievement of a boy hero 
 in Mayne Eeid's "Fatal Cord," who shows his courage 
 by hanging on with his hands to a tree with a cord on a 
 slip-knot round his neck. Captain Mayne Eeid's praise- 
 worthy efforts to impart useful information have scarcely 
 been allowed due credit by his critics. And indeed it 
 is to be feared that juvenile readers generally found the 
 useful information rather exasperating, in the manner of 
 its imparting at least. 
 
 It was certainly trying, just when the agony was 
 piled up to its highest point, when the eyes of the 
 ferocious animal driven to bay after a thrilling chase are 
 all aglow and its limbs ready bent for the spring, while 
 the wounded hunter lies helpless, the little boy in the 
 tree holds his breath, and death or the deus ex machind 
 must absolutely be the next thing — to find that at that 
 moment of strained attention the prostrate chasseur turns 
 his head and espies — a tree ! So the springing beast 
 remains in mid-air, the little boy with mouth wide open, 
 while the author proceeds to a dissertation on the various 
 uses of the celebrated mutton-chop tree of Western Brazil. 
 
 But we are anticipating, and must return. In fiction 
 the interesting and the amusing were thus supplanting 
 the iw.'promng. "We pause as the stream of children's 
 books broadens into a mighty river, impossible to contain 
 within the narrow limits of this sketch. 
 
 We find no line of demarcation. The tendency to 
 make the books for the children's own reading simply 
 recreative, led to an enlivenment of their lesson-books. 
 
 The " Decoy of English Grammar," produced by Dar- 
 ton & Harvey in 1819, was one of the earliest efforts to 
 make lessons pleasant and interesting. The name of 
 " Leading Strings " had already been given by William 
 Darton to a little alphabet-book which endeavoured to 
 
342 flfoooern developments. 
 
 combine amusement -with instruction. " Mrs. Markham,' 
 in real life Elizabeth Penrose, belongs to a somewhat 
 later date, but her " Conversations " were a pleasant de- 
 vice for introducing bits of description and anecdote 
 which might appear to be beneath the dignity of a 
 schoolbook. 
 "Child's None of the new productions, however, could rival in 
 Guide -" success the " Child's Guide to Knowledge," by " a Lady," 
 Mrs. Ward. The second edition of this little book 
 appeared in 1828, the thirty- ninth in 1866. The old 
 idea of the " Colloquy," and the old plan of a book on 
 the " Properties of Things," were here revived, and wel- 
 comed in the schoolroom with a delight which lingers in 
 some memories still. 
 
 Practical teachers found that no lesson was more 
 quickly learnt and none more enjoyed. Why not then 
 make other lessons pleasant too ? If to have the pill of 
 education swallowed is our aim, and if a little moral 
 currant-jelly facilitates the operation, is it not desirable ? 
 True, the pill without the currant-jelly may be a higher 
 moral discipline; but then, school-life is short, and the 
 shadow of the examiner is ever over it. 
 
 We pause here, therefore, about the year 1826, 
 taking for a nominal boundary the appearance of the 
 " Child's Guide," of which the great success shows the 
 direction already taken by the educational idea. 
 
 Popular education had received, as we have seen, a 
 great impulse in the days of Hannah More, Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld, Eaikes, and others. But through the first half of 
 our century there was much opposition to be encountered 
 and many hindrances to be overcome by its promoters. 
 Not least among these was the want of suitable books. 
 The Chris- The Catholic Order of Christian Brothers had been 
 the™? 10 ' founded by Edmund Eice, who saw and pitied the ignor- 
 ance of poor children in the towns of Ireland. Mr. Eice . 
 
/l&obern 2>e\>elopments. 343 
 
 took orders, and obtained permission to found a Congre- 
 gation and open schools. These rapidly increased in 
 numbers, and the Brothers, rinding few books to suit 
 their purpose, proceeded to write what they required. 
 
 These now form a tolerably complete educational 
 series, and the schools of the Christian Brothers have 
 extended to Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, the 
 United States, and Gibraltar, Ireland being still the centre 
 of operations. The French Congregation of Brothers of 
 the Christian Schools is an entirely distinct order. 
 
 The first supporters of night-schools found themselves 
 met by the same difficulty. 
 
 Miss Sarah Crompton, working in Birmingham, found Miss 
 it necessary to make her own tools. : " Tales that are 
 True," "The Scholar's Book," "The Life of Columbus," 
 " Old and New Stories," in short words, were written by 
 her some forty years ago to meet the need for easy, but 
 not infantine, reading-lessons for the uneducated of 
 mature years. 
 
 " Teaching Myself," by the author of the famous Mrs. _ 
 " Peep of Day " and " Line upon Line," Mrs. Mortimer, or imer " 
 was written for the same purpose, the wants of chil- 
 dren being met by the same lady's "Reading without 
 Tears." Her "Near Home" and "Far Off" were easy 
 geography-books, which have been less popular per- 
 haps than the " Peep of Day," but useful enough in their 
 generation. 
 
 Books putting Scripture into a simple form, and in- 
 tended for parents to read to children, were produced in 
 great numbers thirty to forty years ago, when indeed no 
 household library was complete without the "Peep of 
 Day." 
 
 A number of these were the work of Mrs. Leathley, Mrs. 
 of whose books, some ninety in all, perhaps " Chickseed oa ey ' 
 without Chickweed " is perhaps the best known. A " Life 
 
344 fl&ooern developments. 
 
 of our Saviour," " History of Joseph and his Brethren," 
 " Mamma's Bible-Stories," " History of Cain and Abel," 
 " The Children of Scripture," were all written by Mrs. 
 Leathley, to whom the children owed, as has been said, 
 nearly ninety books of various sorts, from " Fun for Little 
 Folks '" to " Gutta-Percha : its Uses to Man." 
 
 These books are merely touched upon, belonging as 
 they do to a date far later than the boundary line which 
 we have endeavoured to draw about 1826. One more 
 name which cannot be passed over without some slight 
 Mrg notice is that of Mrs. Marcet, whose books were so 
 
 Marcet. highly appreciated and fulfilled so excellent a work in 
 their generation. 
 
 Probably they too, like other and greater works of 
 men, have served their purpose and are now of little 
 value — 
 
 " Our little systems have their day, 
 They have their day and cease to be," 
 
 and are laid aside like the children's outgrown clothes. 
 
 It marks, we are inclined to think, a step in the 
 education of women that the young mothers of to-day 
 are so generally disinclined to use any such books in the 
 teaching of their children, but prefer to tell the old 
 stories and teach the old lessons in words fresh from 
 their own minds, and specially adapted to the pupil of 
 the moment. It would seem to mean that a step has 
 been gained within the last few decades by women, 
 since possession of the power to give out knowledge again, 
 and that of putting thoughts into words, implies a stronger 
 mental grasp than that of the person who can only teach 
 with eyes on book. 
 
 But even now, when we every day hear the complaint 
 that the world is over-flooded with books, can it be said 
 that we have done our duty to our poorer brethren in the 
 
dfoooern Developments. 34s 
 
 matter of literature ? Much has been done, but much 
 remains to do. We have taught them to read, but so 
 long as their literature is the garbage of police reports 
 and the lowest possible fiction, would it not be better 
 that the poor should not know what Thomas Day called 
 the " mischievous combinations " of the alphabet ? Look- 
 ing back at the past and looking forward to the future, 
 we cannot but feel that no light responsibility rests 
 upon those whose work it is to feed the minds of 
 children and the uneducated. 
 
 We think once more of Caxton, choosing carefully the 
 books that he would send forth, with a deep reverence in 
 his heart for the white souls upon which his characters 
 would be printed, as surely as upon the white paper before 
 him. Long years of time, long miles of distance may 
 intervene, yet the distinct act of the heedless writer — 
 writing " what takes " or " what pays " — may bring ruin 
 to " one of these little ones." 
 
 Vox mt-dita perit ; litem scripta manet ! 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A apple pie, 132. 
 
 Abbott, Jacob, 339. 
 
 ABC of Aristotle, 131 ; Ballet of, 
 130; of Devotion, 131. 
 
 Books, 123; editions of, 125. 
 
 Academy, an, 200 n. ; the, 281 ; of 
 Compliments, 109; Queen Eliza- 
 beth's, 81 n. 
 
 Aekermann's Repository, 245. 
 
 Adams, S. F., 332. 
 
 "Adelaide," 320. 
 
 Adele et Thiodore, 250, 267. 
 
 A delysious surupe, 145. 
 
 Advancement of Learning, 155- 
 
 Adventures and Conversations, 247 
 n. ; of Congo, 334 ; of a Donkey, 
 250 ; of Sambo, 334 ; of a Pin- 
 cushion, 269 ; of Ulysses, 286. 
 
 Advice to a Son, 199. 
 
 iElfric, 30; his Colloquy, 31 ; his 
 "Vocabulary, 33. 
 
 Bata, 33. 
 
 Affectionate Brothers, 333. 
 
 Alcuin, 28 ; on Arithmetic, 25 ; Dia- 
 logues, 28. 
 
 Aldhelm, 16 ; De Laude, 16 ; letter, 
 17; De Septenario, 19. 
 
 Alexander de Villa Dei, 140. 
 
 Mrs., 257. 
 
 Alfred the Great, 29. 
 
 Alice in Wonderland, 237. 
 
 Allegories, Comestor's, 59 ; Monro's, 
 204. 
 
 Alphabet, Absurd, 311 ; andPlaine 
 
 Pathway, 165 ; Royal Picture, 
 
 228; Pages in Primer, 130. 
 Analysis of French and English, 226. 
 Anchoran, John, 157. 
 Ancren Riwle, 15. 
 Annaquil, works by, 141. 
 Anna Ross, 340. 
 Anselm, 68. 
 
 Apprentice's Companion, 195. 
 Apprentices, early age of, 78 ; taught 
 
 to read, 79, 153. 
 Arabian Nights, 240 ; moralised, 
 
 240. 
 Argus, Arabella, 250. 
 Arithmetic, Cocker's, 154. 
 Aristotle's Alphabet, 131 ; Legacy, 
 
 109. 
 Art of English Poetry, 167. 
 Ascensius, Declensions of, 140. 
 Ascham, R., 146 ; on education, 87. 
 Asiatic Princess, 279. 
 Astronomy, Treatise on, 35. 
 Aulnoy, Mme d', 233. 
 Austin, Miss, 303. 
 Authorisation of Books, 123. 
 Axell, Mary, 200 
 
 Babes in the Basket, 334 ; in the 
 
 Wood 235. 
 Babees' Book, 96 n., 99 «., 100 n., 
 
 101 n., 103 n. 
 Babees, Bele, 80. 
 
 Baby's Bouquet, 313 ; Opera, 313. 
 Bacon, Francis, 155. 
 
 347 
 
348 
 
 3n&e£. 
 
 Bacon, Roger, 52. 
 
 Bale, J., 184. 
 
 Ballad or Ballett, 2155 a moral, 41. 
 
 Ballads, sacred, 2 1 J. 
 
 Bankette of Sapience, 148. 
 
 Barbauld, Mrs., 263. 
 
 Barberino, 96. 
 
 Bards, 10. 
 
 Battledore, 113, 121 ; for Teachers, 
 
 134- 
 
 Batty, B., Castel of Labour, 148 ; 
 Christian Man's Closet, 107, 147 ; 
 Myrrour of Manners, 148; Noah's 
 Ark, 147. 
 
 Baxter, R, on reading, 186. 
 
 Baxter's Process, 303. 
 
 B., R, 195. 
 
 Beaumont, Mme. de, 280. 
 
 Beauties of Natural History, 291 ; of 
 Poetry, 168. 
 
 Beckford, 240. 
 
 Bede, Art of Poetry, 23 ; on Arith- 
 metic, 25 ; De Natura, 24 ; on 
 Easter, 25 ; Orthography, 24 ; 
 Tropes, 24. 
 
 Beggar, The Blind, 52. 
 
 Bellie, Philip, 224. 
 
 Bellot, J., 164. 
 
 Belson, Mary, 230, 337. 
 
 Benet, Mayster, 131, 174. 
 
 Berkley, Alexander, 144, 147. 
 
 Berquin, 254. 
 
 Bestiary, 63. 
 
 Bevis of Hampton, 51. 
 
 Bewick, John, 300. 
 
 T., 296. 
 
 Bible Stories, 59. 
 
 Biblesworth, 67, 
 
 Biblia Pauperum, 302. 
 
 Bingley, W., 335. 
 
 Biography for Boys and Girls, 279. 
 
 Birch Rod, 84. 
 
 Blake, W., 307. 
 
 Blind Beggar, 52 ; Child, 281. 
 
 Blossoms of Morality, 302. 
 
 Bluebeard, 233. 
 
 Boccus and Sydrack, 73. 
 
 Boethius, 12. 
 
 Boke of Curtasye, 96 ; of Keruing, 
 
 102 n. ; of Nurture, 105 ; Lytil 
 
 Children's, 103 n. 
 Bonvicino, Fra, 96. 
 Book of Good Manners, 104; of 
 
 Martyrs, 193 ; of Nature, 264 ; of 
 
 United Kingdom, 306. 
 Borde, A., 179. 
 Bower maidens, 79- 
 Branston, 306. 
 Brinsley, Ludus Literarius, 106 n., 
 
 151 ; Pueriles Conf., 150 ; on the 
 
 rod, 151 ; on the syllabarium, 120: 
 Brunetto Latini, 95. 
 Bullokar, 165. 
 Bunyan, J., 202. 
 Burney, 88. 
 Burton, R., 195. 
 Busby, 88. 
 Butterfly's Ball, 237, 289, 292, 31 1 ; 
 
 imitations of, 2S9. 
 Bysshe, 167. 
 
 Cabinet History, 268. 
 
 Cacoethes Legacy, 108 m. 
 
 Caleb in the Country, 339. 
 
 Caldecott's picture-books, 313. 
 
 Cambridge, school at, 63. 
 
 Camden, 199. 
 
 Cameron, Mrs., 329 ; stories by,329- 
 
 Carmen Juvenile, 95, 96 ; de Mori- 
 bus, 108. 
 
 Carove", 239. 
 
 Carving, study of, 102. 
 
 Catechism, Cranmer's295; Nowell's, 
 143 ; Watt's, 258. 
 
 Catechizon, Colet's, 139. 
 
 Catnachs, 290. 
 
 Cato, 246, 174 ; Parvus et Magnus, 
 14. 
 
5nbes. 
 
 349 
 
 Caxton, \V., 46, 104, 172. 
 Ceriton, Fables of, 59. 
 Chapbooks, 217. 
 Chertsey, Alex., 69 n. 
 Chickseed without Chiokweed, 343. 
 Children of Chapel Stript, 90. 
 Children fifty years ago, 214. 
 Children's books, W. Crane on, 313 ; 
 Leigh Hunt on, 203 ; Rollin on, 
 260 n. ; Talfourd on, 285. 
 Children's Miscellany, 255, 301 ; 
 
 Petition* 88. 
 Child's Best Instructor, 224 ; De- 
 light, 219 ; First Step, 312 ; 
 Grammar, 278 ; Guide, 3, 60, 
 342 ; Instructor, 199 ; Ladder, 
 228 ; New Plaything, 223 ; Own 
 Book, 241 ; Tutor, 297 ; Week's 
 Work, 220. 
 Choir schools, 37 ; boys seized for, 
 
 77 ; plays acted by, 90. 
 Christian Brothers, 342. 
 Christian Man's Closet, 147. 
 Christ. Hominis Institutum, 137. 
 Circlaria, T. di, 45. 
 Circle of Sciences, 278. 
 Clark, S., 317. 
 Clennell, Luke, 305. 
 Cocker, E., on Arithmetic, 154 ; 
 
 on Morals, 155. 
 Cokain, P., 191. 
 Coles, E., 226. 
 
 Colet, 138 ; Catechizon, 139. 
 Collins, B., 121. 
 Colloquies of Corderius, 150. 
 Coloquia Trilingua, 221. 
 Comenius, 155; Didactica, 156; 
 Janua, 157; Schola Ludus, 159; 
 Orbis Pictus, 157. 
 Comestor's Allegories, 59. 
 Consolations of Philosophy, 12, 29. 
 Contributions of Q. Q., 323. 
 Conversations, 19. 
 Cooper, S., 240, 288. 
 
 Coote, E., 152; English School- 
 master, 115; Demeanour poem, 
 108. 
 
 Copybook, a, 161. 
 
 Corderius, 150. 
 
 Cottin, Mme., 281. 
 
 Counsels in Harleian MS., 40; for 
 Noblemen, 39 ; Symon's, 42. 
 
 Country Rhimes, 212. 
 
 Courtesies, Fifty, 96. 
 
 Courtesy, 93 ; books of, 94. 
 
 Courtesye, 104. 
 
 Crane, W., on Blake, 308 ; on chil- 
 dren's books, 313. 
 
 Craig, 305. 
 
 Criss-cross-row, 113. 
 
 Crompton, S., 343. 
 
 Crouch, N, 195. 
 
 Crowleyi R., 106. 
 
 Crowquill, A., 310. 
 
 Curtesye, Boke of, 96. 
 
 D„ R. P., 193. 
 
 Daisy, The, 248 n. 
 
 Darton, W., 316. 
 
 Day, Th., 253. 
 
 De Civilitate Morum, 107. 
 
 Decoy of English Grammar,. 341. 
 
 Defoe, 229, 3'7- 
 
 Deguileville, 132. 
 
 De Natura, 24. 
 
 De Naturis Rerum, 65. 
 
 De Laude Virginitatis, 16 ; Glosses 
 
 on, 34. 
 Dent, Arthur, 191. 
 Description of Fayries, 235. 
 Dewes, Gyles, 144. 
 Dial of Love, 330. 
 Dialogue, a, 184. 
 Dialogues, 73. 
 Dick Boldhero, 339. 
 Dictionarius, Garlande's, 65. 
 Dictionary, New Spelling, 225 ; 
 
 Rhyming, 166, 168. 
 
35° 
 
 5n&ej. 
 
 Distiohs of Cato, 174. 
 
 De Conscribendis, no n. ; Christ. 
 
 Divine Blossomes, 191 ; Emblems, 
 
 Horn. Institutum, 137. 
 
 210; Songs, 261 ; Poems, 216 n. 
 
 Eton founded, 37. 
 
 Doctrinale, 120 n. 
 
 Evans, Edmund, 313. 
 
 Donate or Donet, 12. 
 
 Evenings at Home, 263. 
 
 Donatus pro Pueris, 140 ; Minor, 
 
 Every Young Man's Companion, 
 
 140. 
 
 221. 
 
 Dorset, Mrs., 289. 
 
 Exeter, Book of, 20 ; Walter of, 51. 
 
 Doyle, B,., 310. 
 
 
 Dramatic Dialogues, 281. 
 
 Fables, Bidpai's, 57 ; Ceriton's, 
 
 Druids, 10. 
 
 59 ; Croxall's, 295 ; Gay's, 297 ; 
 
 Dumas, 241. 
 
 Northcote's, 306 ; Select, 298 ; in 
 
 Dutch paper, 121. 
 
 verse, 276. 
 
 Dyche, 225. 
 
 Fabulist, Complete, 296. 
 
 Dyscourse of the Warre, 145. 
 
 Fabulous Histories, 267, 305. 
 
 Dyves Pragmaticus, 182. 
 
 Fairchild Family, 331. 
 
 
 Fair Isabella, 53. 
 
 Earle, Bishop, on Childhood, 136. 
 
 Fairy Tales, 233. 
 
 Early Piety, 288. 
 
 Fancy Work, 246. 
 
 Easy Lessons, 263 ; Introduction, 
 
 Fannatick's Primmer, 220. 
 
 266. 
 
 Farnaby, T., 154. 
 
 Eclaircissement, 144. 
 
 Far Off, 343. 
 
 Edgeworth, Maria, 269. 
 
 Fatal Cord, 341. 
 
 Education poem, 226 ; value of, 76 ; 
 
 Father's Instructions, A. S., 20; 
 
 of Children, Plutarch on, 148. 
 
 Percival's, 255. 
 
 Egbert of York, 27. 
 
 Feats on the Fjord, 329. 
 
 Egypt's Favourite, 216. 
 
 Fenn, Lady, 339. 
 
 Elements of Morality, 282. 
 
 Five Years of Youth, 330. 
 
 Elisabeth, 281. 
 
 Flock at the Fountain, 332. 
 
 Elizabeth, Charlotte, 336. 
 
 Florilegium Epigrammaticum, 154. 
 
 Elliott, Mary, see Belson. 
 
 Florio, 89. 
 
 Elphinston, 226. 
 
 Floures of Latin Spekyng, 149. 
 
 Eluoidarium, Alan's 70 ; Anselm's, 
 
 Flowers of the Forest, 329. 
 
 68. 
 
 Forster, W. E., letter to, 340. 
 
 Elucidarius Liber, 69. 
 
 Fraser-Tytler, S., 331. 
 
 Elyot, 148. 
 
 French spoken, 36. 
 
 Emblems, 198 ; Choice, 288 ; Reli- 
 
 Fox, G., 133, 193, 199. 
 
 gious, 305. 
 
 
 English Expositor, 165. 
 
 Gallus, Alex., 140. 
 
 English Orthog. epitomized, 227. 
 
 Garlande, 65. 
 
 Entick, J., 225. 
 
 Gatty, Mrs., 257. 
 
 Erasmus, 136 ; Adages, 137 ; anec- 
 
 General information, books of, 335 
 
 dote related by, 87 ; De Civili- 
 
 Genesis, Story of, 59. 
 
 tate, 107, 1 38 ; Declamation, 137; 
 
 Genlis, Mme. de, 250. 
 
3nbcj. 
 
 3Si 
 
 Gentleman's Calling, 199. 
 Gesta Romanorum, 56. 
 Gilbert, Sir J., 312. 
 Gilbert, Josiah, 318. 
 Gil das, 11. 
 
 Giles Gingerbread, 276. 
 Girls, before Conquest, I J ; in great 
 houses, 79, 81 ; taught by tutors, 
 82 ; in seventeenth century, 200 ; 
 in eighteenth century, 244. 
 Glanvil, B., 71. 
 Glossaries, 33, 34. 
 
 Godwin, Win., 285. 
 Golden Legend, 215. 
 
 Goldsmith, 237. 
 
 Good Advice to Governour, 39. 
 
 Child's Delight, 269. 
 
 Man, How the, 41. 
 
 Wijf, How the, 41. 
 
 Wyfe, The, 40. 
 
 Goodrich, 339. 
 
 Goody Two Shoes, 237. 
 
 Governess, early mentions of, 82 ; 
 The, 282. 
 
 Governour, The, 148. 
 
 Graces, 126. 
 
 Grammar, Bill, 169 ; and Gram- 
 marye, 12 ; rules in verse, 38 ; 
 reform, 142. 
 
 Grammar-schools, first, 37, 77 ; age 
 of entering, 91 ; scene in a, 89 ; 
 games in, 90. 
 
 Grammer Warre, 145. 
 
 Gray, Gilbert, 296. 
 
 Great Events, 274. 
 
 Greek study, 168. 
 
 Greenaway, Kate, 313. 
 
 Grey, Lady J., 85. 
 
 Guardian of education, 268. 
 
 Gulliver's Travels, 232. 
 
 Guy of Warwick, 54. 
 
 Hack, Maria, 334. 
 Halkett, Anne, 84, 199- 
 
 Harrison on position of children, 77- 
 
 Harry and Lucy, 271. 
 
 Harvey, W., illustrations by, 303, 
 
 3°4- 
 Hatchups, The, 339. 
 Hawkins, F., no. 
 Hayward, W., 145. 
 Hazlitt, W. Carew, on Schoolbooks, 
 
 139- 
 
 Henry Milner, 329. 
 
 Hermas, St., 208. 
 
 Hieroglyphic Bible, 217, 299. 
 
 History of New Testament, 217, 
 299 ; of England in Letters, 276 ; 
 of a Schoolboy, 301. 
 
 Hive of Literature, 305. 
 
 Hoffmann, 241. 
 
 Hofland, Mrs., 332, 334. 
 
 Holbein, cuts by, 295. 
 
 Holiday House, 331. 
 
 Hollnott's Moralities, 59. 
 
 Holt, 144. 
 
 Honours of the Table in, 302. 
 
 Hoole, C, 150; New Discovery, 
 150; Orbis Pictus, 150. 
 
 Horman, 141. 
 
 Horn, Ballad of, 16 
 
 Hornbook, 113; foreign, 117; gin- 
 gerbread, 122; leaden, 113; the 
 Middleton, 116; New Invented, 
 297. 
 
 Howitt, Mary, 330. 
 
 How yong scholers, 145. 
 
 Hughes, Mary, books by, 337. 
 
 Hymns for Little Children, 257 ; in 
 Prose, 263. 
 
 Idywekte, Peter, 45. 
 Illustrations, Leigh Hunt on, 293 ; 
 
 Miss Yonge on, 302. 
 Infant Pilgrim's Progress, 207, 327. 
 Instinct Displayed, 336. 
 Instruction for children, 199, 224. 
 Instructions, Father's, 20; Most 
 
352 
 
 Snfcej. 
 
 Easie, 165 ; for Eight Spelling, 
 
 219 ; for Youth, 199 n. 
 Introduction to Knowledge, 179 ; to 
 
 History of Insects, 256 ; to Wyse- 
 
 dom, 144 ; to Write French, 145. 
 Isle of Man, 210. 
 
 Jackson, John, 304. 
 
 Jack the Giant-Killer, 235 ; of all 
 
 Trades, 246. 
 Jane way, J., 18S. 
 Janua Linguarum, 157. 
 Jardin de Vertus, 164 
 Jemima Placed, 269. 
 Jesuits, discipline of, 85 ; schools 
 
 founded by, 76. 
 Jones, Giles, & Griffith, 274. 
 
 W., of Nayland, 264. 
 
 Juvenile Spectator, 250 ; Olio, 225. 
 
 Keach, B., 198. 
 
 Kelly, Mrs., 328. 
 
 Kilner, Dorothy, 269. 
 
 King of the Golden River, 237. 
 
 King Pippin, 282 
 
 Kirkall, 298. 
 
 Knave of Hearts, 102. 
 
 Knyght of the Toure, 47. 
 
 Lao Puerorum, 144. 
 Lamb, Charles, 283, 286. 
 
 Mary, 286. 
 
 Landseer, 312. 
 Latimer on education, 84. 
 Latin letters, 36; ladies', 15. 
 Leading Strings, 341. 
 Leathley, Mrs., 343. 
 Leila, 330. 
 L'Estrange, R., 88. 
 Levins, P., 167. 
 Lewis, "Monk," 239. 
 Liber Consolacionis, 45. 
 jiliputian Magazine, 299. 
 Lily, W., 138, 143. 
 
 Limed Twigs, 323. 
 
 Line upon Line, 363. 
 
 Little Book for Little Children, 192. 
 
 George and his Penny, 308. 
 
 Jack, 255. 
 
 Henry and his Bearer, 327. 
 
 Truths, 317. 
 
 Looking- Glass, The, 312 ; for Chil- 
 dren, 189 and n. ; for the Mind, 
 
 3°o. 3°5- 
 Lovechild, Louisa, 338. 
 
 Solomon, 338. 
 
 Lucar, E., her epitaph, 83. 
 
 Lucydarye, 69. 
 
 Lydgate, 45 ; poem ascribed to, 41. 
 
 Lye, J., 219. 
 
 Lyra Innocentium, 257, 262. 
 
 Magasin des Enfans, 280. 
 Maiden's Best Adorning, 201. 
 Mangnall, Richmal, 325. 
 Manipulus Vocabulorum, 166. 
 Map, a tenth century, 35. 
 Marcet, Mrs., 344. 
 Marcliffe, Theo., 312. 
 Markham, Mrs. 342. 
 Marmaduke Multiply, 287. 
 Martin, W., 339. 
 Martineau, H., 329. 
 Marryat, Captain, 232. 
 Mary and Elorence, 331. 
 Masterman Ready, 232. 
 Mavor, W., 225 ; Spelling, 307. 
 Menagier de Paris, 46. 
 Mentorial Tales, 279. 
 Merton, Ambrose, 51 re. 
 Metamorphoses, 337. 
 Milke for Children, 144, 218. 
 Milton, John, 160; Accidence, 161. 
 Minor's Pocket Book, 319. 
 Mirror of Complements, 109; for 
 
 the Eemale Sex, 279. 
 Monastery school, a, 14 ; young 
 
 scholars in, 14. 
 
 t 
 
3n&e£. 
 
 353 
 
 Monks, The, 1 1. 
 
 Moral Instructor, 227; Instructions, 
 297 ; Lesson Book, 338 ; Pro- 
 verbs, 173; Tales, 272; Tales 
 from Marmontel, 279. 
 
 Moralities, Hollnot's, 59. 
 
 More, Sir T, 159. 
 
 Morley, H., translation by, 20. 
 
 Mortimer, Mrs., 343. 
 
 Mother's Legacy, 199 n. ; Grammar, 
 
 338. 
 Mulcaster, R., 149 ; Elementarie, 
 
 150; on English study, 151; 
 
 Positions, 149. 
 Mulready, 311. 
 Multum in Parvo, 296. 
 Munchausen, Baron, 237. 
 Music, study of, 16. 
 "My Mother," 321. 
 Myrrour of Good Manners, 148 ; of 
 
 theWorlde, 175. 
 
 Nash, Summer's Last Will, 75. 
 
 Nature Displayed, 241. 
 
 Neale, Dr., 203. 
 
 Near Home, 343. 
 
 Neckham, Alex., 64; De TJtensi- 
 
 libus,-64 ; De Naturis Kerum, 65. 
 Nesbit,. Charlton, 305. 
 Newbery, J., 273. 
 
 T., 182. 
 
 New Children's Friend, 301. 
 New Lottery Book, 297. 
 Noah's Ark for Words, 147. 
 Nolens Volens, 226. 
 Nominall, The, 67. 
 Novell's Catechism, 143. 
 Nursery Tales, 5 ; Canning on, 277 ; 
 
 Dickens on, 236 ; Goldsmith on, 
 
 53 n. ; Leigh Hunt on, 248 ; W. 
 
 Irving on, 236 ; W. Scott on, 235. 
 Nurse Truelove's Gift, 277. 
 
 ORBlsPictus, 150, 157. 
 
 Original Poems, 320. 
 Ornaments Discovered, 337. 
 Orosius, 30. 
 Orthography, Bullokar's, 165 ; 
 
 Hart's, 165. 
 Oswald, E., essay by, 95 n. 
 
 Pages, 79. 
 
 Palmieri, 46. 
 
 Palsgrave, 144. 
 
 Papa and Mamma, 201. 
 
 Parable of the Pilgrim, 208. 
 
 Parables from Nature, 257. 
 
 Parent's Assistant, 269. 
 
 Parental Solicitude, 251. 
 
 Paris and Vienne, 178. 
 
 Parley, Peter, 317, 338. 
 
 Parnassus, the British, 167 ; the 
 
 English, 167. 
 Pathway to Health, 166 ; to Know- 
 ledge, 163; A Pleasant, 148; 
 
 Plain Man's, 191. 
 Patrone for Parents, 162 n. 
 Peacock at Home, 289. 
 Peep of Day, 393. 
 Peden, Alex., 201. 
 Pelham, Mary, 269. 
 Penitent Pilgrim, 208. 
 Penrose, Eliz., 342. 
 Pen's Triumph, 162. 
 Percival, Thos., 255. 
 Perottus, Nicholaus, 140. 
 Perrault, C, 33. 
 Philip Quarll, 230. 
 Phrase-books, foreign, 164. 
 Pilgrimage to Heaven, 208 ; of Jesus 
 
 Christ, 210 ; of Man, 210 ; of the 
 
 Sowle, 209. 
 Pilgrim's Progress, 202 ; French 
 
 translation of, 207, 
 
 Passage, 205. 
 
 Pilkington, Mrs., 279 ; stories by, 
 
 2S0. 
 Pinchard, Mrs., 281. 
 
 Z 
 
3S4 
 
 Jnfcej. 
 
 Pise, Christine de, 173. 
 
 Robinson Crusoe, 229 ; imitations 
 
 Ploiche, P. du, 164. 
 
 of, 232. 
 
 Poems for Youth, 290 ; for Young 
 
 Suisse, 231. 
 
 Ladies, 276. 
 
 Romaunt of the Rose, 50. 
 
 Poetic Endings, 168. 
 
 Rood, Legends of, 61. 
 
 Poetry for Children, 286. 
 
 Roscoe, W., 288. 
 
 Polite Academy, 339. 
 
 Rossetti, W., essay by, 95 n. 
 
 Polite letter- writers, no, 161. 
 
 Royal Picture Alphabet, 228. 
 
 Polychronicon, 179. 
 
 Royal Primer, 224, 227. 
 
 Poole, Joshua, 167. 
 
 Rule of Reason, 163. 
 
 Practical Education, 270 ; Moral 
 
 Rural Scenes, 324 ; Walks, 289 n'. 
 
 Lesson Book, 338. 
 
 Russell, John, Ioi. 
 
 Practice of Piety, 191. 
 
 W. P., 168. 
 
 Present for a Little Boy, 317. 
 
 
 Pretty Book of Pictures, 275. 
 
 S., Peaunces, 82. 
 
 Primer, The, 118 ; The Royal, 227. 
 
 S. S., 269. 
 
 Progress of Man, 301. 
 
 Sacred History, Trimener's, 267. 
 
 Promptorium Parvulorum, 165. 
 
 Saint, 295. 
 
 Protestant School, 220; School- 
 
 Saintliens or Holyband, 164. 
 
 master, 220 ; Tutor, 220. 
 
 Sandford and Merton, 253. 
 
 Proverbs Exemplified, 301. 
 
 School, Dr. Birch's, 311 ; a monas- 
 
 Puritanism, 186. 
 
 tery, 13 ; Mrs. Leicester's, 282 ; 
 
 Puss in Boots, Crane's, 313. 
 
 of Slovenrie, 108 ; of Vertue, 94, 
 
 Puzzle for Curious Girl, 250. 
 
 106 ; The Village, 282 ; of Wis- 
 
 
 dom, 222. 
 
 Quick, R. H., on Grammar, 140 n. ; 
 
 Schoolbooks of Stationers' Co., 170. 
 
 on Mangnall, 325 ; translation 
 
 Schoolboy, the whipped, 86. 
 
 by, 334 ; on Winter Evenings, 
 
 Schoolmaster,Ascham's,87,i46 ; the 
 
 334- 
 
 English, 115, 152; the Italian, 
 
 
 164 ; the Writing, 162. 
 
 Radama, 334. 
 
 Schoolmen, quibbles of, 37. 
 
 Rambles Farther, 289 n. 
 
 Scogin's Jests, 115. 
 
 Raspe, 237. 
 
 Seager, P., 106. 
 
 Ratich, 156. 
 
 Secret of Secrets, 181. 
 
 Reading without Tears, 343. 
 
 Sentential, 46. 
 
 Reid, Mayne, 341. 
 
 Serious Proposal, A, 200. 
 
 Relation of Island of England, 78, 
 
 Sermon, Boy Bishop's, 87 ; of the 
 
 95 n. 
 
 Plough, 84. 
 
 Reuben's Rambles, 318. 
 
 Settlers at Home, 330. 
 
 Rhodes, Hugh, 105. 
 
 Sherwood, Mrs., 207, 326. 
 
 Rhymes for the Nursery, 312, 321. 
 
 Short Introduction to Grammar, 
 
 Right Spelling, 219. 
 
 142. 
 
 Rightway, Mr., and his Pupils, 
 
 Skelton, 145. 
 
 282. 
 
 Siege of Derry, 337. 
 
3nbej. 
 
 355 
 
 Sinclair, C, 331. 
 
 Taylor, Helen, 324. 
 
 Sintram, 239. 
 
 Jane, 318. 
 
 Sketches from Youthful Circle, 323. 
 
 ■ Isaac, 324. 
 
 Smith, Charlotte, 289 ; books by, 
 
 Jeffreys, 323. 
 
 892 n. 
 
 Tesoro and Tesoretto, 95. 
 
 Songs of Experience, 307 ; of Inno- 
 
 Thackeray, W. M., 311. 
 
 cence, 307. 
 
 Theodore of Tarsus, 16. 
 
 Southey's Three Bears, 237. 
 
 Thomas, Lambroke, 218. 
 
 Speculum Human* Salvatoris, 60. 
 
 Thomson, engraver, 309. 
 
 Latinum, 225. 
 
 Thoughts on Education of Daugh- 
 
 Spelling Book for Children, 219 ; 
 
 ters, 284. 
 
 the Charity School, 266 ; various 
 
 Thousand Notable Things, 221. 
 
 forms of, 224 n. ; The Poor's, 218. 
 
 Three Bears, 237. 
 
 Squirearchy, The, 243. 
 
 Thurston, 305. 
 
 Stanbridge, 141 ; Vulgaria, 141. 
 
 Token for Children, 189. 
 
 Stans Puer, 94, 95, 99. 
 
 Tom Hickathrift, 55. 
 
 Storehouse of Breuite, 163. 
 
 Tommy Trip, 276, 299. 
 
 Stories on Church Catechism, 327. 
 
 Tom Thumb, 235 ; Travels of, 242. 
 
 Story books, some anonymous, 287 ; 
 
 Toure, Knight of the, 47. 
 
 E. Cook on, 273. 
 
 Tour Landry, 46. 
 
 Story without an End, 239, 287, 303. 
 
 Tower Menagerie, 304. 
 
 Stothard, 307. 
 
 Training of Children, Defoe's 229. 
 
 Strickland, A., 335. 
 
 Travels of True Godliness, 199. 
 
 Struwwelpeter, 294. 
 
 Treatises, Rhymed, 38. 
 
 Sulpitius, 96, 140 ; Opus Gramma- 
 
 Trevisa, John, 37, 71. 
 
 ticum, 140. 
 
 Trimmer, Mrs., 265. 
 
 Swift, Jonathan, 232. 
 
 Trivium, the, 11. 
 
 Syllabarium, 116, 119. 
 
 Truster, Dr., m, 168, 301. 
 
 Symon, 42. • 
 
 
 Symposii yEnigmata, 20. 
 
 Udall, 86, 148; Pleasant Path- 
 
 Syncrisis, 226. 
 
 way, 148 ; Eloures of Latin 
 
 
 Spekyng, 149. 
 
 Tale of a Tub, 232. 
 
 Under the Window, 313. 
 
 Tales of the Cottage, 280 j of the 
 
 Undine, 239. 
 
 Great and Brave, 330 ; of the 
 
 Useful Knowledge, 335. 
 
 Hermitage, 280 ; of Many Lauds, 
 
 Utopia, education in, 160. 
 
 330 ; Moral, 272, 279 ; from 
 
 
 Shakspeare, 286, 307 ; that are 
 
 Vathek, 240. 
 
 True, 343 ; in Verse and Prose, 
 
 Veillees du Chateau, 250. 
 
 331 ; for Youth, 302, 307 ; of 
 
 Verborum Explicatio, 66. 
 
 Wonder, 239. 
 
 Verbotomy, 168. 
 
 Tans'ur, W. le, 168. 
 
 Vergil, P., on Eng. Manners, 95. 
 
 Taylor, Ann, 318. 
 
 Vertue, School of, 107. 
 
 Emily, 312. 
 
 Vestibulum Linguae Latinse, 167. 
 
35 6 
 
 5n6e$. 
 
 Villa Dei, Alex. -de, see Gallus. 
 
 Wilson's Catechisms, 318. 
 
 Visits of Tommy Lovebook, 277, 
 
 Winchester School founded, 37. 
 
 Vives, L., 144 ; De Rationale 
 
 Winsbeke, Knight of, 46. 
 
 Studii, 144. 
 
 Winter Evening Entertainments,. 
 
 Vocabularies, 31 n., 33. 
 
 195- 
 
 Voltaire on books, 229. 
 
 Winter Evenings, 334. 
 
 Vulgaria, collection called, 50 ; of 
 
 Wit Bought, 339. 
 
 Herman, Stanbridge, and Why- 
 
 Withagium, 117. 
 
 tington, 141, 
 
 Wollstoncraft, Mary, 283. 
 
 
 Wood Engraving, Jackson and 
 
 Wakefield, Priscilla, 256, 336. 
 
 Chatto on, 295 n., 302, 305. 
 
 Walker, J., 168. 
 
 Wonders of Earth, Sea, and Sky 
 
 Ward, Mrs., 341. 
 
 317. 
 
 Wardship, 80. 
 
 Wonders of Nature and Art, 318. 
 
 Warning to Teachers, 199. 
 
 Wright, T, on Catechisms, 19 n. 
 
 War Trail, The, 340. 
 
 Wyse Chyld, 71. 
 
 Warwick, Guy of, 54, 56. 
 
 Wyss, 231. 
 
 Watts, Isaac, 258. 
 
 
 Wedding among Flowers, 321. 
 
 Young Christian, 339. 
 
 Well Spring of Science, 162. 
 
 Young Man's Calling, 193 ; Man's 
 
 Wesley, S., 217. 
 
 Guild, 57 ; Islanders, 303. 
 
 Weste, R.. 
 
 Youth's Behaviour, 1 10 ; Divine 
 
 Wey, William, 164. 
 
 Pastime, 196 ; Guide, 226 ; 
 
 White, T, 190, 192. 
 
 Magazine, 323 ; Story Teller, 297. 
 
 Whytington, .141. 
 
 
 Williams, S., 306. 
 
 Zemco, 244. 
 
 Willis, H., 167. 
 
 Zirclaria, 45. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 WELLS GARDNER, DARTON AND CO., LONDON. 
 
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