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"For the lads, there were tales of action, of adventure, sometimes truculently sensational; for the girls were stories of a more domestic character; for the tradesmen, there was the 'King and the Cobbler,' or 'Long Tom the Carrier'; for the soldier and the sailor, 'Admiral Blake,' 'Johnny Armstrong,' and 'Chevy Chase'; for the lovers, 'Patient Grissil' and 'Delights for Young Men and Maids'; for the serving-lad, 'Tom Hickathrift' and 'Sir Richard Whittington'; while the serving-maid then, as now, would prefer 'The Egyptian Fortune Teller,' or 'The Interpretation of Dreams and Moles.'"

Every phase of human nature was thus served up for a penny. In those days, people were more apt to want tales with heroes and heroines of their own rank and station; a certain appropriateness in this way was satisfied. Such correspondence was common as early as 1415, when a mystery play was presented by the crafts, and the Plasterers were given the "Creation of the World" to depict, while the Chandlers were assigned the "Lighting of the Star" upon the birth of Christ.

There were to be had primers, song-books, and joke-books; histories, stories, and hero tales. Printed in type to ruin eyes, pictured in wood-cuts to startle fancy and to shock taste--for they were not always suited to childhood--these pamphlets, 2 1/2 ? x 3 1/2 ?, sometimes 5 1/2 ? x 4 1/4 ? in size, and composed of from four to twenty-four pages, served a useful purpose. They placed literature within reach of all who could read. Queer dreams, piety of a pronounced nature, jests with a ribald meaning, and riddles comprised the content of many of them. A child who could not buy a horn-book turned to the "battle-dore" with his penny--a crude sheet of cardboard, bicoloured and folded either once or twice, with printing on both sides; the reading matter was never-failingly the same in these horn-books and "battle-dores," although sometimes the wood-cuts varied. A horn-book is recorded with a picture of Charles I upon it.

The hawkers, who went through the streets and who travelled the country-side, much as our pioneer traders were accustomed to do, were termed chapmen. They were eloquent in the manner of describing their display; they were zealous as to their line of trade. Imagine, if you will, the scene in some isolated village--the wild excitement when the good man arrived. He was known to Piers Plowman in 1362, he perhaps wandered not far away from the Canterbury Pilgrims; each of Chaucer's Tales might well be fashioned as a chap-book. Along the dusty highway this old-time peddler travelled, with packet on his back and a stout staff in hand--such a character maybe as Dougal Grahame, hunch-backed and cross-eyed--by professions, a town crier and bellman, as well as a trader in literature. On his tongue's tip he carried the latest gossip; he served as an instrument of cross-fertilisation, bringing London-town in touch with Edinburgh or Glasgow, and with small hamlets on the way.

Many a modern reader would be interested in the detailed directions given for falling in love and for falling out again; for determining whom fate had decreed as the husband, or who was to be the wife. It is more wholesome in these days to name the four corners of a bedroom than to submit to the charm of a pared onion, wrapped in a kerchief and placed on the pillow; yet the two methods must be related.

The subject of chap-books is alluring; the few elements here noted suggest how rich in local colour the material is. Undoubtedly the roots of juvenile literature are firmly twined about these penny sheets. Their circulation is a matter that brings the social student in touch with the middle-class life. Not only the chap-books and the horn-books, but the so-called Garlands, rudimentary anthologies of popular poems and spirited ballads, served to relieve the drudgery of commonplace lives, toned the sluggish mind by quickening the imagination. A curious part of the history of these Garlands is their sudden disappearance, brought about by two types of hawkers, known as the "Primers-up" and "Long-Song Sellers," who peddled a new kind of ware.

The Primers-up are relatives of our city venders. They clung to corners, where dead walls gave them opportunity to pin their literature within sight of the public. Wherever there happened to be an unoccupied house, one of these fellows would be found with his songs, coarse, sentimental, and spirited, cut in slips a yard long--three yards for a penny. Thus displayed, he would next open a gaudy umbrella, upon the under side of which an art gallery of cheap prints was free to look upon. Conjure up for yourselves the apprentice peering beneath the large circumference of such a gingham tent.

Across the way, the Long-Song Sellers marched up and down, holding aloft stout poles, from which streamed varied ribbons of verse--rhythm fluttering in the breeze--and yelling, "Three yards a penny, songs, beautiful songs, nooest songs."

The oldest existent copy of the New England Primer bears the imprint of Thomas Fleet, son-in-law of the famous Mrs. Goose, of whom we shall speak later. This was in 1737. Before then, in 1708, Benjamin Eliot of Boston, probably encouraged by earlier editions of primers, advertised "The First Book for Children; or, The Compleat School-Mistress"; and Timothy Green in 1715 announced "A Primer for the Colony of Connecticut; or, an Introduction to the True Reading of English. To which is added Milk for Babes." This latter title suggests the name of the Reverend John Cotton, and, furthermore, the name of Cotton Mather, one of the austere writers, as the titles of his books alone bear witness.

Six copies of the New England Primer lay before me, brown paper covers, dry with age; blue boards, worn with much handling; others in gray and green that have faded like the age which gave them birth. The boy who brought them to me wore a broad smile upon his face; perhaps he was wondering why I wished such toy books, no larger than 3 1/4 ? x 2 1/2 ?. He held them all in one hand so as to show his superior strength. Yet had he been taken into the dark corridor between the book stacks, and had he been shown the contents of those crinkly leaves, there might have crept over him some remnant of the feeling of awe which must have seized the Colonial boy and girl. What would he have thought of the dutiful child's promises, or of the moral precepts, had they been read to him? Would he have shrunk backward at the description of the bad boy? Would he have beamed with youthful hope of salvation upon the picture of the good boy? It is doubtful whether the naughty girls, called "hussies," ever reformed; it is doubtful whether they ever wanted to be the good girl of the verses. That smiling boy of the present would have turned grave over the cut of Mr. John Rogers in the flames, despite the placid expression of wonderful patience over the martyr's face; his knees would have trembled at the sombre meaning of the lines:

"I in the burial place may see Graves shorter far than I; From death's arrest no age is free, Young children too may die."

The New England Primers were called pleasant guides; they taught that the longest life is a lingering death. There was the fear instead of the love of God in the text, and yet the type of manhood fostered by such teaching was no wavering type, no half-way spirit. The Puritan travelled the narrow road, but he faced it, however dark the consequences.

Sufficient has been said to give some idea of the part occupied by these early publications--whether horn-book, chap-book, or primer. They bore an intimate relation to the life of the child; they were, together with the Almanack, which is typified by that of "Poor Richard," and with the Calendar, part of a development which may be traced, with equal profit, in England, Scotland, France, and Germany. Their full history is fraught with human significance.

Folk-lore stretches into the Valhalla of the past; our heritage consists of an assemblage of the heroic through all ages. A history of distinctive books for children must enter into minute traceries of the golden thread of legend, fable, and belief, of romance and adventure; it must tell of the wanderings of rhyme and marvel, under varied disguises, from mouth to mouth, from country to country, naught of richness being taken away from them, much of new glory being added. But for our immediate purposes, we imagine all this to be so; we take it for granted that courtier and peasant have had their fancies. The tales told to warriors are told to children, and in turn by nurses to these children's children. The knight makes his story by his own action in the dark forest, or in the king's palace; he appears before the hut of the serf, and his horse is encircled by a magic light. The immortal hero is kept immortal by what is heroic in ourselves.

Jean de La Fontaine was a product of court life; and the fable was the literary form introduced to amuse the corsaged ladies of Versailles. La Fontaine was the cynic in an age of hypocrisy and favouritism, and one cannot estimate his work fully, apart from the social conditions fostering it. He was steeped in French lore, and in a knowledge of the popular tales of the Middle Ages. He was licentious in some of his writing, and wild in his living; he was a friend of Fouquet, and he knew Moli?re, Racine, and Boileau. He was a brilliant, unpractical satirist, who had to be supported by his friends, and who was elected to the Academy because his monarch announced publicly that he had promised to behave. Toward the end of his life he atoned for his misdemeanours by a formal confession.

There is interesting speculation associated with his writing of the "Contes de ma M?re l'Oye." They were published in 1697, although previously they had appeared singly in Moetjen's Magazine at the Hague. An early letter from Madame de S?vign? mentions the wide-spread delight taken by the nobles of the court in all "contes"; this was some twenty years before Perrault penned his. But despite their popularity among the worldly wise, the Academician was too much of an Academician to confess openly that he was the author of the "contes." Instead, he ascribed them to his son, Perrault Darmancour. This has raised considerable doubt among scholars as to whether the boy should really be held responsible for the authorship of the book. Mr. Lang wisely infers that there is much evidence throughout the tales of the mature feeling and art of Perrault; but he also is content to hold to the theory that will blend the effort of old age and youth, of father and son.

The fact remains that, were it not for Perrault, the world might have been less rich by such immortal pieces as "The Three Wishes," "The Sleeping Beauty," "Red Riding Hood," "Blue Beard," "Puss in Boots," and "Cinderella," as they are known to us to-day. They might have reached us from other countries in modified form, but the inimitable pattern belongs to Perrault.

Another monument preserves his name, the discussion of which requires a section by itself. But consideration must be paid in passing to the "f?es" of Marie Catherine Jumelle de Berneville, Comtesse D'Anois , who is responsible for such tales as "Finetta, the Cinder-Girl." Fortunately, to the charm of her fairy stories, which are written in no mean imitation of Perrault, there have clung none of the qualities which made her one of the most intriguing women of her period. She herself possessed a magnetic personality and a bright wit. Her married life began at the age of sixteen, and through her career lovers flocked to her standard; because of the ardour of one, she came near losing her head. But despite the fact that only two out of five of her children could claim legitimacy, they seem to have developed in the Comtesse d'Aulnoy an unmistakable maternal instinct, and an unerring judgment in the narration of stories. She is familiar to-day because of her tales, although recently an attractive edition of her "Spanish Impressions" was issued--a book which once received the warm commendation of Taine.

There has been a sentimental desire on the part of many students to trace the origin of Mother Goose to this country; but despite all effort to the contrary, and a false identification of Thomas Fleet's mother-in-law, Mrs. Goose, or Vergoose, with the famous old woman, the origin is indubitably French. William H. Whitmore sums up his evidence in the matter as follows:

"According to my present knowledge, I feel sure that the original name is merely a translation from the French; that the collection was first made for and by John Newbery of London, about A.D. 1760; and that the great popularity of the book is due to the Boston editions of Munroe and Francis, A.D. 1824-1860."

It appears that, in 1870, William A. Wheeler edited an edition of "Mother Goose," wherein he averred that Elizabeth, widow of one Isaac Vergoose, was the sole originator of the jingles. This statement was based upon the assurances of a descendant, John Fleet Eliot. But there is much stronger evidence in Perrault's favour than mere hearsay; even the statement that a 1719 volume of the melodies was printed by Fleet himself has so far failed of verification.

The name, Mother Goose, is first heard of in the seventeenth century. During 1697, Perrault published his "Histoires ou Contes du Tems Pass? avec des Moralitez," with a frontispiece of an old woman telling stories to an interested group. Upon a placard by her side was lettered the significant title already quoted:

CONTES DE MA MERE LOYE

There is no doubt, therefore, that the name was not of Boston origin; some would even go further back and mingle French legend with history; they would claim that the mother of Charlemagne, with the title of Queen Goose-foot , was the only true source.

"If, as seems most probable, the first edition of 'Mother Goose's Melody' was issued prior to John Newbery's death in 1767, there is an interesting question as to who prepared the collection for the press. The rhymes are avowedly the favourites of the nursery, but the preface and the foot-notes are an evident burlesque upon more pretentious works."

There are two small pieces of evidence indicating clearly Goldsmith's editorship. On January 29, 1768, he produced his "Good Natur'd Man," and with his friends dined beforehand in gala fashion at an inn. Subject to extremes of humour, on this occasion he was most noisy, and he sang his favourite song, we are told, which was nothing more than "An old woman tossed in a blanket, seventeen times as high as the moon." As it happens, this ditty is mentioned in the preface to Newbery's collection of rhymes, without any more apparent reason than that it was a favourite with the editor, who wished to introduce it in some way, however irrelevant. Again, we are assured that Miss Hawkins once exclaimed, "I little thought what I should have to boast, when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Jill, by two bits of paper on his fingers."

Thus, though the tasks performed by Goldsmith for Newbery are generally accounted specimens of hack work, which he had to do in order to eke out a livelihood, there is satisfaction in claiming for him two immortal strokes, his tale of "Goody Two Shoes," and his share in the establishment of the Mother Goose Melodies. Many a time he was dependent upon the beneficence of his publisher, many a time rescued by him from the hands of the bailiff. The Newbery accounts are dotted with entries of various loans; even the proceeds of the first performances of the "Good Natur'd Man" were handed over to Newbery to satisfy one of his claims.

The melodies have a circuitous literary history. In roundabout fashion, the ditties have come out of the obscure past and have been fixed at various times by editors of zealous nature. For the folk-lore student, such investigation has its fascination; but the original rhymes are not all pure food for the nursery. In the course of time, the juvenile volumes have lost the jingles with a tang of common wit. They come to us now, gay with coloured print, rippling with merriment, with a rhythm that must be kept time to by a tap of the foot upon the floor or by some bodily motion. Claim for them, as you will, an educational value; they are the child's first entrance into storyland; they train his ear, they awaken his mind, they develop his sense of play. It is a joyous garden of incongruity we are bequeathed in "Mother Goose."

Wherever you wander in the land of children's books, ramifications, with the vein of hidden gold, invite investigation,--rich gold for the student and for the critic, but less so for the general reader. Yet upon the general reader a book's immortality depends. No librarian, no historian, need be crowded out; there are points still to be settled, not in the mere dry discussion of dates, but in the estimates of individual effect. The development of children's books is consecutive, carried forward because of social reasons; each name mentioned has a story of its own. Two publishers at the outset attract our regard; except for them, much would have been lost to English and American children.

As early as Elizabeth's time, Rafe Newberie, Master of Stationer's Company, published Hakluyt's "Voyages." From him, John Newbery was descended. Given an ordinary schooling, he was apprenticed to the printer, William Carnan, who, dying in 1737, divided his worldly goods between his brother Charles, and his assistant John. The latter, in order to cement his claim still further, married his employer's widow, by whom he had three children, Francis, his successor in the publishing business, being born on July 6, 1743.

Newbery was endowed with much common sense. He travelled somewhat extensively before settling in London, and, during his wanderings, he jotted down rough notes, relating especially to his future book trade; the remarks are worthy of a keen critic. During this time it is hard to keep Newbery, the publisher, quite free from the picturesque career of Newbery, the druggist; on the one hand Goldsmith might call him "the philanthropic publisher of St. Paul's Churchyard," as he did in the "Vicar of Wakefield," which was first printed by Newbery and Benjamin Collins, of Salisbury; on the other hand, in 1743, one might just as well have praised him for the efficacy of the pills and powders he bartered. Now we find him a shopkeeper, catering to the captains of ships from his warehouse, and adding every new concoction to his stock of homeopathic deceptions. Even Goldsmith could not refrain from having a slap at his friend in "Quacks Ridiculed."

He made money, however, and he associated with a literary set among whom gold was much coveted and universally scarce. The portly Dr. Johnson ofttimes borrowed a much-needed guinea, an unfortunate privilege, for he had a habit of never working so long as he could feel money in his pocket. This generosity on the part of Newbery did not deter Johnson from showing his disapproval over many of the former's publications. We can well imagine the implied sarcasm in his declaration that Newbery was an extraordinary man, "for I know not whether he has read, or written most books." Between 1744 and 1802, records indicate that Newbery and his successors printed some three hundred volumes, two hundred of which were juvenile; small wonder he needed the editorial assistance of such persons as Dr. Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith.

How much actual suggestion Goldsmith gave to his publisher-employer, how far he influenced the character of the books to be printed, cannot be determined; he and Griffith and Giles Jones assuredly encouraged the juvenile picture stories. An advertisement of 1765 calls attention to the following: "The Renowned History of Giles Gingerbread, a little boy who lived upon learning" ; "The Whitsuntide Gift, or the Way to be Happy"; "The Valentine Gift, or how to behave with honour, integrity and humanity"; and "The History of Little Goody Two Shoes, otherwise called Margery Two Shoes."

Though he could not wholly escape the charge of catering to the moral craze of the time, Newbery at least infused into his little books something of imagination and something of heroic adventure; not sufficient however to please Dr. Johnson, who once said: "Babies do not want to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little minds." A thrust at the ignorance of grown people, regarding what children like, is further seen in Johnson's remark that parents buy, but girls and boys seldom read what is calculated for them.

The variety of Newbery's ideas resulted in every species of book-publishing, from a children's magazine , with Goldsmith as the reputed editor, to a child's grammar. Interested one moment in a machine for the colouring of silks and cloths, at another he would be extolling the fever powders of Dr. James, a whilom schoolfellow of Johnson. He was untiring in his business activity. His firm changed name many times, but always Newbery remained the dominant figure. After his death, the business continued for some while to be identified with its founder, and for a long period his original policy was continued. Francis Newbery, the son, left an autobiography of historic value.

"The Philosophers, Politicians, Necromancers, and the learned in every faculty are desired to observe that on the first of January, being New Year's day , Mr. Newbery intends to publish the following important volumes, bound and gilt, and hereby invites all his little friends who are good to call for them at the Bible and Sun, in St. Paul's Churchyard, but those who are naughty to have none."

Thomas in later years adopted the same method of advertising.

The most thorough piece of research work done by Mr. Charles Welsh is his "A Bookseller of the Last Century." Had he aimed at nothing more than preserving the catalogue of Newbery's books, he would have rendered a great service to the library student. But he has in addition written a very complete life of Newbery. When it is noted that this printer was brought into business relations with Robert Raikes, and was further connected with him by the union of Newbery's son with Raikes' sister, it is safe to believe that some of the piousness which crept into the publisher's wares was encouraged by the zealous spirit of the founder of Sunday-schools. Raikes will be dealt with in his proper place.

Newbery was what may be termed an enthusiastic publisher, a careful manufacturer of books of the flower-and-gilt species. As a friend he has been pictured nothing loath to help the needy, but always with generous security and heavy interest attached; he was a business man above all else, and that betokens keenness for a bargain, a keenness akin to cleverness rather than to graciousness. In his "Life of Goldsmith," Washington Irving is inclined to be severe in his estimate; he writes:

"The poet has celebrated him as the friend of all mankind; he certainly lost nothing by his friendship. He coined the brains of authors in the times of their exigency, and made them pay dear for the plank put out to keep them from drowning. It is not likely his death caused much lamentation among the scribbling tribe."

The book list of Isaiah Thomas , the Worcester, Massachusetts printer, shows how freely he drew from the London bookseller. Called by many the Didot of America, founder of the American Antiquarian Society, author of one of the most authentic histories of early printing in this country, he is the pioneer of children's books for America. He scattered his presses and stores over a region embracing Worcester and Boston, Mass.; Concord, N. H.; Baltimore, Md.; and Albany, N. Y. Books were kept by him, so he vouched, specially for the instruction and amusement of children, to make them safe and happy. In his "Memoirs" there is found abundant material to satisfy one as to the nature of reading for young folks in New England, previous to the Revolution.

Emerson writes in his "Spiritual Laws" regarding "theological problems"; he calls them "the soul's mumps and measles and whooping-cough." Already the sombre sternness of Colonial literature for children has been typified in the "New England Primer." The benefits of divine songs and praises; the reiteration of the joy to parents, consequent upon the behaviour of godly children; the mandates, the terrible finger of retribution, the warning to all sinners lurking in the throat disease which was prevalent at one time--all these ogres rise up in the Thomas book to crush juvenile exuberance. Does it take much description to get at the miserable heart of the early piety displayed by the heroines of Cotton Mather's volumes, those stone images of unthinkable children who passed away early, who were reclaimed from disobedience, "children in whom the fear of God was remarkably budding before they died"? Writers never fail to say, in speaking of Thomas White's "Little Book for Children" , that its immortality, in the face of all its theology, is centred in one famous untheological line, "A was an archer who shot at a frog."

What Thomas did, when he began taking from Newbery, was to change colloquial English terms to fit new environment; the coach no longer belongs to the Lord Mayor, but to the Governor instead. The text is only slightly altered. We recognise the same little boys who would become great masters; the same ear-marks stigmatise the heroines of "The Juvenile Biographer," insufferable apostles of surname-meaning, Mistresses Allgood, Careful, and Lovebook, together with Mr. Badenough. Oh, Betsey and Nancy and Amelia and Billy, did you know what it was to romp and play?

The evident desire on the part of Miss Hewins, in her discussion of early juvenile books, to emphasise the playful, in her quotations from Thomas' stories, only indicates that there was little levity to deal with. Those were the days of gilded "Gifts" and "Delights"; the pleasures of childhood were strangely considered; goodness was inculcated by making the hair stand on end in fright, by picturing to the naughty boy what animal he was soon to turn into, and what foul beast's disposition was akin to that of the fractious girl. Intentions, both of an educational and religious nature, were excellent, no doubt; but, when all is estimated, the residue presents a miserable, lifeless ash.

It is now necessary to leave the New England book, and to return to it through another channel. The viewpoint shifts slightly; a new element is to be added: a self-conscious recognition of education for children. The sternness of the "New England Primer" possessed strength. The didactic school, retaining the moral factor,--several points removed from theology--sentimentalised it; for many a day it was to exist in juvenile literature rampant. And, overflowing its borders, it was to influence later chap-books, and some of the later publications of Thomas and Newbery. Through Hannah More, it was to grip Peter Parley, and finally to die out on American shores. For "Queechy" and "The Wide, Wide World" represent the final flowering of this style. In order to retain a clear connection, it is necessary to watch both streams, educational and moral, one at first blending with the other, and flourishing in this country through a long list of New England authors, until, in the end, the educational, increasing in volume, conquered altogether.

THE BABEES BOOK--Ed. Frederick J. Furnivall, M.A. Published for the Early English Text Society. London, Tr?bner, 1868.

In the foreword, note the following:

Education in early England:

This collection contains:

ASHTON, JOHN--Chap-books of the 18th Century.

ASHTON, JOHN--Social Life in the Time of Queen Anne.

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