Old fashioned tales

Front matter

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II

I have made one or two slight alterations in ' Little Jack ' (page 1), solely for the purpose of adding (in this critical day, when the nursery's sense of the ridiculous is so carefully fostered) to its merits as a story to be read aloud. Now and then it would be, in its original form, quite too comic, although when it was written by the odd but kindly Thomas Day, whose only thought was to do something useful for his fellows, it could probably have been read without an ill-placed smile in any company of children

Thomas Day (1748-1789) is best known as the author of Sand ford and Merlon, 1783- 1789. The ■ History of Little Jack ' was first published in Stockdale's Children's Miscellany, and republished separately in 1788. It is one of the most human of the early stories for and about children.

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The stories of the ' Good-natured Little Boy ' and the Ill-natured Little Boy,' on page 41, are from Sandford and Met ton ; they are told to Harry Sandford and Tommy Merton by Mr. Barlow, and help in the perfecting of their characters ; in the original they are separated by some pages of conversation. Here it seemed better to keep them together, and I have also made one trifling change of word. The knowledge that good people are not all good, nor bad people all bad, although possessed by the dramatists and novelists for many generations, was entertained by but few writers for the nursery in those days. We are wiser now, but the secret is still not shouted.

■ The Purple Jar,' one of the most famous stories in the book, is by a great friend of Thomas Day — Maria Edgeworth (1767- 1849). It was indeed for Harry and Lucy, by Maria Edgeworth's father, her step-mother and herself, that Sandford and Merton was originally written. ' The Purple Jar ' is the first story in the ■ Rosamund ' part of Early Lessons, 1801 ; and I include it here, not because it is one of its author's best stories, or worthy to stand beside the other from her pen later in this book, but because it founded a school and probably gave the note to Miss (or Mrs.) Mant for her ' Little Blue Bag,' on page 130, which covers much of the same ground. Those familiar characters— the little bright wilful girl and the wise yet kindly mother — make, I think, their first appearance in nursery literature in ' The Purple Jar.' It is, however, possible to feel that Rosamund's mother might profitably have redistributed her wisdom and kindliness so as to have rather less of the one and rather more of the other. It is possible, also, to feel more sorry for Rosamund, whose only fault was inexperience, than her creator seems to have done. But those were stern, implacable times.

1 Little Robert and the Owl,' on page 70, is the only contribution to this volume by Mrs. Sherwood (1775- 185 1), the famous author of The Fair child Family and many another well-known work, including Little Henry and his Bearer. The study of Mrs. Sherwood which I undertook in the search for the present material was not, I am bound to confess, exhilarating. Although gifted with considerable literary skill, Mrs. Sherwood's attitude to children and life seems to me to have been curiously wrong. No one in that busy day toiled harder, although I have no doubt unconsciously, to make very good children priggish and less good children unhappy. Through her immense volume of writings runs a strong streak of moral snobbishness utterly opposed to the federation of mankind. Children are called upon at every turn to assist in the separation of the sheep and the goats. This strikes me as mischievous and retrogressive, although, since in Mrs. Sherwood's day it was expected, she must not be too hardly treated. ' Little Robert,' however, is a simple narrative unmarred by the defect I have named.

Mrs. Sherwood's faults are not wholly summed up in the foregoing indictment. I regret to say that in the story of Emily's recovery, in The Fairchild Family, she makes honeysuckle, wild roses, primroses, violets, and anemones bloom simultaneously.

' The Trial,' on page 86, is from Evenings at Home, by John Aikin (1747-1822) and his sister, Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743- 1825). It is a little book in three volumes which formed part of every child's library for many years, and might well be modernized for the children of our own time. For the most part the book is instructive ; only rarely is there any fun. Mrs. Barbauld' s share was only fifteen pieces, and it is, I think, probable that Dr. Aikin was the author of ' The Trial,' which was, he says, imitated from an old book called Juvenile Trials. This I have not seen, but in Mary Howitt's Treasury of Tales, i860, a similar collection to the present volume, is an extract describing the trial of one Sally Dalia.

We come now, on page 98, to one of the best stories for children that has been written — ' The Basket Woman,' by Maria Edge worth. In her previous story, ' The Purple Jar,' we saw Miss Edgeworth only as a moral narrator for the nursery ; here she is something more — a novelist for the nursery. She was the first to bring the machinery of the novel to bear upon such events as children want to hear about ;

ix she gave them the minutiae they love, and she took care that virtue never went unrewarded. " Virtue rewarded,' indeed, might have been, as in Pamela, the sub-title of her every tale. The description of the inn at Dunstable could hardly be excelled by any novelist for ordinary readers, and yet there is nothing in it unfitting younger comprehensions.

'The Basket Woman ' comes from The Parent's Assistant, which, begun in 1796, was issued in six volumes in 1800, and is still a favourite book, and likely to remain so. I wish I could have included also ' Waste Not, Want Not,' from the same book.

The story on page 122 called ' Limby Lumpy ; or, the Boy who was spoiled by his Mamma,' comes from The Holiday Book, and may perhaps be by the editor, William Martin (1801- 1867), *ne principal Peter Parley in this country. I say principal, because the popularity of that pseudonym led to its adoption by at least six other writers for children. Martin, whose first Peter Parley's Annual was published in 1840, when the outbreak of Peter Parlishness began to be general among the juvenile publishing firms, took the name from Samuel Goodrich, the American, whose career as Peter dated from 1838.

To William Martin's pages I am indebted also for the story entitled ' A Plot of Gunpowder.' This he may himself have written, but I seem to detect in ' Limby Lumpy ' a more gifted hand. The joke about the pavior's assistant was, I fear, not original ; the epigram on the ponderous Dr. Tadloe came first:

' When Tadloe walks abroad, the paviors cry, " This way, good sir," and lay their rammers by.'

1 Limby Lumpy ' is in one respect a new kind of story, for in it everyone is foolish — not only Limby Lumpy, as is proper, but also his father and mother. For the most part in stories for children one or other of the parents is kept sensible, as a foil ; but the satirical and rather Thackerayan pen that gave us this little history had no conscience.

1 Limby Lumpy ' is also the first story on our list that deals in a natural and human manner with naughtiness. Thomas Day's ill-natured little boy was wicked in grain, Rosamund was merely unformed and impulsive ; but Limby Lumpy was naughty. It was a kindly thought of his author (but perhaps confusing to the nursery) to set the origin of the evil in the boy's parents.

' The Little Blue Bag,' on page 130, comes from a threevolume collection of stories called Tales for Ellen, 1825. The author was Alicia Catherine Mant, a lady of whom I know no more than that she wrote also long stories for older children or grown-up people. ' The Little Blue Bag ' is her prettiest tale. There is in it more of the pleasantest relations between a mother and a little girl in an English house of seven' or eight decades ago than in any story in this book. More, perhaps, than any other of the stories, 'The Little Blue Bag' is Annand-Jane-Taylorism translated into prose. Mrs. Clavering's kind, quick, good sense does much to balance the foolishness of the mothers on either side of her : Limby Lumpy's mother, on the one hand, and, on the other, Alfred's mother in ' The Oyster Patties.'

Both the authorship and the source of ' The Oyster Patties/ on page 159, are unknown to me, but it is a good story. Like ' Limby Lumpy ' and ' The Villager Metamorphosed,' it possesses another of the infrequent mothers who were at least as blameworthy as the child. Indeed, Alfred's mother, since she told a distinct falsehood, is as much worthy of being the protagonist of a moral story as her little son, with a very severe punishment to complete it.

In the old books, as I have said, the parents who can do no wrong are very numerous ; but they are, it should be pointed out, usually the parents of the central child. There are very often parents and relations of other and subsidiary children whose undesirable habits are exceedingly valuable by way of contrast. Comparisons were never odious to the old moralists. Thus, in Miss Edgeworth's ' Simple Susan ' we have the rapacious family of Attorney Case ; and in the ' Story of the Ill-natured Little Boy,' on page 48, the badness of the father

xi is insisted upon. But the worst instances of central rectitude and outside deplorableness occur, perhaps, in The F. ir child Family, where the young Fairchilds are called upon by their father (to the author's perfect satisfaction) to notice the defects or ■ besetting sins ' of the Crosbies.

* The Changeling,' on page 169, is by Mary Lamb (1763- 1847), and it comes from Mrs. Leicester's School, 1809. By the quaint scheme of that book, in order that the girls at the school might quickly become acquainted with each other at the beginning of the term, they sit round the fire, and, encouraged by their governess, tell in turn the story of their lives. ' The Changeling ' is the story of Ann Withers. ' The Sea Voyage,' on page 188, which was contributed to the same volume by Charles Lamb (1775-1834) is the story of little Arabella Hardy.

1 The Changeling,' which I have cut short some pages before the original ending, is not, I think, by any means the best story in Mrs. Leicester's School -indeed, it is least characteristic and charming ; but it is the most interesting, judged purely as a record of events, and therefore I have included it here. But for Mary Lamb's true gift of simple and sympathetic narrative one must go rather to ' The Sailor Uncle,' to ' The Father's Wedding Day,' or to ' The Young Mahometan.'

' The Sea Voyage ' is an example of Charles Lamb's treatment of a totally unfamiliar theme. Whether he made it up, or whether the story embodies the experiences of some child of whom he had heard, we probably shall never know. My own impression is that he did not make it up. He rarely invented material ; he took that where he found it, and invented the embroidery.

The story to which the title ' Embellishment ' has been given is a chapter from Madeline, one of the Franconia stories of Jacob Abbott (1803-1879). It here follows the text of The Beechnut Book, which I compiled for Messrs. Methuen's Little Blue Books a year or so ago. Jacob Abbott, as is said in the preface to that book, wrote altogether more than two hundred books. Many of these were books of information — histories and so forth — and many were stories, nearly all of which were written in series. That in which Beechnut is found is in the Franconia series Franconia being a district in New York State. The centre of the stories is Mrs. Henry's farm, where Beechnut was what we should call a handy man, although rather a young one. In America a handy man is as good as anyone else ; and Beechnut was also a friend of the family. Phonny, or Alphonso, was Mrs. Henry's only child, and Madeline (called Malleville in some of the books) was his cousin. The Franconia stories have never had in this country the popularity which I think they deserve. Nor have, indeed, any of Abbott's writings.

His Rollo books are hardly less interesting ; but I have found it impossible, so matter-of-fact and ordinary is their texture, to extract one single story of sufficient interest from any of them. One gets the full effect of Jacob Abbott's pleasant, leisurely, and very wise pen only from the whole book. He appeals cumulatively, less than page by page, or even chapter by chapter.

1 The Misses,' on page 213, from the Juvenile Forget-me-not for 1830, is by Mrs. Barbauld, and was published posthumously. It is included for its ingenuity and old-fashioned naivete.

The Stories of Old Daniel ( about 1805), fr°m which I have taken the ' Robbers' Cave,' on page 220, was one of the publications of Mrs. William Godwin, second wife of the philosopher Its anonymity has led certain enterprising booksellers to catalogue it under the name of Charles Lamb (whose children's books were written for the Godwins), hoping thereby to catch the too confiding collector. It is hardly necessary to say that Lamb did not write it ; apart from the evidence of literary style, robbers' caves were not at all in his line. I have not discovered who Old Daniel was, but there are signs that his origin was French, or at least foreign, and the book may be one of those translations upon which we know Mrs. Godwin herself to have worked.

I do not greatly admire this story, which is too retrospective, too much ' emotion recollected in tranquillity '; but Old

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Daniel was once a favourite, and his narrative is included here partly for that reason, and partly because a robbers' cave is an agreeable incident in a book too much concerned with good and naughty children in ordinary English homes.

To another of these children — this time a girl — we come in ' The Inquisitive Girl,' on page 230, a story of which I give only half. The remainder, which is not interesting, may be found by the curious in The Amusements of Westenhealh, sl book which I have not succeeded in seeing, or in Mary Howitt's Treasury of Tales. I do not know the author of ■ The Inquisitive Girl.' The device of the torn letter, which is very neat, I have seen in ordinary novels more than once, especially in treasure-hunting tales, but not before or since in a morality for the nursery.

■ Helen Holmes ; or, The Villager Metamorphosed,' on page 242, is from The Parents' Offering, 1813, by Mrs. Caroline Barnard. It is not, I think, a very good story, but there are points of interest. The wholly inexcusable conduct of Miss Meadows towards the end is a sad blot, which, had it come earlier, would have disqualified the tale altogether ; but the spirited description of the birthday-party which precedes it led me to retain it. I have already commented on the undesirableness of Caroline's mother, yet she is done with some realistic skill. Taken as a whole, however, the tale is without the illusion of reality, and perhaps when all is said won its place more by its absurdity than any other merit.

' Helen Holmes ' paves the way, however, for the good sense and freshness of ' Bob and Dog Quiz,' on page 285, the longest story in the book, and I think the one which probably is least known. I found it in a little volume called Simple Tales for the Young, 1847, but the author's name I have not discovered, nor anything about her, except that she wrote also The Gipsies and Fairy Birds from Fairy Islet ; or, The Children of the Forest, a book which sounds well, but which I have not seen.

' Bob and Dog Quiz ' seems to me the work of a very charming mind, and a very unusual one, too, in children's

xiv books, especially in 1847. To-day we expect a certain amount of sympathy with mischief and revolt, but sixty years ago things were different, and the creator of Bob was among the innovators. There are, I think, internal indications that the story is more or less a true one, and that a Bob really existed. Perhaps he lives still. I do not remember anywhere a fresher or more spirited description of a game than that which begins on page 309 ; it was quite a literary feat to get so much vigour and fun into it. Nor even in quite modern books is there a truer nursery conversation than that on page 295. Just so are nurses criticised.

To ' A Plot of Gunpowder • I have already referred, and we come now to the last of the nineteen — to ' Uncle David's Nonsensical Story of Giants and Fairies,' which is from that still admirable anl entertaining book Holiday House, 1839, by Catherine Sinclair (1800-1864). Miss Sinclair was associated with giants from earliest days, for she was one of so tall a family that when a new pavement was laid before her father's house in Edinburgh, it was called ' The Giants' Causeway.' In addition to Holiday House, she wrote a number of shrewd and amusing novels, and she also compiled a note - book of excellent sense and humour — The Kaleidoscope. Among her hobbies was the writing of picture-letters or hieroglyphics, several of which were published in Edinburgh some forty years ago. One of these I have borrowed to illustiate this rambling preface (see pages xvi-xix).

Miss Sinclair's Holiday House was the first children's book, so far as I know, in which the modern spirit manifests ' itself. Hitherto children had been meek and acceptive in the presence of their elders - naughty enough, of course, on occasion, but never daring to dream that mistakes could come from those in authority. The first example of modern nursery scepticism that I can recollect is in Holiday House ; but there was a hint of encouraged disrespect many years before, in the Fool of Quality, in the joyous description of the engine devised for driving a needle through the seat of Mr. Vindex's chair. That book, however, if ever it reached children, did so by

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XXX circuitous routes, whereas Holiday House was written for them, and for them only.

Whether or no nursery scepticism found its first observer in Miss Sinclair, it is certain that hers was the first comic giant in the modern manner. The fancy that he was so tall that he was ' obliged to climb up a ladder to comb his own hair ' is the beginning of half the nursery wit of the present day. I wonder whether Professor Clifford remembered Miss Sinclair when he wrote his perfect nonsense story of ' The Giant's Shoes ' for The Little People in 1874. I must quote a little :

' The Giant slept for three weeks at a time, and two days after he woke his breakfast was brought to him, consisting of bright brown horses sprinkled on his bread and butter. Besides his boots, the Giant had a pair of shoes, and in one of them his wife lived when she was at home ; on other occasions she lived in the other shoe. She was a sensible, practical kind of woman, with two wooden legs and a clothes-horse, but in other respects not rich. The wooden legs were kept pointed at the ends, in order that if the Giant were dissatisfied with his breakfast, he might pick up any stray people that were within reach, using his wife as a fork ; this annoyed the inhabitants of the district, so that they built their church in a south-westerly direction from the castle, behind tie Giant's back, that he might not be able to pick them up as they went in. But those who stayed outside to play pitchand-toss were exposed to great danger and sufferings.

' Now, in the village there were two brothers of altogether different tastes and dispositions, and talents and peculiarities and accomplishments, and in this way they were discovered not to be the same person. The elder of them was most marvellously good at singing, and could sing the C Id Hundredth an old hundred times without stopping. Whenever he did this, he stood on one leg and tied the other round his neck to avoid catching cold and spoiling his voice ; but the neighbours fled. And he was also a rare hand at making guava dumplings out of three cats and a shoe-horn, which is an accomplishment seldom met with. But his brother was a more meagre magnanimous person, and his chief accomplishment was to eat a waggon-load of hay overnight, and wake up thatched in the morning.'

That passage, taken in conjunction with Miss Sinclair's story, illustrates the progress of nonsense since Holiday House. The tendency, perhaps, has always been to be a little too clever ; very often the cleverness crowds out the nonsense altogether Miss Sinclair was sufficiently near the old moral tradition to be careful to tell a good story all the time, which too many of our modern nursery fun-makers are not.

E. V. L.

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CONTENT

The History of Little Jack ; by Thomas Day

The Good-natured Little Boy and the Ill-natured Little Boy ;

by Thomas Day ------

The Purple Jar ; by Maria Edge worth -

Little Robert and the Owl ; by Mrs. Sherwood

Trial of a Complaint made against Sundry Persons for

Breaking in the Windows of Dorothy Careful, Widow

and Dealer in Gingerbread ; by John Aikin and Anne

Lsetitia Barbauld -.

The Basket-Woman ; by Maria Edgeworth - Limby Lumpy ; Anon. -

The Little Blue Bag ; by Alicia Catherine Mant The Oyster Patties ; Anon. - The Changeling ; by Mary Lamb The Sea Voyage ; by Charles Lamb Embellishment ; by Jacob Abbott - The Misses ; by Anne Lsetitia Barbauld The Robbers' Cave ; Anon.

The Inquisitive Girl ; Anon.

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