CHAPTER IIITHE LILLIPUTIAN LIBRARYLocke and the baby Spectator—Gulliver in the nursery—The children’s bookseller—A Little Pretty Pocket Book,The Circle of the SciencesandThe Philosophy of Tops and Balls—Mr. Newbery’s shop in St. Paul’s Churchyard—The Lilliputian Magazine—“The History of Mr. Thomas Trip”—Nursery “Richardsons”—Mother Goose’s Melody—“A very great Writer of very little Books”—The History of Goody Two-Shoesas an epitome of the Lilliputian Library—The question of Goldsmith’s authorship—Late “Lilliputians”—The Wyse Chylde in many rôles—Juvenile Trials—The Juvenile Biographer—Lilliputian Letters—A hint of revolution—The newTatlerandSpectator—A farthing sugar-paper series—Lilliputian books in the provinces.
Locke and the baby Spectator—Gulliver in the nursery—The children’s bookseller—A Little Pretty Pocket Book,The Circle of the SciencesandThe Philosophy of Tops and Balls—Mr. Newbery’s shop in St. Paul’s Churchyard—The Lilliputian Magazine—“The History of Mr. Thomas Trip”—Nursery “Richardsons”—Mother Goose’s Melody—“A very great Writer of very little Books”—The History of Goody Two-Shoesas an epitome of the Lilliputian Library—The question of Goldsmith’s authorship—Late “Lilliputians”—The Wyse Chylde in many rôles—Juvenile Trials—The Juvenile Biographer—Lilliputian Letters—A hint of revolution—The newTatlerandSpectator—A farthing sugar-paper series—Lilliputian books in the provinces.
For every parent that read Locke’sThoughts, a hundred took his ideas at second hand fromThe Spectator. Many, indeed, seem to have confused his notion of childhood with the description of the baby Addison, who threw away his rattle before he was two months old, and would not make use of his coral until they had taken away the bells from it.
It was no new thing to regard a child as a small man or woman. Since Shakespeare’s time, children had followed the fashions of their elders. But the tastes of grown-up Elizabethans were not so different from those of children. Never, until the eighteenth century, had a child been taught to think and act like a man of middle age. The little Georgian walked gravely where his for-bears danced, and was expected to read dwarf essays, extracts from Addison and Pope, and little novels after Richardson.
Swift’s engrossing pictures of Lilliput had no sooner captured the nursery than grown-up persons began to fancythemselves in the part of Gulliver stooping to instruct a little nation; and the logical outcome of this was a “Lilliputian Library”.
The ingenious artist of an older generation, who could put “all th’ Iliads in a Nut” must have passed on his secret to the makers of toy-books; and of these the first and greatest was John Newbery, a descendant of the very Newbery who, in the sixteenth century, had published the rhyme of the “great Marchaunt Man”.
There is no better portrait of John Newbery than the one drawn by Goldsmith inThe Vicar of Wakefield. That “good-natured man” with his “red pimpled face” who befriended Dr. Primrose when he lay sick at a roadside inn, was “no other than the philanthropic bookseller of St. Paul’s Churchyard, who has written so many little books for children”.
Goldsmith was writing for Newbery between 1762 and 1767, and on more than one occasion he, like his Vicar, “borrowed a few pieces” from the kindly publisher. He could not have chosen a more graceful way of thanking him, nor one more likely to give him pleasure, than by thus imitating Mr. Newbery’s own method of internal advertisement, associating him with those “little books for children”, and adding that “he called himself their friend, but he was the friend of all mankind”.
The rest of the passage recalls Dr. Johnson’s caricature of Newbery as “Jack Whirler,” inThe Idler:
“Overwhelmed as he is with business, his chief desire is to have still more. Every new proposal takes possession of his thoughts; he soon balances probabilities, engages in the project, brings it almost to completion and then forsakes it for another.”
But Goldsmith again lays stress on his pet project:
“He was no sooner alighted but he was in haste to be gone; for he was ever on business of the utmost importance,and was at that time actually compiling materials for the history of one Mr. Thomas Trip.”
An account of John Newbery’s career would itself furnish matter for a children’s book. He was a very Whittington of booksellers—a farmer’s son who made his way in the world “by his talents and industry and a great love of books”. Every day of his life was an adventure, and he never lost his Pepysian interest in men and things. Goldsmith’s story of the inn (or its counterpart) might almost have come out of the pocket-book in which Mr. Newbery kept a record of his journey through England in 1740, with notes of his various “projects” and purchases.[40]
It was at Reading, where he had begun his trade of printer and publisher, that he produced his first children’s book:Spiritual Songs for Children, by one of the many imitators of Dr. Watts;[41]but the genuine “Newberys” appeared after he settled in London, first at the Bible and Crown, without Temple Bar, and afterwards at the famous little shop in St. Paul’s Churchyard.
He began with miscellanies—quaint imitations of the periodicals, announced by whimsical “advertisements”, and professing the aims and methods of John Locke:A Little Pretty Pocket Book(1744),[42]andThe Lilliputian Magazine, advertised in theGeneral Evening Post, March 4, 1751.
Two quotations in thePocket Booksuggest a connection between two prevailing interests of the day, Education and Landscape-gardening. The first is from Dryden:
“Children, like tender Osiers, take the BowAnd as they first are fashioned always grow”;
“Children, like tender Osiers, take the BowAnd as they first are fashioned always grow”;
“Children, like tender Osiers, take the BowAnd as they first are fashioned always grow”;
“Children, like tender Osiers, take the Bow
And as they first are fashioned always grow”;
the second from Pope:
“Just as the Twig is bent the Tree’s inclined,’Tis Education forms the vulgar Mind”.
“Just as the Twig is bent the Tree’s inclined,’Tis Education forms the vulgar Mind”.
“Just as the Twig is bent the Tree’s inclined,’Tis Education forms the vulgar Mind”.
“Just as the Twig is bent the Tree’s inclined,
’Tis Education forms the vulgar Mind”.
But the prefatory letter addressed “To all Parents, Guardians, Governesses, etc.”, illustrates the difference between the “fashioning” of trees and children. It is all pure Locke:
“Would you have a virtuous Son, instil into him the Principles of Morality early.... Would you have a wise Son, teach him to reason early. Let him read and make him understand what he reads. No Sentence should be passed over without a strict Examination of the Truth of it.... Subdue your children’s Passions, curb their Temper and make them subservient to the Rules of Reason; and this is not to be done by Chiding, Whipping or severe Treatment, but by Reasoning and mild Discipline.”
So much for the Parents who bought thePretty Pocket Book. The rest is a judicious mixture of Amusement and Instruction for its readers. There are alphabets big and little, “select Proverbs for the use of children”,Moralitésin plenty; but by the precise authority of Mr. Locke, there are also pictures of sorts, songs and games and rhymed fables. There is even a germ of the “Moral Tale” in accounts of good children, set down somewhat in the manner of seventeenth century “Characters”.
Between this andThe Lilliputian Magazinecame an instructive “Snuff-box” series: TheCircle of the Sciences,[43]described in the Advertisement as “a compendious library, whereby each Branch of Polite Learning is rendered extremely easy and instructive”. But the Newbery Pedant is never quite serious. When, later, he sets himself to adapt the Newtonian System “to the Capacities of young Gentlemen and Ladies”, he does it in aPhilosophyofTops and Balls,[44]and seems immensely diverted by this notion of making the Giant Instruction stoop to play.
In 1745 John Newbery left the Bible and Crown, and set up at the Bible and Sun, near the Chapter House in St. Paul’s Churchyard. By this time he had become “a merchant in medicines as well as books” and had acquired a partnership in the sale of the famous fever powders of his friend Dr. James, which he advertised with other remedies in his nursery books, often working them into the story.
Like all really busy people, he could always find time for a new enterprise; but the “little books” were no mere relaxation from serious work. His son says that at this time he was “in the full employment of his talents in writing and publishing books of amusement and instruction for children”, and adds that “the call for them was immense, an edition of many thousands being sometimes exhausted during the Christmas holidays”.[45]
This, in fact, was a favourite “project” of Mr. Newbery’s, never forsaken for another, but continued up to the time of his death.
One can imagine him, delighted as Mr. Pepys with his puppet show,—inspecting the woodcuts, examining different patterns of Dutch flowered paper for the binding, deciding the exact size (4 inches by 2¾) for the biography of Mr. Trip; or watching the young apprentices (these paper covers were painted by children) each filling a row of diamond spaces with his appointed colour.
His next venture wasThe Lilliputian Magazine[46]announced as “an attempt to amend the World, to render the Society of Man more amiable, and to re-establish the Simplicity, Virtue and Wisdom of the Golden Age”.
Details of the proposed method are set forth in thefollowing “Dialogue” between a gentleman and the Author:
The framework of the book suggests a combination (in miniature) of the Royal Society and the Spectator Club; for the various Pieces are submitted to a Society of young Gentlemen and Ladies (including a young Prince and several of the young Nobility) presided over by little Master Meanwell (who by reading a great many Books and observing everything his Tutor said to him, acquired a great deal of Wisdom).
The “Histories” and “Fables” that follow are not mixed from Mr. Locke’s prescription. They are amusing parodies of Mr. Newbery’s (or his contributor’s) reading from theSpectatorandGulliverand Richardson’s novels. Not even Gulliver escapes the moralising tendency, and Lilliput (here translated to the “Island of Angelica”) is a new Utopia, where no man is allowed more money than he needs. The inhabitants are so little removed from common experience that they appear to be “no more than a gigantic Sort of Lilliputian, about the size of the Fairies in Mr. Garrick’s Queen Mab”.[47]
Locke would have scorned the fanciful descriptions of thisVoyage Imaginaire; nor would “A History of the Rise and Progress of Learning in Lilliput” (which precedes it)have pleased him better; he never could have understood the sly humour of its author.
Indeed, but for the date, there might be some truth in the suggestion that Goldsmith editedThe Lilliputian Magazine. For among its contributions was that notable “History of Mr. Thomas Trip” in which his philanthropic bookseller was engaged; and in the “History”, a rhyme of “Three Children Sliding on the Ice”[48]that Goldsmith might well have invented to temper the virtues of Mr. Trip; for indeed, this hero, though he scarcely overtops Tom Thumb, is the Wyse Chylde in little: “whenever you see him, you will always find a book in his hand”.
But Goldsmith was not yet in London whenThe Lilliputian Magazineappeared; the rhyme of “Three Children” is now said to be John Gay’s; and it was Goldsmith himself who named John Newbery as Tommy Trip’s biographer.
The other contributions are mere attempts to fit children of middle age with little novels of morality and sentiment,—surely not the least flattering imitations of Richardson.[49]
First comes the “History of Florella, sent by an unknown Hand (and may, for aught we know, have been published before)”, and after an interval for further reference and collation, “The History of Miss Sally Silence, communicated by Lady Betty Lively”. But neither the story nor the sentiment rings true. As yet, the Lilliputian novel has no life: and all that there is to be said of Miss Sally is condensed in her epitaph:
“Here lie the Remains of the Duchess of Downright:Who, when a Maid, was no otherthan Sarah JonesA poor Farmer’s Daughter.From her Attachment to Goodness shebecame great.Her Virtue raised her from a mean StateTo a high Degree of HonourandHer Innocence procured her Peace in her last Moments.She smiled even in AgonyAnd embraced Death as a friendly PilotWho was to steer herTo a more exalted State of Bliss.”
Here the author, as if doubting his effect, adds a direct appeal:
“Little Reader,Whoever thou art, observe these her RulesAnd become thyselfA Copy of this bright Example.”
It was somewhere between 1760 and 1765, when a latent spirit of romance was beginning to move the grown-up world, that the children’s bookseller turned his attention to Nursery Rhymes.
Some of these were already in print.Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book[50]had appeared in 1744: two tiny volumes in Dutch flowered boards, of which the second only has survived. This was a great advance on the song-books commonly given to children as soon as they could read; but there is something more than the usual nonsense and rhythm in the Newbery rhymes. The very title:Mother Goose’s Melody,[51]brings them into touch with the first book of fairy-tales; and indeed those two voices (the child’s and the man’s) can be heard here as in Perrault—a merry new partnership of song and laughter—, the one piping high in lively see-saw, the other declaiming a mock-learned “Preface”, fitting each rhyme with an ironic “Note” or “Maxim”, burlesquing the commentators and setting the wit of nursery sages against the wisdom of the pedants.
The editor ofMother Goose’s Melody, although the Preface declares him “a very great Writerof very little Books”, has none of that contempt for “Nonsense” which philosophersare apt to show. He traces “the Custom of making Nonsense Verses in our Schools” to “the Old British Nurses, the first Preceptors of Youth”, and speaks of them with evident respect. Yet he shows no bias towards the more imaginative absurdities. It is the use of a rhyme for ironic comment, or its lyric quality that directs his choice.
The song about Betty Winckle’s Pig that lived in clover (“but now he’s dead and that’s all over”) is annotated thus: “A Dirge is a Song for the Dead; but whether this was made for Betty Winckle or her Pig is uncertain—no Notice being taken of it by Cambden or any of the famous Antiquarians”.
This is “Amphion’s Song of Eurydice”:
“I won’t be my Father’s JackI won’t be my Mother’s JillI will be the Fiddler’s WifeAnd have Musick when I will.T’other little TuneT’other little TunePrithee, Love, play me.T’other little Tune.”
“I won’t be my Father’s JackI won’t be my Mother’s JillI will be the Fiddler’s WifeAnd have Musick when I will.T’other little TuneT’other little TunePrithee, Love, play me.T’other little Tune.”
“I won’t be my Father’s JackI won’t be my Mother’s JillI will be the Fiddler’s WifeAnd have Musick when I will.T’other little TuneT’other little TunePrithee, Love, play me.T’other little Tune.”
“I won’t be my Father’s Jack
I won’t be my Mother’s Jill
I will be the Fiddler’s Wife
And have Musick when I will.
T’other little Tune
T’other little Tune
Prithee, Love, play me.
T’other little Tune.”
And this the comment (in small type, for Parents): “Those Arts are the most valuable which are of the greatest Use”.
Such gentle irony would be lost upon the serious student of Lilliputian Ethics. Grown-up wiseacres and little philosophers must have puzzled their heads in vain over some of these “Maxims” and exclaimed at the effrontery of a Writer, however “great”, who, after suggesting that an unmeaning rhyme “might serve as a Chapter of Consequence in the New Book of Logick”, could add (in a note upon “Margery Daw”): “It is a mean and scandalous Practice among Authors to put Notes to Things that deserve no Notice. (Grotius)”.
There is no direct evidence of Goldsmith’s hand in this; but he was well acquainted with nonsense-songs, and MissHawkins, writing of her childhood in a letter, connects him with a nursery-rhyme: “I little thought”, she says, “what I should have to boast when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Gill by two bits of paper on his fingers.”
If this “very great Writer of very little Books” was not Goldsmith, it is an extraordinary coincidence that the rhyme in the Preface should be the same that he sang to his friends on the first night ofThe Good Natur’d Man, and “never consented to sing but on special Occasions”—which runs thus:
“There was an old Woman tossed in a Blanket,Seventeen times as high as the moon,But where she was going no mortal could tell.For under her arm she carried a Broom,Old Woman, old Woman, old Woman, said I,Whither, ah whither, ah whither so high?To sweep the Cobwebs from the Sky,And I’ll be with you by and by.”
“There was an old Woman tossed in a Blanket,Seventeen times as high as the moon,But where she was going no mortal could tell.For under her arm she carried a Broom,Old Woman, old Woman, old Woman, said I,Whither, ah whither, ah whither so high?To sweep the Cobwebs from the Sky,And I’ll be with you by and by.”
“There was an old Woman tossed in a Blanket,Seventeen times as high as the moon,But where she was going no mortal could tell.For under her arm she carried a Broom,Old Woman, old Woman, old Woman, said I,Whither, ah whither, ah whither so high?To sweep the Cobwebs from the Sky,And I’ll be with you by and by.”
“There was an old Woman tossed in a Blanket,
Seventeen times as high as the moon,
But where she was going no mortal could tell.
For under her arm she carried a Broom,
Old Woman, old Woman, old Woman, said I,
Whither, ah whither, ah whither so high?
To sweep the Cobwebs from the Sky,
And I’ll be with you by and by.”
There is only one Lilliputian book that has been attributed to Goldsmith with the consent of his biographer, and that is Mr. Newbery’s masterpiece, the quaint and originalHistory of Goody Two-Shoes.[52]
Here is the characteristic notice that appeared inThe London Chronicle(December 19-January 1, 1765):
“The Philosophers, Politicians, Necromancers, and the Learned in every Faculty are desired to observe that on the 1st of January, being New Year’s Day (Oh, that we may all lead new lives!), Mr. Newbery intends to publish the following important Volumes, bound and gilt, and hereby invites all his little Friends who are good to call for them at the Bible and Sun, in St. Paul’s Churchyard: but those who are naughty are to have none”.
Here follows a list of the “important Volumes”: “The Renowned History of Giles Gingerbread: a little Boy who lived upon Learning;” Easter, Whitsuntide and Valentine“Gifts”; “The Fairing”; and after these an announcement of greater interest, that “there is in the Press and speedily will be published, either by Subscription or otherwise, as the Public shall please to determine, The History of Little Goody Two-shoes, otherwise called Margery Two-Shoes”.
The “Gifts” are so many variants of the Lilliputian Miscellany,[53]and as toGiles Gingerbread, there is nothing about him to attract a child, unless his name should conjure up a flavour of those gingerbread books sold at Fairs, which could be eaten when the reading grew tedious. The story (made to fit a penny chap-book) tells, without digression, how young Gingerbread learnt to read, that he might have a fine coach and emulate the success of one Sir Toby Wilson, who also was a poor man’s son.
ButGoody Two-shoes, though it offers a similar prize for self-help, teaches no such politic morality. Indeed, it shows what can be done with the babies’ novel, by a writer who understands children and has a winning gift of humour; but for all that, it presents in epitome the whole Lilliputian Library.
The title-page at once proclaims its likeness to those records of triumphant virtue, the nursery “Richardsons”; the “Introduction” is a miniature essay on land-reform. Mr. Welsh, who reprintedGoody Two-Shoesin 1882, found an exact picture of the Deserted Village in the Parish of Mouldwell, where little Margery’s father suffers the “wicked Persecutions” of Sir Timothy Gripe and “an overgrown Farmer called Graspall”.
A passage at the close of the “Introduction” certainly lends some colour to the idea that it was a half-playful study of Goldsmith’s, for his serious argument:
“But what, says the Reader, can occasion all this? Doyou intend this for children, Mr. Newbery? Why, do you suppose this is written by Mr. Newbery, Sir? This may come from another Hand. This is not the Book, Sir, mentioned in the Title, but the Introduction to that Book; and it is intended, Sir, not for those Sort of Children, but for Children of six Feet high, of which ... there are many Millions in the Kingdom”.
The change, after all, is merely from Lilliput to Brobdignag,—a voyage that represents no more difficulty to the editor than to Gulliver himself.
It is in Lilliputian pedagogy that the writer ofGoody Two-Shoeshas so completely outdistanced his fellows.
For although none of them could produce a more whole-hearted supporter of Locke’s theories than “little Two-Shoes”, she wastes no time in abstract reasoning, but puts them at once into practice.
No sooner did she learn to read (and that was startlingly soon) than she began to teach her companions, and finding them by no means so quick nor so diligent as herself, she cut out of several pieces of wood ten “Setts” of large letters and ten of small (all printed very clear in the text); “and every Morning she used to go round to teach the Children with these Rattletraps in a Basket—as you see in the Print”.
The letter-games of Goody Two-Shoes were doubtless among the “twenty other Ways” hinted at by Mr. Locke when he described his own, in which “Children may be cozen’d into a Knowledge of the Letters”. There are minute directions for playing them in the chapter that tells “How little Two-Shoes became atrotting Tutoress”.
Nor is virtue (the philosopher’s chief concern) neglected for this matter of mere learning. There are lessons and reflections enough for the old “Schools of Virtue”; but little Margery’s true piety makes amends for her preaching and saves her from the prudential excess of the “little Boy who lived upon Learning”. When she admonishedthe sick gentleman for his late hours by the example of the rooks, she forced him to laugh and admit that she was “a sensible Hussey”. The Reader (more often admonished) does the same.
In this blending of morality and humour, the author is only following the practice of eighteenth century novelists. His morality (in the main, very sound and reasonable) hangs by the humour of separate incidents; yet these, together, form a sequence of moral and “cautionary” tales. There is, for example, the warning against useless display in the account of Lady Ducklington’s funeral,—“the Money they squandered away would have been better laid out in little Books for Children, or in Meat, Drink and Cloaths for the Poor”;—against superstition,—the story of the ghost in the church, or the dramatic Witch story of the Second Part; and there are parallel examples of kindness and good sense.
A small child would make his first reading by the woodcuts (which are much like a child’s drawings): here, first, are little Margery and her brother, left, like the Children in the Wood “to the Wide World”; here is Tommy Two-Shoes (at an incredibly tender age) dressed like a little sailor—“Pray look at him”,—and there again, wiping off Margery’s tears with the end of his jacket—“thus”—and bidding her cry no more, for that he will come to her again when he returns from sea. He is much blurred in this picture—perhaps with tears.
At this point the story goes back to the frontispiece: by far the best picture of Margery, in a setting of trees and fields, with a little house on one side of her and a church in the distance. She is wearing hertwo shoesfor the first time (for until a charitable good man gave her a pair, she had but one): “stroking down her ragged Apronthus”, and crying out: “Two Shoes, Mame, see two Shoes”.
Next comes that serious business of Letters and Syllables.But Somebody (with a Basket of Rattle-traps) is at the door.
“Tap, tap, tap, who’s there?” (It might have been Red Riding-Hood! “Toc, toc! Qui est là?”) But it is only little Goody Two-Shoes, greeting her new scholar in the same childish voice.
Thus the little one gets through the lessons and proverbs of the next few pages, and at Chapter VI, which tells “How the whole Parish was frighted”, knows the triumph and delight of reading.
“Babies do not want to hear about babies”, said Dr. Johnson; but he was never, like Goldsmith, intimate with the Nursery in all its moods, and it did not occur to him that his favourite Tom Thumb was but a child seen through the diminishing-glass of a woodcut.
This, moreover, is a story thatgrows upin the reading. At Chapter VI, there is no more baby-talk. These are mature, even elderly villagers who are so “frighted” at the idea of a ghost in the church: the argument is between the Parson, the Clerk and the Clerk’s Wife:
“I go. Sir, says William, why the Ghost would frighten me out of my Wits.—Mrs. Dobbins too cried, and laying hold of her Husband said, he should not be eat up by the Ghost. A Ghost, you Blockheads, says Mr. Long in a Pet, did either of you ever see a Ghost, or know any Body that did? Yes, says the Clerk, my Father did once in the Shape of a Windmill, and it walked all round the Church in a white Sheet, with Jack Boots on, and had a Gun by its Side instead of a Sword. A fine Picture of a Ghost truly, says Mr. Long, give me the Key of the Church, you Monkey; for I tell you there is no such Thing now, whatever may have been formerly.—Then taking the Key, he went to the Church, all the People following him. As soon as he had opened the Door, what Sort of a Ghost do you think appeared? Why littleTwo-shoes, who being weary, had fallen asleep in oneof the Pews during the Funeral Service, and was shut in all Night——”.
Such incidents would make even a grown-up reader forget the Lilliputian context.
Nor is the Second Part (as in other “Histories”) of less interest, although it presents the dutiful contriving little Two-shoes as “Principal of a Country College—for instructing little Gentlemen and Ladies in the Science of A.B.C.”. A formidable theme, if her inventive genius could not produce any number of variations upon Mr. Locke’s method of playing at schools.
A reference to theSpectatorat the close of Part I would make Mistress Two-Shoes a predecessor of Shenstone’s Schoolmistress; but this is clearly an anachronism. The village Dame as Shenstone studies her, still sits
“disguised in look profoundAnd eyes her fairy-Throng, and turns her Wheel around”;
“disguised in look profoundAnd eyes her fairy-Throng, and turns her Wheel around”;
“disguised in look profoundAnd eyes her fairy-Throng, and turns her Wheel around”;
“disguised in look profound
And eyes her fairy-Throng, and turns her Wheel around”;
whereas Goody Two-Shoes, knowing that “Nature intended Children should be always in Action”, places her letters and alphabets all round the school, so that everyone in turn is obliged to get up to fetch a letter or to spell a word.
Her children have forgotten the hornbook, and with it, doubtless, “St. George’s high Achievements” which used to decorate the back. It was Shenstone’s Dame who kept “tway birchen Sprays” to reclaim her pupils’ wandering attention from St. George. But Mrs. Margery ruled “by Reasoning and mild Discipline”, and could dispense with these.
“Her Tenderness extended not only to all Mankind, but even to all Animals that were not noxious”. Such humanity alone (notwithstanding the reservation) sets her above the poet’s heroine, to whose credit he could only place
“One ancient Hen she took Delight to feedThe plodding Pattern of this busy Dame,Which ever and anon as she had needInto her School begirt with Chickens came.”
“One ancient Hen she took Delight to feedThe plodding Pattern of this busy Dame,Which ever and anon as she had needInto her School begirt with Chickens came.”
“One ancient Hen she took Delight to feedThe plodding Pattern of this busy Dame,Which ever and anon as she had needInto her School begirt with Chickens came.”
“One ancient Hen she took Delight to feed
The plodding Pattern of this busy Dame,
Which ever and anon as she had need
Into her School begirt with Chickens came.”
Indeed, Mrs. Margery surpasses Æsop and Tommy Trip in her manner of pressing Beasts and Birds into the service of Education.
Locke, whose imagination had stopped short at pictures of animals, would have detected the insidious workings of romance in a school where the ushers were birds, where a dog acted as door-keeper and a pet lamb carried home the books of the good children in turn.
Yet in another place, the youthful Dame shows herself a mistress of utilitarian argument:
“Does not the Horse and the Ass carry you and your burthens? Don’t the Ox plough your Ground, the Cow give you Milk, the Sheep cloath your Back, the Dog watch your House, the Goose find you in Quills to write with, the Hen bring Eggs for your Custards and Puddings, and the Cock call you up in the Morning——? If so, how can you be so cruel to them, and abuse God Almighty’s good Creatures?”
Thus the creatures are protected chiefly for their services; Nature, as yet, is no more than a useful and necessary background. It is still Humanity that counts.
As to Romance, the writer’s attitude must be judged by default. There is but one reference to Fortunatus and Friar Bacon to indicate a preference for works of Reason and Ingenuity.
This follows one of those quaint interludes that prove the quick wit and hide the laughter of Mistress Two-Shoes. In her character of village peacemaker, she contrives a “Considering Cap”, “almost as large as a Grenadier’s, but of three equal Sides; on the first of which was written, I may be wrong; on the second, It is fifty to one but you are; and on the third, I’ll consider of it. The other Parts on the out-side, were filled with odd Characters, as unintelligible as the Writings of the old Egyptians; but within Side there was a Direction for its Use, of the utmost Consequence; for it strictly enjoined the Possessor to put on the Capwhenever he found his Passions begin to grow turbulent, and not to deliver a Word whilst it was on, but with great Coolness and Moderation.... They were bought by Husbands and Wives, who had themselves frequent Occasion for them, and sometimes lent them to their Children. They were also purchased in large Quantities by Masters and Servants; by young Folks who were intent on Matrimony, by Judges, Jurymen, and even Physicians and Divines: nay, if we may believe History, the Legislators of the Land did not disdain the Use of them; and we are told, that when any important Debate arose,Cap was the Word, and each House looked like a grand Synod of Egyptian Priests.”
After this, lest the old spells should work upon some unguarded child, Friar Bacon is called in, to advertise this “Charm for the Passions” in a letter of advice:
“What was Fortunatus’ Wishing Cap when compared to this?... Remember what was said by my Brazen Head,Time is, Time was, Time is past: now theTime is, therefore buy the Cap immediately, and make a proper Use of it, and be happy before theTime is past”.
The Learned Friar has burnt his books, and there is an end of Magic. Mrs. Margery has no dealings in a “Gothick Mythology of Elves and Fairies”; her Familiars are the tame creatures of her household, she does her conjuring by the legitimate powers of Science. And when, through her cleverness in contriving a weather-glass to save her neighbours’ hay, she is accused of witchcraft by the people of other parishes, her advocate, like a true Lilliputian, defends her with the arguments of Addison and Goldsmith.[54]
This witch-story is the climax (if such a haphazard littleplot can have a climax) and it gives a masterly last touch to the heroine’s portrait.
She is standing with all her pets about her, when Gaffer Goosecap (full of the weather-glass mystery) comes to spy upon her:
“This so surprised the Man that he cried out a Witch! a Witch! upon this she laughing, answered, a Conjurer! a Conjurer! and so they parted; but it did not end thus, for a Warrant was issued out against Mrs. Margery, and she was carried to a Meeting of the Justices, whither all the Neighbours followed her”.
At the trial her triumph is complete. Even her judges join in the laughter when she produces the weather-glass and cries: “If I am a Witch, this is my Charm”.
The writer, whoever he was, had little to learn from Rousseau. Miss Edgeworth herself could not have invented a more reasonable and intelligent heroine.
It is easy to see why Charles Lamb putGoody Two-Shoesamong “the old classics of the Nursery”[55], and no matter for wonder that it should be set down to Goldsmith.
For apart from that hint ofThe Deserted Villagein the “Introduction”, it has living characters, natural speech and incidents of genuine comedy. The playful tenderness of the first chapters suggests Goldsmith’s treatment of children, and the whole theme is near enough to his idea of a story “like the old one of Whittingtonwere his Cat left out”[56]. For if he ever had written such a story and managed to keep the cat out of it, he would certainly have repented and introduced some other animal in its place, or with native inconsistency, might have multiplied it into a menagerie such as Goody Two-Shoes kept. The idea of talking animals had once attracted him, and if he could write a good Fable, why not a “History”?
Forster records Godwin’s “strong persuasion” that Goldsmith wroteGoody Two-Shoes, and Godwin, himself a publisher of children’s books, may have had good reason for his belief; yet there is no certain evidence to confirm it, nor will the book, as a whole, bear all the claims of its admirers.
Nichols, in hisLiterary Anecdotes,[57]associates this and other “Lilliputian Histories” with the brothers Griffiths and Giles Jones, and family tradition credits Giles withGoody Two-Shoesas well asGiles GingerbreadandTommy Trip; but if, as Goldsmith would have it, Mr. Newbery was the real author ofTommy Trip, there is no reason why he should not have had a hand in the rest.Goody Two-Shoes, in fact, has several turns of speech and grammatical slips which occur in John Newbery’s journal;[58]nor is it at all unlikely that Goldsmith, the friend of Giles Jones and Newbery, contributed such lively matter as the ghost and witch stories, or so quaint a fancy as the “Considering Cap”.
John Newbery’s successors[59]carried on the tradition, but at his death the great period of “Lilliputian Histories” was past. Their numbers were always increasing, but they were mostly imitations and moralised echoes of folklore likeTom Thumb’s ExhibitionorThe Enchanted Castle.
Yet there are a few late “Lilliputians” that have the true Newbery touch, and even a fresh spice of satire.The Lilliputian Masquerade,[60]though it goes back toGulliver, belongs to the age of the Pantheon and Almack’s, and its gay “Masks” (all “Lilliputians of Repute”) include two romantic surprises. For in the company of Sir WilliamWise and Sir Francis Featherbrain of Butterfly Hall, there is the unexpected figure of a Beggar “singing merrily”, and one undoubted harbinger of the New Age—a little hero of Blake and of Charles Lamb,—the Chimney Sweeper, new as yet to the mystery of his “cloth”.
In the meantime, a whole section of the dwarf library was devoted to the Wyse Chylde in a variety of rôles. Following that “Rise and Progress of Learning in Lilliput”, there came a formidable crowd of little Philosophers, little Statesmen, little Judges, little Divines and (to keep an accurate record of their careers) little Historians and Biographers.
“Self-Government” in the Schoolroom (by no means, as some may suppose, a present-day innovation) made its first appearance inJuvenile Trials,[61]the acknowledged device of a Tutor and Governess who prescribe it as a “Regimen” for their “unruly Pupils”, and thus, profiting by the wisdom of Cato, induce the authors of great evils to remove them.
This is the first hint of a Lilliputian Republic: the logical outcome of Locke’s principles in a revolutionary age. The Lilliputians give their best support to the new Government and throw themselves with zest into their parts.
Little Judge Meanwell who, though but twelve years old, has “all the Appearance of Gravity and Magistracy”, in a long robe and full-bottomed wig, anticipates parental criticism by reminding the public that “neither Vanity, nor Ambition, nor the Desire of governing Others at an Age in which he stands so much in Need of being governed himself, has raised him to this Office, which he cannot execute but with Regret”.
He adds (doubtless after consultation with his Leaders)that the Trials, as the result of their “wisest Deliberation”, are by no means to be treated as “the Sport of Boys and Girls”.
The Tutor and Governess take full advantage of the scheme, and after the royal ceremony of inauguration, leave the unruly ones to the judgment of their peers. Perhaps it is this unwonted freedom which lets loose a stream of live and humorous dialogue; for no sooner do the “Trials” begin than these Lilliputians betray the natural propensities and dramatic instincts of real children.
Mr. Newbery himself could hardly have drawn better pictures of country life, or spoken better dialect than the Farmer in one of these “trials”. In another (which suggests the ordeal of the Knave of Hearts) the evidence is not unworthy of Defoe,—the Prosecution putting in a plan of the kitchen where the stolen plum-cake was baked; and a third,—the case of Miss StirlingversusMiss Delia, “for raising Strife and Contention among her Schoolfellows”—is wholly “conveyed” from Sarah Fielding’sGoverness,[62]a source that may explain many unexpected features in the book.
But the old standards of Authority are restored inThe Juvenile Biographer,[63]a collection of “characters” in moral contrast, with a “Bust of the little Author” as frontispiece. Some account of him at the end, had it been prefatory, would have prepared the reader for much of his philosophy. Throughout the book he speaks plain Prig,—a development that might be foreseen in one who “when he came to be breeched, laid aside all juvenile Sports”. His playfellows think him “a dull heavy little Fellow”,he is “a very poor Hand at Marbles, Trap Ball or Cricket, and little attentive to Play”; when other boys are engaged in strife, he retires into a corner with some little Book.
No doubt he is a very proper person to record those juvenile virtues and foibles that might escape a natural child,—to discern the “Thought, Prudence and admirable Needlecraft” of Miss Betsey Allgood, to speculate upon the literary ancestry of Master Francis Bacon, or to deprecate the failings of that “genteel Child,” Miss Fiddle-Faddle, who “at seven Years of Age, could spend a whole Forenoon at her Glass, and devote an Hour to pitching upon the proper Part of her Face to stick that Patch on”. This “little Author” is, in fact, a reincarnation of the Baby Spectator.
There is a year or two between these “Lives” and the first book of Lilliputian “Letters”. No children’s novel followed Richardson so closely as to adopt the letter form; but Locke had expressly advised that children should write letters “wherein they should not be put upon any Strains of Wit or Compliment, but taught to express their own plain easy Sense”, and had further recommended that when they were perfect in this, they might, “to raise their Thoughts”, have Voiture’s letters set before them as models.[64]
The Lilliputian editor, loth to await the child’s readiness for Voiture, adapted Locke in his own fashion, and devised new models for the Nursery, which should admit the usual “Characters” and “Reflections” of the miscellanies, and at the same time give a suggestion of reality to formal dialogues.
However full these letters might be of grown-up sentiment, their very directions and signatures gave proof (convincing to a child) of the editor’s good faith.
The Letters between Master Tommy and Miss Nancy Goodwill, published by Carnan and Newbery in 1770, was revised in 1786 with “the Parts not altogether properly adapted to the Improvement and Entertainment of little Masters and Misses expunged”.[65]What remains, however, shows no change in style or substance; the Lilliputian features are intact. As the editor observed: “The epistolatory Style here adopted is that which little Masters and Misses should use in their Correspondence with each other” (not that which they naturally would fall into) and it is designed “to regulate their Judgments, to give them an early Taste for true Politeness and inspire them with a Love of Virtue”.
The “Holiday Amusements” described in the letters seem to be “regulated” on the same plan (the editor had obviously forgotten his own); and it is something of a relief to find Master Tommy (whose relationship to the Juvenile Biographer is close) warning his sister and her schoolfellows against the cult of nursery bluestockings.[66]He hopes they are “not going to turn Philosophers”; if they are, he will put them in mind of their needles, their pins and their thread papers. “Leave these Subjects” advises this lordly midget, “to us Boys (I was going to say Men) and we may perhaps now and then condescend to give you some short Lectures upon those Matters”.
Miss Nancy, schooled in the sisterly virtues, responds with Persian stories, references to Mr. Addison, quotations from Pope, and (to clear herself of any suspicion of the bluestocking heresy) a present of worked ruffles. Upon this, he, with restored confidence, imparts an allegorical dream, an instructive story and a “Dissertation on the Value of Time” which closes on this characteristic note:
“But of all the Diversions of Life, there is none soproper to fill up its empty Spaces as the reading useful and entertaining Authors. For this Reason, my dear Nancy, you will receive by the next Coach, Mr. Newbery’sCircle of the Sciences, and such other of his Books as I apprehend could anyway contribute to your Instruction and Amusement.”
There is one letter, and one only, in which Master Tommy forgets his Philosophy and lets the Child in him escape:
“O, my dear Nancy, how shall I tell you that my sweet Kite which boasted of the two finest glass Eyes perhaps ever seen, which was so crowded with Stars and which cost me such immense Labour, is lost.”
The revised edition was doubtless an attempt to keep pace with the rival firm of John Marshall; for between the two issues (about 1777) they had printed a new collection under the title ofJuvenile Correspondence,[67]which in some ways was better adapted to Locke’s original plan, as well as to the theories of Rousseau.
The very fact that these letters are “suited to Children from four to above ten Years of Age”, and that their aim is to encourage “a natural Way of Writing”, implies a change in the general view of education; yet it would be rash to assume that the writer had more than a passing acquaintance with Rousseau, or that she (this writer is almost certainly a woman) drew any clear distinction between childhood and youth. The whole design ofJuvenile Correspondenceis Lilliputian; its aim is expressed almost in the exact phrase of the Royal Society, and its origin (apart from the Goodwill “Letters”) can be traced to a remark of Pope’s (quoted in the book) that he “should have Pleasure in reading the Thoughts of an Infant, could it commit them to Writing as they arose in its little Mind”.
Moreover the children who write the letters, instead of developing on Rousseau’s lines, become more Lilliputian with each year of growth.[68]All the natural touches are in the letters of the younger ones; from five to seven, they would pass for living children. Indeed, the first letter “from Miss Goodchild, a little more than seven Years of Age to her Brother nearly five” suggests that the next generation of Lilliputians will refuse to grow up so soon:
“Would you think it? I am sitting in a little Room full of Books, with a Desk for Reading and my Papers round me, as if I were a Woman!But I am not so silly as to forget that I am but a little Girl,
and, my dear Brother,
Your loving Sister,Jane Goodchild.”
This is the first sign of revolution. The puppets are still content to play their parts, but they refuse to believe in them. Instead, they begin to assert their own “Gothick Mythology”, and are no longer so “subservient to the Rules of Reason” as to despise the name of Fairies.
Miss Goodchild “could talk all day of the Play” (Mr. Garrick’s “Fairy Tale” from Shakespeare).[69]She actually quotes the song beginning: “Come follow, follow me, ye fairy Elves that be” from an Entertainment “full of Fairies”, and confesses that she and Jenny were ready to jump up and join in the chorus, singing: