"does not know Lady Ducklington, or who does not know that she was buried at this church?" Certainly such a parish church as we find depicted at page 43, and the barn at page 53, are decidedly characteristic of the early Georgian era. In the art of woodcutting there was room for improvement.

There is nothing more remarkable in Mr. Newbery's little books than the originality of their style. There have been attempts to approach its simplicity -its homeliness. Great authors have tried their hands at imitating its clever adaptation to the childish intellect, but they have failed. Never was failure more complete than that of Sir Walter Scott. He sets about writing his Tales of a Grandfather' for a little boy of five years old. He gets on famously with The Story of Macbeth.' "Now there lived at this time three old women in the town of Forres, whom people looked upon as witches, and supposed they could tell what was to come to pass. Nobody would believe such follies now-a-days, except low and ignorant creatures, such as those who consult gipsies in order to have their fortunes told; but in those early times the people were much more ignorant, and even great men like Macbeth believed that such persons as the witches of Forres could tell what was to come to pass afterwards, and listened to the nonsense they told them, as if the old women had really been prophetesses. The old women saw that they were respected and feared, so that they were tempted to impose upon people by pretending to tell what was to happen to them; and they got presents for doing so." But he very soon pitches in

another key, as he acknowledges in his Preface. "The compiler may here mention that, after commencing his task in a manner obvious to the most limited capacity, of which the tale of Macbeth is an example, he was led to take a different view of the subject, by finding that a style considerably more elevated was more interesting to his juvenile reader. There is no harm, but, on the contrary, there is benefit in presenting a child with ideas somewhat beyond his easy and immediate comprehension. The difficulties thus offered, if not too great or too frequent, stimulate curiosity and encourage exertion." This is false logic, and scarcely hides the real truth that Sir Walter could not sustain the difficult task of writing in the way of his prototypes, Mr. Newbery and Mr. Griffith Jones. They could carry the union of puerility and instruction through many volumes. So Sir Walter turned his intended pretty stories into an 'Abridged History of Scotland, for the use of young persons.' He abandoned the Cinderella and Tom Thumb style after he had written a very few pages. The child's play was work too hard for him.

A century has passed away since John Newbery flourished, but I rejoice to believe that his lore for the nursery has not been altogether superseded by the science of the school-room. I presume that the smart nurse of modern days-the chief business of whose life seems to be to obstruct the footway with her perambulator-would scorn to have her memory burdened with such stories as I was wont to listen to

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with a delight that sensible narratives could never afford me. Perhaps there are few of the successors of my "Pegotty" who could repeat the wonderful story of the old woman with the crooked sixpence, who went to market to buy a little pig, and could not get it home, for piggy would not go over the stile. But though the traditions of the ancient sisterhood, who once sat by the cradle in mob cap and checked apron, may be now despised, they cannot die out, for the printer and the engraver, with all the modern improvements of their arts, have secured for them a longer life than even Mr. Newbery might have anticipated. I have the catalogue before me of the Original Juvenile Library at the corner of St. Paul's Churchyard. Nichols records that "Mr. Newbery was the first of the profession who introduced the regular system of a juvenile library." Here, in the same spot where it first grew, this fruitful tree still flourishes. It has had various careful guardians during that long period, whose business has been to prune, and water, and engraft; and to plant slips and seedlings over a much wider area. The catalogue issued in 1865 by "Griffiths and Farran, successors to Newbery and Harris," has on its title page a woodcut which has probably adorned a long series of catalogues. It represents three figures-" Goldsmith introduced to Newbery by Dr. Johnson."

But between the Juvenile Library of 1765 and of 1865 there were changes in literary taste, and necessarily in books for the young, which multiplied writers and booksellers in this department. For

myself, I cannot be sufficiently grateful to Thomas Day who gave me Little Jack' and 'Sandford and Merton;' nor should I forget Henry Brooke with his wealth of stories in the Fool of Quality.' But a new source of attraction was to arise in a very few years after Mr. Newbery had done his work. There were two books, the companions of my childhood, which I presume it would be difficult to find in any juvenile collection now. And yet they were the precursors of a revolution in Art. The Progress of Man and Society,' of which Dr. Trusler was the compiler, was published in 1791; and 'The Lookingglass of the Mind' in 1796. The cuts for these two books were drawn and engraved by Thomas Bewick. There were two booksellers of the name of Newbery living at the same period, and each honourably connected with Goldsmith. John, of St. Paul's Churchyard, published the Traveller,' in 1765. Francis, his nephew, of Paternoster Row, published The Vicar of Wakefield,' in 1766. Boswell has given "authentically, from Johnson's own exact narration," the history of the sale of this novel to Francis Newbery-"I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea,

and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it, and saw its merits; told the landlady I should soon return ; and, having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill."

Although Francis Newbery eventually succeeded to the business of his uncle in St. Paul's Churchyard, there appears to have been an intermediate proprietor of the Original Juvenile Library, whom Mr. John Nichols simply mentions as bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, who died in 1788. Upon an edition of Little Goody Two-Shoes,' I find this imprint ; "Printed for T. Carnan, successor to Mr. J. Newbery." The reputation of Thomas Carnan is associated with more durable records than the obituary of the 'Gentleman's Magazine.' He lives in the eloquence of Erskine. John Newbery died in 1767; and soon after Carnan entered upon the business in St. Paul's Churchyard, he became possessed with a very sensible notion that the Stationers' Company had no legal title to their monopoly of Almanacs. He began, therefore, to publish almanacs of his own. The Company, after having anathematised him as the base publisher of "counterfeit almanacs," sent him to prison on a summary process, as regularly as