Forgotten Books of the American Nursery. Rosalie Vrylina Halsey
quoted, that it lacked every quality of amusement, and was adapted only to those whom he described, in a sermon preached before the Governor and Council, as “verie Sharpe and early Ripe in their capacities.” “Good Lessons” has the distinction of being the first American book to be composed, like many a modern publication, for a particular young child; and, with its purpose “to improve in goodness,” struck clearly the keynote of the greater part of all writing for children during the succeeding one hundred and seventy-five years.
The first glimpse of the amusement book proper appears in that unique “History of Printing in America,” by Isaiah Thomas. This describes, among other old printers, one Thomas Fleet, who established himself in Boston about 1713. “At first,” wrote Mr. Thomas, “he printed pamphlets for booksellers, small books for children and ballads” in Pudding Lane.19-* “He owned several negroes, one of which … was an ingenious man and cut on wooden blocks all the pictures which decorated the ballads and small books for his master.”19-† As corroborative of these statements Thomas also mentions Thomas Fleet, Sr., as “the putative compiler of Mother Goose Melodies, which he first published in 1719, bearing the title of ‘Songs for the Nursery.’ ”
Much discussion has arisen as to the earliest edition of Mother Goose. Thomas’s suggestion as to the origin of the first American edition has been of late years relegated to the region of myth. Nevertheless, there is something to be said in favor of the existence of some book of nonsense at that time. The Boston “News Letter” for April 12–19, 1739, contained a criticism of Tate and Brady’s version of the Psalms, in which the reviewer wrote that in Psalm VI the translators used the phrase, “a wretch forlorn.” He added: “(1) There is nothing of this in the original or the English Psalter. (2) ’Tis a low expression and to add a low one is the less allowable. But (3) what I am most concerned for is, that it will be apt to make our Children think of the line in their vulgar Play song; much like it, ‘This is the maiden all forlorn.’ ” We recognize at once a reference to our nursery friend of the “House that Jack Built;” and if this and “Tom Thumb” were sold in Boston, why should not other ditties have been among the chap-books which Thomas remembered to have set up when a ’prentice lad in the printing-house of Zechariah Fowle, who in turn had copied some issued previously by Thomas Fleet? In further confirmation of Thomas’s statement is a paragraph in the preface to an edition of Mother Goose, published in Boston in 1833, by Monroe & Francis. The editor traces the origin of these rhymes to a London book entitled, “Rhymes for the Nursery or Lullabies for Children,” “that,” he writes, “contained many of the identical pieces handed down to us.” He continues: “The first book of the kind known to be printed in this country bears [the italics are mine] the title, ‘Songs for the Nursery: or Mother Goose’s Melodies for Children.’ Something probably intended to represent a goose, with a very long neck and mouth wide open, covered a large part of the title-page; at the bottom of which was: ‘Printed by T. Fleet, at his printing house, Pudding Lane (Boston) 1719.’ Several pages were missing, so that the whole number could not be ascertained.” The editor clearly writes as if he had either seen, or heard accurately described, this piece of Americana, which the bibliophile to-day would consider a treasure trove. Later writers doubt whether any such book existed, for it is hardly credible that the Puritan element which so largely composed the population of Boston in the first quarter of the eighteenth century would have encouraged the printing of any nonsensical jingles.
Boston, however, was not at this time the only place in the colonies where primers and religious books were written and printed. In Philadelphia, Andrew Bradford, famous as the founder of the “American Weekly Mercury,” had in 1714 put through his press, probably upon subscription, the “Last Words and Dyeing Expressions of Hannah Hill, aged 11 years and near three Months.” This morbid account of the death of a little Quakeress furnished the Philadelphia children with a book very similar to Mather’s “Token.” Not to be outdone by any precocious example in Pennsylvania, the Reverend Mr. Mather soon found an instance of “Early Piety in Elizabeth Butcher of Boston, being just 8 years and 11 months old,” when she died in 1718. In two years two editions of her life had been issued “to instruct and to invite little children to the exercise of early piety.”
Such mortuary effusions were so common at the time that Benjamin Franklin’s witty skit upon them is apropos in this connection. In 1719, at the age of sixteen, under the pseudonym of Mrs. Dogood, he wrote a series of letters for his brother’s paper, “The New England Courant.” From the following extract, taken from these letters, it is evident that these children’s “Last Words” followed the prevailing fashion:
A Receipt to make a New England Funeral Elegy.
For the title of your Elegy. Of these you may have enough ready made at your Hands: But if you should chuse to make it yourself you must be sure not to omit the Words Aetatis Suae, which will beautify it exceedingly.
For the subject of your Elegy. Take one of your neighbors who has lately departed this life; it is no great matter at what age the Party Dy’d, but it will be best if he went away suddenly, being Kill’d, Drown’d or Froze to Death.
Having chosen the Person, take all his Virtues, Excellencies, &c. and if he have not enough, you may borrow some to make up a sufficient Quantity: To these add his last Words, dying Expressions, &c. if they are to be had: mix all these together, and be sure you strain them well. Then season all with a Handful or two of Melancholy Expressions, such as Dreadful, Dreadly, cruel, cold, Death, unhappy, Fate, weeping Eyes, &c. Having mixed all these Ingredients well, put them in an empty Scull of some young Harvard; (but in case you have ne’er a One at Hand, you may use your own,) then let them Ferment for the Space of a Fortnight, and by that Time they will be incorporated into a Body, which take out and having prepared a sufficient Quantity of double Rhimes, such as Power, Flower; Quiver, Shiver; Grieve us, Leave us; tell you, excel you; Expeditions, Physicians; Fatigue him, Intrigue him; &c. you must spread all upon Paper, and if you can procure a Scrap of Latin to put at the End, it will garnish it mightily: then having affixed your Name at the bottom with a Maestus Composuit, you will have an Excellent Elegy.
N.B. This Receipt will serve when a Female is the subject of your Elegy, provided you borrow a greater Quantity of Virtues, Excellencies &c.
Of other original books for children of colonial parents in the first quarter of that century, “A Looking-glass” did but mirror more religious episodes concerning infants, while Mather in his zeal had also published “An Earnest Exhortation” to New England children, and “The A, B, C, of religion. Fitted unto the youngest and lowest capacities.” To this, taking advantage of the use of rhymes, he appended further instruction, including “The Body of Divinity versified.” With our knowledge of the clergyman’s methods with his congregation it is not difficult to imagine that he insisted upon the purchase of these godly aids for every household.
In attempting to reproduce the conditions of family life in the early settlements and towns of colonial days, we turn quite naturally to the newspapers, whose appearance in the first quarter of the eighteenth century was gladly welcomed by the people of their time, and whose files are now eagerly searched for items of great or small importance. Indeed, much information can be gathered from their advertisements, which often filled the major part of these periodicals. Apparently shop-keepers were keen to take advantage of such space as was reserved for them, as sometimes a marginal note informed the public that other advertisements must wait for the next issue to appear.
Booksellers’ announcements, however, are not too frequent in Boston papers, and are noticeably lacking in the early issues of the Philadelphia “Weekly Mercury.” This dearth of book-news accounts for the difficulty experienced by book-lovers of that town in procuring literature—a lack noticed at once by the wide-awake young Franklin upon his arrival in the city, and recorded in his biography as follows:
“At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania [1728] there was not a bookseller’s shop in any of the colonies to the southward