144
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. FEB. 19. 1916.
"They appear to have been meticulous in
the * ordering of their households, and could
tell you to a brick how many bricks they
had in their chamber floors.
From Rome the travellers reached Venice by way of Loretto and Ancona. At Ferrara the inn was so bad, and the room so full of bugs,* that her ladyship and her husband preferred to sleep in the hayloft ; and the next day they embarked for Venice. Here the gondolas and the fine ladies and gentle- men delighted the travellers. Many of the ladies wore masks and hats with large feathers, but in Lassels's opinion they overdid it with " theire painting, theire false haire, &c. : there must," he thinks, " be much Venus in Venice." Leaving again, they returned to Padua, where one of her lady- ship's waiting -women fell ill of the fever. Lady Catherine refused to leave her, and, falling ill herself, died on July 6, 1650.
MALCOLM LETTS.
CHILDREN'S BOOKS IN " THE
THIRTIES."
IT may be of interest to some if I place on record the principal children's books on which I was brought up. First there was " Infantine Knowledge, a spelling-book on a popular plan, by the author of the Child's Grammar, &c., 4th ed., with numerous engravings. London : John Harris, St. Paul's Church-yard, 1835." The copy of this book, which afforded primary instruction to six of us, but which became sadly dilapi- dated in the next generation, is now before me. It contains the alphabet, and then progressive spelling and reading lessons, from " ab, eb, ib," &c., and " An ant, a cat, a hat," &c., to the Church Catechism. The latest spelling lessons were words of five syllables, but we got beyond these, and could spell " in-com-pre-hen-si-bi-li-ty " as a " show-piece." The later reading 'lessons
- Sir John Reresby, who was in Italy in 1667,
preferred to lie on forms or tables to protect himself from the vermin which swarmed in the beds ('Travels,' " Dryden House Memoirs," 89); while a German merchant, Balthasar Paumgarten, who travelled in Italy at the close of the sixteenth century, was reduced to beg lodgings from his acquaintance on account of the filthy condition of the inns. Writing to his wife from Bologna, he says : " Allhiebin ich in des Hans Oesterreichers hausz, behilff mich also des bettels soviel kan nun damit ich ab den losen welschen wyrtts- hausern, inn denen alle bett voller wantzen seind, khomme." ' Briefwechsel Balthasar Paumgarten, 1582-98,' Bibliothek des Litt. Vereins in Stuttgart, ,1895, p. 43.
are interesting stories about children and
animals ; conversations between " Mr. Love-
child " and " Augustus," ; and between
"Mrs. Primrose " and "Eliza," on various
subjects, such as numerals, the watch, the
days of the week, the months, &c. ; and
" Select Poetry," simple compositions such
as " How doth the little busy bee," ' The
Danger of Falsehood,' . &c., followed by
verses on the kings of England, which
afforded one's first knowledge of many
historical facts, such as the curfew, the death
of William Rufus by an arrow aimed at a
deer, and of Henry, the fine scholar, by a
surfeit of lampreys. I can just remember
that there was no verse for Queen Victoria,
and that, when I pointed out the deficiency,
my father made one, and pasted it in. I
regret that four pages, including that inser-
tion, are now lost. But I remember the
verse, which was
Since this book was printed, King William has
gone
Without leaving a son to be placed on his throne ; So Victoria his niece is our Lady and Queen, Our Sovereign beloved, and the best we have seen, And long may she govern, enioying her right In one thousand eight hundred and thirty eight.
The ' 'Pictures " are twenty-four in num- ber, corresponding with the letters of the alphabet, each occupying a page divided into six compartments. Thus Picture I. includes acorn, ape, antelope, anchor, arrow, and axe, but Picture XXIV. only Zany, Zealander, and zebra, with figures and numerals 1-6 and 7-12, and a large ampersand. We used to laugh at the Zany, with his fool's cap and bauble, kicking books about.
Another of our earliest books was ' The Peep of Day.' This has been given away or lost, and my recollections of it are not very distinct. I think it dealt with elementary religious truths, and the leading events in the Gospels, described in very simple language.
Then we had ' Mamma's Bible Stories,' and a book of other simple stories, which we could understand, and which appealed to our ordinary perceptions rather than to our imaginations ; also, a book called ' Chick- seed without Chic kweed,' of which I remember nothing but the title and the green cloth cover, and that I overheard it recommended to my father by Mr. R. T. Cussons, then a bookseller in Hull. The title has " stuck " ever since. We were not brought up on fairy tales, but were not wholly without food for the imagination in ' The House that Jack Built,' ' Mother Hubbard and her Wonderful Dog,' ' The Life and Death of Cock Robin,' and ' Little Red Riding Hood,'
