Introduction
The stories of the 'Good-natured Little Boy' and the Ill-natured Little Boy,' on page 41, are from Sandford and Merton; 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.
'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 Fairchild 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, ex-
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