Transcriber’s Note
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Poetry for
Children
BY
Charles and
Mary Lamb
ILLUSTRATED BY
WINIFRED GREEN
With a prefatory note by
ISRAEL GOLLANCZ
PUBLISHED BY J M DENT & Co
To the
Gentle Reader
As often as I pass a little Blue-coat boy I gaze upon him lovingly: I reverence the quaint vision of a bygone age called up by the long blue gaberdine, the red leathern belt, the yellow stockings—a quaint monkish figure still to be seen in crowded London streets, still adding to their picturesqueness and ever-varying charm.
You, too, dear Reader, have yourself probably asked the meaning of the strange sight, as you have passed one of these English lads so strangely attired. Perhaps you have been shown the famous old school, in the midst of the bustle of London, surrounded by ugly warehouses, offices, and shops; and you have seen the effigy of the Founder, “that godly and royal child, King Edward the Sixth, the flower of the Tudor name—the young flower that was untimely cropped as it began to fill our land with its early odours—the boy-patron of boys—the serious and holy child who walked with Cranmer and Ridley.”