A century of children's books

by Florence V. Barry

“There was an old Woman tossed in a Blanket,

Seventeen times as high as the moon,

But where she was going no mortal could tell.

For under her arm she carried a Broom,

Old Woman, old Woman, old Woman, said I,

Whither, ah whither, ah whither so high?

To sweep the Cobwebs from the Sky,

And I’ll be with you by and by.”

There is only one Lilliputian book that has been attributed to Goldsmith with the consent of his biographer, and that is Mr. Newbery’s masterpiece, the quaint and original History of Goody Two-Shoes.[52]

Here is the characteristic notice that appeared in The London Chronicle (December 19-January 1, 1765):