This, moreover, is a story that grows up in the reading. At Chapter VI, there is no more baby-talk. These are mature, even elderly villagers who are so “frighted” at the idea of a ghost in the church: the argument is between the Parson, the Clerk and the Clerk’s Wife:
“I go. Sir, says William, why the Ghost would frighten me out of my Wits.—Mrs. Dobbins too cried, and laying hold of her Husband said, he should not be eat up by the Ghost. A Ghost, you Blockheads, says Mr. Long in a Pet, did either of you ever see a Ghost, or know any Body that did? Yes, says the Clerk, my Father did once in the Shape of a Windmill, and it walked all round the Church in a white Sheet, with Jack Boots on, and had a Gun by its Side instead of a Sword. A fine Picture of a Ghost truly, says Mr. Long, give me the Key of the Church, you Monkey; for I tell you there is no such Thing now, whatever may have been formerly.—Then taking the Key, he went to the Church, all the People following him. As soon as he had opened the Door, what Sort of a Ghost do you think appeared? Why little Two-shoes, who being weary, had fallen asleep in one of the Pews during the Funeral Service, and was shut in all Night——”.
Such incidents would make even a grown-up reader forget the Lilliputian context.
Nor is the Second Part (as in other “Histories”) of less interest, although it presents the dutiful contriving little Two-shoes as “Principal of a Country College—for instructing little Gentlemen and Ladies in the Science of A.B.C.”. A formidable theme, if her inventive genius could not produce any number of variations upon Mr. Locke’s method of playing at schools.
A reference to the Spectator at the close of Part I would make Mistress Two-Shoes a predecessor of Shenstone’s Schoolmistress; but this is clearly an anachronism. The village Dame as Shenstone studies her, still sits
“disguised in look profound
And eyes her fairy-Throng, and turns her Wheel around”;
whereas Goody Two-Shoes, knowing that “Nature intended Children should be always in Action”, places her letters and alphabets all round the school, so that everyone in turn is obliged to get up to fetch a letter or to spell a word.
Her children have forgotten the hornbook, and with it, doubtless, “St. George’s high Achievements” which used to decorate the back. It was Shenstone’s Dame who kept “tway birchen Sprays” to reclaim her pupils’ wandering attention from St. George. But Mrs. Margery ruled “by Reasoning and mild Discipline”, and could dispense with these.
“Her Tenderness extended not only to all Mankind, but even to all Animals that were not noxious”. Such humanity alone (notwithstanding the reservation) sets her above the poet’s heroine, to whose credit he could only place