A century of children's books

by Florence V. Barry

Then courtesy down unto the Ground,

Then rise again and all jump round.”

“You cannot think” she concludes, “how pretty it is when they mind to sing and dance in the right time.”

This was an aunt who, in her own century, deserved some such tribute as Stevenson’s:

“Chief of our Aunts—not only I

But all your dozen of nurslings cry—

What did other children do

And what were Childhood, wanting you?”

Jemima Placid,[104] variously ascribed to Dorothy and Mary Jane, is woven of the same simple stuff. George Frere, writing in 1816 to his brother Bartle[105], bore witness to its practical effect on one nursery. They evidently came to it in turn, at a particular age. “You”, he wrote, “are more of a philosopher than I am and can bear these things better, and yet I have read Jemima Placid since you have, but you have made the best use of it”.