“I know you are very fond of coloured plates of plants, and other objects of natural history. There are now several works of this sort publishing in monthly numbers, as the Botanical Magazine, the English Botany, the Flora Rustica, and the Naturalist’s Magazine. Now half a crown a week would reach the purchase of the best of these.
“The same sum laid out in the old book-shops in London would buy you more classics, and pretty editions too, in one year, than you could read in five.
“Now I do not grudge laying out half a crown a week upon you; but when so many good things for yourself and others may be done with it, I am unwilling you should squander it away like your schoolfellows, in tarts and trinkets.”
TRIAL[[2]]
Of a Complaint made against Sundry Persons for breaking the Windows of Dorothy Careful, Widow and Dealer in Gingerbread.
The court being seated, there appeared in person the widow Dorothy Careful, to make a complaint against Henry Luckless, and other person or persons unknown, for breaking three panes of glass, value ninepence, in the house of the said widow. Being directed to tell her case to the court, she made a courtesy, and began as follows:—
“Please your lordship, I was sitting at work by my fireside, between the hours of six and seven in the evening, just as it was growing dusk, and little Jack was spinning beside me, when all at once crack went the window, and down fell a little basket of cakes that was set up against it. I started up, and cried to Jack, ‘Bless me, what’s the matter?’ So, says Jack, ‘Somebody has thrown a stone and broke the window, and I dare say it is some of the schoolboys.’ With that I ran out of the house, and saw some boys making off as fast as they could go. So I ran after them as quick as my old legs would carry me; but I should never have come near them, if one had not happened to fall down. Him I caught and brought back to my house, when Jack knew him at once to be Master Harry Luckless. So I told him I would complain of him the next day; and I hope your worship will make him pay the damage, and I think he deserves a good whipping into the bargain, for injuring a poor widow woman.”
[2]. This was meant as a sequel of that very pleasing and ingenious little work, entitled Juvenile Trials, in which a Court of Justice is supposed to be instituted in a boarding-school, composed of the scholars themselves, for the purpose of trying offences committed at school.
The judge having heard Mrs. Careful’s story, desired her to sit down; and then calling up Master Luckless, asked him what he had to say for himself. Luckless appeared with his face a good deal scratched, and looking very ruefully. After making his bow, and sobbing two or three times, he said:—
“My lord, I am as innocent of this matter as any boy in the school, and I am sure I have suffered enough about it already. My lord, Billy Thompson and I were playing in the lane near Mrs. Careful’s house, when we heard the window crash; and directly after she came running out toward us. Upon this, Billy ran away, and I ran too, thinking I might bear the blame. But after running a little way, I stumbled over something that lay in the road, and before I could get up again she overtook me, and caught me by the hair, and began lugging and cuffing me. I told her it was not I that broke her window, but it did not signify; so she dragged me to the light, lugging and scratching me all the while, and then said she would inform against me; and that is all I know of the matter.”