In the department of the Belles Lettres may be classed, "Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son," "The Academy of Compliments," "The Fashionable Letter Writer," "Hocus Pocus, or the Whole Art of Legerdemain," "Joe Miller's Jest Book," etc.
The list would not be complete without mention of the books of ballads. These were sold in sheets, each forming 8 pages, 18mo, and adorned with cuts, never germain to the ballads they illustrated. Some of these sheets contained only one production, the "Yarmouth Tragedy," or some early English ballad sadly disfigured. One related how a "servant-man" was accused by an envious liveried brother, of being a confirmed card-player. On being examined he obtained a complete victory over the informer, convincing his master that what he, the master, called cards, was to him a prayer-book, a catechism, a calendar, and what not. The different numbers reminded him of the six days of the creation, the seven churches of Asia, the ten commandments, the twelve Apostles, etc. The [{681}] king recalled to him the duty he owed that supreme magistrate, the ace of hearts, the love due to God and our neighbor. "How, is it," said the master, "that you have always passed over the knave in your reckoning?" "Ah! I wished to speak no ill of that crooked disciple that went to backbite me to your honor." The reader anticipates the victory of the ingenious rogue.
The purchasers of these sheets sewed them as well as they could in a book form, but they were so thumbed and abused, that it is at this date nearly impossible to procure one of those repertories of song printed toward the close of the last or the beginning of the present century.
Of all these works that we delight in most at present, (it was not so when we were young,) is the unmatched "Academy of Compliments," which was the favorite of boys and girls just beginning to think of marriage, or its charming preliminary, courtship. Very feelingly did the writer in his preface insist on the necessity of eloquence. "Even quick and attractive wit," as he thoughtfully observed, "is often foiled for want of words, and makes a man or woman seem a statute or one dumb." He candidly acknowledges that several treatises like his have been published, "but he assures the courteous reader that none have arrived to the perfection of this, for good language and diversion."
This is the receipt for accosting a lady, and entering into conversation; with her:
"I believe Nature brought you forth to be a scourge to lovers, for she hath been so prodigal of her favor toward you, that it renders you as admirable as you are amiable."
Another form:
"Your presence is so dear to me, your conversation so honest, and your humour so pleasing, that I could desire to be with you perpetually."
The author directs a slight departure from this form, in case the gentleman has never seen the lady before, and yet has fallen passionately in love with her.
"If you accuse me of temerity, you must lay your own beauty in fault, with which I am so taken, that my heart is ravished from me, and wholly subjected to you."