, Price 1s. plain, or 1s. 6d.
coloured.

"1. _The King and Queen of Hearts: showing how notably the Queen
made her Tarts, and how Scurvily the Knave stole them away._ &c."

This series was called the Copperplate Series. In due course a copy
of No. 1, _The King and Queen of Hearts_, was found in the library of
Miss Edith Pollock, bought by her at the sale of the late Mr. Andrew
W. Tuer, an authority upon old children's literature and the publisher
to whose enterprise we owe the facsimile editions of _Prince Dorus_
and _Poetry for Children_. Mr. Tuer, however, had not suspected Lamb's
authorship. The cover of Miss Pollock's copy bears the date 1809,
which means that the little book was re-bound as required with the
date of the current year upon it. Copies of the first edition have
since been discovered and sold for enormous sums. The date is 1806.

In a copy of _The Looking Glass_, another of Godwin's books, _The King
and Queen of Hearts_ is thus advertised, with a new quatrain, probably
also from Lamb's pen:--

"Price 1s. Plain; or 15. 6ed. Coloured,
The King and Queen of Hearts,
With the
Rogueries of the Knave who stole away the Queen's Pies.
Illustrated in Fifteen elegant Engravings:
Agreeably to the famous Historical Ballad on the Subject.

"I write of Tarts; how sweet a tale!
You'll lick your lips to hear it told:
I show you mighty Kings and Queens,
Robes of scarlet, Crowns of gold."

This little book, _The Looking Glass_, which relates the early life
of William Mulready (1786-1863), was issued in facsimile by Mr. F.G.
Stephens in 1885, with an interesting account of its history. Therein
Mr. Stephens wrote: "Mr. Linnell told me that the cuts to the once
well-known _Nongtong Paw_ [Vol. 6 of "The Copperplate Series;" see
above], _The Sullen Woman and the Pedlar_ [Vol. 2 of the same series],
_Think before you speak_, and _The King and Queen of Hearts_, were
designed by Mulready." We thus discover who was the illustrator. My
own feeling is that the plates came first and Lamb's verses later.

_The King and Queen of Hearts_ cannot be said to add anything
characteristic to the body of Lamb's writings. But its discovery
is historically valuable in establishing--by the date 1805 on the
engraved title-page--the fact that before the _Tales from Shakespear_,
which are usually thought to be the brother and sister's first
experiment in writing for children, Charles