their own language was the formal one of the period is
shown by such letters as the following one from Mary Wilder, who had
just read "The Mother's Gift:"

Lancaster, October 9th, 1789.

HOND. MADM:

Your goodness to me I cannot express. My mind is continually crowded
with your kindness. If your goodness could be rewarded, I hope God
will repay you. If you remember, some time ago I read a story in
"The Mother's Gift," but I hope I shall never resemble Miss Gonson.
O Dear! What a thing it is to disobey one's parents. I have one of
the best Masters. He gave me a sheet of paper this morning. I hope
Uncle Flagg will come up. I am quite tired of looking for Betsy, but
I hope she will come. When school is done keeping, I shall come to
Sudbury. What a fine book Mrs. Chapone's Letters is: My time grows
short and I must make my letter short.

Your dutiful daughter,
P.W.

Nursery rhymes and jingles of these present days have all descended from
song-books of the eighteenth century, entitled "Little Robin Red
Breast," "A Poetical Description of Song Birds," "Tommy Thumb's
Song-Book," and the famous "Melodies of Mother Goose," whose name is
happily not yet relegated to the days of long ago. Two extracts from the
"Poetical Description of Song Birds" will be sufficient to show how
foreign to the birds familiar to American children were the
descriptions:

THE BULLFINCH

This lovely bird is charming to the sight:
The back is glossy blue, the belly white,
A jetty black shines on his neck and head;
His breast is flaming with a beauteous red.

THE TWITE

Green like the Linnet it appears to sight,
And like the Linnet sings from morn till night.
A reddish spot upon his rump is seen,
Short is his bill, his feathers always clean:
When other singing birds are dull or nice,
To sing again the merry Twites entice.

Reflections of the prevailing taste of grown people for biography are
suggested in three little books, of two of which the author was Mrs.
Pilkington, who had already written several successful stories for young
ladies. Her "Biography for Girls" contains various novelettes, in each
of which the heroine lives the conventional life and dies the
conventional death of the period, and receives a laudatory epitaph. They
are remarkable only as being devoid of any interest. Her "Biography for
Boys" does not