thetically written, and a better
understanding of home prevails than in so many of these old books.
Jemima's brothers seem to me very well drawn, and certain minor touches
lend an agreeable air of reality to the book. The author's name is, I
believe, not known. His preface, which I quote here, is very sensible.
Considering the date, say about 1785, it is curiously sensible and
discerning:--

'It has been often said that infancy is the happiest state of
human life, as being exempted from those serious cares and that
anxiety which must ever in some degree be an attendant on a
more advanced age; but the author of the following little
performance is of a different opinion, and has ever considered
the troubles of children as a severe exercise to their patience
when it is recollected that the vexations which they meet with
are suited to the weakness of their understanding, and though
trifling, perhaps, in themselves, acquire importance from their
connection with the puerile inclinations and bounded views of
an infant mind, where present gratification is the whole they
can comprehend, and therefore suffer in proportion when their
wishes are obstructed.

'The main design of this publication is to prove from example
that the pain of disappointment will be much increased by
ill-temper, and that to yield to the force of necessity will be
found wiser than vainly to oppose it. The contrast between the
principal character with the peevishness of her cousins' temper
is intended as an incitement to that placid disposition which
will form the happiness of social life in every stage, and
which, therefore, should not be thought beneath anyone's
attention or undeserving of their cultivation.'

'Jemima Placid' is one of the many stories in which the names are
symbolical. We have another example in 'Dicky Random,' and, I suppose,
in 'Captain Murderer' too, while in 'Prince Life,' to which we soon
come, which is frankly an allegory, the habit is carried beyond Bunyan,
who made his attributes very like men and called them Mr. or Lord to
increase the illusion or diminish the cheat. The drawback to this kind
of nomenclature is that it weakens the realism of the story. It also
perplexes one a little when one thinks of later generations. Jemima's
two brothers, for example, would marry one day, and their children would
necessarily be ca