fables in childhood, you had been crammed with geography and natural
history!

"Hang them!--I mean the cursed Barbauld crew, those blights and blasts
of all that is human in man and child."[B]

There must, however, be many parents still living who remember the
delight that the little story gave them in their younger days, and
they will, no doubt, be pleased to see it once more in the form which
was then so familiar to them. The children of to-day, too, will look
on it with some curiosity, on account of the fact that it is one of
the oldest of our nursery tales, and amused and edified their
grand-parents and great grand-parents when they were children, while
they cannot fail to be attracted by its simple, pretty, and
interesting story.

* * * * *

The question of the authorship of the book is still an unsettled one.
It was at one time commonly attributed to Oliver Goldsmith, and no one
who reads the book will consider it to be unworthy of the poet's pen.
We find, however, in Nichol's Literary Anecdotes, that

"It is not perhaps generally known that to Mr Griffith Jones, and a
brother of his, Mr Giles Jones, in conjunction with Mr John Newbery,
the public are indebted for the origin of those numerous and popular
little books for the amusement and instruction of children which have
been ever since received with universal approbation. The Lilliputian
histories of Goody Two Shoes, Giles Gingerbread, Tommy Trip, &c., &c.,
are remarkable proofs of the benevolent minds of the projectors of