Page:Old fashioned tales.djvu/16

Introduction she gave them the minutiae they love, and she took care that virtue never went unrewarded. " Virtue rewarded,' indeed, might have been, as in Pamela, the sub-title of her every tale. The description of the inn at Dunstable could hardly be ex- celled by any novelist for ordinary readers, and yet there is nothing in it unfitting younger comprehensions. 'The Basket Woman ' comes from The Parent's Assistant, which, begun in 1796, was issued in six volumes in 1800, and is still a favourite book, and likely to remain so. I wish I could have included also ' Waste Not, Want Not,' from the same book. The story on page 122 called ' Limby Lumpy ; or, the Boy who was spoiled by his Mamma,' comes from The Holiday Book, and may perhaps be by the editor, William Martin (1801- 1867), * ne principal Peter Parley in this country. I say principal, because the popularity of that pseudonym led to its adoption by at least six other writers for children. Martin, whose first Peter Parley's Annual was published in 1840, when the outbreak of Peter Parlishness began to be general among the juvenile publishing firms, took the name from Samuel Goodrich, the American, whose career as Peter dated from 1838. To William Martin's pages I am indebted also for the story entitled ' A Plot of Gunpowder.' This he may himself have written, but I seem to detect in ' Limby Lumpy ' a more gifted hand. The joke about the pavior's assistant was, I fear, not original ; the epigram on the ponderous Dr. Tadloe came first: ' When Tadloe walks abroad, the paviors cry, " This way, good sir," and lay their rammers by.' 1 Limby Lumpy ' is in one respect a new kind of story, for in it everyone is foolish — not only Limby Lumpy, as is proper, but also his father and mother. For the most part in stories for children one or other of the parents is kept sensible, as a foil ; but the satirical and rather Thackerayan pen that gave us this little history had no conscience. 1 Limby Lumpy ' is also the first story on our list that deals