OMMY TRIP with his dog JOULER,"
"Tommy Trip's Select Fables," and "an excellent Pastoral Hymn," "The
Famous Tommy Thumb's Little Story-Book," "Leo, the Great Giant," and
"URAX, or the Fair Wanderer--price eight pence lawful money. _A very
interesting tale in which the protection of the Almighty_ is proved to
be the first and chief support of the FEMALE SEX." Number seven in the
list was the story of the "Cruel Giant Barbarico," and it is one of this
edition that is now among the rare Americana of the Boston Public
Library. The imprint upon its title-page coincides with Isaiah Thomas's
statement that though "Fleming was not concerned with Mein in
book-selling, several books were printed at their house for Mein." Its
date, 1768, would indicate that Mein had reproduced one of his
importations to which allusion has already been made. The book in
marbled covers, time-worn and faded now, was sold for only "six-pence
lawful" when new, possibly because it lacked illustrations.

[Illustration: _Miss Fanny's Maid_]

One year later, when the Non-Importation Agreement had passed and was
rigorously enforced in the port of Boston, these same little books were
advertised again in the "Chronicle" of December 4-7 under the large
caption, PRINTED IN AMERICA AND TO BE SOLD BY JOHN MEIN. Times
had so changed within one year's space that even a child's six-penny
book was unpopular, if known to have been imported.

Mein was among those accused of violating the "Agreement;" he was
charged with the importation of materials for book-making. In a November
number of the "Chronicle" of seventeen hundred and sixty-nine, Mein
published an article entitled "A State of the Importation from Great
Britain into the Port of BOSTON with the advertisement of a set
of Men, who assume to themselves THE TITLE of _ALL the Well
Disposed Merchants_." In this letter the London Book-Store proprietor
vigorously defended himself, and protested that the quantity of his work
necessitated some importations not procurable in Boston. He also made
sarcastic references to other men whom he thought the cap fitted better
with less excuse. It was in the following December that he tried to keep
this trade in children's books by his apparently patriotic announcement
regarding them. His protests were useless. Already in disfavor with some
because he was supposed to print books in America but used a London
imprint, his popularity waned; he was marked as a loyalist, and there
wa