lesome practice. Looking-glasses were never intended for little
girls, and very few sensible people use them as there is something
really poisonous in their composition. To use them is not only
prejudicial to the health but to the disposition."

Although this conception of the use of looking-glasses as prejudicial to
right living seems to hark back to the views expressed in the old story
of the "Prodigal Daughter," who sat before a mirror when the Devil made
his second appearance, yet the world of story-book literature, even
though its creators were sometimes either careless or ignorant of facts,
now also emphasized the value of general knowledge, which it endeavored
to pour in increasing quantity into the nursery. Miss More had started
the stream of goody-goody books, while Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Barbauld,
and Thomas Day were the originators of the deluge of conversational
bores, babies, boys, and teachers that threatened to flood the family
book-shelves of America when the American writers for children came upon
the scene.

FOOTNOTES:

[148-A] As long ago as seventeen hundred and sixty-two, Garrat Noel, a
Dutch bookseller in New York, advertised that, "according to his Annual
Custom, he ... provided a very large Assortment of Books ... as proper
Presents at Christmas." See page 68.

[166-A] Linton, _Wood Engraving in America_. Boston, 1882.

[168-A] Linton, _Wood Engraving in America_. Boston, 1882.

[169-A] Linton, _Wood Engraving in America_. Boston, 1882.

CHAPTER VII

1825-1840

Old story-books! old story-books! we owe you much, old friends,
Bright-coloured threads in Memory's warp, of which Death holds the
ends.
Who can forget? Who can spurn the ministers of joy
That waited on the lisping girl and petticoated boy?
Talk of your vellum, gold embossed, morocco, roan, and calf;
The blue and yellow wraps of old were prettier by half.
ELIZA COOKE

Their works of amusement, when not laden with more religion than the
tale can hold in solution, are often admirable.
_Quarterly Review_, 1843

CHAPTER VII

1825-1840

_American Writers and English Critics_

It is customary to refer to the early writings of Washington Irving as
works that marked the time when literature pure and simple developed in
America. Such writing as had hitherto attracted attention co