lumes have the bold autograph of "Go.
Washington," upon their title pages, and the well-known book-plate,
with his name, armorial bearings, and motto, _Exitus acta probat_,[1]
on the inside of the covers.

There are persons at the present day who have very positive opinions
on the subject of prose fiction, believing that great characters like
Jonathan Edwards and George Washington never read such naughty books
when they were young. Let us see. Here is the "Adventures of Peregrine
Pickle; in which are included the Memoirs of a Lady of Quality," by
Tobias Smollett, in three volumes. On the title page of the first
volume is the autograph of George Washington, written in the cramped
hand of a boy of fourteen. The work shows more evidence of having been
attentively read, even to the end of the third volume, than any in the
library. Here is the "Life and Opinions of John Buncle," a book which
it is better that boarding-school misses should not read. Yet
Washington read it, and enjoyed the fun; for it is one of the few
books he speaks of in his correspondence as having read and enjoyed.
The present generation of readers are not familiar with John Buncle.
Of the book and its author, Hazlitt says "John Buncle is the English
Rabelais. The soul of Francis Rabelais passed into Thomas Amory, the
author of John Buncle. Both were physicians, and enemies of much
gravity. Their great business was to enjoy life. Rabelais indulges his
spirit of sensuality in wine, in dried neats' tongues, in Bologna
sausages, in Botorgas. John Buncle shows the same symptoms of
inordinate satisfaction in bread and butter. While Rabelais roared
with Friar John and the monks, John Buncle gossiped with the ladies."

It is the good fortune of the youth of our age that they are served
with fun in more refined and discreet methods; yet there is a
melancholy satisfaction in finding in the life of a great historical
character like Washington, who was the embodiment of dignity and
propriety, that he could, at some period of his existence, unbend and
enjoy a book like John Buncle. He becomes, thereby, more human; and
the distance between him and ordinary mortals seems to diminish.

Thomas Comber's "Discourses on the Common Prayer," has three
autographs of his father, Augustine Washington, one of his mother,
Mary Washington, and one of his own, written when nine years of age.
The fly-leaves he had used as a practice book for writing his father's
and mother's names