Child Life in Colonial Days

There were many public offices in colonial times which we do not have to-day, for we do not need them. One of these is that of tithing-man; he was a town officer, and had several neighboring families under his charge, usually ten, as the word "tithing" would signify. He enforced the learning of the church catechism in these ten homes, visited the houses, and heard the children recite their catechism. These ten families he watched specially on Sundays to see whether they attended church, and did not loiter on the way. In some Massachusetts towns he watched on week days to keep "boys and all persons from swimming in the water." Ten families with many boys must have kept him busy on hot August days. He inspected taverns, reported disorderly persons, and forbade the sale of intoxicating liquor to them. He administered the "oath of fidelity" to new citizens, and warned undesirable visitors and wanderers to leave the town. He could arrest persons who ran or rode at too fast a pace when going to meeting on Sunday, or who took unnecessary rides on Sunday, or otherwise broke the Sunday laws.

Within the meeting-house he kept order by beating out dogs, correcting unruly and noisy boys, and waking those who slept. He sometimes walked up and down the church aisles, carrying a stick which had a knob on one end, and a dangling foxtail on the other, tapping the boys on the head with the knob end of the stick, and tickling the face of sleeping church attendants with the foxtail. Some churches had tithing-men until this century.

A Puritanical regard of the Sabbath still lingers in our New England towns. There are many Christian old gentlemen still living of whom such an anecdote as this of old Deacon Davis of Westborough might be told. A grandson walked to church with him one Sabbath morning and a gray squirrel ran across the road. The child, delighted, pointed out the beautiful little creature to his grandfather. A sharp twist of the ear was the old Puritan's rejoinder, and the caustic words that "squirrels were not to be spoken of on the Lord's Day."

With all the religious restriction, and all the religious instruction, with the everyday repression of youth and the special Sabbath-day rigidity of laws, it is somewhat a surprise to the reader of the original sources of history to find that girls sometimes laughed, and boys behaved very badly in meeting. The latter condition would be more surprising to us did we not see so plainly that the method of "seating the meeting" in colonial days was not calculated to produce or maintain order. Boys were not separated from each other into various pews in the company of their parents as to-day; they were all huddled together in any undignified or uncomfortable seats. In Salem, in 1676, it was ordered that all the boys of the town "sitt upon ye three paire of stairs in ye meeting-house"; and two citizens were deputed to assist the tithing-man in controlling them and watching them, and if any proved unruly "to psent their names as the law directs." Sometimes they were seated on the pulpit stairs, under the eyes of the entire audience; more frequently in a "boys pue" in a high gallery remote from all other Christians, the "wretched boys" were set off as though they were religious lepers.

In Dorchester the boys could not keep still in meeting; the selectmen had to appoint some "meet person to inspect the boys in the meeting house in time of divine service." These guardians had to tarry at noon and "prevent disorder" then. By 1776 the boys were so turbulent, the spirit of independence was so rife and riotous, that six men had to be appointed to keep order, and they had authority to "give proper discipline" if necessary.

It is not necessary to multiply examples of the badness of the boys, nor of the unsophisticated artlessness of their parents. Scores of old town and church records give ample proof of the traits of both fathers and sons. These accounts are often as amusing as they are surprising in their hopelessness. The natural remedy of the isolation of the inventors of mischief, and separation of conspirators and quarrellers, did not enter the brains of our simple old forefathers for over a century. Indeed, these "Devil's play-houses," as Dr. Porter called them, were not entirely abolished until fifty years ago. The town of Windsor, Connecticut, suffered and suffered from "boys pews" until the year 1845.

CHAPTER XIII

RELIGIOUS BOOKS

It was inevitable, since the colonization of America was in the day of Puritanism, that the first modern literature known by American children should be the distinctive literature of that sect and period. These were religious emblems, controversial treatises, records of martyrdoms, catechismic dialogues, and a few accounts of precociously pious infants who had died. Thomas White, a Puritan minister, wrote thus:—

"When thou canst read, read no ballads and romances and foolish books, but the Bible and the Plaine Man's Pathway to Heaven, a very plaine holy book for you. Get the Practice of Piety, Mr. Baxter's call to the Unconverted, Allen's Alarm to the Unconverted, The Book of Martyrs."

The two books which he named after the Bible had the distinction of being the only ones owned by the wife of John Bunyan. The confiding Puritan child who read The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, under the promise that it was a "plaine and perfite" book, must have been sorely disappointed. But if it wasn't plain it was popular. The twelfth edition is dated 1733. Foxe's Book of Martyrs was found in many colonial homes, and was eagerly read by many children. Neither this nor any of the books on the Rev. Mr. White's list were properly children's books.

A special book for children was written by a Puritan preacher whose sayings were very dull in prose, and I am sure must have been more so in verse. It was called, Old Mr. Dod's Sayings; composed in Verse, for the better Help of Memory; and the Delightfulness of Children reading them, and learning them, whereby they may be the better ingrafted in their memories and Understanding. Cotton Mather also wrote Good Lessons for Children, in Verse.

Doubtless the most popular and most widely read of all children's books in New England was one whose title-page runs thus: A Token for Children, being an Exact Account of the Conversion, Holy and Exemplary Lives and Joyful Deaths of Several Young Children, by James Janeway. To which is added A Token for the Children of New England or Some Examples of Children in whom the Fear of God was remarkably Budding before they died; in several Parts of New England. Preserved and Published for the Encouragement of Piety in other Children.

The first portion of this book was written by an English minister and was as popular in England as in America. The entire book with the title as given went through many editions both in England and America, even being reprinted in this century. In spite of its absolute trustfulness and simplicity of belief, it is a sad commentary on the spiritual conditions of the times. I will not give any of the accounts in full, for the expression of religious thought shown therein is so contrary to the sentiment of to-day that it would not be pleasing to modern readers. The New England portion was written by Cotton Mather, and out-Janeways Janeway. Young babes chide their parents for too infrequent praying, and have ecstasies of delight when they can pray ad infinitum. One child two years old was able "savingly to understand the mysteries of Redemption"; another of the same age was "a dear lover of faithful ministers." One poor little creature had "such extraordinary meltings that his eyes were red and sore from weeping on his sins." Anne Greenwich, who died when five years old, "discoursed most astonishingly of great mysteries"; Daniel Bradley, who had an "Impression and inquisitiveness of the State of Souls after Death," when three years old; Elizabeth Butcher, who, "when two and a half years old, as she lay in the Cradle would ask her self the Question What is my corrupt Nature? and would answer herself It is empty of Grace, bent unto Sin, and only to Sin, and that Continually," were among the distressing examples.

Another child's book, by James Janeway, was The Looking Glass for Children. There had been a previous book with nearly the same title. Janeway's book was certainly popular, perhaps because it was in verse, and children's poetry was very scanty and rare in those days. It was reprinted many times, and parts appeared in selections and compilations until this century. A few lines run thus:—

A book of similar title was Divine Blossoms, a Prospect or Looking Glass for Youth.

The lack of poetry may also account in some degree for the astonishing popularity of a poem which appeared in 1662, written by a Puritan preacher named Michael Wigglesworth, and entitled, The Day of Doom; or a Poetical description of the Great and Last Judgement. This "epic of hell-fire and damnation" was reprinted again and again, and was sold in such large numbers that it is safe to assert that every New England household, whose members could read, was familiar with it. It was printed as a broadside, and children committed it to memory; teachers extolled it; ministers quoted it. Its horrible descriptions of hell and the sufferings of the damned are weakened to the modern mind by the thought of the presumptuous complacence of the author who would dare to give page after page of what he conceived the great Judge would say on the Day of Judgment. But of course no child, certainly no child of Puritan training, would note either absurdity or impropriety in assigning such words, and it is sad to think what must have been the climax of horror with which a sensitive child read God's answer to the plea for salvation made by "reprobate infants"; the terrible words running on through many stanzas, and ending thus:—

Thomas White wrote a book for children which certainly comes under the head of religious books, though its pages held also those frivolous lines "A was an archer who shot at a frog," etc. This dreary volume was entitled a Little Book for Little Children. It contained accounts of short-lived and morbid young Christians, much like those of James Janeway's book. One child of eight wept bitter and inconsolable tears for his sins. One wicked deed was lying. His mother asked him whether he were cold. He answered "Yes" instead of "Forsooth," and afterward doubted whether he really was cold or not. Another sin was whetting his knife on the Sabbath day. Poor Nathaniel Mather whittled on the Lord's day—and hid behind the door while thus sinning. A boy's jack-knife was a powerful force then as now. This book also had accounts of the Christian martyrs and their tortures. This was an English book, first reprinted in Boston in 1702. An edition of Pilgrim's Progress was printed in Boston in 1681, another in 1706, and an illustrated edition in 1744, but I doubt that these were the complete book. Many shortened copies and imitations appeared. One was called The Christian's Metamorphosis Unfolded. Another The Christian Pilgrim. Dr. Neale edited it for children, making, says a modern critic, "a most impudent book." Bunyan also wrote Divine Emblems, which the young were enjoined to read, and he also "bowed his pen to children" and wrote Country Rhimes for Children. For many years no copy of this was known to exist, but one was found in America in recent years, and is now in the British Museum. It is an uncouth mixture of religious phrases and similes and very crude natural history.

Another book for young people—which might be termed a story-book, though its lesson was deemed deeply religious—was called, A Small Book in Easy Verse Very Suitable for Children, entitled The Prodigal Daughter or the Disobedient Lady Reclaimed. It was a poem of about a hundred stanzas, relating the story of a very wilful young woman who, on being locked up in her room by her father to check her extravagance, made a league with the Devil, attempted to poison her father and mother, dropped dead apparently on her wickedness being discovered, was carried to the grave, but revived just as the sexton was about to lower her coffin in the ground. She recovered, repented, related her experiences with unction, and lived ever after happy. The title-page bears a picture of the devil as a fine gentleman wearing his tail as a sword, and having one high-topped cloven-footed boot. This book enjoyed unbounded popularity even during the early years of this century.

It was similar in teaching to a chap-book which was entitled The Afflicted Parents, or the Undutiful Child Punished. In this tale the daughter gave some very priggish advice to her wicked brother, who promptly knocks her down and kills her. He is captured, tried, condemned, sentenced, and at last executed by two pardoned highwaymen. But upon being cut down he comes to life, pompously discourses at much length, and then is executed a second time, as a warning to all disobedient children.

Death-bed scenes continued to be full of living interest. The Good Child's Little Hymnbook represents the taste of the times. One poem is on the death and burial of twins, and thus is doubly interesting. Another is on "Dying." The child asks whether he is going to die and "look white and awful and be put in the pithole with other dead people." And yet the preface runs:—

After a time some attempts were made to render the Bible in a form specially for children's reading. There was a rhymed adaptation called the Bible in Verse. This was not the Bible versification of Samuel Wesley, printed in 1717, of which he says condescendingly, "Some passages here represented are so barren of Circumstances that it was not easy to make them shine in Verse." Older hands had essayed to rhyme the Bible; one was called A Briefe Somme of the Bible.

These Bible abridgments were literally little books, usually three or four inches long, covered with brown or mottled paper. One tiny, well-worn book of Bible stories was but two inches long and an inch wide. It had two hundred and fifty pages, each of about twenty words.

There was also the famous Thumb Bible printed by the Boston book printers, Mein and Fleming. A copy of this may be seen at the Lenox Library in New York City. The Hieroglyphick Bible with Emblematick Figures was illustrated with five hundred tiny pictures set with the print, which helped to tell the story after the manner of an illustrated rebus. Bewick made the cuts for the English edition. Tiny catechisms were widely printed and sought after, and used as gifts to good and godly children. There were also dull little books of parables, modelled on the parables of the Bible. Those were profoundly religious, but were so darkly and figuratively expressed as to be frequently entirely incomprehensible; and they fully realized the definition of a parable given by a child I know—"a heavenly story with no earthly meaning."

An extremely curious and antiquated religious panada was entitled the History of the Holy Jesus. The seventh edition was printed in New London in 1754. The illustrations in this stupid little book were more surprising than the miserable text. No attempt was made to represent Oriental scenery. The picture of an earthquake showed a group of toy houses and a substantial church of the type of the Old South in perfect condition, tipped over and leaning solidly on each other. The Prodigal Son returned to an English manor-house with latticed windows, and the women wore high commodes and hoop-skirts. In the cut intended to represent to the inquiring young Christian in New England the Adoration of the Magi, the wise men of the East appear in the guise of prosperous British merchants; in cocked hats, knee breeches, and full-skirted coats with great flapped pockets, they look wisely at the star-spotted heavens, and a mammoth and extremely conventionalized comet through British telescopes mounted on tripods. The Slaughter of the Innocents must have seemed painfully close at hand when Yankee children looked at the trim military platoons of English-clad infants, each waving an English flag; while Herod, in a modern uniform, on a horse with modern trappings, charged upon them. Perhaps some of the fathers and mothers born in England and in the Church of England had a still more vivid realization of Herod's crime, for it was the custom in some English parishes at one time to whip all the children on Holy Innocent's Day. As Gregory said:—

"It hath been a custom to whip up the children upon Innocent's Day morning, that the memorie of this murther might stick the closer; and in a moderate proportion to act over the crueltie again in kind."

The book was in rhyme. Here are a few of the verses:—

The History of the Holy Jesus was told by Rev. Mr. Instructwell to Master Learnwell. The book contained also the Child's Body of Divinity, and some of Dr. Watts' hymns. These Divine Songs for Children appear in many forms. The Cradle Hymn is the one most frequently seen, and I recently have heard it extolled as "a perfect lullaby for a child." A curious study it is, showing how absolutely traditional religious conception could usurp the mind and obscure the impulses of the heart. Its sweet and tender lines, which begin—

are soon contrasted with the vehement words which tell of the lot of the infant Jesus; and at the mother's passionate expressions of "brutal creatures," "cursed sinners," that "affront their Lord," the child apparently cries, for the mother sings:—

In the next stanza, however, theological venom again finds vent to the poor wondering baby:—

This certainly seems an ill-phrased and exciting lullaby, but is perhaps what might be expected as the notion of a soothing cradle hymn from a bigoted old bachelor.

CHAPTER XIV

STORY AND PICTURE BOOKS

If we are to consider that the condition of the human mind at any particular juncture is worth studying, it is certainly of importance to know on what food its infancy is fed.

          —The Book Hunter. John Hill Burton, 1863.

Locke says in his Thoughts on Education that "the only book I know of fit for children is Æsop's 'Fables' and 'Reynard the Fox.'" By this he means the only story-books. A chap-book, a cheap, ill-printed edition of Æsop's Fables, was read in New England, but I have found nothing to indicate that these fables were specially printed or bought for children, or that children were familiar with them.

There seem to have been absolutely no books for the special delight of young men and maids in the first years in the new world, no romances or tales of adventure; nor were there any in England. One Richard Codrington, a Puritan, and a tiresome old bore, wrote a book "For the Instructing of the Younger Sort of Maids and Boarders at Schools." It is about as void of instruction as a book well could be; and this is his pleasant notion of a "girl's own book":—

"To entertain young Gentlewomen in their hours of Recreation we shall commend unto them God's Revenge against Murther and Artemidorous his Interpretation of Dreams."

It isn't hard to guess which one of these two was "taken out" most frequently from the school library. Speculation about dreams was one of the few existing outlets to youthful imagination, and many happy hours were spent in elaborate interpretations. Thus tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep, supplied the element of romance which the dull waking hours denied, and made life worth living.

Though no great books were written for children during all these years, three of the great books of the world, written with deep purpose, for grown readers, were calmly appropriated by children with a promptness that would seem to prove the truth of the assertion that children are the most unerring critics of a story. These books were Pilgrim's Progress, first published in 1688; Robinson Crusoe, in 1714; and Gulliver's Travels, in 1726. The religious, political, and satirical purposes of these books have been wholly obscured by their warm adoption as stories. They have been loved by hundreds of thousands of English-reading children, and translated into many other languages. Hundreds of other books, chiefly for children, have been written, that have been inspired by or modelled on these books—thus the debt of children to them is multiplied.

The history of children's story-books in both England and America begins with the life of John Newbery, the English publisher, who settled in London in 1744. His life and his work have been told at length by Mr. Charles Welsh in the book entitled A Book Seller of the Last Century. Newbery was the first English bookseller who made any extended attempt to publish books especially for children's reading. The text of these books was written by himself, and by various English authors, among them no less a genius than Oliver Goldsmith. His books were promptly exported to America, where they were doubtless as eagerly welcomed as in England. The meagre advertisements of colonial newspapers contain his lists. During Newbery's active career as a publisher—and activity was his distinguishing characteristic—he published over two hundred books for children. One of the earliest was announced in 1744 as "a pretty little pocket book." It contained the story of Jack the Giant Killer.

An amusing, albeit thrifty, intermezzo of all children's books was the publisher's persistent advertisement of his other juvenile literary wares. If a generous godfather is introduced, he is at once importuned to buy another of good Mr. Newbery the printer's books. When Tommy Truelove is to have his reward of virtue and industry, he implores that it may be a little book sold at the Book Shop over against Aldermary Churchyard, Bow Lane. If a kind mamma sets out to "learn Jenny June to read," she does it with one of Marshall's "Universal Battledores, so beloved of young masters and misses." The old-time reader was never permitted to forget for over a page that the good, kind, thoughtful gentleman who printed this book had plenty of others to sell.

Newbery was the most ingenious of these advertisers. This is an example of one of his newspaper eye-catchers printed in 1755:—

"This day was published Nurse Truelove's New Years Gift or the book of books for children, adorned with cuts, and designed as a present for every little boy who would become a great man, and ride upon a fine horse; and to every little girl who would become a great woman and ride in a lord-mayor's gilt coach. Printed for the author who has ordered these books to be given gratis to all boys and girls, at the Bible and Sun in St. Paul's Churchyard, they paying for the binding which is only twopence for each book."

Other books were sold "with a Ball and Pincushion, the use of which will infallibly make Tommy a good boy, and Polly a good girl." The juvenile characters in the books are always turning aside to read or buy some one of Mr. Newbery's little books; or pulling one of Mr. Newbery's "nice gilded library" out of their pockets, or taking Dr. James' Fever Powder, which was also one of Mr. Newbery's popular specialities.

The Revolutionary patriot and printer, Isaiah Thomas, was said to be very "ingenious in spirit." I do not know the exact significance of this term unless it means that he was a wide-awake publisher, which he certainly was. He was a bright, stirring man of quick wit and active intelligence in all things. He brought out just after the Revolution many little books for children. Few of them have any pretence of originality, even in a single page. Nearly all are wholesale reprints of various English books for children, chiefly those of John Newbery.

I don't know what made Thomas so ready to catch up the reprinting of these children's books in advance of other American printers. Perhaps his attention was led to it by the fact that his "Prentice's Token," or specimen of his work when he was a printer's 'prentice, was one of those little books. It was issued in 1761 by A. Barclay in Cornhill, Boston, and a copy now in the possession of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Massachusetts, is indorsed in Thomas' own handwriting as being by his 'prentice hand. The book is entitled, Tom Thumbs Play Book. To Teach Children their letters as soon as they can speak. It contains the old rhyme, "A, Apple pye, B, bit it, C, cut it," etc. Then came the rhymes beginning, "A, was an Archer and shot at a frog;" also a short catechism.

Isaiah Thomas lived in Worcester, printed these books there, and founded there the American Antiquarian Society; in the library of that society now in that city may be seen copies of nearly all these children's books which he reprinted; and a collection of pretty, quaint little volumes they are.

It is the universal decision of the special students of juvenile literature, that Goldsmith wrote Goody Two Shoes. Washington Irving thought the title-page plainly "bore the stamp of the sly and playful humour" of the author of the Vicar of Wakefield. It reads thus:—

"The History of Little Goody Two Shoes, otherwise called Mrs. Margery Two Shoes, with the means by which she acquired her Learning and Wisdom, and in consequence thereof, her Estate; set forth at large for the Benefit of those

"Who from a state of Rags and Care
And having Shoes but half a pair,
Their fortune and their fame would fix
And gallop in a Coach and Six.

"See the original manuscript in the Vatican at Rome, and the Cuts by Michael Angelo. Illustrated by the Comments of our great modern Critics. Price Sixpence."

Copies of Goody Two Shoes are seldom seen for sale to-day, and many copies are expurgated. The following quaint chapter is the one chosen for excision, because our children must never hear the word ghost.

"HOW THE WHOLE PARISH WAS FRIGHTENED

"Who does not know Lady Ducklington, or who does not know that she was buried at this parish church?

"Well, I never saw so grand a funeral in all my life; but the money they squandered away would have been better laid out in little books for children, or in meat, drink, and clothes for the poor. This is a fine hearse indeed, and the nodding plumes on the horses look very grand; but what end does that answer, otherwise than to display the pride of the living, or the vanity of the dead. Fie upon such folly, say I, and heaven grant that those who want more sense may have it.

"But all the country round came to see the burying, and it was late before the corpse was interred. After which, in the night, or rather about four o'clock in the morning, the bells were heard to jingle in the steeple, which frightened the people prodigiously, who all thought it was Lady Ducklington's ghost dancing among the bell ropes. The people flocked to Will Dobbins, the Clerk, and wanted him to go and see what it was; but William said he was sure it was a ghost, and that he would not offer to open the door. At length Mr. Long, the rector, hearing such an uproar in the village, went to the clerk to know why he did not go into the church and see who was there. I go, says William, why the ghost would frighten me out of my wits. Mrs. Dobbins, too, cried, and laying hold on her husband said he should not be eat up by the ghost. A ghost, you blockheads, says Mr. Long in a pet, did either of you ever see a ghost, or know anybody that did? Yes, says the clerk, my father did once in the shape of a windmill, and it walked all round the church in a white sheet, with jack boots on, and had a gun by its side instead of a sword. A fine picture of a ghost truly, says Mr. Long, give me the key of the church, you monkey; for I tell you there is no such thing now, whatever may have been formerly. Then taking the key he went to the church, all the people following him. As soon as he opened the door what sort of a ghost do you think appeared? Why little Twoshoes, who being weary, had fallen asleep in one of the pews during the funeral service and was shut in all night. She immediately asked Mr. Long's pardon for the trouble she had given him, told him she had been locked into the church, and said she should not have rung the bells, but that she was very cold, and hearing Farmer Boult's man go whistling by with his horses, she was in hopes he would have went to the Clerk for the key to let her out."

It would seem that even an advanced pedagogist and child culturist might forgive this delightful ghost—like a windmill with jack-boots and a gun, just as a modern grammarian must forgive the verb "would have went" from little Two Shoes, who, as Mr. Charles Welsh says, "really ought to have known better."

The first Worcester edition of Goody Two Shoes was printed in 1787, with some alterations suited to time and place. Margery sings "the Cuzzes Chorus which may be found in the Pretty Little Pocket Book of Mr. Thomas," etc., and when she grows up she is made a teacher in Mrs. Williams' "College," which is described in Nurse Truelove's American books.

It will doubtless be a surprise to many that Tommy Trip's History of Beasts and Birds, etc., was written by Goldsmith. This little book opens with an account of Tommy and his dog Jowler, who serves Tommy for a horse.

"When Tommy has a mind to ride, he pulls a little bridle out of his pocket, whips it upon honest Jowler, and away he gallops tantwivy. As he rides through the town he frequently stops at the doors to know how the good children do within, and if they are good and learn their books, he then leaves an apple, an orange or a plumb-cake at the door, and away he gallops again tantwivy tantwivy."

As a specimen of Tommy's literary skill he gives the lines beginning:—

The description of animals are such as would be expected from the author of Animated Nature, an amusing medley of truth and tradition.

"As soon as the child can speak let him stick a pin through the page by the side of the letter you wish to teach him. Turn the page every time and explain the letter by which means the child's mind will be so fixed upon the letter that he will get a perfect idea of it, and will not be liable to mistake it for any other. Then show him the picture opposite the letter and make him read the name of."

The antique mind seems to have found even in Biblical days a vast satisfaction in riddles. Quintilian said the making and study of riddles strengthened the reflective faculties.

Old-time jest-books called Guess Books were deemed proper reading for children, such as Joe Miller's and Merry Tales of the Wise Men of Gotham; very stale and dull were the jests. The Puzzling Cap was a popular one; also The Sphinx or Allegorical Lozenges. Others were Guess Again, and one entitled Food for the Mind, which bore these lines on the title-page:—

Nurse Truelove was a popular character in these books, and a popular story was Nurse True Love's New Year Gift, designed as a present to every little Boy who would become a great Man, and ride upon a fine Horse, and to every little Girl who would become a fine Woman and ride in a Governour's Coach; But Turn over the Leaf and see More of the Matter. This was originally an English book, one of Newbery's, as shown by his advertisement already quoted. Thomas Americanized the Lord Mayor's coach into a Governor's coach, but he carried out to the fullest extent the English publishers' mode of advertising. The sub-title of the book was History of Mistress Williams, and her Plumb Cake; With a Word or Two Concerning Precedency and Trade.