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
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