Chapter 7

The captain having been at Tonquin was in his return to England driven north-eastward to the latitude of 44 degrees, and of longitude 143. But meeting a trade-wind two days after I came on board him, we sailed southward a long time, and coasting New Holland kept our course west-southwest, and then south-south-west till we doubled the Cape of Good Hope. Our voyage was very prosperous, but I shall not trouble the reader with a journal of it. The captain called in at one or two ports, and sent in his long boat for provisions and fresh water, but I never went out of the ship, till we came into the Downs which was on the third day of June, 1706, about nine months after my escape. I offered to leave my goods in security for payment of my freight; but the captain protested he would not receive one farthing. We took kind leave of each other, and I made him promise he would come to see me at my house. I hired a horse and guide for five shillings, which I borrowed of the captain.

As I was on the road, observing the littleness of the horses, the trees, the cattle, and the people, I began to think myself in Lilliput. I was afraid of trampling on every traveler I met, and often called aloud to have them stand out of the way, so that I had like to have gotten one or two broken heads for my impertinence.

When I came to my own house, for which I was forced to inquire, one of the servants opening the door, I bent down to go in (like a goose under a gate), for fear of striking my head. My wife ran out to embrace me, but I stooped lower than her knees, thinking she could otherwise never be able to reach my mouth. My daughter kneeled to ask my blessing, but I could not see her till she arose, having been so long used to stand with my head and eyes erect to above sixty feet; and then I went to take her up with one hand by the waist. I looked down upon the servants, and one or two friends who were in the house, as if they had been pigmies, and I a giant. I told my wife, "she had been too thrifty, for I found she had starved herself and her daughter to nothing." In short, I behaved myself so unaccountably that they were all of the captain's opinion when he first saw me, and concluded I had lost my wits. This I mention as an instance of the great power of habit and prejudice.

In a little time, I and my family and friends came to a right understanding; but my wife protested I should never go to sea any more; although my evil destiny so ordered, that she had not power to hinder me.

THE BALLAD OF AGINCOURT

_By_ MICHAEL DRAYTON[1]

[Footnote 1: Michael Drayton was an English poet who lived from 1563 to 1631. Little is known of his life beyond the fact that he served as a page in the household of some nobleman, and that he tried in vain to gain the patronage of King James I. This _Ballad of Agincourt_ is one of the finest of the English martial ballads.]

Fair stood the wind for France,[2] When we our sails advance, Nor now to prove our chance Longer will tarry; But putting to the main, At Kaux, the mouth of Seine, With all his martial train, Landed King Harry.[3]

[Footnote 2: From 1337 to 1453 the French and the English were engaged in a series of struggles to which the name of _The Hundred Years' War_ has been given. The cause of the conflict was the attempt of the English kings to establish their rule over France.]

[Footnote 3: This was Henry V, king of England from 1413 to 1422. He was a general of great ability, and the battle described in this ballad was one of his chief victories.]

And taking many a fort, Furnished in warlike sort, Marched towards Agincourt[4] In happy hour,-- Skirmishing day by day.

[Footnote 4: The English army numbered but 14,000, while the French were about 50,000 strong. Henry, to save his men, was willing to make terms with the French, who, however, demanded unconditional surrender. The two armies met for battle near the little village of Agincourt.]

With those that stopped his way, Where the French general lay With all his power,

Which in his height of pride, King Henry to deride, His ransom to provide To the king sending; Which he neglects the while, As from a nation vile, Yet, with an angry smile, Their fall portending.

And turning to his men, Quoth our brave Henry then: "Though they to one be ten, Be not amazed; Yet have we well begun,-- Battles so bravely won Have ever to the sun By fame been raised.

"And for myself," quoth he, "This my full rest shall be; England ne'er mourn for me, Nor more esteem me. Victor I will remain, Or on this earth lie slain; Never shall she sustain Loss to redeem me.

"Poitiers[5] and Cressy[6] tell, When most their pride did swell, Under our swords they fell; No less our skill is Than when our grandsire[7] great, Claiming the regal seat, By many a warlike feat Lopped the French lilies." [8]

[Footnote 5: The Battle of Poitiers was fought in 1356. The English under the Black Prince, son of Edward III of England, defeated the French under King John, though the French outnumbered them more than five to one.]

[Footnote 6: In the Battle of Cressy, which was fought in 1346, 35,000 English under King Edward III defeated 75,000 French under Philip VI. About 30,000 of the French army were slain.]

[Footnote 7: The great-grandfather of Henry V was Edward III, the hero of the early part of the Hundred Years' War.]

[Footnote 8: The lily, or fleur-de-lis, is the national flower of France. _Lopped the French lilies_ is a poetical way of saying _defeated the French._]

The Duke of York so dread The eager vaward[9] led; With the main Henry sped, Amongst his henchmen. Excester had the rear,-- A braver man not there: O Lord! how hot they were On the false Frenchmen!

[Footnote 9: _Vaward_ is an old word for _vanward_, or _advance-guard._]

They now to fight are gone; Armor on armor shone; Drum now to drum did groan,-- To hear was wonder; That with the cries they make The very earth did shake; Trumpet to trumpet spake, Thunder to thunder.

Well it thine age became, O noble Erpingham! Which did the signal aim To our hid forces; When, from a meadow by, Like a storm suddenly, The English archery Struck the French horses,

With Spanish yew so strong, Arrows a cloth-yard long, That like to serpents stung, Piercing the weather; None from his fellow starts, But playing manly parts, And like true English hearts Stuck close together.

When down their bows they threw, And forth their bilboes[10] drew, And on the French they flew, Not one was tardy; Arms were from shoulders sent; Scalps to the teeth were rent; Down the French peasants went; Our men were hardy.

[Footnote 10: _Bilboes_ is a poetical word for _swords_.]

This while our noble king, His broadsword brandishing, Down the French host did ding,[11] As to o'erwhelm it; And many a deep wound lent, His arms with blood besprent, And many a cruel dent Bruiséd his helmet.

[Footnote 11: To _ding_ is to _strike_.]

Glo'ster, that duke so good, Next of the royal blood, For famous England stood, With his brave brother,-- Clarence, in steel so bright, Though but a maiden knight, Yet in that furious fight Scarce such another.

Warwick in blood did wade; Oxford the foe invade, And cruel slaughter made, Still as they ran up. Suffolk his axe did ply; Beaumont and Willoughby Bare them right doughtily, Ferrers and Fanhope.

Upon Saint Crispin's[12] day Fought was this noble fray, Which fame did not delay To England to carry; O, when shall Englishmen With such acts fill a pen, Or England breed again Such a King Harry!

[Footnote 12: Crispin was a Christian saint who suffered martyrdom in the third century. The 25th of October was made sacred to him. It was on Saint Crispin's day, 1415, that the Battle of Agincourt was fought.]

SOME CHILDREN'S BOOKS OF THE PAST

_By_ GRACE E. SELLON

Probably somewhere about your home, put away so far from sight that you never think of them any more, are some of the ABC books and the alphabet blocks and the brightly colored story books about horses, dogs and other familiar animals that used to amuse you when you were just learning to say the alphabet and to spell a few three-letter words. Perhaps you can remember how much you liked to have the stories read to you and how much fun there was in repeating your A B C's when you could point out the big, colored letters in your book or on your blocks. But have you ever thought that you were any more fortunate than other children of other ages in having these interesting things to help you? Have you ever wondered whether, far back in history before our country was discovered and settled by white men, boys and girls had the same kinds of picture books and drawing-slates, alphabet games and other playthings that used to delight you in the days when you were going to kindergarten or learning your first simple lessons from your mother?

If you have never thought enough about this matter to ask some older person about it, you will find the lesson books and story books used by children of even a hundred years ago very curious. Suppose we go farther back, to 1620, the year of the Mayflower, let us say. You could never imagine what a child then living in England was given to learn his letters from. As soon as he was able to remember the first little things that children are taught, his mother would fasten to his belt a string from which was suspended what she would call his _hornbook_. This was not at all what we think of to-day as a book, for it was made of a piece of cardboard covered on one side with a thin sheet of horn, and surrounded by a frame with a handle. Through the covering of horn the little boy could see the alphabet written on the cardboard in both large and small letters. After these would come rows of syllables to help him in learning to pronounce simple combinations of sounds. Probably last on the sheet there would be the Lord's Prayer, which he must be taught to say without a mistake. As he went about he could easily take up his hornbook once in a while and say over to himself the letters and the rows of syllables. Sometimes--especially if he had been obedient and had studied well--he was given a hornbook made of gingerbread; and then, of course, he would find that the tiresome lines of letters had all at once become very attractive.

The hornbook must have done its work well, or at least no better way of teaching the alphabet had been found when the Puritans came to America, for it was not many years before little folks in the New World were being taught from the famous _New England Primer_, which joined to what had been in the hornbook a catechism and various moral teachings. With its rude illustrations and its dry contents, this little book would probably be laughed at by school-children of to-day, if they did not stop to think how very many of the writers, statesmen and soldiers who have made our country great learned their first lessons from its pages. Somewhere between 1687 and 1690 it was first published, and for a hundred years from that time it was the schoolbook found in almost every New England home and classroom.

Can you imagine what kind of reading lessons were in this primer? If you think they were like the lively little stories and the pleasing verses printed in your readers, you will he a good deal surprised to find that they are stern and gloomy tales that were meant to frighten children into being good, rather than to entertain them.

First of all in the little book came the alphabet and the lists of syllables, as in the hornbook. There was this difference, however. At the beginning of the first line of letters in the hornbooks was placed a cross, as the symbol of Christianity, and from this fact the first line was called the _Christ-cross_, or _criss-cross row_. But the Puritans strictly kept the cross out of the _Primer_, for to them it stood in a disagreeable way for the older churches from which they had separated themselves.

Then came a series of sentences from the Bible teaching moral lessons and illustrating the use of the letters of the alphabet, one being made prominent in each verse. The Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed might appear next, followed by twenty-four alphabet rhymes with accompanying pictures. Most of these verses were upon Bible subjects, as in the case of the letter _R_, for example, illustrated by the lines:

"Young pious Ruth Left all for Truth."

One of the best-loved rhymes was one put into the series after the Revolution to stir the pride of every young American by reminding him that

"Great Washington brave His country did save."

In the pages that followed were to be found an illustrated poem telling of the awful fate of John Rogers, burned at the stake while his wife and their ten children looked on, and a dialogue between Christ, a youth and the devil, in which the youth was finally overcome by Satan's temptations.

This story of the terrifying fate of the youth was placed after the shorter Westminster catechism, possibly as a warning to all children who would not obey their religious teachings. The one hundred seven questions of the catechism must be answered correctly, even though the five-syllable words were even harder to understand than to pronounce.

Religious songs and pictures and descriptions of good and of bad children were also scattered through the book, and in some copies is to be found the little prayer beginning: "Now I lay me down to sleep," which was probably published for the first time in the _Primer_.

As the years went on, pictures and verses and little articles about the objects of nature and the everyday things that children are interested in began to take the place of the Bible verses and subjects; and at length when people saw how well children liked this new way of teaching, better books than the _Primer_ took its place.

While the young folks in New England families were thus being warned in story and verse against the awful temptations that lay all around them, the children in old England were being entertained by popular penny-books that treated of all kinds of subjects, from the _History of Joseph and his Brother_ to _The Old Egyptian Fortune Teller's Last Legacy_. These books were of a size scarcely larger than that of the letter-paper made for little folks, and they contained usually from sixteen to twenty-four pages. Illustrations that looked a good deal like the pictures made by a small boy in his schoolbooks adorned the rough little volumes.

In every city and town and even in the villages peddlers went along the streets selling these chapbooks, as they were called. Imagine how the children, and the grown people too, must have flocked around the peddler as he began taking out one after another of his queer little books, for he had something to please every one. The boys might choose stories like _The Mad Pranks of Tom Tram_, _A Wonderful and Strange Relation of a Sailor_ or _The True Tale of Robin Hood_, and we can see them almost getting into a brawl over the possession of _The Merry Life and Mad Exploits of Captain James Hind, the Great Robber of England_. Probably the girls would choose _Patient Grissel_, _The History of Mother Bunch_ or _Cinderella_. For the small children there were, for example, the _History of Two Children in the Wood_, _The Pleasant History of Jack Horner_ and _Tom Thumb_. Most likely it was only the pennies of much-tried mothers and fathers that were spent for _A Timely Warning to Rash and Disobedient Children_.

The chapman or peddler we may well believe did not stand silently looking on as he disposed of his stock. He had at the tip of his tongue such a fair-sounding advertisement for every book that everybody, young and old, came under the spell of his words and bought of his wares.

After he had departed with his traveling library, we can picture the children taking themselves off to quiet places with their new chapbooks. Perhaps you are wondering why it was that they were so eager to read them. If so, you may like to look into a few of these rare old story books. As you read, notice how quaint the wording seems when compared with that of the stories of to-day.

(Extract from _The History of Tom Long the Carrier._)

As Tom Long the Carrier was travelling between Dover and Westchester, he fortuned to pass something near a House, where was kept a great Mastiff Dog, who, as soon as he espied Tom, came running open-mouthed at him, and so furiously assaulted him, as if he meant to devour him at a bite. But Tom, having in his Hand a good Pikestaff, most valiantly defended himself like a Man, and to withstand the danger he thrust the Pike-end of his Staff into his Throat and so killed him. Whereupon the Owner thereof, seeing the Dog lost, comes earnestly unto Tom, and between threatening and chiding, asking him why he struck him not with the great End of the staff. 'Marry,' quoth he, 'because your Dog runs not at me with his tail.'

(Extract from _The Kentish Miracle, or, A Seasonable Warning to all Sinners_.) Shewn in the Wonderful Relation of one Mary Moore whose Husband died some time ago, and left her with two children, and who was reduced to great want. How she wandered about the Country asking relief and went two Days without any Food--How the Devil appeared to her and the many great offers he made her to deny Christ and enter into his service, and how she confounded Satan by powerful Argument. How she came to a well of water when she fell down on her knees to pray to God that He would give that Vertue to the Water that it might refresh and satisfy her Children's Hunger, with an Account how an Angel appeared to her, and relieved her, also declared many Things that shall happen in the Month of March next. Shewing likewise what strange and surprising Accidents shall happen by means of the present War, and concerning a dreadful Earthquake, etc.

(Extract from _A Timely Warning to Rash and Disobedient Children_.)

As this Child went to School one Day Through the Churchyard she took her Way When lo, the Devil came and said Where are you going to, my pretty Maid To School I am going Sir, said she Pish, Child, don't mind the same saith he, But haste to your Companions dear And learn to lie and curse and swear. They bravely spend their Time in Play God they don't value--no, not they. It is a Fable, Child, he cry'd At which his cloven Foot she spy'd. I'm sure there is a God, saith she Who from your Power will keep me free, And if you should this Thing deny Your cloven Foot gives you the Lie. Satan, avaunt, hence, out of hand, In Name of Jesus I command. At which the Devil instantly In Flames of Fire away did fly.

(Extract from _Wonder of Wonders_, being a strange and wonderful Relation of a Mermaid that was seen and spoke with by one John Robinson, Mariner, who was tossed on the Ocean for 6 Days and Nights. All the other Mariners perished.)

He was in great Fear and dreadful Fright in the main Ocean ...... but to his great Amazement he espy'd a beautiful young Lady combing her Head and toss'd on the Billows, cloathed all in green (but by chance he got the first Word from her). Then She with a Smile came on Board and asked how he did. The young Man, being Something Smart and a Scholar reply'd--Madam, I am the better to see you in good Health, in great hopes trusting you will be a Comfort and Assistance to me in this my low Condition: and so caught hold of her Comb and Green Girdle that was about her Waist. To which she reply'd, Sir, you ought not to rob a young Woman of her Riches and then expect a Favour at her Hands, but if you will give me my Comb and Girdle again, what lies in my Power, I will do for you. She presents him with a Compass, told him to steer S.W., made an Appointment for following Friday, and jumped in the sea. He arrives safely home, and while musing on his promise She appeared to him with a smiling Countenance, and (by his Misfortune) she got the first Word of him, so that he could not speak one Word and was quite Dumb, and she began to sing, after which she departed, taking from him the Compass. She took a Ring from her Finger and gave him. (The young man went home, fell ill and died 5 days after), to the wonderful Admiration of all People who saw the young Man.

* * * * *

After the eighteenth century the chapbooks gradually went out of favor, and since then in England, as in America, more and more careful attention has been given to writing good stories for children and printing these attractively. These better books could not have come, however, had it not been that for generation after generation crude little primers and storybooks, such as the interesting kinds that have been described, helped to point out to people, little by little, how to make children's reading both instructive and pleasing.

LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT

_By_ CARDINAL NEWMAN

Of this poem, Newman has written: "I was aching to get home; yet for want of a vessel, I was kept at Palermo for three weeks. At last I got off on an orange boat, bound for Marseilles. Then it was that I wrote the lines, _Lead, Kindly Light_, which have since become well known."

Again, he has said: "This is one full of light, rejoicing in suffering with our Lord. This is what those who like _Lead, Kindly Light_ must come to--they have to learn it."

Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on; The night is dark and I am far from home; Lead thou me on; Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou Shouldst lead me on; I loved to choose and see my path; but now Lead thou me on; I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years.

So long thy power has blest me, sure it still Will lead me on O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent till The night is gone, And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost the while.

LET SOMETHING GOOD BE SAID[A]

[Footnote A: From _Home-Folks,_ by James Whitcomb Riley. Used by special permission of the publishers, _The Bobbs-Merrill Company_.]

_By_ JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

When over the fair fame of friend or foe The shadows of disgrace shall fall; instead Of words of blame, or proof of so and so, Let something good be said. Forget not that no fellow-being yet May fall so low but love may lift his head; Even the cheek of shame with tears is wet, If something good be said. No generous heart may vainly turn aside In ways of sympathy; no soul so dead But may awaken strong and glorified, If something good be said. And so I charge ye, by the thorny crown, And by the cross on which the Saviour bled, And by your own soul's hope for fair renown, Let something good be said!

POLONIUS' ADVICE