PREFACE. IT has been felt to be a pity that the old children's classics of the last century or half century should be allowed entirely to die out; or only to exist in the dusty shelves of ancient bedrooms, preserved by tender recollections of those who themselves belong to a fast passing generation. Thus this little collection has been put together, not comprising all that have come within the compiler's pen, but those which have from any cause appeared to her specially worthy of preservation, either for curiosity or for inherent interest. The fairy tale and cheap book variety have not been attempted, i.e. the regular fairy tale such as Cinderella, &c. They have already been thoroughly resuscitated; but the class of books which worthy mothers recommended to the exclusion of the fairy tale in the last decades of the eighteenth century has, it seems to us, met with somewhat unmerited contempt. Judging from our own childhood, we find that we preferred the inherited books of the former generation to any of our own, with a few rare exceptions, among which Maria Edgeworth's stand first. Philip Quarll, the story that we have placed first in our list, came to us with the reputation of being by Daniel Defoe; but we have never found anything to warrant the supposition, and |