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.”