Having occasion to examine carefully as many of the books for children published by John Newbery as I could procure (and they are as scarce as blackberries in midwinter, for what among books has so brief a life as a nursery book?), I was struck while perusing them with a certain distinct literary flavour, so to speak, which appeared to be common to a group of little volumes, all published about the same period.  These were:  “Goody Two Shoes,” “Giles Gingerbread,” “Tom Thumb’s Folio,” “The Lilliputian Magazine,” “The Lilliputian Masquerade,” “The Easter Gift,” “A Pretty Plaything,” “The Fairing,” “Be Merry and Wise,” “The Valentine’s Gift,” “Pretty Poems for the Amusement of Children Three Feet High,” “A Pretty Book of Pictures,” “Tom Telescope,” and a few others.  I give abbreviated titles only, but if space permitted I mould like to quote them in full; they are remarkable no less for their curious quaintness and their clever ingenuity than for their attractiveness to both parents (who, it must not be forgotten, are more often the real buyers of children’s books) and the young people for whom they were written, and they are in themselves most entertaining and amusing reading.  This group of little books possesses, moreover, another characteristic that is sufficiently remarkable of itself to be noticed.  While they all evince a real genius for writing in a style suited to the capacities of little folk, there is a nameless something about them which, far more than is the case with thousands of other books for the young, is calculated to enforce the attention and excite the interest of “children of a larger growth.”

Now one of this little group, “The Lilliputian Magazine,” is attributed in the British Museum Catalogue to Oliver Goldsmith; and so strong is the family likeness in all the books I have mentioned, that I cannot but believe they are all by the same hand—­a belief which I think will be shared by any one who will take the trouble to compare them carefully.  But I should advise him to rely on the Newbery editions alone, for grievously garbled versions of nearly every one of these books have been issued from many different houses throughout the country.

Many authorities have supported the view that Goldsmith was the author of “Goody Two Shoes.”  Conspicuous among them was Washington Irving, who says, “It is suggested with great probability that he wrote for Mr Newbery the famous nursery story of ‘Goody Two Shoes.’” It is said also that William Godwin held this opinion; and I believe there is authority for stating that the Misses Bewick, the daughters of the celebrated engraver, who illustrated an edition of the book for T. Saint, of Newcastle, understood from their father that it was by Oliver Goldsmith.

But let us turn to the book itself and see if it furnishes any evidence on the point.  The very title, with its quaint phrasing, shows no common genius, and as Washington Irving says, “bears the stamp of his [Goldsmith’s] sly and playful humour.”  As the book was published in 1765, it would most likely have been written just at the time when Goldsmith was working most industriously in the service of Newbery (1763-4), at which period it will be remembered that he was living near Newbery at Islington, and his publisher was paying for his board and lodging.