“At JO——­ store in Market Street
    A sure reward good children meet. 
    In coming home the other day
    I heard a little master say
    For ev’ry three-pence there he took
    He had received a little book. 
    With covers neat and cuts so pretty
    There’s not its like in all the city;
    And that for three-pence he could buy
    A story book would make one cry;
    For little more a book of Riddles: 
    Then let us not buy drums and fiddles
    Nor yet be stopped at pastry cooks’,
    But spend our money all in books;
    For when we’ve learnt each bit by heart
    Mamma will treat us with a tart.”

Later, when engraving had become more general in use, William Charles cut for an advertisement, as frontispiece to some of his imprints, an interior scene containing a shelf of books labelled “W.  Charles’ Library for Little Folks.”  About the same time another form of advertisement came into use.  This was the publisher’s Recommendation, which frequently accompanied the narrative in place of a preface.  The “Story of Little Henry and his Bearer,” by Mrs. Sherwood, a writer of many English Sunday-school tales, contained the announcement that it was “fraught with much useful instruction.  It is recommended as an excellent thing to be put in the hands of children; and grown persons will find themselves well paid for the trouble of reading it.”

Little Henry belonged to the Sunday-school type of hero, one whose biography Dr. Holmes doubtless avoided when possible.  Yet no history of toy-books printed presumably for children’s amusement as well as instruction should omit this favorite story, which represents all others of its class of Religion-in-Play books.  The following incidents are taken from an edition printed by Lincoln and Edmunds of Boston.  This firm made a special feature of “Books suitable for Presents in Sunday-School.”  They sold wholesale for eight dollars a hundred, such tales as Taylor’s “Hymns for Infant Minds,” “Friendly Instruction,” Fenelon’s “Reflections,” Doddridge’s “Principles of the Christian Religion,” “Pleasures of Piety in Youth,” “Walks of Usefulness,” “Practical Piety,” etc.

The objective point of little Henry’s melancholy history was to prove the “Usefulness of Female Missionaries,” said its editor, Mrs. Cameron, a sister of the author, who at the time was herself living in India.  Mrs. Sherwood based the thread of her story upon the life of a household in India, but it winds itself mainly around the conversion of the faithful Indian bearer who served five-year-old Henry.  This small orphan was one of those morbidly religious children who “never said a bad word and was vexed when he heard any other person do it.”  He also, although himself “saved by grace,” as the phrase then ran in evangelical circles, was chronically anxious lest he should offend the Lord.  To quote verbatim from this relic of the former religious