side the kitchen fire, poring over them as if their very descriptions had power to allay an unquenched appetite or prolong the delights of one satiated. There were the animals in the frontispiece, sternly divided by a dissecting-knife of printer's ink, into sections whose culinary names seemed as complicated as those of surgical science, chump and spring, sirloin and sperib, — for I faithfully follow the original spelling. There we read with profound acquiescence that hard gingerbread is good to have in the family," but demurred at the reason given, "it keeps so well." It never kept well in ours! There we all learned that one should be governed in cookery by higher considerations than mere worldly vanity, knowing that "many people buy the upper part of the sparerib of pork, thinking it the most genteel; but the lower part is more sweet and juicy, and there is more meat in proportion to the bone."

Going beyond mere carnal desires, we read also the wholesome directions "to those who are not ashamed of economy." We were informed that "children could early learn to take care of their own clothes," -a responsibility at which we shuddered; and also that it was a good thing for children to pick blackberries, — in which we heartily concurred. There, too, we were taught to pick up twine and paper, to write on the backs of old letters, like paper-sparing Pope, and if we had a dollar a day, which scemed a wild supposition, to live on seventy-five cents. We all read, too, with interest, the hints on the polishing of furniture and the education of daughters, and got our first glimpses of political economy from the "Reasons for Hard Times." So varied and comprehensive was the good sense of the book that it surely would have seemed to our childish minds infallible, but for one fatal admission, which through life I have recalled with dismay, the assertion, namely, that " economical people will seldom use preserves." "They are unhealthy, expensive, and useless to

Really the line of ascet-
If preserves were to be

those who are well." This was a sumptuary law, against which the soul of youth revolted. icism must be drawn somewhere. voted extravagant, economy had lost its charms; let us immediately become spendthrifts, and have a short life and a merry

one.

The wise counsels thus conveyed in this more-than-cookerybook may naturally have led the way to a "Mother's Book," of more direct exhortation. This was published in 1831, and had a great success, reaching its eighth American edition in 1845, besides twelve English editions and a German translation. Probably it is now out of print, but one may still find at the bookstores the "Girl's Own Book," published during the same year. This is a capital manual of indoor games, and is worth owning by any one who has a houseful of children, or is liable to serve as a Lord of Misrule at Christmas parties. It is illustrated with vignettes by that wayward child of genius, Francis Graeter, a German, whom Mrs. Child afterwards described in the "Letters from New York.” He was a personal friend of hers, and his pencil is also traccable in some of her later books. Indeed the drollest games which he has delineated in the "Girl's Own Book" are not so amusing as the unintentional comedy of his attempt at a "Ladies' Sewing Circle," which illustrates American life in the "History of Woman." The fair laborers sit about a small round table, with a smirk of mistimed levity on their faces, and one feels an irresistible impulse to insert in their very curly hair the twisted papers employed in the game of "Genteel lady, always genteel," in the "Girl's Own Book."

The "History of Woman" appeared in 1832, as one of a series projected by Carter & Hendee, of which Mrs. Child was to be the editor, but which was interrupted at the fifth volume by the failure of the publishers. She compiled for this the "Biographies of Good Wives," the "Memoirs" of

Madame De Stael and Madame Roland, those of Lady Russell and Madame Guion, and the two volumes of "Woman." All these aimed at a popular, not a profound, treatment. She was, perhaps, too good a compiler, showing in such work the traits of her brother's mind, and carefully excluding all those airy flights and bold speculations which afterwards seemed her favorite element. The "History of Woman," for instance, was a mere assemblage of facts, beginning and ending abruptly, and with no glimpse of any leading thought or general philosophy. It was, however, the first American storehouse of information upon that whole question, and no doubt helped the agitation along. Its author evidently looked with distrust, however, on that rising movement for the equality of the sexes, of which Frances Wright was then the rather formida ble leader.

The "Biographies of Good Wives" reached a fifth edition in the course of time, as did the "History of Woman." I have a vague, childish recollection of her next book, "The Coronal," published in 1833, which was of rather a fugitive description. The same year brought her to one of those bold steps which made successive eras in her literary life, the publication of her "Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans."

The name was rather cumbrous, like all attempts to include an epigram in a title-page, but the theme and the word "Appeal" were enough. It was under the form of an "Appeal" that the colored man, Alexander Walker, had thrown a firebrand into Southern society which had been followed by Nat Turner's insurrection; and now a literary lady, amid the cultivated circles of Boston, dared also to "appeal." Only two years before (1831) Garrison had begun the "Liberator," and only two years later (1835) he was destined to be dragged through Boston streeets, with a rope round his neck, by "gentlemen of property and standing," as the newspapers

said next day. It was just at the most dangerous moment of the rising storm that Mrs. Child appealed.

Miss Martineau in her article, "The Martyr Age in America,"-published in the "London and Westminster Review" in 1839, and at once reprinted in America,—gives by far the most graphic picture yet drawn of that perilous time. She describes Mrs. Child as "a lady of whom society was exceedingly proud before she published her Appeal, and to whom society has been extremely contemptuous ever since." She adds: "Her works were bought with avidity before, but fell into sudden oblivion as soon as she had done a greater deed than writing any of them."

It is evident that this result was not unexpected, for the preface to the book explicitly recognizes the probable dissatisfaction of the public. She says:

"I am fully aware of the unpopularity of the task I have undertaken; but though I expect ridicule and censure, I cannot fear them. A few years hence, the opinion of the world will be a matter in which I have not even the most transient interest; but this book will be abroad on its mission of humanity long after the hand that wrote it is mingling with the dust. Should it be the means of advancing, even one single hour, the inevitable progress of truth and justice, I would not exchange the consciousness for all Rothschild's wealth, or Sir Walter's fame."

These words have in them a genuine ring; and the book is really worthy of them. In looking over its pages, after the lapse of thirty years, it seems incredible that it should have drawn upon her such hostility. The tone is calm and strong, the treatment systematic, the points well put, the statements well guarded. The successive chapters treat of the history of slavery, its comparative aspect in different ages and na

tions, its influence on politics, the profitableness of emancipation, the evils of the colonization scheme, the intellect of negroes, their morals, the feeling against them, and the duties of the community in their behalf. As it was the first anti-slavery work ever printed in America in book form, so I have always thought it the ablest; that is, it covered the whole ground better than any other. I know that, on reading it for the first time, nearly ten years after its first appearance, it had more formative influence on my mind, in that direction, than any other, although of course the eloquence of public meetings was a more exciting stimulus. It never surprised me to hear that even Dr. Channing attributed a part of his own anti-slavery awakening to this admirable book. He took pains to seek out its author immediately on its appearance, and there is in his biography an interesting account of the meeting. His own work on slavery did not appear until 1835.

Undaunted and perhaps stimulated by opposition, Mrs. Child followed up her self-appointed task. During the next year she published the "Oasis," a sort of anti-slavery annual, the precursor of Mrs. Chapman's "Liberty Bell," of later years. She also published, about this time, an "Anti-slavery Catechism," and a small book called "Authentic Anecdotes of American Slavery." These I have never seen, but find them advertised on the cover of a third pamphlet, which, with them, went to a second edition in 1839. "The Evils of Slavery and the Cure of Slavery; the first proved by the opinions of Southerners themselves, the last shown by historical evidence." This is a compact and sensible little work.

While thus seemingly absorbed in reformatory work she still kept an outlet in the direction of pure literature, and was employed for several years on her "Philothea," which appeared in 1833. The scene of this novel was laid in ancient Greece. It appeared with her name on the title-page, was inscribed to her brother, and the copyright was taken out