Longer and more formal rhymes are found in the books of older owners. Occasionally a child's book had a valentine sentiment, or a riddle, or a drawing of hearts and darts; crude pictures of Indians and horses are many. I have seldom found verses from the Bible or religious sentiments written in childish hands. Whether this is the result of profound respect or of indifference I cannot tell. As a special example of book scribbling, one of historical interest is given, a page of the famous "White Bible," which contains the entry, much disputed of genealogical and historical societies, that John Howland married Governor Carver's "grand-darter." [Illustration: Page from "White" Bible] CHAPTER VIII DIARIES AND COMMONPLACE BOOKS _And such his judgment, so exact his text As what was best in bookes as what bookes best, That had he join'd those notes his labours tooke From each most praised and praise-deserving booke, And could the world of that choise treasure boast It need not care though all the rest were lost: And such his wit, he writ past what he quotes And his productions farre exceed his notes._ --_Eglogue on the Death of Ben Jonson,_ _Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland, 1637._ Grown folk had in colonial days a habit of keeping diaries and making notes in interleaved almanacs, but they are not of great value to the historian; for they are not what Wordsworth declared such compositions should be, namely, "abundant in observation and sparing of reflection." They are instead barren of accounts of happenings, and descriptions of surroundings, and are chiefly devoted to weather reports and moral and religious reflections, both original and in the form of sermon and lecture notes. The note-taking habit of Puritan women was held up by such detractors as Bishop Earle as one of their most contemptible traits. To-day we can simply deplore it as having been such a vain thing; for it is certainly true, no matter how deeply religious in feeling any one of the present day may be, that to the modern mind a long course of the pious sentiments and religious aspirations of others is desperately tiresome reading. Such records were not tiresome, however, to those of Puritan faith; there were but few old-time diaries which were not composed on those lines. The chief exception is that historical treasure-house, Judge Sewall's diary, which shows plainly, also, the deep religious feeling of its author. Another of more restricted interest, but of value, is that of Dr. Parkman, the Westborough minister. Governor Winthrop's _History_ has much of the diary element in it. Naturally, the diaries of children copied in quality and wording those of their elders. A unique exception in these youthful records is the journal of a year or two of the life of a Boston schoolgirl, Anna Green Winslow. Fortunately, little Anna's desire to report the sermons she had heard at the Old South