People invented methods of keeping commonplace books and gave rules and instructions in commonplacing. I have seen several commonplace books, made by children of colonial times; pathetic memorials, in every case, of children who died in early youth. Tender and loving hearts have saved those little unfinished records of childish reading, after the way of mothers and fathers till the present day, whose grieved affections cannot bear the thought even of reverent destruction of the irregular writing of a dearly loved child whose hands are folded in death. One of these books with scantily filled pages was tied with a number of note-books of an old New England minister, and in the father's handwriting on the first leaf were these words:-- "Fifty years ago died my little John. A child of promise. Alas! alas! January 10th, 1805." [Illustration: Page from Diary of Anna Green Winslow] The matter read by those children is clearly indicated by their commonplace books. One entry shows evidence of light reading. It is of riddles which are headed "Guesses"; they are the ones familiar to us all in _Mother Goose's Melodies_ to-day. The answers are written in a most transparent juvenile shorthand. Thus the answer, "Well," is indicated by the figures 23, 5, 12, 12, referring to the position of the letters in the alphabet. The usual entries are of a religious character; extracts from sermons, answers from the catechism, verses of hymns, accompany stilted religious aspirations and appeals. In them a painful familiarity with and partiality for quotations bearing on hell and the devil show the religious teaching of the times. CHAPTER IX CHILDISH PRECOCITY _Where babies, much to their surprise, Were born astonishingly wise; With every Science on their lips, And Latin at their finger-tips._ --_Bab Ballads. W. S. Gilbert, 1877._ The seventeenth century was in Europe a period of eager development and hasty harvesting; English boys were made serious-minded by the conditions they saw around them, as well as by a forcing-house system of education, begun at very early years. This early ageing is reflected in the writings of the times. The _Religio Medici_, apparently the composition of a man of the large experience and serene contemplation of extreme age, was written by Sir Thomas Browne when he was but thirty. [Illustration: Samuel Torrey, Twelve Years Old, 1770] There are many records of the precocity of children, preserved for us many times, alas! through the sad recounting of early deaths. One of the most pathetic records of a father's blasted hopes may be found in the pages of the diary of John Evelyn. In December, 1658, died his little son, Richard, five years and three days old. He was a prodigy of wit and learning, as beautiful as an angel, and of rare mental endowment. His father's account of his acquirements runs thus:--