It is in the guise of a great lumbering narrative--supposed to be true--into which are whipped a score or more of little stories, each one capped with a bouncing moral. Thus, there is an ill-natured boy going out for a day's scrimmage, and playing his tricks--on a poor girl, and a blind beggar, and a lame beggar, and a farmer, and a donkey. This goes on very well for awhile; but at last the tables are turned, and he gets bitten by the blind beggar, and beaten by the lame beggar, and thrashed by the farmer, and is thrown by the donkey, and a large dog seizes him by the leg; this latter is printed in capitals, and there is a picture of it. At last, in bed, and with watery eyes, the boy reflects--that "no one can long hurt others with impunity;" so he determined to "behave {273} better for the future." Is it any wonder that those who had access to such instructive tales a half a century ago should have grown up to be excellent men! This book of _Sandford and Merton_ was written by Thomas Day,[5] an eccentric rich man (the world of to-day would have called him a crank), who had a fine place near to Putney on the Thames, who sympathized strongly with Americans in Revolutionary times; who was also a disciple of Rousseau, and undertook to educate a young girl--two of them in fact, one being a foundling--so that he might have a wife of his own training, after the Rousseau standard; but the young persons did not train as he wished; so he found his mate otherwheres. Another comfit of a book for young people, but with fewer plums of romance in it, was _Evenings at Home_ by Dr. Aikin and Mrs. Barbauld. I am sure the very name must bring up tender memories to a great many; for it was a current book down to a time when respectable, and even mirth-loving {274} people, _did_ pass their evenings at home, and enjoyed doing so. The book commands even now, in some old-fashioned households, about the same sort of consecration which is given to an antique blue and white china tea-pot--not nearly so fine as the newer French ones--but which by the aid of a little imagination can be put to very pretty simmer of old times and tunes. [Sidenote: Mrs. Barbauld.]