Mrs. Collyer's _Christmas Box_ is another instance of pioneer work. Its full descriptive title is _A Christmas Box, Consisting of Moral Stories, adapted to the Capacities of Little Children and calculated to give them early impressions of Piety and Virtue. Two volumes. Adorned with cuts._ The _Christmas Box_ and Miss Fielding's _Little Female Academy_ appeared in 1749, five years after Newbery's first child's book, _The Little Pretty Pocket Book_, of 1744. In 1745 he brought out three volumes of _The Circles of the Sciences_, and in 1751-52 _The Lilliputian Magazine_. Thus a new class of literature was definitely started, with Mrs. Collyer and Miss Fielding as important contributors to the spread of the idea at its inception.[349] Two of Mrs. Collyer's novels are translations from the French, and are of slight importance in comparison with her one original novel the full title of which is _Felicia to Charlotte: Being Letters from a Young Lady in the Country, to her Friend in Town. Containing A Series of the most interesting Events, interspersed with Moral Reflections; chiefly tending to prove that the Seeds of Virtue are implanted in the Mind of Every Reasonable Being._ Volume one appeared in 1744 and a second volume in 1749. Miss Hughes in her analysis of this novel[350] points out various elements that forecast ideas not dominant till some decades later. It was a novel of purpose, written for ethical and religious ends, and as such antedates _John Buncle_ by twelve years. It is also a novel of feeling. Its hero, Lucius, must wait for Sterne before he can find his true kin. The courtship of Lucius is punctuated with sighs and tears, with the overwrought emotions of a sensitive heart. Steele's _Conscious Lovers_ offers an early sentimental parallel, but the type was not fully developed till in the seventies. The first volume ends with the marriage of Felicia and Lucius. In the second volume the happy pair, now quite sane and sensible, are able to discuss with fluency and precision their ideas on the nurture and education of children. This volume was thus a pedagogic romance of the sort that became popular after Rousseau. The most interesting of all the new ideas brought forward by Felicia and Lucius is their love of nature and of country life. They choose the country as a place of residence and justify their choice on rational grounds. And Mrs. Collyer has a surprising fullness and ardor of description, and a sincere joy in nature not equaled in fiction before _John Buncle_ (1756-66), and she is a decade earlier.[351] It was only in poetry or in philosophical theory that Mrs. Collyer could have found sources for her literary use of nature. Spenser, Milton, and Thomson were well known to her and they doubtless influenced her.