I forgot to mention that I shall have a dedication; I am going to dedicate 'em to Cummy; it will please her, and lighten a little my burthen of ingratitude. A low affair is the Muse business. I will add no more to this lest you should want to communicate with the artist; try another sheet. I wonder how many I'll keep wandering to. O I forgot. As for the title, I think "Nursery Verses" the best. Poetry is not the strong point of the text, and I shrink from any title that might seem to claim that quality; otherwise we might have "Nursery Muses" or "New Songs of Innocence" (but that were a blasphemy), or "Rimes of Innocence": the last not bad, or--an idea--"The Jews' Harp," or--now I have it--"The Penny Whistle." THE PENNY WHISTLE NURSERY VERSES BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ILLUSTRATED BY ---- ---- ---- And here we have an excellent frontispiece, of a party playing on a P. W. to a little ring of dancing children. THE PENNY WHISTLE is the name for me. Fool! this is all wrong, here is the true name:-- PENNY WHISTLES FOR SMALL WHISTLERS. The second title is queried, it is perhaps better, as simply PENNY WHISTLES. Nor you, O Penny Whistler, grudge That I your instrument debase: By worse performers still we judge, And give that fife a second place! Crossed penny whistles on the cover, or else a sheaf of 'em. SUGGESTIONS IV. The procession--the child running behind it. The procession tailing off through the gates of a cloudy city. IX. _Foreign Lands._--This will, I think, want two plates--the child climbing, his first glimpse over the garden wall, with what he sees--the tree shooting higher and higher like the beanstalk, and the view widening. The river slipping in. The road arriving in Fairyland. X. _Windy Nights._--The child in bed listening--the horseman galloping. XII. The child helplessly watching his ship--then he gets smaller, and the doll joyfully comes alive--the pair landing on the island--the ship's deck with the doll steering and the child firing the penny cannon. Query two plates? The doll should never come properly alive. XV. Building of the ship--storing her--Navigation--Tom's accident, the other child paying no attention. XXXI. _The Wind._--I sent you my notion of already. XXXVII. _Foreign Children._--The foreign types dancing in a jing-a-ring, with the English child pushing in the middle. The foreign children looking at and showing each other marvels. The English child at the leeside of a roast of beef. The English child sitting thinking with his picture-books all round him, and the jing-a-ring of the foreign children in miniature dancing over the picture-books. XXXIX. Dear artist, can you do me that? XLII. The child being started off--the bed sailing, curtains and all, upon the sea--the child waking and finding himself at home; the corner of toilette might be worked in to look like the pier.