"
Dialogue was the usual method of instruction employed by Miss Edgeworth
and her followers. In "Garden Amusements" the conversation was
interrupted by a note criticising a quotation from Milton as savoring
too much of poetic license. Cowper also gained the anonymous critic's
disapproval, although it was his point of view and not his style that
came under censure.
In still another series of stories often reprinted from London editions
were those moral tales with the sub-title "Cautionary Stories in Verse."
Mr. William James used these "Cautionary Verses for Children" as an
example of the manner in which "the muse of evangelical protestantism in
England, with the mind fixed on the ideas of danger, had at last drifted
away from the original gospel of freedom." "Chronic anxiety," Mr. James
continued, "marked the earlier part of this [nineteenth] century in
evangelical circles." A little salmon-colored volume, "The Daisy," is a
good example of this series. Each rhyme is a warning or an admonition; a
chronic fear that a child might be naughty.
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