Category Archives: Cotsen Curatorial

For Eliza Doolittle:  Harry Hawkins’s H Book, a cure for “dropping aitches ev’rywhere”

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Harry Hawkins’s H Book. London: Griffith & Farran, 1857. (Cotsen)

When Harry burst in to tell His Aunt Hannah how well his Hen had settled into the new nest He made for her, Here is a transcript of what he said:

“O aunt anna, what do you think?  My en as had another egg, and so I’ve set er, and made er such a find nest you don’t know!  It’s all lined with ay and air, and I’ve put it in an at box in the en ouse.”

No kind Victorian aunt would have let Her nephew be thought “a pris’ner of the gutters,” so she tells Him very gently How improperly He speaks:

“How often Have I told you that you must try to pronounce your H’s and in one minute you Have left out six.  Hen, Has, Had, Hay, Hair and Hat.”  (she left out “House!”)

Harry Hangs his Head and wishes for a book full of H’s and his Helpful aunt sits down that evening to begin writing one that will Help Him Haspirate his aitches.

Aunt Hannah composed a long chapter about the Hawk and the Hare family in the High Hills known as Hawthorn Hollow, another on Holy H’s, that is names of places and people in the Bible that begin with H, and a third on Humprey Hobb’s Huge Hog.  After finishing the last one, Harry reports to His aunt that he is making great progress.  Oh dear, this is the transcript of what Harry said:

But Aunt Hannah knows that Rome was not built in a day and that she must persevere if Harry is to establish a new good Habit.  By the time he works his way through “Arthur Harper, or as He was often called, Handsome Harper, gamekeeper to Sir Herbert Hazlehough” and the sad History of His Highless the king of Heligoland and his Hairy Ape who froze to death on Christmas Night, and “The Three Valiant Brothers, ” wHo, wHose, and wHom,” he has conquered his bad Habit.

With continued daily application to the book Aunt Hannah wrote for him, by the time Harry turns eleven, he is ready for Hazleton Grammar School and learn “Hic, Haec, Hoc without any difficulty.

Harry was published by Griffith and Farran, successors to Newbery and Harris in St. Paul’s churchyard in 1857 and Cotsen just acquired a copy.  The venerable reference source of Halkett & Laing attributed it to Ellen Ann (Shove) Eccles, and the copies at the Osborne Collection and Cambridge University Library are also cataloged as her work.   A revised edition was issued in 1881, when there were 9,000 copies in circulation.

It is certainly among the most amusing little books ever written and designed to improve pronunciation!  Think of all the grief poor Eliza Doolittle might have been spared if someone had given her a copy…

A Naughty and Nice Girl in a Pair of Prints after Thomas Spence Duché

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Who Would be NAUGHTY to Look so Ugly… London: B.B.. Evans, 1790. (Cotsen)

Stories of a pair of boys whose lives took them in opposite directions were favorites in the 1700s.  Probably the most famous one was William Hogarth’s Industry and Idleness (1747), the tale of two apprentices, one who becomes Lord Mayor of London, the other a murder hung on the gallows, in twelve plates.

Because girls lead much less adventurous lives, they are rarely featured in stories of this kind. They are sometimes featured in prints like the pair Cotsen just acquired of an industrious and an idle girl after Thomas Spence Duché, a pupil of Philadelphia painter Benjamin West, who moved to London during the American Revolution.   Supposedly the work of Thomas Lovegood (an imaginary name if there ever were one), the mezzotints were published by the London print seller Benjamin Beale Evans.

The first engraving, which is dedicated “To all sweet tempered industrious & obedient children,” shows a example of a  perfect little girl.  She is seated to the right of a table, and holds open the crisp pages of the writing book to show her beautiful copies of round hand italic capitals.  Tight blonde ringlets frame her mild face and the sheer dress is arranged gracefully over her lap and modestly closed knees. The caption, “Who would not be GOOD to look so lovely?”  holds out the promise that exemplary behavior makes beauty bloom.

A neat, pretty girl with agreeable manners can reasonably expect good things to fall in her lap–but not a bad one whose ill-nature can be read in her face.  Mr. Lovechild dedicates the second print “To all pouting lazy illtempered lying & disobedient children.” Naughty girl by Duche This little miss wears the same dress as the other one but sits in an ungainly and immodest pose, skirt rumpled, knees akimbo. Around her neck is a string threaded through a leather strip which reads “Lyar.”  A girl who took her lessons seriously would not own a book with folded and creased pages because she would take good care of it.  Next to the book is a switch, which has surely been applied to her bottom as a punishment for laziness (“Henry Birch” is credited as the engraver, but it is a pseudonym used by Richard Earlom as a joke).  She stares out of the picture, too bored to anything except play with  her tousled, messy hair.  “Who would be NAUGHTY to look so ugly?”  asks the title. Open book with folded and creased pages

The naughty girl ought to look ashamed at having been crowned with a dunce’s cap, but there is no sign of remorse for whatever she did to deserve such a punishment. Miss Sulky is not wearing the ordinary tall paper cone associated with schoolroom humiliation handed out by the master.  Hers is a truly magnificent specimen, modelled on the cap and bells traditionally worn by Folly seen in the cut below to the left. Minerva is seated to the right, holding out a book to the boy, who has to chose between the two of them.I have no idea what the meaning of symbols above the label on which “Dunce” is printed might be.St. Nicholas’ Day has already flown past, but there’s still time to clean up your act before Christmas Eve.  Which little girl will you remember?  Whose example will you take to heart?