Category Archives: Cotsen Curatorial

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

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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…

Take Your Choice:  Mezzotints of Naughty and Nice Girls after Thomas Spence Duché

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A favorite subject in the  eighteenth-century was the parallel lives of a pair of boys whose lives diverged after childhood and went in radically different directions.   Probably the most famous one was William Hogarth’s Industry and Idleness (1747), a narrative in twelve engravings about two apprentices, one who rose to be Lord Mayor of London, the other hung as a murderer.

Because girls do not figure so often in stories of this kind (leading much more circumscribed lives than boys), Cotsen was delighted to acquire a pair of mezzotints contrasting the exemplary behavior of an industrious and an idle girl after Thomas Spence Duché, a pupil of Benjamin West who moved from Philadelphia to London during the American Revolution.   They were published by the London printseller Benjamin Beale Evans.

Thomas Lovegood (an imaginary name if there ever were one), dedicates the first engraving “To all sweet tempered industrious & obedient children.”  A perfect example of such a girl is shown seated to the right of a table, holding open the crisp pages of the writing book to show her beautiful copies of round hand italic capitals.  Tight blonde ringlets frame her sweet, 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 will make beauty to bloom, and as we all know, all things come to a fine-looking girl with agreeable manners.

Badness, on the other hand, is always supposed to put on an unattractive face, so Mr. Lovechild has dedicated the second print “To all pouting lazy illtempered lying & disobedient children.”   This little miss certainly embodies all those disagreeable traits.  The wretched girl wears the same dress as the other one but sits in an ungainly and immodest pose, skirt rumpled, knees akimbo. Her book, open to the pictures, has the tell-tale sign of neglect, folded and creased pages.  Next to the book is a switch, which has probably been applied to her bottom The engraver is one Henry Birch, which Richard Earlom used as a pseudonym, but context suggests was a joke.  She stares out of the picture at the viewer while one hand plays with the tousled, messy hair on her temple.  “Who would be NAUGHTY to look so ugly?”  asks the title. Around her neck is a string threaded through a leather strip reading “Lyar.”  She is crowned with a dunce’s cap.  She ought to look ashamed for being publicly humiliated this way, but she doesn’t look particularly sorry for whatever it was she did to deserve this punishment.

Miss Sulky is not wearing the tall cone made of paper associated with schoolroom shaming of pupil or master.  Hers is a truly magnificent specimen, modelled on the cap and bells traditionally worn by Folly on the left of the cut below. (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?