Certainly, many tried their hands at writing in the Taylors’ style. Elizabeth Turner
(1775–1846) wrote The Daisy (1807) subtitled ‘Or, Cautionary Stories in Verse...’. Here is
a characteristic example, from ‘The giddy girl who will go near the well’:
One morning, intending to take but a peep,
Her foot slipt away from the ground;
Unhappy misfortune! the water was deep,
And giddy Miss Helen was drown’d!Other successful examples from this period are Sarah Martin’s (1768–1826), The Comic
Adventures of Old Mother Hubbard and her Dog (1805), and the rather insipid Poetry for
Children (1809) by Charles Lamb (1775–1834) and Mary Lamb (1764–1847).
Dorothy Wordsworth (1771–1855), wrote poems for children which were only for
family consumption and were not published in her lifetime. They display an endearing
playfulness and homeliness, as this extract from her poem, ‘The cottager
to her infant’, makes clear:
The kitten sleeps upon the hearth,
The crickets long have ceased their mirth;
There’s nothing stirring in the house
Save one wee, hungry, nibbling mouse,
Then why so busy thou?Roger Lonsdale’s collection of eighteenth-century verse reveal that there were many
talented scribblers, often women, whose work never gained public attention (Lonsdale
1989). Dorothy Wordsworth is a prime example.
Mary Howitt (1799–1888) who translated Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales with
her husband, William, wrote dozens of books for children including Hymns and Fireside
Verses (1839), Tales in Verse for the Young (1836) and Sketches of Natural History (1834)
which contained the famous, ‘Will you come into my parlour, said the Spider to the Fly’.
Later, there was the jolly Aunt Effie, Jane Euphemia Browne (1811–1898), author of the
much-loved Aunt Effie’s Rhymes for Little Children (1852): Oh, where do you come from/
You little drops of rain/Pitter patter, pitter patter/Down the window pane? Elizabeth
Hart (1822–1888) was still writing in this genre in 1868: Poems written for a Child, was a
collaboration with her sister-in-law, Menella Bute Smedley (1820–1877).
Charlotte Smith (1749–1806), a fine poet by any standards, wrote Conversations
Introducing Poetry to Children Chiefly on the Subject of Natural History (1804), where a
mother and her son and daughter discuss poetry, natural history and manners. It is
hard going for the contemporary reader, but there are moments of sublime poetry, as
this extract from The Humble Bee shows:
Where poppies hang their heavy heads,
Or where the gorgeous sun-flower spreads
For you her luscious golden beds,TYPES AND GENRES 193