ABSTRACT
The first edition of White’s ‘Little Book for Little Children’ (1671?) was, sometime on its way to a twelfth edition (1702), expanded to include the following recitation of Herbert’s ‘morals’. The oddest invocation of the poet on record, it is a collection of doggerel verses that occasionally resort to Herbert – as in the oft-quoted opening verses (from ‘The Church-porch’, 11. 5–6) and again under ‘T’ (ibid., 11. 35–6) – but habitually provide the author’s own attempts at poetry. As early editions of White’s labours are not extant, the present text is reproduced from the edition of 1702. See also above, p. 12.
Source: White, ‘A Little Book for Little Children: Wherein are set down Several Directions for Little Children’, 12th edn (1702), pp. 91–3.
