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Updated: August 17, 2024
Not only court chroniclers but pamphleteers, even troubadours and players, have contributed much to the records of the life of mediæval France. All history was not made by political intrigue or presumption; a good deal of it was born of the gentler passions, and a chap-book maker would put often into print many accounts which the recorder of mere history did not dare use.
Doubtless some data concerning his death and the destruction of his schooner might be gathered from the report of Lieutenant Mainwaring, now filed in the archives of the Navy Department, out beyond such bald and bloodless narrative the author knows of nothing, unless it be the little chap-book history published by Isaiah Thomas in Newburyport about the year 1821-22, entitled, "A True History of the Life and Death of Captain Jack Scarfield."
Chap-book of the Raid of Cassilis. The door is open to the wall, The air is bright and free; Adown the stair, across the hall, And then-the world and me; The bare grey bent, the running stream, The fire beside the shore; And we will bid the hearth farewell, And never seek it more, My love, And never seek it more.
The Newburyport chap-book, of which I have already spoken, speaks only of how the pirate disguised himself upon the ocean as a Quaker trader. Nor is it likely that anyone ever identified Eleazer Cooper with the pirate, for only Mainwaring of all the crew of the Yankee was exactly aware of the true identity of Captain Scarfield.
Even had Fielding never written his masterpiece, Jonathan Wild would still have been surnamed 'The Great. For scarce a chap-book appeared in the year of Jonathan's death that did not expose the only right and true view of his character.
Next day he went with one Tom Goff To reap as he was seen, When he did cut his fingers off, The sickle was so keen! Another of the chap-book histories of noodles is that of Simple John and his Twelve Misfortunes, an imitation of Simple Simon; it was still popular amongst the rustics of Scotland fifty years ago.
He had a high sense of romance, and a secret cultus for all soldiers and criminals. His travelling library consisted of a chap-book life of Wallace and some sixpenny parts of the 'Old Bailey Sessions Papers' by Gurney the shorthand writer; and the choice depicts his character to a hair. You can imagine how his new prospects brightened on a boy of this disposition.
So now for the story of my great discovery. As our friend Bell would scarce let his dusty broadsheet lumber out of his hands, I was turning to leave him in no very good humour, when I noticed a small and rather long octavo, in dirty and crumpled vellum, lying on the top of a heap of rubbish, Boston's "Crook in the Lot," "The Pilgrim's Progress," and other chap-book trumpery.
Thackeray, with no better guide than a chap-book, was minded to belittle him, now habiting him like a scullion, now sending him forth on some petty errand of cly-faking.
From where I sprawled upon a bed of borrowed cushions in the room, reading a chap-book I had lately purchased The Rare Things of Abu Nawwâs I saw the colour and the movement of that street as at the far end of a dark kaleidoscope, for all the space between was in deep shadow. When a man turned up our alley a most rare occurrence I noticed his appearance. It was rather strange.
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