More Goops and How Not to Be Them: A Manuel of Manners for Impolite Infants Depicting the Characteristics of Many Naughty and Thoughtless Children with Instructive Illustrations

Ever since the "Cautionary Verses" of the early eighteenth century the attempt to get doses of ethics into as palatable form as possible has been a favorite experiment with writers for children. The adjuvant lesson has been concealed in fiction, fright and fun. By far the most successful essay was that made in " Struwwelpeter " by Dr. Hoffmann, whose classic rimes are now in their 251st edition. Next, perhaps, in point of interest comes Boutet de Monvel's "Civilite puerile et Honnete." There seems to be an especial charm in those children's books which are illustrated by the author himself. Edward Lear's " Nonsense Book" and Rudyard Kipling's "Just-So Stories" are cases where the interest is divided almost equally between the writing and the pictures. There is a certain guaranty of good faith and sincerity in this dual method, and an intimacy which adds much to its popularity. It brings the author nearer to the reader, somehow; it is almost as if his voice were heard as one looked over his shoulder. In More Goops, however, the pictures are more original than the verses. The author has tried for great simplicity and directness, a contrast to his former method, which made a " special appeal," and the result has been that his rimes are bald. He has missed a chance to make a classic, for, with an inevitability about his Goops that seems convincing, he has failed to describe them in verses whimsical and fanciful enough to stick in the memory and stimulate the imagination. They are mere didactic rimes, not quite catchy enough to tantalize and capture. The idea of the book-that of tuneful verses embodying lessons in juvenile etiquet-ought to have been more carefully studied. The children themselves may not notice the lack, but parents, aunts and uncles who look over their shoulder will miss the "secondary sensation" that Mr. Burgess has sometimes succeeded in getting into his work. The illustrations are not only original in drawing, but in technique. Mr. Burgess's only knowledge of form has come through the repeated attempts he has made to illustrate, and the result is a queer example of the influence of the restraint influenced by a lack of knowledge. His work is in pure line, with never the least attempt at shading, no matter how great the temptation. The result is that, to make up for verisimilitude in light and shade, and roundness, he has infused a certain appearance of life into his more successful drawings, by a certain virility of "trait," and more especially by a definite effect of motion in the arrangement of his curves. His work is not so naif as when he drew grotesques for the "Lark," but it has a subtle harmony -- what the Japanese would call the "notan of line," which, with a recklessness of abandon, makes his drawings "different." Indeed, it would be hard to characterize them. They are too out of drawing, too highly conventionalized, to be either grotesques or caricatures. Perhaps the Elizabethan term "gargarisms" best describes them. This applies, however, only to the lay figures who pose as parents in his domestic scenes. His Goops are absolutely true to themselves, and organized according to law, not to be changed now by him or anybody else. They are things which have come to be and must exist sui generis -- circular heads, tangential shoulders, noseless, earless, hairless faces and all. --The Independent, Volume 57