The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain and Other Tales   By: Hannah More (1745-1833)

BY HANNAH MORE.

NEW YORK: DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU STREET. 1859.

STEREOTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH, 82 & 84 Beckman Street.

PRINTED BY GEO. RUSSELL & CO. Beckman St.

CONTENTS

PAGE Tales for the Common People.

The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain 7

The Two Shoemakers 41

The History of Tom White, the Post Boy 119

The Sunday School 152

The History of Hester Wilmot, being the sequel to the Sunday School 166

The History of Betty Brown, the St. Giles's Orange Girl; with some account of Mrs. Sponge, the Money Lender 191

Black Giles the Poacher; containing some account of a family who had rather live by their wits than their work 204

Tawney Rachel, or the Fortune Teller; with some account of Dreams, Omens, and Conjurers 230

Stories for Persons of Middle Rank.

The History of Mr. Fantom (the new fashioned Philosopher), and his man William 245

The Two Wealthy Farmers; or the History of Mr. Bragwell 276

'Tis all for the best 387

A Cure for Melancholy 405

Allegories.

The Pilgrims 423

The Valley of Tears 437

The Strait Gate and the Broad Way 444

Parley the Porter 456

The Grand Assizes; or General Jail Delivery 470

The Servant Man turned Soldier, or the Fair weather Christian 479

TALES

FOR THE COMMON PEOPLE.

"Religion is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue." Burke on the French Revolution.

ADVERTISEMENT.

To improve the habits, and raise the principles of the common people, at a time when their dangers and temptations, moral and political, were multiplied beyond the example of any former period, was the motive which impelled the author of these volumes to devise and prosecute the institution of the "Cheap Repository." This plan was established with an humble wish not only to counteract vice and profligacy on the one hand, but error, discontent, and false religion on the other. And as an appetite for reading had, from a variety of causes, been increased among the inferior ranks in this country, it was judged expedient, at this critical period, to supply such wholesome aliment as might give a new direction to their taste, and abate their relish for those corrupt and inflammatory publications which the consequences of the French Revolution have been so fatally pouring in upon us.

The success of the plan exceeded the most sanguine expectations of its projector. Above two millions of the tracts were sold within the first year, besides very large numbers in Ireland; and they continue to be very extensively circulated, in their original form of single tracts, as well as in three bound volumes.

As these stories, though principally , are not calculated exclusively for the middle and lower classes of society, the author has, at the desire of her friends, selected those which were written by herself, and presented them to the public in this collection of her works, in an enlarged and improved form.

THE

SHEPHERD OF SALISBURY PLAIN.