THE HISTORY OF TOM LONG the Carrier
Reading edition
Printed and Sold in Aldermary Church Yard Bow Lane
Although the address "To the Reader" says—
"Of all the Toms that ever yet was nam'd, Was ever Tom like Tom Long fam'd, Tom Tram, who mad pranks shews, Unto Tom Long, will prove a Goose. Tom Thumb is dumb until the pudding creep, In which he was entomb'd, then out doth peep. The fool may go to school, but ne'er be taught, Such rare conceits with which Tom Long is fraught. Tom Ass but for his ugly ears, might pass, Since no such jewels as our Tom he wears. Tom Tell Truth is but froth, the truth to tell, From all the Toms, Tom Long doth bear the bell,"
yet the Chap-book is very dreary fun, not even being enlivened by any good illustrations—those supplied belonging to other books—but it is valuable for its frontispiece, which represents a Chapman of Elizabethan or Jacobean time, a veritable Autolycus. The other edition in the British Museum, "Printed and Sold at Sympson's Warehouse in Stone Cutter Street, Fleet Market," has a bad copy of this engraving.