Note 678 — Chapter V

Weems's orders for books are trustworthy first-hand information concerning the literary tastes of the American people at that time, and the extent of education among the wealthy. Writing from Savannah, Georgia, August, 1806, he asks for "Rippons hymns, Watts Dọ, Newton's Dọ, Methodist Dọ, Davies Sermons, Massillons Dọ, Villiage Dọ, Whitfields Dọ, Fuller [the eminent Baptist divine,] Works, viz. His Gospel its own evidence, Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation, Pilgrim's progress, Baxter's Stṣ Rest, Call to the Unconverted, Alarm, by Allein, Hervey's Works, Rushe's Medical Works; All manner of School Books, Novels by the cart load, particularly Charlotte Temple ... 2 or 300 of Charlotte Temple ... Tom Paines Political Works, Johnson's Poets bound in green or in any handsome garb, particularly Miltons Paradise lost, Tompsons Seasons, Young's N. Thoughts wou'd do well." (Weems to Wayne, Aug. 1806, Dreer MSS. loc. cit.)

Another order calls for all the above and also for "Websters Spell^g book, Universal D^ọ, Fullers Backslider, Booths reign of Grace, Looking Glass for the mind, Blossoms of Morality, Columbian Orator, Enticks Dictionary, Murrays Grammar, Enfield's Speaker, Best Books on Surveying, D^ọ on Navigation, Misses Magazine, Vicar of Wakefield, Robinson Crusoe, Divine Songs for Children, Pamela Small." In this letter forty-four different titles are called for.