[aelefson]

Hi-

I purchased a copy of the Village Green or Sports of Youth chapbook from the 1840s a few months ago. I got it for the small woodcut of kids playing with a bat and ball (see bgar's post a few threads down for the image from his copy). It has an inscription inside. Can anyone make it out? It looks like it might be from the author, but in John Thorn's article titled A Place Level Enough to Play there is a footnote stating the verse for the baseball scene came from a poem by Anne Gilbert 30+ years earlier.

Does anyone know if all of the poems came from Anne's book? Does anyone know the author of the Babcock chapbook? Can anyone make out the inscription? Here is what I could come up with.

(?) Julia
(?) (?) excerpt(?) from the author(?) -(?) and(?) you
(?) friend(?)
Elijah(?) (?)
(?) (?) (?) (?)
(?) Long(?) fellow(?)
(?)

I scanned the inscription at 300 dpm but please let me know if you think there is a better way to make it more legible. I am happy to have the chapbook even without the inscription but I figured I would check just to make sure it wasn't the author's writing.

Alan