The word doll was not found in common use in our language until the middle of the eighteenth century. Its first appearance so far as I can discover, was according to an English writer in the B. E. Dictionary, in 1700. Later it was found in the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1751, where it is recorded that several dolls with different dresses, made in St. James Street, have been sent to the Czarina to show the manner of dressing at present in fashion among English ladies.
M. d'Allemange, in his ''Historic des Jouets," tells us that long before Caesar astonished the world with his victories, Roman children played with dolls which had the jointed bodies and the classic heads we are wont to see on the statues in the museums and which look very queer to the child of the twentieth century; but they only show that then, as now, the doll was the expression of the people.
An ancient writer declares that doll is a corruption of dole, Saxon dol - a share distributed - and cites as evidence of the truth of his statement the fact that a lady of Duxfurd left a sum of money to be given away annually in the parish - to be called Doll-money; but the writer is mistaken; it is dole-money.
An ecclesiastical writer says that the origin of the doll and its name may be more than guessed a from the sermons of Roger Edgeworth, one of the first three prebendaries of the outrages of the Reformation. He says that the images were take from the churches and given to the children a pretty idols or dolls, but this statement has been successfully controverted.
A writer in Notes and Queries says that nearly thousand years ago the old name for maid-servar was "doul," which used also to mean "a doll, "danice," "duckie," and he thinks doll may be corruption of this word. Dryden translates 'pu'pa in "Perseus" into baby-toys and in a note says that those baby-toys were little babies or ''puppets, whence says Richardson, it seems that the name of doll was not in general use at that time. Another other writer in a vague way says: "Centuries ago when saint's names were much in vogue for children, St. Dorothea was the most popular and he name the best and luckiest that could be given to a little girl. The nickname was Dolly or Doll, and from giving babies the nickname, it was an easy step to pass it on to the little images of which they were so fond."
The following is the French version of the origin of the word poupee, the common name for doll. Pursello Grivaldi, a clever Italian, conceived the idea, or perhaps carried out one he had received from the Orient, of making wax figures and dressing them in the costumes of emperors, empresses and other famous folk.
He arranged sixty or seventy of these and carried them to Paris, where he advertised them as a show of puppets - or a puppet play. It was something new and all Paris flocked to see the novelty. Queen Isabella, consort of poor mad King Charles VI., saw at once that the exhibition would please her distraught husband, and bade the Italian bring the puppets to Court where they became very popular with the courtiers.
Curiously enough the King took a great fancy to one representing Poppsea, the beautiful but wicked consort of Nero, and he persisted in having her erratic career and tragic death rehearsed to him until he became familiar with it and insisted upon keeping the wax Poppsea.
The fad for the figures waned when Charles died, and the whole collection was turned over to the children, who have since had a monopoly on them.
This writer claims that the French poupee and the German puppe are different forms of the word Poppaea, but he has hardly gone far enough back in his researches, for the Latin word for doll is "pupa, a girl, damsel, a puppet or baby"; as the Latin dictionary puts it, "such as girls played with while little, and being grown gave to Venus."
A little observation will convince any one the dolls appeal to a very large portion of the general public; if not for themselves individually, for the children of their family or those of others. Dolls are universal gifts at Christmas and that small girl who does not receive one is poor indeed.
A few years ago there was published in the daily papers an appeal to mothers to send "ten-inc dolls to gladden the half-orphaned hearts" of the babies of New York asylums. The response was so generous that dolls came in a perfect avalanche which one of the reporters acknowledged in the following verses:
The charge then burst open the door;
And with mighty uproar,
Came flushing and pushing,
And rushing and crushing.
And courtesying and bending,
A train never ending.
Some gliding, some sliding,
Some hurrying, some scurrying,
Some dancing, some jumping,
Some thumping, some bumping;
Dolls from the south of us,
Dolls from the west of us,
Dolls from the east of us,
Swelling the throng."
"Some dolls could talk and some could walk.
While some were dressed as brides,.
With sable coats and Irish lace.
And diamond rings besides.
Some old-time plaster paris dolls.
And waxen dolls were there.
And china dolls like grandma used.
With painted china hair."
A well-known writer who regrets the passing of the old-fashioned doll with the disappearance of the old-fashioned child, gives vent to the following:
"A modern little girl not only does not make her doll's clothes, but she actually puts out her washing. She knows nothing of the delight of the doll's laundry day, with the drying lines stretched across the inside of the nursery fender, and the loan of the iron with which nurse gets up her caps. The modern little girl demands the services of a maid for her doll. How different the old-fashioned little girl. She slept with her doll. She shared her meals with dolly; she sat on her doll in order to keep her safe and have her handy, as Dickens describes the selfish old man at the seaside reading-room sitting on one popular newspaper while he reads another.
"The old-fashioned little girl and her gutta-percha doll were full of fun and - flexible, 'b-r-r-r-rumpety dumpety dump dump dump.'
"The doll of the modern little girl makes me heart sick. She looks at you with such shy blue eyes, eyes with sweeping lashes distractingly real, and such genuine hair. It has Marcel waves. And the face is so intellectual, so different from the happy expression of the good old gutta-percha doll. And yet dolls and soldiers and other things about a room may bring very sad memories."
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