The Reward of Merit (1801)

"The Reward of Merit; a new, moral, and entertaining game" A race game in the spirit of Game of Goose. The game board has 37 illustrated spaces, each of which is marked with a rhyming moral. Examples include: "A Gardener; Plant what is good, root out what's bad; Then You'll become a charming Lad", "a Dunce; Return great Dunce, with marks of Shame; Unto the Place from whence you came", and "a Puppy; You're pert to all, yet nothing know; Therefore pay one, sweet-scented Beau." At least one version of this game came in the form of a jigsaw puzzle, with the lithograph mounted on wooden pieces about 0.2 inches thick. The board was made up of 51 puzzle pieces, most of them representing a single space on the board, but with some pieces just filling in numbers on corners and others making up the centerpiece with the rules and final space. The completed puzzle board measured 18.25 inches by 15 inches.