EARLY REFERENCES
Independently of these collections of nursery rhymes, many rhymes are
cited in general literature. This yields a further clue to their
currency at a given period. Thus Rimbault describes a book called
_Infant Institutes, part the first, or a Nurserical Essay on the Poetry
Lyric and Allegorical of the Earliest Ages_, 1797, perhaps by B. N.
Turner, the friend of Dr. Johnson, which was intended to ridicule the
Shakespeare commentators (_N. & Q._, 5, 3, 441). In the course of his
argument, the author cites a number of nursery rhymes.
Again, the poet Henry Carey, about the year 1720, ridiculed the odes
addressed to children by Ambrose Philips by likening these to a jumble
of nursery rhymes. In doing so he cited the rhymes, "Namby Pamby Jack a
Dandy," "London Bridge is broken down," "Liar Lickspit," "Jacky
Horner," "See-saw," and others, which nowadays are still included among
the ordinary stock of our rhymes.
Again, in the year 1671, John Eachard, the divine, illustrated his
argument by quoting the alphabet rhyme "A was an apple pie," as far as
"G got it."[9] Instances such as these do not, however, carry us back
farther than the seventeenth century.
[9] Eachard, _Observations, etc._, 1671, cited. Halliwell, _Popular
Rhymes_, 1849, p. 137.
Another clue to the date of certain rhymes is afforded by their mention
of historical persons, in a manner which shows that the rhyme in this
form was current at the time when the individual whom they mention was
prominently before the eyes of the public. Halliwell recorded from oral
tradition the following verse:--
Doctor Sacheverel
Did very well,
But Jacky Dawbin
Gave him a warning. (1849, p. 12.)
The verse refers to Dr. Sacheverel, the nonconformist minister who
preached violent sermons in St. Paul's, pointing at the Whig members as
false friends and real enemies of the Church. John Dolben (1662-1710)
called attention to them in the House of Commons, and they were declared
"malicious, scandalous, and seditious libels."
Again there is the rhyme:--
Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
Kitty Fisher found it,
But the devil a penny was there in it,
Except the binding round it. (1849, p. 48.)
This is said to preserve the names of two celebrated courtesans of the
reign of Charles II (1892, p. 330).
The first name in the following rhyme is that of a famous border hero
who was hanged between 1529 and 1530:--
Johnny Armstrong killed a calf;
Peter Henderson got half;
Willy Wilkinson got the head,--
Ring the bell, the calf is dead. (1890, p. 358.)
Among the pieces collected by Halliwell, and told in cumulative form,
one begins and ends with the following line, which recurs at the end of
every verse:--
John Ball shot them all.
Halliwell is of opinion that this may refer to the priest who took a
prominent part in the rebellion at the time of Richard II, and who was
hanged, drawn, and quartered in 1381.
But a historical name does not necessarily indicate the date of a rhyme.
For a popular name is sometimes substituted for one that has fallen into
contempt or obscurity. Moreover, a name may originally have indicated a
person other than the one with whom it has come to be associated.
A familiar nursery song printed in the collection of c. 1783, and extant
in several variants, is as follows:--
When good King Arthur rul'd the land,
He was a goodly king,
He stole three pecks of barley meal
To make a bag pudding.
A bag pudding the king did make
And stuff'd it well with plumbs,
And in it put great lumps of fat,
As big as my two thumbs.
The king and queen did eat thereof,
And noblemen beside,
And what they could not eat that night
The queen next morning fry'd. (_c._ 1783, p. 32.)
Mr. Chappell, as cited by Halliwell, considered that this version is
not the correct one, but the one which begins:--
King Stephen was a worthy king
As ancient bards do sing....
The same story related in one verse only, and in simpler form, connects
it with Queen Elizabeth, in a version recovered in Berkshire.
Our good Quane Bess, she maayde a pudden,
An stuffed un well o' plumes;
And in she put gurt dabs o' vat,
As big as my two thumbs. (1892, p. 289.)
On the face of it the last variant appears to be the oldest.
An interesting example of a change of name, and of the changing meaning
of a name, is afforded by the nursery song that is told of King Arthur,
and _mutatis mutandis_ of Old King Cole. The poem of King Arthur is as
follows:--
When Arthur first in Court began
To wear long hanging sleeves,
He entertained three serving men
And all of them were thieves.
The first he was an Irishman,
The second was a Scot,
The third he was a Welshman,
And all were knaves, I wot.
The Irishman loved usquebaugh,
The Scot loved ale called blue-cap.
The Welshman he loved toasted cheese,
And made his mouth like a mouse-trap.
Usquebaugh burnt the Irishman,
The Scot was drowned in ale,
The Welshman had liked to be choked by a mouse,
But he pulled it out by the tail.
In this form the piece is designated as a glee, and is printed in the
_New Lyric_ by Badcock of about 1720, which contains "the best songs now
in vogue."
In the nursery collection of Halliwell of 1842 there is a parallel piece
to this which stands as follows:--
Old King Cole was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he;
Old King Cole he sat in his hole,
And he called for his fiddlers three.
The first he was a miller,
The second he was a weaver,
The third he was a tailor,
And all were rogues together.
The miller he stole corn,
The weaver he stole yarn,
The little tailor stole broadcloth
To keep these three rogues warm.
The miller was drowned in his dam,
The weaver was hung in his loom,
The devil ran away with the little tailor
With the broadcloth under his arm. (1842, p. 3.)
Chappell printed the words of the song of Old King Cole in several
variations, and pointed out that _The Pleasant Historie of Thomas of
Reading, or the Six Worthie Yeomen of the West_ of 1632, contains the
legend of one Cole, a cloth-maker of Reading at the time of King Henry
I, and that the name "became proverbial owing to the popularity of this
book." "There was some joke or conventional meaning among Elizabethan
dramatists," he says, "when they gave the name of Old Cole, which it is
now difficult to recover." Dekker in the _Satiromatrix_ of 1602, and
Marston in _The Malcontent_ of 1604, applied the name to a woman. On the
other hand, Ben Jonson in _Bartholomew Fair_ gave the name of Old Cole
to the sculler in the puppet-play _Hero and Leander_ which he there
introduces.[10] In face of this information, what becomes of the
identity of the supposed king?
[10] Chappell, _Popular Music of the Olden Time_, 1893, p. 633.
On the other hand a long ancestry is now claimed for certain characters
of nursery fame who seemed to have no special claim to attention. The
following verse appears in most collections of rhymes, and judging from
the illustration which accompanies it in the toy-books, it refers
sometimes to a boy and a girl, sometimes to two boys.
Jack and Gill went up the hill
To fetch a bottle of water;
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Gill came tumbling after. (_c._ 1783, p. 51.)
[Later collections have _Jill_ and _pail_.]
This verse, as was first suggested by Baring-Gould,[11] preserves the
Scandinavian myth of the children Hjuki and Bill who were caught up by
Mani, the Moon, as they were taking water from the well Byrgir, and they
can be seen to this day in the moon carrying the bucket on the pole
between them.
[11] Baring-Gould, _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, 1866, p. 189.
Another rhyme cited by Halliwell from _The New Mad Tom o'Bedlam_
mentions Jack as being the Man in the Moon:--
The Man in the Moon drinks claret,
But he is a dull Jack-a-dandy;
Would he know a sheep's head from a carrot,
He should learn to drink cider or brandy. (1842, p. 33.)
According to North German belief, a man stands in the moon pouring water
out of a pail (K., p. 304), which agrees with expressions such as "the
moon holds water." In a Norse mnemonic verse which dates from before the
twelfth century, we read, "the pail is called Saeg, the pole is called
Simul, Bil and Hiuk carry them" (C. P., I, 78).
The view that Jack and Jill are mythological or heroic beings finds
corroboration in the expression "for Jak nor for Gille," which occurs in
the Townley Mysteries of about the year 1460.[12] By this declaration a
superhuman power is called in as witness. The same names are coupled
together also in an ancient divination rhyme used to decide in favour of
one of two courses of action. Two scraps of paper slightly moistened
were placed on the back of the hand, and the following invocation was
pronounced before and after breathing upon them to see which would fly
first. The sport was taught by Goldsmith to Miss Hawkins when a child,
as she related to Forster.[13]
[12] Cited _Murray's Dictionary_: Jack.
[13] Forster, J., _Life of Goldsmith_, II, p. 71.
There were two blackbirds sat upon a hill
The one was named Jack, the other named Jill.
Fly away Jack! Fly away Jill!
Come again Jack! Come again Jill! (1810, p. 45.)
The lines suggest the augur's action with regard to the flight of birds.
The same verse has been recited to me in the following variation:--
Peter and Paul sat on the wall,
Fly away Peter! Fly away Paul!
Come again Peter! Come again Paul!
In this case the names of Christian apostles have been substituted for
heathen names which, at the time when the _names_ were changed, may
still have carried a suggestion of profanity. The following rhyme on
Jack and Gill occurs in an early nursery collection:--
I won't be my father's Jack,
I won't be my mother's Gill,
I will be the fiddler's wife
And have music when I will.
T'other little tune, t'other little tune,
Pr'ythee, love, play me, t'other little tune. (_c._ 1783, p. 25.)