"There was a little man and he had a little gun" _Frontispiece_
Little Boy Blue 36
The Black Sheep 58
Old King Cole 68
The Wond'rous Wise Man 92
Jack Horner 102
The Man in the Moon 112
Little Bo-Peep 156
Tommy Tucker 166
Tom, the Piper's Son 200
Humpty Dumpty 212
Three Wise Men of Gotham 248
Introduction.
NONE of us, whether children or adults, needs an introduction to Mother
Goose. Those things which are earliest impressed upon our minds cling
to them the most tenaciously. The snatches sung in the nursery are
never forgotten, nor are they ever recalled without bringing back with
them myriads of slumbering feelings and half-forgotten images.
We hear the sweet, low voice of the mother, singing soft lullabies
to her darling, and see the kindly, wrinkled face of the grandmother
as she croons the old ditties to quiet our restless spirits. One
generation is linked to another by the everlasting spirit of song; the
ballads of the nursery follow us from childhood to old age, and they
are readily brought from memory's recesses at any time to amuse our
children or our grandchildren.
The collection of jingles we know and love as the "Melodies of Mother
Goose" are evidently drawn from a variety of sources. While they are,
taken altogether, a happy union of rhyme, wit, pathos, satire and
sentiment, the research after the author of each individual verse
would indeed be hopeless. It would be folly to suppose them all the
composition of uneducated old nurses, for many of them contain much
reflection, wit and melody. It is said that Shelley wrote "Pussy-Cat
Mew," and Dean Swift "Little Bo-Peep," and these assertions are as
difficult to disprove as to prove. Some of the older verses, however,
are doubtless offshoots from ancient Folk Lore songs, and have
descended to us through many centuries.
The connection of Mother Goose with the rhymes which bear her name is
difficult to determine, and, in fact, three countries claim her for
their own: France, England and America.
About the year 1650 there appeared in circulation in London a small
book, named "Rhymes of the Nursery; or Lulla-Byes for Children," which
contained many of the identical pieces that have been handed down to
us; but the name of Mother Goose was evidently not then known. In this
edition were the rhymes of "Little Jack Horner," "Old King Cole,"
"Mistress Mary," "Sing a Song o' Sixpence," and "Little Boy Blue."
In 1697 Charles Perrault published in France a book of children's tales
entitled "Contes de ma Mére Oye," and this is really the first time we
find authentic record of the use of the name of Mother Goose, although
Perrault's tales differ materially from those we now know under this
title. They comprised "The Sleeping Beauty," "The Fairy," "Little Red
Riding-Hood," "Blue Beard," "Puss in Boots," "Riquet with the Tuft,"
"Cinderella," and "Little Thumb;" eight stories in all. On the cover
of the book was depicted an old lady holding in her hand a distaff and
surrounded by a group of children listening eagerly. Mr. Andrew Lang
has edited a beautiful English edition of this work (Oxford, 1888).
America bases her claim to Mother Goose upon the following statement,
made by the late John Fleet Eliot, a descendant of Thomas Fleet, the
printer:
At the beginning of the eighteenth century there lived in Boston a
lady named Eliza Goose (written also Vergoose and Vertigoose) who
belonged to a wealthy family. Her eldest daughter, Elizabeth Goose
(or Vertigoose), was married by Rev. Cotton Mather in 1715 to an
enterprising and industrious printer named Thomas Fleet, and in
due time gave birth to a son. Like most mothers-in-law in our day,
the importance of Mrs. Goose increased with the appearance of her
grandchild, and poor Mr. Fleet, half distracted with her endless
nursery ditties, finding all other means fail, tried what ridicule
could effect, and actually printed a book under the title "Songs of the
Nursery; or, Mother Goose's Melodies for Children." On the title page
was the picture of a goose with a very long neck and a mouth wide open,
and below this, "Printed by T. Fleet, at his Printing House in Pudding
Lane, 1719. Price, two coppers."
Mr. Wm. A. Wheeler, the editor of Hurd & Houghton's elaborate edition
of Mother Goose, (1870), reiterated this assertion, and a writer in
the Boston Transcript of June 17, 1864, says: "Fleet's book was partly
a reprint of an English collection of songs, (Barclay's), and the new
title was doubtless a compliment by the printer to his mother-in-law
Goose for her contributions. She was the mother of sixteen children and
a typical 'Old Woman who lived in a Shoe.'"
We may take it to be true that Fleet's wife was of the Vergoose family,
and that the name was often contracted to Goose. But the rest of the
story is unsupported by any evidence whatever. In fact, all that Mr.
Eliot knew of it was the statement of the late Edward A. Crowninshield,
of Boston, that he had seen Fleet's edition in the library of the
American Antiquarian Society. Repeated researches at Worcester having
failed to bring to light this supposed copy, and no record of it
appearing on any catalogue there, we may dismiss the entire story with
the supposition that Mr. Eliot misunderstood the remarks made to him.
Indeed, as Mr. William H. Whitmore points out in his clever monograph
upon Mother Goose (Albany, 1889), it is very doubtful whether in 1719
a Boston printer would have been allowed to publish such "trivial"
rhymes. "Boston children at that date," says Mr. Whitmore, "were fed
upon Gospel food, and it seems extremely improbable that an edition
could have been sold."
Singularly enough, England's claim to the venerable old lady is of
about the same date as Boston's. There lived in a town in Sussex, about
the year 1704, an old woman named Martha Gooch. She was a capital
nurse, and in great demand to care for newly-born babies; therefore,
through long years of service as nurse, she came to be called Mother
Gooch. This good woman had one peculiarity: she was accustomed to croon
queer rhymes and jingles over the cradles of her charges, and these
rhymes "seemed so senseless and silly to the people who overheard them"
that they began to call her "Mother Goose," in derision, the term being
derived from Queen Goosefoot, the mother of Charlemagne. The old nurse
paid no attention to her critics, but continued to sing her rhymes as
before; for, however much grown people might laugh at her, the children
seemed to enjoy them very much, and not one of them was too peevish
to be quieted and soothed by her verses. At one time Mistress Gooch
was nursing a child of Mr. Ronald Barclay, a physician residing in the
town, and he noticed the rhymes she sang and became interested in them.
In time he wrote them all down and made a book of them, which it is
said was printed by John Worthington & Son in the Strand, London, in
1712, under the name of "Ye Melodious Rhymes of Mother Goose." But even
this story of Martha Gooch is based upon very meager and unsatisfactory
evidence.
The earliest English edition of Mother Goose's Melodies that is
absolutely authentic was issued by John Newbury of London about the
year 1760, and the first authentic American edition was a reprint of
Newbury's made by Isaiah Thomas of Worcester, Mass., in 1785.
None of the earlier editions, however, contained all the rhymes so well
known at the present day, since every decade has added its quota to
the mass of jingles attributed to "Mother Goose." Some of the earlier
verses have become entirely obsolete, and it is well they have, for
many were crude and silly and others were coarse. It is simply a result
of the greater refinement of modern civilization that they have been
relegated to oblivion, while the real gems of the collection will
doubtless live and grow in popular favor for many ages.
While I have taken some pains to record the various claims to the
origin of Mother Goose, it does not matter in the least whether she was
in reality a myth, or a living Eliza Goose, Martha Gooch or the "Mére
Oye" of Perrault. The songs that cluster around her name are what we
love, and each individual verse appeals more to the childish mind than
does Mother Goose herself.
Many of these nursery rhymes are complete tales in themselves, telling
their story tersely but completely; there are others which are but
bare suggestions, leaving the imagination to weave in the details of
the story. Perhaps therein may lie part of their charm, but however
that may be I have thought the children might like the stories told
at greater length, that they may dwell the longer upon their favorite
heroes and heroines.
For that reason I have written this book.
In making the stories I have followed mainly the suggestions of the
rhymes, and my hope is that the little ones will like them, and not
find that they interfere with the fanciful creations of their own
imaginations.