Other collections of rhymes issued in America have been preserved which are reprints of earlier English collections. Among these is Tommy Thumb's Song Book for all Little Masters and Misses, by Nurse Lovechild, which is dated 1788, and was printed by Isaiah Thomas at Worcester, Mass. A copy is at the British Museum.
Isaiah Thomas was in direct connection with England, where he procured, in 1786, the first fount of music type that was carried to America. Among many toy-books of his that are reprints from English publications, he issued Mother Goose's Melody, Sonnets for the Cradle. A copy of this book which is designated as the third Worcester edition, bears the date 1799, and has been reprinted in facsimile by Whitmore. It was probably identical with the collection of rhymes for which the firm of Newberry received copyright in 1780, and which was mentioned by Ritson. Other copies of Mother Goose's Melody, one bearing the watermark of 1803, and the other issued by the firm of John Marshall, which is undated, are now at the Bodleian.8 Thus the name of Mother Goose was largely used in connection with nursery rhymes.
The second half of the eighteenth century witnessed a great development in toy-book literature. The leader of the movement was John Newbery, a man of considerable attainments, who sold drugs and literature, and who came from Reading to London in 1744, and settled in St. Paul's Churchyard, where his establishment became a famous centre of the book trade. Among those whom he had in his employ were Griffith Jones (d. 1786) and Oliver Goldsmith (d. 1774), whose versatility and delicate humour gave a peculiar charm to the books for children which they helped to produce.
In London Newbery had a rival in John Marshall, whose shop in Aldermary Churchyard was known already in 1787 as the Great A, and Bouncing B Toy Factory. This name was derived from a current nursery rhyme on the alphabet, which occurs as follows: —
Great A, little a, Bouncing B,
The cat's in the cupboard, and she can't see.
A number of provincial publishers followed their example. Among them were Thomas Saint, in Newcastle, who between 1771 and 1774 employed the brothers Bewick; Kendrew, in York; Lumsden, in Glasgow; Drewey, in Derby; Rusher, in Banbury; and others. The toy-books that were issued by these firms have much likeness to one another, and are often illustrated by the same cuts. Most of them are undated. Among the books issued by Rusher were Nursery Rhymes from the Royal Collections, and Nursery Poems from the Ancient and Modern Poets, which contain some familiar rhymes in versions which differ from those found elsewhere.
Besides these toy-book collections, there is a large edition of Gammer Gurton's Garland, of the year 1810, which contains the collections of 1783 with considerable additions. In the year 1826, Chambers published his Popular Rhymes of Scotland, which contained some fireside stories and nursery rhymes, the number of which was considerably increased in the enlarged edition of 1870. In the year 1842, Halliwell, under the auspices of the Percy Society, issued the Nursery Rhymes of England, which were reprinted in 1843, and again in an enlarged edition in 1846. Three years later he supplemented this book by a collection of Popular Rhymes which contain many traditional game rhymes and many valuable remarks and criticisms.
These books, together with the rhymes of Gawler, and a collection of Old Nursery Rhymes with Tunes, issued by Rimbault in 1864, exhaust the collections of nursery rhymes which have a claim on the attention of the student. Most of their contents were subsequently collected and issued by the firm of Warne & Co., under the title Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes, Tales and Jingles, of which the issue of 1890 contains over seven hundred pieces. In the list which follows, I have arranged these various collections of rhymes in the order of their issue, with a few modern collections that contain further rhymes. Of those which are bracketed I have not succeeded in finding a copy.
(1719. Songs for the Nursery, or Mother Goose's Melodies. Printed by T. Fleet.)
1744. Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book.
c. 1760. The Topbook of all.
(1771. Tommy Thumb's Little Story Book. The nine rhymes which this contains are cited by Whitmore.)
(1780. Mother Goose's Melody, for which copyright was taken by John Carnan.)
c. 1783. Gammer Gurton's Garland.
1788. Tommy Thumb's Song Book, issued by Isaiah Thomas.
(1797. Infant Institutes, cited by Halliwell and Rimbault.)
1799. Mother Goose's Melody. Facsimile reprint by Whitmore.
1810. Gammer Gurton's Garland. The enlarged edition, published by R. Triphook, 37 St. James Street, London.
1826. Chambers, Popular Rhymes of Scotland.
1834-9. Ker, Essays on the Archaiology of Nursery Rhymes.
1842-3. Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England.
1846. Halliwell, ditto. Enlarged and annotated edition.
1849. Halliwell, Popular Rhymes.
1864. Rimbault, Old Nursery Rhymes with tunes.
1870. Chambers, Popular Rhymes of Scotland. Enlarged edition.
1876. Thiselton Dyer, British Popular Customs.
1890. Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes, Tales and Jingles. Issued by Warne & Co.
1892. Northall, G. F., English Folk Rhymes.
1894. Gomme, A. B., The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
In the studies which follow, the rhymes cited have attached to them the date of the collection in which they occur.
CHAPTER II
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.
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.
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