Comparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes

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Eckenstein Lina. Comparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes

TO THE GENTLE READER

CHAPTER I. FIRST APPEARANCE OF RHYMES IN PRINT

CHAPTER II. EARLY REFERENCES

CHAPTER III. RHYMES AND POPULAR SONGS

CHAPTER IV. RHYMES IN TOY-BOOKS

CHAPTER V. RHYMES AND BALLADS

CHAPTER VI. RHYMES AND COUNTRY DANCES

CHAPTER VII. THE GAME OF SALLY WATERS

CHAPTER VIII. THE LADY OF THE LAND

CHAPTER IX. CUSTOM RHYMES

CHAPTER X. RIDDLE-RHYMES

CHAPTER XI. CUMULATIVE PIECES

CHAPTER XII. CHANTS OF NUMBERS

CHAPTER XIII. CHANTS OF THE CREED

CHAPTER XIV. HEATHEN CHANTS OF THE CREED

CHAPTER XV. SACRIFICIAL HUNTING

CHAPTER XVI. BIRD SACRIFICE

CHAPTER XVII. THE ROBIN AND THE WREN

CHAPTER XVIII. CONCLUDING REMARKS

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THE study of folk-lore has given a new interest to much that seemed insignificant and trivial. Among the unheeded possessions of the past that have gained a fresh value are nursery rhymes. A nursery rhyme I take to be a rhyme that was passed on by word of mouth and taught to children before it was set down in writing and put into print. The use of the term in this application goes back to the early part of the nineteenth century. In 1834 John Gawler, afterwards Bellenden Ker, published the first volume of his Essay on the Archaiology of Popular English Phrases and Nursery Rhymes, a fanciful production. Prior to this time nursery rhymes were usually spoken of as nursery songs.

The interest in these "unappreciated trifles of the nursery," as Rimbault called them, was aroused towards the close of the eighteenth century. In a letter which Joseph Ritson wrote to his little nephew, he mentioned the collection of rhymes known as Mother Goose's Melody, and assured him that he also would set about collecting rhymes.1 His collection of rhymes is said, in the Dictionary of National Biography, to have been published at Stockton in 1783 under the title Gammer Gurton's Garland. A copy of an anonymous collection of rhymes published by Christopher and Jennett at Stockton, which is called Gammer Gurton's Garland or the Nursery Parnassus, is now at the British Museum, and is designated as a "new edition with additions." It bears no name and no date, but its contents, which consist of over seventy rhymes, agree with parts 1 and 2 of a large collection of nursery rhymes, including over one hundred and forty pieces, which were published in 1810 by the publisher R. Triphook, of 37 St. James Street, London, who also issued other collections made by Ritson.

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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: —

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