Typed by Brett Fishburne Proofed by Reina Hosier and Kestrell.
The Only True Mother Goose Melodies
An exact reproduction of the text and illustrations of the originaledition.
With introduction by Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D.
Introduction.
The editor of the new edition of Mother Goose's Melodies knows muchmore about the curious history of the Boston edition than I do. Andthe reader will not need, even in these lines of mine, any lighton the curious question about Madam Vergoose, or her son-in-lawMr. Fleet, or the Contes de Ma Mere l'Oye, which are so carefullydiscussed in the preface. All this is admirably discussedalso in Mr. William Whitmore's paper published in Albany in 1889,and reprinted in Boston in 1892. In that paper he reproduced infacsimile Isaiah Thomas's edition of Mother Goose published firstin 1785.
What I want to tell, is of Mother Goose in the nineteenth Century—theMother Goose on which the old Boston line was brought up—a linenow nearly forgotten. But there were days, Gentle Reader, when anexcellent body of people in this little Town of Boston grew up alltogether loving and loved, brought up their children here, lovingand loved, and amused those children from babyhood in their ownway. The centre of the baby life of this race was Mother Goose'sMelodies in the dear little quarto edition, of which a precise copyis in the reader's hands.
It is this Mother Goose of which the New Englander, if his age bemore than three score years and ten, speaks when he speaks of MotherGoose at all. The historical ear marks in it are rather curious.Perhaps the printing of this very edition may raise up some antiquarywho can tell us how it came into existence. I wish I knew. I hopesome reader of these lines may know. What I know is this, thatwhen the nineteenth century began, in the years from 1800 to 1820,the impression of what we still called the "Mother Country" uponBoston was very strong. The old nurse who took care of me in mybabyhood spoke of "weal" and "winegar," where my father and motherspoke of veal and vinegar, just as if she had been a London Cockney.Children played the games of English origin,
"Lady Queen Anne, she sits on her throne,"
though it were fifty years after the Declaration of Independence.I may say in passing, that within the last dozen years I stoppedto hear some North End children sing the song Queen Anne, withoutthe slightest idea, I suppose, of who Queen Anne was, or what wastheir business with her. Alas, and alas, I did not write down thewords of that song on the moment!
The truth is that Boston was still a place of foreign commerce.Our ties with London, such as John Adams and other Revolutionariesspoke of so freely, still existed, and a Baby's Song Book likeMother Goose, might still recall, and I suppose repeat, the songof Cockney homes.
So in the nursery, whether one of the North End sailors' home, orof Beacon Street, or Park Street, or Pearl Street, the baby wassung to sleep with London ditties.
London Bridge is broken down,
Dance over, my Lady Lee,
London Bridge is broken down,
With a fair Ladye.
Will not some of the active literary clubs of St. Ethelburger's
Church in Bishopsgate, in East London, tell us what this means:
You owe me five shillings,
Say the bells of St. Helen's.
When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey.
When I grow