"William and Amelia," from The Looking Glass for the Mind
There was one book which children loved, that every little child loves to-day—Mother Goose's Melodies. Attempts have been made to show that the name and collection were both American; that the former referred to one Mrs. Goose or Vergoose, a Boston goodwife. The name Mother Goose is believed by most folk to be of French, not of English or American origin. A collection of nursery rhymes was printed for John Newbery about 1760, under the popular name Mother Goose's Melodies; about 1785 Isaiah Thomas issued at Worcester, Massachusetts, an edition of Mother Goose's Melodies with the songs from Shakespeare, and certainly this must have been an oasis in the desert of dull books for New England children.
There is no pretence in this edition of Thomas' that the book had any American origin; it is said to be a collection of rhymes by "old British nurses"; and such it really was. Halliwell says many of these nursery rhymes are fragments of old ballads. Mr. Whitmore deems the great popularity of "Mother Goose" due to the Boston editions issued in large numbers from 1824 to 1860.
The preface to the Worcester edition of 1785 circa is said to be written by a very great writer of very little books. Could this have been Oliver Goldsmith? Irving, in his Life of Goldsmith, refers to the poet's love of catches and simple melodies, and tells of his singing "his favorite song about An old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen times as high as the moon." A Miss Hawkins boasted late in life that Goldsmith taught her to play Jack and Jill with bits of paper on his fingers just as we show the trick to children to-day. Included in these melodies are the verses "Three children sliding on the ice," which we know were written by Goldsmith. Here is an example of one of the melodies and its note:—
"Trip upon Trenchers
Dance upon Dishes
My mother sent me for some Barm, some Barm.
She bade me tread Lightly
And leave again Quickly,
For fear the Young Men should do me some Harm.
Yet! don't you see?
What naughty tricks they put upon me!
They broke my Pitcher
And spilt my Water
And huffed my Mother
And chid her Daughter,
And kiss'd my Sister instead of me."What a Succession of Misfortunes befell this poor Girl? But the last Circumstance was the most affecting and might have proved fatal."
—Winslow's View of Britain.
According to the notion of humor of the day, the notion of Goldsmith, or some other book-hack-wag, these notes were all ascribed as quotations from some profound author, just as the cuts in Goody Two Shoes were said to be by Michael Angelo, and the text from the Vatican. Thus after the rhymes, "See-saw, Margery Daw," etc., is the sober comment, "It is a mean and Scandalous Practice in an author to put Notes to a Thing that deserves no Notice. Grotius." After the "Three Wise Men of Gotham," which ends with the lines—
"If the bowl had been stronger
My tale had been longer,"
is the sententious note "It's long enough. Never lament the Loss of what is not worth having. Boyle." Puffendorf, Coke on Littleton, Pliny, Bentley on the Sublime and Beautiful, Mapes' Geography of the Mind, are other authors and books that are soberly cited.