See above.—[Chapter IX.]
Mother Goose’s Melody; or, Sonnets for the Cradle, in Two Parts. “Part I.—The most celebrated Songs and Lullabies of the old British Nurses, calculated to amuse the Children and excite them to sleep; Part II.—Those of that sweet Songster and Muse of Art and Humours, Master William Shakespeare. Adorned with Cuts and illustrated with Notes and Maxims, historical, philosophical and critical.”
The addition, in Part II, of Shakespeare’s songs makes a fitting sequel for older children.
A facsimile of the New England edition of 1785 was printed in 1892, with the following description:—
“The original Mother Goose’s Melody, as issued by John Newbery of London, circa 1760; Isaiah Thomas of Worcester, Mass., circa 1785, and Munro and Francis of Boston, circa 1825. Reproduced in facsimile from the first Worcester edition, with introduction and notes by William H. Whitmore. To which are added the Fairy Tales of Mother Goose, first collected by Perrault in 1696, reprinted from the original translation into English by R. Samber in 1729. Boston and London,—Griffith, Farran & Co., 1892.”
(b) Another early book of rhymes is The Top Book of all for little Masters and Misses, “Containing the choicest Stories, prettiest Poems and most diverting Riddles, all wrote by Nurse Lovechild, Mother Goose, Jacky Nory, Tommy Thumb and other eminent Authors ... also enriched with curious and lovely Pictures, done by the top Hands, and is sold only at R. Baldwin’s and S. Crowder’s, Booksellers in Pater Noster Row, London, and at Benjamin Collins’s in Salisbury for 2d. (Date, on woodcut of a shilling, 1760).”
(c) A later Miscellany, Mirth without Mischief c. 1790, has similar rhymes.