Antiquity of Nursery Rhymes.—Many of these productions have a very curious history, if it could only be traced. Some of them probably owe their origin to names distinguished in our literature; as Oliver Goldsmith, for instance, is believed in his earlier days to have written such compositions. Dr. E.F. Rimbault gives us the following particulars as to some well-known favorites: "Sing a Song of Sixpence," is as old as the sixteenth century. "Three Blind Mice" is found in a music-book dated 1609. "The Frog and the Mouse" was licensed in 1580. "Three Children Sliding on the Ice" dates from 1633. "London Bridge is Broken Down" is of unfathomed antiquity. "Girls and Boys come out to play" is certainly old as the reign of Charles II.; as is also "Lucy Locket lost her Pocket," to the tune of which the American song of "Yankee Doodle" was written. "Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, where have you been?" is of the age of Queen Bess. "Little Jack Horner" is older than the seventeenth century. "The Old Woman Tossed in a Blanket" is of the reign of James II., to which monarch it is supposed to allude.
Salem Gazette.
Some British opinions of Benedict Arnold.
"The good whigs of America," ſays a late paper, "may be aſſured, that the infamous Benedict Arnold's manſion is the very next to Tyburn,—a well choſen habitation for ſuch an abandoned traitor: A ſtep or two conveys him to that fatal ſpot, where the moſt guilty of all the miſerable beings who have ever ſuffered, was perfectly innocent compared with him.—He lives deſpiſed by the nobility and gentry, and execrated by the people at large—countenanced by none excepting their Britannic and Satanic Majeſties, and ſuch of their adherents, reſpectively, who are looking for promotion under their royal maſters."
By a gentleman from the ſouthward we learn that it is expected Congreſs will fix their permanent reſidence at Philadelphia.
Salem Gazette, Feb. 26, 1784.
NEW-YORK, November 16.
By very recent accounts from St. John, Nova-Scotia, we are informed that Benedict Arnold, having attempted to JOCKY ſome of the inhabitants out of their property, but being detected, and the people being much exaſperated, offered to deliver him up to the Americans for ten dollars; but alas! before the bargain was firmly agreed on, he made his eſcape to Halifax, and there got protection from the populace.